A Call to Preachers
Chapter 15: Few Are Not Enough: Training a Generation of Preachers
David Helm
A Convergence of Gospel Commitments in Early Tudor Puritanism182
Norwich, England, 1576 - Preaching Workshops
The preacher slowed his horse to a walk as he came upon the final upward slope of Elm Hill. For three long autumn days, he had been pushing his horse from London. He had preached a sermon to his own congregation there early last Thursday. But by now, the Lord's Day was drawing to a close, and this last little mound was all that kept his eyes from seeing the place of his birth. Even so, he wasn't in a hurry. He never tired of that moment when his eyes would meet it all over again. Bringing his horse to a walk only heightened his childlike expectation. At last, reaching the crest, he halted his mare altogether. Looking up, he gazed upon the rich soil of the region he called home.
Before him lay the sprawling, familiar land of Norwich. The great limestone cathedral still rose in the distance. It had been constructed nearly 500 years before, in A.D. 1096, under the direction of Losinga, then bishop of Thetford. That the town warranted such a great structure was in part due to the fact that it had its own mint. Every coin bore the local inscription, Norvic. Indeed, even in the preacher's day the ancient coins were considered keepsakes and treasures and the bishop was still proud to sign himself Norvic.
The seasoned preacher stood alone on the good earth. He enjoyed the harvest view from here. Looking out over the River Wensum he liked to imagine the connections these waters had to larger tributaries, waters unseen. His mind filled with the pleasant thought that the entire world was somehow within reach from here.
At last he climbed upon his mare again. A meeting of sorts would begin in the morning. It was a gathering he attended as often as he could. In fact, this particular assembly had come to mean more to him than all the coins minted in town and all the miles these rivers could run. To his own peculiar way of thinking, the coin of the gospel was being minted at this meeting. So he prodded his mount toward town, convinced that God's good news - news already beginning to be treasured in this countryside - would one day wind its way to the ends of the earth.183
The next morning, he took up his Bible and arrived at Christ Church by 8:30 AM. His punctuality was the result of his knowing that the meeting was "kept every Monday from nine of the clock in the morning till eleven."184 Once inside he saw the familiar faces of friends. Most of them also were preachers. Norwich had long been known for its many churches, and a good number of their pastors attended this weekly gathering.185 Like him, others resided elsewhere and had charge of congregations both big and small. In fact, a few prominent ministers here today - the more travel-weary among them - had come all the way from Cambridge, which lay more than sixty miles to the south and west.
Pastors were not the only ones present, however. A few laypersons were also in attendance. Four years before, in the year 1572, the preachers had opened this meeting to the public.186 After many warm embraces, handshakes of reunion, and conversations spent in catching up on life and ministry, the entire lot assembled in the pews. And at 9:00 AM, the moderator rose to his feet, made his way to the lectern, welcomed everyone kindly, and opened the meeting in solemn prayer.
Holding in his hands The Order of the Prophecy at Norwich in Anno 1575,187 a document that this group had put to paper the year before, he began speaking to the forty or so present about the urgency of the hour. In doing so, his voice began to rise: "The great need of our day, brethren, is for preachers - and not merely preachers, but preachers of a particular sort - preachers who will simply expound God's Word. I do not need to remind you that this great land of ours, now under Elizabeth the Queen, stands at a pivotal juncture."
Then, as if reticent to disclose a secret, he went on: "Given what I have heard this morning from one who arrived from London last evening, news which has been confirmed by two men who are here today from Cambridge, the Queen is not at all pleased with the proliferation of meetings resembling this one. I am told that she may seek to suppress these gatherings. Thus, we must pray all the more diligently for the Archbishop of Canterbury. The future of these events may in the end rest upon his ability to mediate for us." This last line, of course, caught the attention and imagination of all who were present.
