An upcoming issue of Preaching Today Audio (Issue #289) features a workshop by John Ortberg on preparing your soul for preaching. Because of limited space on the disc, I had to cut quite a bit of great material. Wonderfully enough, the folks at Leadership have put together an article of some of the material we weren't able to use! Here's something ripe for reflection that Ortberg shared early in the workshop:
The theologian Abraham Kuyper likened the human soul to the tabernacle in the Old Testament. You have an outer court, which is the public domain. That's where you work, where you shop, and where you go to school. Preaching is often done as an outer court activity. I prepare the words ahead of time. I think through what I want to say. I'm very aware of the fact that I'm doing this as a public activity.
You also have an inner court. This is the place where you invite family, friends, and people that you love deeply. You share a deeper level of your life in the inner court. Not everybody gets to the inner court, certainly not your whole church.
But then inside the tabernacle, way inside, is the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies is a deeply private space that is shared only by you and God. No other human being can ever enter your Holy of Holies, but you are never alone there. That is the space for you and God.
One thing I didn't understand about preaching when I first started, because it was such a public, outer court activity, is that it will drain you spiritually if the Holy of Holies is not rich and full. The task of preaching tempts me to think that who I am in the outer court is who I am deep inside. And one of the problems is that we can dress things up really well in the outer court, while things may actually be neglected or dying in the Holy of Holies. The most important question is, "How is my life in the Holy of Holies? Is the life that I'm inviting other people to live, the life that I'm living myself?" Because if it's not, then none of the rest of it matters.
My question is a short and simple one: As a preacher of God's Word, how do you tend to that holy center of your life?
Posted by Brian Lowery at 8:00 AM on July 23, 2007
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Thanks for sharing that. What a captivating thought.
Just want to let you know how much I appreciate this blog, although I'm only a lurker.
Grace,
Dan
Posted by: Dan B. on July 24, 2007