I’ve written a few times about the language we use for things. Most recently in a post about giving. You may think I’m making too much out of language. Our language shapes how we think about things, though, and it reflects what we already think about them. The group of people I want to talk to here knows just how important language is.
Why I loved teaching pastors
I have old business cards that show my title as teaching pastor. I chose that title after seeing it a number of other places. One of my real-life heroes then, Rob Bell, was a teaching pastor. In fact, it seemed that most of the pastors whose podcasts I would ever listen to were called teaching pastors.
One of the things I loved about Rob Bell and others like him was that when I listened to them, I felt like they opened my eyes to something new about the Bible and theology. Honestly, several sermons I had heard from “preachers” up to that point seemed as though they chose something they wanted to talk about and then found a Scripture that said something similar so that they could have a Scripture passage for their message. There wasn’t much evidence they had spent any time in real Bible study before they got up to preach.
Listening to some of these teaching pastors was a huge influence on me. Their devotion to serious study of the Scriptures has inspired me to do the same before I should dare to preach. They taught me that seeing Scripture more deeply can be a most spiritually enriching experience.
And so I remember a time when my primary goal for preaching (I called it “teaching” then) in worship services was for people to learn something new — for them to see the Bible with a greater sense of depth. Maybe this would include showing them a map so they could see just why Laodicea might be called lukewarm. Maybe it would involve showing people how the same Greek word is used over and over in the New Testament for both “simplicity” and “generosity.”
Making those teaching points wasn’t bad. Actually, they made for some of the sermons I still look back on as most impactful.
The problem
The problem is that my primary goal for the message in worship services was for people to learn something new. The standard of success I had set for myself was whether I tickled people’s brains, whether they walked away with new thoughts and new understandings.
By calling myself a teaching pastor and by calling what I did teaching, I taught my people that this was the standard.
The problem is that a proclamation of the gospel was a secondary goal. Now I think I usually met that goal, but it’s hard for me to look back now and think that it was only secondary. And it’s disappointing to realize that I gave more energy to making sure people learned something than I gave to making sure that people heard the gospel.
In Evangelism in the Early Church (affiliate link), Michael Green says three things characterized preaching in the early church:
- They preached a person. The message was plainly Christocentric, with the stress on “his cross and resurrection and his present power and significance.”
- They proclaimed a gift. “The gift of forgiveness, the gift of the Spirit, the gift of adoption, of reconciliation. The gift that made ‘no people’ part of the ‘people of God’, the gift that brought those who were far off near.” Two prominent aspects of that proclamation were pardon for the past and power for the future.
- They looked for a response. Specifically, they called for repentance, faith, and baptism. Though baptism is a one-time calling (in most traditions), repentance and faith are ongoing responses — responses that include our thoughts, our words, and our actions.
What great standards for our primary goals in preaching! [Use the comments to tell me whether you agree.]
In my humble opinion — which coincides with the humble opinions of most great theologians through history — a proclamation of the gospel is essential to a worship service. A Bible teaching is nice. It can often be a great aid to that proclamation. But it’s not essential.
And lest you think I’m saying that each service needs to be about an altar call for non-Christians… I’m not. I believe the strongest Christian in your congregation needs to hear a message about Christ, a proclamation of a gift from God, and a call to response. We all continually need to share in proclaiming and celebrating God’s love and grace and continually need to respond.
The “teaching pastor” title and the transition from “preaching” to “teaching” in worship services seems to have confused what’s essential and what’s helpful. In our pastors’ and congregations’ minds alike, we’ve formed the impression that the chief goal of the spoken word in worship is learning. We’ve created a frame of mind that doesn’t see a problem with a message that never mentions Christ, so long as it gives people a better understanding of the culture of the Ancient Near East.
The place of teaching
To be clear here, I love learning, and I love teaching. I think they have an important place. More often than not, I hope that my sermons will continue to teach. I think the gospel comes more alive as we learn more. I like the Jewish understanding of Torah study as worship.
I also think there are plenty of places where it’s fine to teach without preaching — Sunday School classes, Bible studies, seminary classes. (I didn’t take certain classes in seminary because they were so light on teaching and so heavy on “devotional” material. That’s not what I went to seminary for.)
And finally, if your “teaching pastor” is in charge of teaching classes, not speaking in worship services, then it’s a great designation. Let them teach!
But in our worship, a proclamation of the gospel is essential. Teaching is just one useful tool for that proclamation.
So let’s quit putting “teaching pastors” in front of the congregation in worship, and let’s start putting preachers back up there. If those preachers teach some along the way, that’s great. But if they’re not preaching, it’s not worship.
[A note: we’ve tended to misunderstand another role in worship, too. See a brilliant piece by Jonathan Powers, “Desperately Seeking Worship Pastors,” here. If he and I are right, a lot of churches are misunderstanding the two primary leadership roles in their worship services. That’s no small problem.]
teddy ray 
I’ve spent the last 27 years in Mississippi United Methodism. In that time, I can think of ONE person who had the title “Teaching Pastor.” I can’t say what the APPROACH of all of my colleagues has been over that time, but, as far as “titles” are concerned, “Preacher” has endured.
You raise some excellent points, Teddy. I think the key question to ask of our teaching and/or preaching is, “so what?” We’ve heard this story or dissected this passage or heard the preacher’s view about a theological issue–what relevance does it have for me? How am I to respond in some way to what i’ve heard? I think the need for response is just as valid in a SS class as it is in worship. To merely learn the facts of Scripture without responding is both to miss the point and a deadening of the conscience. If we don’t respond, we are hardening ourselves to future messages and the possibility of response.
I’m sure every pastor has encountered people who attend four Bible studies a week, but whose lives are a mess. They need to spend more time practicing what they are “learning.” In fact, I would say that if they are not internalizing the concepts and externalizing them through their way of life, they are not “learning” at all, even if they can recite all the facts and background material.
As to the title, it would be fine to be a “preaching pastor” or a “teaching pastor.” I think the implication is that the person is devoting themselves to the ministry of teaching and preaching, rather than doing tons of administration or hospital visits. All our teaching and preaching, however, must be designed to lead to a response by the hearer.
I have been married to a preacher, attended services for decades that sometimes taught and often drew a response from deep within me. My ministry gifts include teaching. Along the way to being commissioned, however, I struggled to understand the difference between teaching and preaching, which validates your statement that our words lead to some confusion. The Holy Spirit spelled it out for me, that my call as a minister is to “preach, teach and heal as Jesus did.” I think it jumped off the page of a sermon by Spurgeon. It jumps off the pages of Wesley’s journal and his sermons. Even as a woman. Our primary call is to preach the gospel, making disciples and baptizing them (bringing about a response with action). Thanks!