Thus, it was only after a lengthy pause that he was able to go on, "Brethren, we need preachers who will be faithful to the Word of God." Then, spotting a dear friend and minister sitting near the back, he motioned toward him and said, "As our own John More has told us on more than one occasion, 'Get your preachers into your parishes,' and 'bestow them labor, cost and travail to get them, ride for them, run for them, stretch your purses to maintain them; we shall begin to be rich in the Lord Jesus.'"188 At these words, the ministers were truly gripped, and a few turned to affirm the distinguished minister who sat among them. The moderator then moved toward the conclusion of his opening remarks, "Well, brethren, we meet here today, and every week, to do our part in raising up a generation of gospel preachers."
With that he introduced the morning preacher. A young man rose and made his way to the lectern. He knew, of course, as The Order had made clear, that he could not "exceed three quarters of an hour"189 in his sermon. In fact, just this past week, as part of his preparation, he had visited the moderator's home to read The Order afresh, for it outlined in detail just how the exercise would unfold. Thus he was keenly aware that he must "be careful to keep to the text"190 and "abstain from heaping up too many testimonies and annoying . . . diversions," which do not "aptly grow out of the text."191 Firmly convinced that his task was to take "special care to rip up the text, to show the things of the Holy Ghost, and briefly, pithily, and plainly apply"192 his message in a manner that would honor God, the young man began to preach.
Preaching workshops of this sort were beginning to emerge throughout the land.193 These practical conferences were initiated and run by pastors, many of whom had grown tired of waiting for the queen to take action herself.194 Five years ago, Reverend Edward Deringe had preached a fearless sermon in the presence of the queen on the need for improved preaching. Deringe's death earlier that summer195 had only emboldened these pastors to continue gathering weekly. In fact, there was hardly a man listening who had not previously read the published transcript of Deringe's sermon to the queen, where he said quite plainly, "Of all the miseries wherewith the Church is grieved, none is greater than this: That her ministers be ignorant, and can say nothing. . . . And yet you in the meanwhile . . . you at whose hands God will require it, you sit still and are careless."196
Momentum for these workshops had gathered under other preachers. John Field, an instigator for church reform, one of whom we shall hear more later, had enlisted others to send "An Admonition to the Parliament" demanding that they "displace those ignorant and unable ministers already placed, and . . . appoint to every congregation a learned and diligent preacher."197 Therefore, when neither the queen nor Parliament took direct steps to assist the development of preachers, these men at Norwich and others like them took matters into their own hands. Of the proliferation and influence these weekly gatherings would have, history would later record that "these were conferences of the preaching clergy devoted to systematic biblical exposition" and "by the popular interest which they attracted and . . . homiletical training which they offered to the more ignorant clergy, the prophesyings did more than any other agency to propagate and establish the new religion in Elizabethan England."198
By this point in the morning, the young preacher was bringing his sermon to a close: "the learned brethren coming together, and the first speaker for that time put apart."199 In the young preacher's absence, the older men candidly evaluated the "soundness of his doctrine, how he kept and followed his text, wherein he swerved from it, how aptly he alleged his testimonies out of the Scripture . . . how modest his speech and gestures, how sound, reverent and sober his whole action was or wherein he failed."200 At last they called upon him to return. Taking his place among them, it fell to the moderator "in the name of the rest of the brethren"201 to humbly encourage and instruct him in how he might exalt Christ more fully and rightly handle God's Word.
The format was striking for its simplicity. The two hours had passed quickly and these preachers had given their morning to the task of working together on their preaching. On this particular day, the young preacher went home grateful - not only for the chance to proclaim the gospel message, but for the advice he had been given by those he greatly respected. He departed satisfied. Clearly his little flock would be better fed next Sunday.
The others who had come that day were also much encouraged. The time of exposition had nourished them, and their mutual interaction over the text of Scripture had advanced their own understanding of and love for God's Word. At last, the meeting adjourned. The preachers rose, although many were in no hurry to leave. After all, they treasured the weekly fellowship that this conference afforded. Conversations that had begun earlier with dear friends and colleagues in ministry resumed. Some went off to lunch together in smaller groups and, of course, others needed to depart before they would have liked. There were appointments to keep and pastoral visits to make.
