Michelin Stars and Burger Joints

The pressure to perform

Early in my ministry, after a series of well-received sermons, I preached a dud. It didn’t have a bunch of truth telling or inspiration. The thesis was unclear. I barely got it off the ground and never managed to land it well.

And.. to the people in the congregation, it didn’t seem like a dud exactly, but it was also clear that it was not great.

I went home feeling a mixture of shame, regret, and exhaustion - I wondered if, just a year or so into ministry, I’d run out of things to say.

Later that evening, a friend and colleague called to chat, as we often did on Sunday evenings. And bless him, he listened to all of my big feelings about having not delivered another banger this week. And then he reminded me of some wisdom he’d received early in his ministry about sermon quality: not every meal has to be a seven-course spread; sometimes you just want to cook burgers on the grill.

That wisdom tends to pop into my head not only when I’m struggling to get my arms around a sermon, but also when I’m writing other things, like newsletter columns and posts for Hold My Chalice.

Most of the time, there’s a topic that’s ripe in my mind, and the words flow easily and elegantly. The message gets through loud and clear, the words dance off the screen and into your ways of thinking about church. And sometimes, I look at the list of topics yet to be addressed here, or the topic to be address in a service, and they all feel stale like bread left out on the counter. I sit here at the computer and think “I have nothing interesting to say.”

And then I remember my friend’s wisdom.

Here’s the thing: I’m not alone in this. Every preacher struggles to write sometimes. Every preacher has sermons that sing and sermons that plod along. And that’s fine. What’s not fine is when there’s pressure to hit it out of the park every week and criticism when it was nothing more than a solid single. (Yes, a rare sports metaphor for me.)

When we expect every word out of a preacher’s mouth to be a gourmet meal, we set ourselves up for being highly critical of the burger and fries - which puts enormous pressure on the preacher. But the thing is this: if the preacher is speaking the truth as they know it, and is speaking from their heart to those attending… then it is very likely that at least one person in the room (or online) is being fed.

Preachers like to know when even their dud of a sermon still touched someone; they know it wasn’t their best and they don’t need you to remind them. Critical feedback in those moments is surprisingly damaging; and even if there’s positive feedback, it’s the critic in the receiving line that the preacher brings home with them, and worry about that feedback makes writing the next sermon even harder.

Same is true for their newsletter column, or other writings they do. If they haven’t asked for your opinion (or your editing prowess), be kind. They already know it isn’t great, so don’t pile on.

Just… be kind. And enjoy your burger.