Using personal disclosure in preaching
How much should I share of my personal experience in the context of preaching? This is a perennial question facing anyone in ministry in the local church—and relevant to speaking on other occasions too. My get-go see with the outcome arose when I was a teenager. I recollect one of the lay preachers in the church building I attended making some point and illustrating with reference to his habits of shaving. When I made reference to this a few weeks later in conversation, he seemed very annoyed—and I don't retrieve it was just considering I was an irritating teenager! It does show how any kind of personal disclosure makes the preacher vulnerable, sometimes in ways we cannot predict.
And then what can we say about personal disclosure? Here are my reflections.
one. You need to practice it…
As part of teaching preaching, I used to become and listen to ministers in training to hear them preach, and usually aimed to have a chat with them beforehand about what they are planning to say. In one case when doing this, I met with the person preaching, and had read the prepared script. My observation was that the sermon seemed well structured, was rooted in expert engagement in the Scriptural text, was well expressed—but did not requite much abroad near the preacher'southward own experience.
In the light of this, the preacher added two short comments from personal experience, and an already proficient sermon was suddenly transformed into something powerful that touched people's lives.
Aristotle's classic business relationship of rhetoric talks of the 3 elements oflogos (the rational content of the message),ethos (the credibility and engagement of the 1 speaking), anddesolation (the emotional or affective entreatment of the message). If nosotros avert personal disclosure, it is not then much thepathos that we miss out on, it is theethos. Our listeners need to know that what we are proverb is real for usa if it is to have credibility.
two. …just don't overdo it
One of the reasons why the preacher I mentioned above was hesitant virtually personal disclosure was that the experience was a family bereavement, and he was concerned that this could distract from the message—and quite rightly too. Then his mention of it was brief and factual, which was enough.
Almost of us accept experienced that bad-mannered sensation where the speaker is laying it on thick in terms of his or her own personal story, and it has come to dominate our listening experience. This does not mean we should avoid disclosure, simply we should beware overdoing it.
three. Use your experience to bridge from the world of the text to the world of your listeners
There is a sense in which this is the purpose of all preaching—to close the gap between the world of your listeners and the earth of the text, then that the text might speak afresh today. Illustrations have a central part in this, only for all illustrations, they must rolenon to take the listener into the world of the analogy itself, but to explore how what is happening in the text might engage with the issues and realities they themselves face up.
This is particularly important in illustration by means of personal disclosure. My aim is not to tell my listeners to be similar me (or even to avoid being similar me), only to show how things might work in a contemporary life.
iv. Stick with the facts
When talking about significant personal feel, it e'er pays to stick with the facts and play downwardly the emotion. The preacher above merely said at ane indicate 'Nosotros came out of the funeral service—only to find the car had been broken into.' It elicited an audible gasp of sympathy from the congregation—and the bear upon would have been lost if the preacher had articulated his feelings.
Often in personal disclosure, less is more. As long as the situation is clear, you lot can permit your listeners to feelwith y'all, rather than telling them how you felt. Information technology is a good practise for them to generate their own feelings of empathy, rather than have them generated by you on their behalf. A couple of years agone, I preached on the subject of sacrifice, and use the sinking of the Titanic every bit an example. I read the statistics of those who had survived: 'Of the children on board, 48% drowned. Of the women on board, 26% drowned. Of the men on lath…' (afterwards a pause) '…80% drowned.' Information technology needed no farther comment; the aforementioned is oftentimes true when telling personal stories.
5. Beware emotional leakage
This is a really useful term that David Day uses in his writing on storytelling in preaching. You need to beware of the unintended emotional consequences of personal disclosure. A few years ago I heard of someone who said from the pulpit 'I take committed adultery many times…in my heart.' He was of course trying to communicate the importance of Matt 5.28—just there was enough of a pause after the first half of the sentence to make the daze of his listeners drown out anything else that was said.
Preaching is non the context to disclose serious personal bug, be that addiction, corruption, or annihilation which volition trigger major issues—unless that is the focus, and in that location has been a warning beforehand, and there is follow-upwardly afterwards. Neither is it the place to disclose family secrets, or the agreeable habits or inner thoughts of your children. They won't thank yous for it.
6. Make sure the the focus remains on God
Illustrations from the lives of others and from our own experience are important aspects of our communication. But there is always a danger that in doing and so, we focus on whatnosotrosaccept washed or what ourlisteners ought to do, rather than on whatGod has washed. This is part of a wider consequence, simply we need to be conscientious to use personal disclosure to say 'This is the reality—God understands it' or 'This is what God can practice in this situation', offer our listeners the hope of possibility and non the brunt of duty.
7. Remember that Jesus did it
When on his own, Jesus was tempted by Satan, conversed with a man at dark and a woman past a well, cried out to God in Gethsemane—but how exercise nosotros know this? One answer, from a particular schoolhouse of biblical written report, was that it was fabricated up. Just a more than convincing, and peradventure challenging, determination is that Jesus was in the habit of recounting his personal experience to his disciples.
Personal disclosure is an important part of instruction, discipling and Christian leadership, so we need to arrive part of our preaching.
(Previously posted in 2016)
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