Cambridge: A Residential Training Scheme
Before all departed, the preacher who had come on horseback made his way across the room. He needed to speak with the men who had come from Cambridge. He knew them well and was hoping to catch up on the gospel work undertaken at the great university. "Good day, my dear friends!" he said. "A fine message this morning, wasn't it?"
"Yes, it was!" one replied. "That young man will do the church much good if he keeps his nose in the feedbag of God's Word."
"Indeed," said the preacher from London, "May we find a way to train more like him. But, tell me, what news of Cambridge have you? How are our efforts proceeding to train a generation of learned and godly preachers?"
"Ah, Cambridge!" said the other. "I love it as much now as ever. And we are still praying that God will see fit to raise up a host of gospel men from her."202
The Church of England "had the benefit of two famous universities, Oxford being the other, and both contained many good schools and Cathedral Churches."203 However, and this was what troubled these three men most, while there were more than "10,000 parishes, the great schools had been able to raise up but 2,000 preachers to serve them."204 The resulting failure was clear. Vast numbers of men and women in England, the majority by far, were living week to week without able-minded, learned, and godly preachers committed to expounding the Scripture.205
The Cambridge man went on, "We are nearly done with our initial study and are convinced that "unworthy preachers abound." We must find a way to thrust them out, so that able men may replace them. In fact, Oxford will be able presently to yield 194 such men. Cambridge, by our computation, would yield 140 and above, fit men all."206 "This is good news!" the seasoned preacher replied. "But now, what of Chaderton? Surely, he must be the one to lead these men through formal training."207
On this day, Laurence Chaderton was far removed from Norwich. Christ College was nestled between Jesus Lane and Gonville and Caius College. Thus, Chaderton's rooms lay not far from where William the Conqueror had built his Cambridge Castle and were only a short walk to the bridge overlooking the tranquil River Cam. But while the Cambridge University setting of Chaderton's life was idyllic, his recent gospel work did not have the luxury of a moment's peace. One of the Cambridge men said, "Chaderton has just finished up his fellowship at Christ's and recently had engaged in a 'public dispute with Dr. Baro, a professor who holds Arminian tenets.'"208 In the debate, so they now told the preacher from London, Chaderton "displayed his great learning, piety, and moderation."209
"Yes, we are likewise convinced that he must lead if we are to train an emerging generation of preachers. Indeed, we have been in conversation with one of Chaderton's pupils whom you well know, William Perkins. He is likewise in agreement."210
At this point in the conversation, the other Cambridge preacher pulled a handwritten resolution from his bag. "Take a look at this," he said. "It is something we want you to bring back to the preachers in London. We are anxious for their comments." As the seasoned preacher took the paper in hand, he read at the top of the page, "An order to be used for the training up and exercising of students in divinity, whereby they may be made fit and made to discharge the duties belonging to that profession."211 Glancing down the page he saw enough to tell him that these men meant business. They were already laying the groundwork for some great gospel work that leaned on residential biblical training. And he was pleased to see that everything was "to begin with the Bible." He took note of the need for "the knowledge of the tongues, especially of the Hebrew and Greek." And he was happy to note that the kind of residential training these men had in mind would include the classical disciplines of "rhetoric and logic and disputation."212
"I will gladly bring it to London," said the preacher as he tucked the document away for safekeeping. "Well, I asked you of news from Cambridge and I now see that much good is happening. Perhaps, God being with us, we might expect that within a few short years there will be a college in Cambridge completely devoted to 'the propagation of the pure Gospel of Christ, our only mediator, to the praise and honor of God almighty.'"213
At last the three men prayed together. They prayed for the growth and proliferation of these workshops. They prayed for a learned and godly ministry. They prayed for residential training, and then they prayed for one another, that each would know God's peace and blessing. When they finished, the two from Cambridge readied themselves for the two-day ride home. As they mounted their horses, they promised to bring the preacher's greetings to Chaderton and to Perkins especially. Fall term was coming to a close.
