Boring Preachers

I'm reading 'Conversations with Barth on Preaching' by William H.Willimon. At the beginning of chapter two he quotes from Barth's 'Homiletics':

Preachers must not be boring. To a large extent the pastor and boredom are synonomous concepts. Listeners often think that they have already heard what is being said in the pulpit. They have long since known it themselves. The fault certainly does not lie with them alone. Against boredom the only defence is again being biblical. If a sermon is biblical, it will not be boring. Holy Scripture is in fact so interesting and has so much that is new and exciting to tell us that listeners cannot even think about dropping off to sleep.

That's me told, then! The urge to 'have something to say' rather than to 'say what should be said' is powerful. A big motivation for me to become a minister is the experience of listening to boring or inadequate sermons and thinking I can do better, but now that I'm actually taking services and posting sermons on the internet each week I have to admit it isn't easy.

Reflecting on sermons I've delivered in person I think Barth is dead right. Mostly I've been disappointed with my 'performance' but the brief moments when I've really felt that those listening were truly engaged with what was being said was when I've basically been repeating the red meat of the Gospel. All you need to do is stand up and tell people about the Gospel and it will be attractive, engaging, shocking and challenging. The gospel is all these things, I'm not!

I think learning to preach might be more about learning what not to do. When I was a drama student one director used to shout at us 'stop acting!' Good actors make you think 'what a good story' not 'what a good actor'. Good preaching should be invisible, the congregation should be thinking 'isn't the Gospel strange/beautiful/terrifying etc.' not 'didn't he speak well?'

I've got a lot to learn!