In this conversation, Pastors Brady Boyd, Andrew Arndt, Daniel Grothe, and Glenn Packiam (who are all members of the New Life Church teaching team, talk about finding that unique voice that each preacher (or leader) must discover.
The tension is, on the one hand we have to be learners, and yet one the other hand we have to be comfortable with our own personalities…
Often when we begin, we find ourselves practicing on templates that have been given to us… the early years are about finding good mentors and people to follow… and at some point down the road you begin to settle into your voice… now, after I’ve done all my study, I always shut the door and say “God, who am I and how does this text live in me…?”
The key is finding that place in yourself that needs to be “amplified”… the issue isn’t whether or not you’re learning from others, but whether you’re letting it get deep enough in you is that it comes out of you naturally…
You can only really impart who you are, what you’ve lived and embodied in private… public communication has to be birthed from private impartation…
There has to be a great amount of humility when we stand up to preach… if we’re not aware of the moment we’re in and the opportunity we’ve been given, we don’t need to be on the stage…
All public figures have an idealized self, which can feed our temptation to ignore the darker sides of who we are… Jesus allows us to integrate both sides of who we are and we need to let people see how the grace of God holds all that together… appropriate transparency helps people to see that you are not just an idealized version of yourself…
[When it comes to transparency and vulnerability], if you find yourself oversharing from the pulpit, it might mean that you don’t have enough appropriate community around you…
QUESTIONS FOR YOU AND YOUR TEAM
- On the spectrum of “learning from others” to “settling into your own voice,” where are you right now? Where do you need to grow?
- What do you find most challenging about this podcast? Why?
- Are you living deeply enough in God that you have a surplus out of which to share? How can you improve here?
- On a scale of 1-10, how well are you and your team doing at modeling appropriate vulnerability from the pulpit? Explain why you gave the rating you did.