It was only after their horses disappeared from sight that the preacher turned down a side street that would take him to the home of his birth. His mother was still living, and he intended to stay with her for a week before returning to his pastoral duties in London.
London: Connecting Point for Pastoral Community
London was a thriving, dirty city. Increasingly, it was becoming the center of commerce and trade. Its own history dated back hundreds of years, with the monarchy and Tower marking its strength. The great River Thames cut its way through the city, presenting itself as flowing waters of some great expanse. Its width, of course, was in large part due to the many smaller rivers and streams that emptied into it at various places from the north. All waters, it seemed, flowed through London before going on to the ends of the earth. The moving Thames allowed boats quick access from one end of town to the other. At the north end, the houses of Parliament stood on one bank. The Archbishop's residence stood opposite.
As the seasoned preacher made his way back into town, he found himself praying again for Grindal, Archbishop of Canterbury. True to his Christian name, Edmund, Grindal served as benevolent protector to the growing number of gospel men who desired to see the land filled with expository preaching. However, the Archbishop's efforts to assist these preachers would soon come at personal cost. As history shows, the queen was not at all enthralled with Grindal.214 In fact, she was increasingly set on suppressing the more radical advocates of the movement who harped at continual reform.
London's own John Field was one such radical. With underground-like tendencies, Field, perhaps more than any other, had pricked the goads of reform. Although he had been born and grown up in London, Field attended university at Oxford and was ordained by Edmund Grindal on March 25, 1566, at the age of twenty-one. As a Bible lecturer in London he quickly developed into a leader amongst the most radical Puritans, which landed him several suspensions from preaching between 1571 and 1579. And when the Admonition came out in tract form, Field was sentenced to twelve months of imprisonment. In fact, he received a visit during his imprisonment from none other than Edward Deringe in 1572,215 demonstrating London to be the connecting point for a growing community of like-minded preachers.
Still in the saddle, and in prayer, the preacher made his way along the Thames to the Archbishop's residence. Nearly two weeks had passed since he had last seen Grindal, and winter was now coming on. The archbishop had requested a firsthand report on the preaching workshops. Arriving at last, the preacher dismounted and knocked upon the smallish wooden door framed in the wall running adjacent to the Thames. Through this side entrance he was admitted. And after introductions were made, he was told to wait for the archbishop in the library.
Grindal appeared, looking tired. Greeting the preacher solemnly he said, "Good evening, my dear friend. I am so very sorry. Things are not well." He held a document in his hands. "I have been upstairs writing a letter and intend to have it delivered to the Queen. It appears that she will soon move to suppress the informal gatherings we have established for preachers to gather around God's Word."
"We have all been anticipating this," the preacher replied. "And this is your decided response?" he asked, casting a glance at the document in the Archbishop's hands.
Grindal, steadied by the seasoned preacher's strength, held his recently written document to the light and began to read, "But surely I cannot marvel enough, how this strange opinion should once enter into your mind, that it should be good for the church to have few preachers. Alas, Madam! Is the scripture more plain in any one thing, than that the gospel of Christ should be plentifully preached; and that plenty of laborers should be sent into the Lord's harvest; which, being great and large, standeth in need not of a few, but many workmen!"216
He paused, but the preacher only filled the silence by standing calm and erect. And after some further discussion and a time of prayer together, the preacher bade Grindal goodnight. Departing the residence, he passed through the same door he had entered some time before. By now the night sky was pitch and the winds blew cold off the Thames. But this troubled him not. He remained convinced that the activity and hand of God was at work in the land. For years he had desired to see the day when God's Word would wind like the rivers to the ends of the earth. And on this winter's night, he believed it still.
