I know of a group of churches that do something unique. Once a month the young men in the Churches, along with the elders to oversee and anyone else who wants to attend, get together and practice preaching for a couple of hours. They meet at each others Churches depending on the month and everyone gets 10 minutes to preach whatever they want. Some are boys in their teens, others are young men in their twenties, and still others are assorted congregation members who want to get an opportunity to preach and teach.
The benefits of this sort of affair are numerous. Here are a few off the top of my head.
1. It serves as a training ground and functions as an outlet for their zeal, helping embolden the men and help develop their confidence.
2. It gives the elders an opportunity to correct and rebuke any false beliefs and teachings that these young men and boys might have and may introduce to others, as well as nip in the bud any strange theological leanings that may be sprouting up in an infancy form.
3. It is an opportunity of testing for these individuals to hone their talents, to practice dictation, precision, sermon structure, thesis composition, and their homiliteical skills in front of a friendly and forgiving audience who also might contribute feedback.
4. It serves as a way for the Church leadership to pinpoint burgeoning leaders who might teach classes, home groups, Sunday school, bible studies, weekday services, etc.
5. It reinforces to the congregation the importance of raising up local, home-grown preachers and teachers and serves as a statement of antithesis to multi-site Church models which pipe in one guy to all the congregations.
6. It requires no money, no resources, and yet would yield great results and fruits.
I think this is a phenomenal idea and something I wish I could attend, both as a listener and as a preacher. In fact, that would easily be something that I would look forward to with great delight- even if I could just hear these people, all with varying passion, skill and giftings, preach their hearts out and worship the Lord through the exegesis of his word.
So what do you all think? Would you attend such an event? What are your churches doing to actively develop preachers and teachers? Do you know any Churches who have taken it upon themselves to who are actively training the men to teach and preach? What other added benefits do you see? What cautions do you see? Is this something you could do in your own Church?
Comments will be open for a few days to discuss
[Contributed by Dustin Germain]
