Chuck Swindoll: On Preaching Experience

Preaching: You’ve been at this calling for a long time. How has your preaching changed through the years?

 Swindoll: I
don’t think you can preach for decades and not go through changes. I
believe I’m different now than when I first began, with the feeling of
a little more confidence in style or approach to a particular message
I’d be delivering. I don’t struggle as much with how I want to introduce a message or if I want to.

 I
believe in the old idea of a good flight. You have a good takeoff and
the flight hopefully is not too bumpy along the way. It’s safe. It’s
enjoyable. It’s meaningful. It’s interesting as you’re able to see
things from that perspective. Then the landing is often very close to
where we took off, like a circular flight in a sermon, so that it comes
back to where we started. I’ll often refer to something in my
conclusion that I dealt with in my introduction. 

I
really know who I am now. When I first preached, I was a little bit of
other mentors that I’d been around. I was a great model of the beast in
Daniel, Daniel 7: I was a little bit of that, and a little bit of this, and a little bit of that. 

I
remember my wife hearing me early on when I was preaching as a senior
pastor. It happened to be in New England. She said to me as I mentioned
the struggle of the morning, “I wish you were just who you are more.” I
said, “I am who I am.” She said, “No, when you stand up to preach, you
change. I just enjoy being with you, and you’re fun to be with; but
you’re not fun to be with when you’re in the pulpit.” I said, “Well,
I’m not there to be a comedian.” She said, “You’re not a comedian at
home, but you’re real.” Then she said, “So when you’re real, you
certainly have touches of humor, and that wouldn’t hurt either. I would
like to see the reality of your personality come out a little more.”

Well,
you know I’ve learned that the voice of the Holy Spirit is often very
close to the voice of one’s wife! The Lord spoke to me that day in a
very real way, and I began a journey of giving myself permission—I
would use those words—I need to give myself permission to be who I am.
It takes years to learn who you are.

Some preachers are
busy all their lives trying to be who someone else wishes they were. So
they’re not themselves. When I see that in young preachers, and
sometimes in older preachers, my heart goes out to them because I
remember the struggle of that. I’m no longer struggling with who I am.
Warts and all, flaws and all, I am who I am. I don’t try to hide it;
and because I don’t, I’m freer. I don’t spend as much time struggling
with what they may think of how they may feel.

I
struggle now with: “Is this an accurate presentation with what the
writer meant when he wrote that in the text? Am I communicating it in a
way that is interesting? Does it make sense?” One of my favorite
questions at the close of a service, when a person comes by to shake my
hand—and I usually wait till the last person leaves—I will say to them,
“Did it make sense?” When a teenager stops to talk to me—which I think
is the greatest compliment a preacher can get—I’ll often ask, “Did that
make sense?” You know, teenagers will tell you! They’ll say, “well,
some of it did,” or they’ll say, “You kind of lost me toward here, but
you found me again,” or something like that. I love the way teenagers
describe it.

So I now know what it takes to connect. I can’t tell you what a
relief it is to know that, Michael. I don’t know how to teach another
person how to do it except you go through it year after year after
year. I can sit in my study, and I’ll shake my head and I’ll say—after
working on something for an hour—”That is not going to work. I like the
story, or I like the approach, but that’s not going to connect.”

I’ve
got to connect with the people in the pew, and I work at that
diligently. I’ll spend sometimes 20, 30 hours on a sermon; and I’ve
been preaching now almost 50 years.

Some sermons don’t take that
long. Others are very delicate, controversial or maybe tender. I
remember preparing after 9-11. Oh man, I worked on that day and night;
I hardly slept working on that sermon—and the church was packed to hear
a word from God regarding that tragedy. I remember thinking later, “I’m
so glad I worked so carefully on that.”

Preaching: What do you find most enjoyable about preaching these days?

Swindoll: Knowing
that it is life-changing—knowing that if the individual hearing this
really would connect, his or her life wouldn’t be the same. That keeps
me awake at night with excitement. Each Saturday, I think, “Tomorrow,
Lord, there are going to be people hearing this whose lives are never
going to be the same; and I need You to make that happen. I can’t make
that happen.”

I learned years ago—another way I’ve changed—years ago, I used to try to fix people. Ever gone there, Michael?