5 Reasons Why Some Preachers Get Better And Others Don't

It's a reality that there are so many ministers of the gospel today with different titles ranging from pastors, Reverend Bishop's, Evangelist, Apostles and the likes of them.

You will bear me witness that there are some pastors whome people consider to be better of than others meaning; they have more Grace than the other preachers. Well, below are reasons why it's so:

1. Calling

The one who has a sense of responsibility, but not a burning calling, is the most disappointed preacher. Preaching, a Christian version of politics or the Peace Corps is not yet another helping career. The call to preach is a definite obligation given by the Holy Spirit that ignites a fire in one's bones that the hard-hearted, stiff-necked, or dull hearing will not extinguish. Only because God has spoken it, a preacher who has been named must preach what God has spoken. The achievement of one's ministry will depend on the force of his calling. His ability to work in his preaching is commensurate with his belief that God has called him to preach and to be as suitable a vessel for the use of God as he can be. From planning to delivery, the Holy Spirit must undergird all else, and that will not happen apart from his calling.

2. Teachability

Being a professor of preaching is like being paid to tell a mother that her child is ugly. It may be the truth, but it's not the truth that everyone would want to know. When I tell them that they skipped the point of the text or appeared unprepared, most of the guys I have taught dread my remarks and cringe. They are tired of hearing me tell them that they lack motivation or have failed to communicate with the audience.

However, now and then, someone gratefully smiles as I give corrections and suggestions. Someone might even say, "I want you to be tough on me, really." Tell me what I'm doing wrong because I really want to do this well." That guy is going to be fine, because his spirit can be taught, and to be effective, he is willing to pay the cost of personal discomfort." He knows that he is a vessel in the service of the text, and the argument is not his feelings.

3. Passion

Almost all of my students have a passion for Christ, for reaching out to the lost, for the Word of God. But they do not always show passion, even though they feel the passion. If my word delivery does not express the enthusiasm, then neither will my audience be moved to be enthusiastic about it. Many of the prophets were passionate. The apostles had a passion. Jesus was impassioned. Why else would farmers, fishermen, and housewives come and stand for hours in the Galilean sun just to listen to him?

At the Southern Baptist Pastors' Conference, I once heard a missionary preach. With tremendous energy, he was dynamite, preaching a great expository sermon and moving the whole crowd through his treatment of the Word and his testimony of baptizing tens of thousands of Africans. I approached him, amazed by his great preaching, and stuck my hand out to introduce myself. We went to the seminary together," he said, shocking me that he knew my name, "Hershael." Embarrassed, I admitted that I did not recall him." "You didn't have a reason," he explained. "I was very quiet, never spoke in the classroom, and never went out of my way to meet anyone," I asked him to clarify what had happened.

"No one would listen to my preaching of the gospel when I got on the mission ground. I put them to sleep. They were bored to tears when I came stateside and preached in churches. Lastly, I realized that preaching the Word in the way it needed to be preached was the only way to be effective, so I became willing to go outside my natural personality and comfort zone to allow God to make me effective. I prayed that the Word would grasp me in the pulpit so that I would never be bored again.

His desire to teach led him to express a passion that was not normal for his introverted nature. This has been supernatural.

4. Pay the price

Whenever you see any minister of the Gospel who is full of the Holy Spirit, doing miracles by the power of God and excellent in what he does, you should know that that minister truly paid the price of remaining in God's presence to be blessed.

5. Reckless abandonment

On screens, mobile phones, blogs, Kindles, and now iPads, the generation of students I now teach have grown up with the written word. They used video games to race cars, build empires, win battles, defeat zombies, and kill hundreds. They communicate much less verbally than any previous generation and usually do so with less enthusiasm when they do so. Yet the preaching of his Word, an oral event, is still used by God to edify the church, inspire the saints, and engage the lost. So a young man must be willing to get completely out of the comfortable cocoon he's created in his personality and habits to preach the Word, and recklessly abandon himself to risk becoming Christ's fool. That little voice inside your head saying, 'That's just not who I am,' is not your friend, I tell my students. Sanctification is the process of overcoming 'who I am' through the Holy Spirit and transforming me into what he wishes me to be. So I will beg the Holy Spirit to make me do it for Christ if I need to preach with a reckless abandon that is alien to my normal way.