An Agenda Relevant for the Church Today
Within a very short period of time, the English landscape would be watered from an overflow of learned and godly gospel preachers. Through the eyes of faith, the seasoned preacher had seen that night what historians would later recognize as the "preacher-led movement" of Puritanism. In all its fullness, as able historians have shown, Puritanism was largely an expository movement, flooding city and countryside alike with the force of abundant headwaters.217
Today, we have ample reason to emulate our sixteenth-century preacher's optimism, faith, and hard-working vigor. Indeed, the world in which we live is very much like the world into which he was born. Two contemporary comparisons help demonstrate this point. First, the need for expository preachers was as great in his day as it is in our own. Second, the rising confusion and dissatisfaction among pastors today could foreshadow a return to our primary calling as preachers, just as it did for the discontented preachers in the Elizabethan era.
Trends in the American Pastorate
The need for expository preachers was as great in their day as it is in our own. One of the documents that I cited earlier is a sixteenth-century resolution titled A Mean for the Establishing of a Learned and Sufficient Ministry. The document speaks of ten thousand parishes around England, some eight thousand of which had no parson or preacher. Today, recent labor statistics indicate that there are about seven hundred people for each pastor in the United States, or roughly 1.7 pastors per one thousand people.218
But this void of preachers is really only one facet of a trend. When we take into account what congregants today actually believe, it only heightens the need for a new generation of preachers to faithfully expound God's Word. According to George Barna, a church trend researcher, the shocking reality is that "only 9 percent of all born-again adults have a biblical worldview - meaning that less than one out of every ten Christians age eighteen or older believes that absolute moral truth exists, believes that such truth is contained in the Bible, and possesses a handful of core beliefs that reflect such truth."219 Other research says that today's listeners prefer to interpret the Scriptures for themselves rather than "permit the preacher to impose his interpretation on them."220 In other words, the very task to which the preacher commits himself - preaching the Word of God - has gravity for a very small number of the people who even bother to show up and listen.
The second and perhaps more elemental trend is the effect this disparity seems to have on the preacher. The quality of a pastor's life, including everything from salary to the demands of a sixty-three-hour workweek, is often cited as one symptom. One recent survey of pastors concluded that "90 percent feel they're inadequately trained to cope with ministry demands."221 This survey also found that "80 percent believe that pastoral ministry affects their families negatively,"222 while other research places it as high as 89 percent.223 The result is that "45.5 percent of pastors say that they've experienced depression or burnout to the extent that they needed to take a leave of absence from ministry."224 It is no wonder that pastors express a profound lack of confidence in both the substance of their work and the effectiveness of their preaching.
H. Richard Niebuhr, an early-twentieth-century theologian and researcher of theological education at Yale Divinity School, points to an often overlooked cause and effect of this pastoral depression. After observing the American pastorate, he concluded that "perplexity and vagueness continue to afflict thought about the ministry." The effects of this ambiguity are troubling. Niebuhr asserts:
The minister who knows what he is doing, they say, is able to resist the many pressures to which he is subject from lay groups in the churches, from the society, from denominational headquarters, and from within himself, however hard he must fight to keep his ship on its course; but the man who has no such determinative principle falls victim to the forces of all the winds and waves that strike upon him.225
Niebuhr links the preacher's dissatisfaction with ministry to his deteriorating comprehension of his role in the church. Others concur. From his own research on the evolution of pastoral roles in the twentieth century, David Wells lends an important observation. In contemporary culture, "technical and managerial competence in the church have plainly come to dominate the definition of pastoral service."226 In other words, "the older role of the pastor as broker of truth has been eclipsed by the newer managerial functions."227 And there is, undoubtedly, no aspect of ministry where this confusion is more dominant than in preaching.
