Therapeutic preaching

Who are you angry at?” questioned a visitor as he shook my hand after the worship service. He left before I had a chance to reply. I mulled over his question for weeks. I pulled previous sermons from my file (not many in my early ministry) and scrutinized them. I tried to recall my tone of voice, facial expressions, and emotions during each sermon. Painfully I concluded that my questioner had reason for his question.

I concluded my voice was unnatural, authoritarian, not conversational, too loud at times, and angry-sounding. Shortly thereafter I read about a Scottish preacher who recommended that preachers speak as dying to the dying. I also attended classes taught by a hospital chaplain on therapeutic preaching. I soaked up every word because my sermons had been anything but therapeutic. I wanted to change.

How to start

Listen to your sermons on tape or CD, or view your sermon on video, if your sermons are videotaped. As you listen, put yourself in the place of a church member who is experiencing difficult times. Imagine that you have just lost a child to accidental death. Try to picture yourself recently divorced or rejected by a boyfriendor girlfriend. Ask yourself tough questions. Did this sermon give hope? Was my tone of voice pleasing? Why did I get so loud? Why did I use such a coarse tone of voice at times? Was I scolding? How practical was this sermon? Would this sermon prompt a troubled member to seek my counsel? Did I use harsh words? Was I critical? I knew I had to ask questions like these if I were to preach therapeutically.

Know your congregation

Pastoral visitation is still important. Your sermons can’t be therapeutic if you don’t know church members and they haven’t developed a trust relationship with you. You wouldn’t continue seeing a physician if that physician never examined you and evaluated your symptoms. A treatment modality is useless without diagnosis. Neither can you preach therapeutic sermons if you don’t know the struggles of your members.

My friendwent to church the week of her mother’s funeral. She longed to fi nd comfort in her grief. The pastor sermonized about modesty in dress. He had no idea that she was in mourning even though she was a member of his church. Her pastor would have encouraged her if he had spoken as dying to the dying. A woman in grief isn’t focused on the style of her dress.

No recitation of world evils

I listened to a sermon a week after the massacre at Virginia Tech University (in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States). Most of the sermon was a rehearsal of the injustices of the past decade. He reminded us that vengeance belongs to God, but he missed the mark. He gave no concrete thoughts about adjusting to tragedy. If a relative of a victim had been in his congregation, they might have left the church empty.

Church members are bombarded every day of the work week by demanding supervisors or customers. Cars break down, water heaters leak, children get into trouble, jobs are lost, tax bills go up, and marriages can be in turmoil. Sabbath is an oasis. Worship should be a source of solace, strength, and encouragement.

A rehearsal of world disasters does little to uplift people who experienced their own disasters during the week.

They need hope

Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, / But desire fulfilled is a tree of life” (NASB). Dr. Jerome Groopman wrote, “For all my patients, hope, true hope, has proved as important as any medication I might prescribe or any procedure I might perform.”¹ He continues, “Hope, I have come to believe, is as vital to our lives as the very oxygen that we breathe.”²

Hope has been called emotional nutrition. I call it spiritual nutrition. Preachers should specialize in dispensing it from the pulpit, not as a pseudo psychiatrist, but as a pastor who is familiar with God’s Word.

The growing practice of having memorial services long after a death troubles me. I hear preachers call them celebrations of life, not funerals. They do not acknowledge the need to grieve, yet hope germinates in the soil of sorrow and lamentation.

A single mother lost her little girl after her baby spent three years in the neonatal intensive care unit where I served as chaplain. During those three years she came to the unit every day. She pushed her arms into sleeves of the special oxygenated isolette, always dreaming of taking her baby home. That dream never came true.

She drove to the funeral, alone. The pastor began the service by saying, “Friends, this is not a time for crying. This is a time to celebrate!”  The mother was bent over on the front row. She steeled herself against crying. After the interment she drove home, alone. But the nurses from our neonatal intensive care unit followed her home. They said, “Martha, be ready at ten in the morning. We are going to the hospital to have a real funeral.”

One by one the nurses carried a white rose to the altar. Some read a poem they wrote about the baby. Others sang a song or told of an interesting encounter with the infant. Martha was given the permission to cry and express her lament. At the close of the service the roses were gathered and tied with a pretty ribbon. The nurses took the mother to the cemetery and placed the roses on the fresh grave. From the depths of sorrow arose hope of a better tomorrow.

Preventive counseling

The Bible is a rich resource for addressing matters like loneliness, grief, anger, worry, stress, finance, illness, selfworth, and values. It contains stories and principles with preventive and therapeutic potential. It addresses questions that people are asking. Preaching from the Scriptures about real-life problems can be like personal counseling on a group scale. This should never be a substitute for personal visitation when a person is facing a crisis.

If you are fortunate enough to have a psychiatrist or psychologist in your congregation, you can ask them to read your sermons in advance. Ask them to tell you of statements that could be hurtful to a person facing trouble of any kind. Ephesians 4:15 says we should speak the truth in love.

Preachers have the responsibility to read widely about life situations like grief, loneliness, and anger. They should never say, “We didn’t learn that in seminary.” The life of the pastor is an ongoing learning experience. Continuing education is vital to good therapeutic preaching.

The rewards are many

During a sermon I once delivered, I chose to speak about comfort. I used 2 Corinthians 1:1–10. I spoke about what grief is like andhow the comfort from God is a gradual process that is sure to come to those who wait on the Lord. Years later I met a woman who was a visitor in that church on the day I preached. She told me, “I don’t know why I decided to attend that particular church that Sabbath, but when I saw your topic in the bulletin I knew why. I had just had a major loss and despaired of ever adjusting. I left the church that day confident that life would once again be worthwhile.”

I was so glad that my questioner prompted me to scrutinize my sermons. I was so grateful that God gave me the grace to preach therapeutically. The rewards are many when you ask God to help you to comfort His people.