These two trends can seem discouraging. The need for preachers is great, and discovering this need at a time when preachers are experiencing nothing short of an identity crisis is distressing. There are days in ministry when a military metaphor seems appropriate: "We are losing the war and, it seems, there are no reinforcements." Yet, the study of history can be a great help to us in these times of seemingly hopeless tumult. It is in periods of instability that new gospel movements are born. The sky is at its darkest pitch just before the coming of the dawn.
A Convergence of Ideas
The dawn, at least for the preacher-led movement of the late sixteenth century, was born out of a convergence of preaching workshops, residential training schemes, and the effects of an emerging community of biblical expositors in London. It was this synergy of seemingly independent activities that God used to form the foundation of the Puritan movement and a widespread recovery of the authority of the Scriptures. And these preachers, through their commitments to training and supporting pastors in the art of biblical exposition, shaped a generation. Could these convergent ideas be at work again in this age? Might God be pleased to restore a preacher-led movement to bring about a recovery of God's Word? What should these strategies look like in the twenty-first century?
Strategy: Preaching Workshops
The preacher's experience in Norwich narrated earlier in this essay was not atypical of preachers in that era. The prophesyings, or preaching workshops, were held in Burton-on-Trent, Durham, and Yorkshire as well as abroad in places like Zürich and Geneva. A modern corollary is the work of Dick Lucas and The Proclamation Trust in London over the last three decades.228 Lucas's singular priority has always been to confront the poverty of expositional preaching around England. His gatherings, which he calls "expository preaching conferences," consist of instructions on exposition, model sermons, and time for the preachers to speak on passages and analyze each other's work. The goal of these workshops is that those pastors attending "will not rest satisfied with their initial thoughts, but will work hard, hour after hour, to sit under God's Word, and to enable other people to become more Godly."229
The model Lucas implemented intuitively in London bears resemblance to the model devised in the same city some four hundred years earlier. Similar to what the preachers in Norwich codified in 1575 to govern their "prophesying" conferences, Thomas Cartwright and William Travers issued the Book of Disciplines - a book that would ultimately reach far beyond the streets of London. The Book of Disciplines also suggested a course of events for the typical "prophesying" conference to be held "as often as it may conveniently to be had" and "in every church where it may conveniently be done."230 Their process would simply begin with the preacher choosing "some part of the canonical Scripture to expound," such that it would be "applied fitly according to the natural meaning." Then others present would "judge and admonish the speaker" with a hope of sharpening his skill in preaching. This practice, accordingly, had a role in determining the fitness of a preacher for the pulpit as their times of "expounding the holy Scripture" should result in the young being "taught and trained up to preach." Indeed, these same goals can be traced through the work of The Proclamation Trust in our present day.
A recent North American counterpart to The Proclamation Trust's network of conferences is an enterprise known as the Workshops on Biblical Exposition.231 In September 2006, sixteen pastors convened in Chicago for three days to consider the future of these workshops. The work of this gathering was then collected into a report aimed at articulating a coherent direction for these workshops as well as exploring what methodologies should be assumed to achieve their goal.
The mission of the workshops is fourfold. First, in order for expository preaching to take hold of a preacher and subsequently edify and evangelize his congregation, he must be confident in setting to the task of preaching. We must convince the pastor that the heart of pastoral ministry is the proclamation of the Word. Second, as he is convinced, he must also grow in his confidence to practice expositional preaching. We must encourage him in his own lifelong ministry and in his soul by ministering to him from the Word. Third, as he is encouraged, he must also be given the tools to apply specific principles such that he both understands and is equipped for true expositional preaching. We must show him how to rightly handle the Word of God. Finally, showing him how to faithfully exegete the text assumes a common understanding of the fullness of the biblical framework, a comprehensive understanding of the big picture of the Scriptures and the Christological promise/fulfillment pattern contained within. We must reveal to him the geography of the text.232
A condensation of these goals for the attending pastors became their simple refrain. "Convince him that it must be done. Encourage him that it can be done. Show him how it is done. Reveal the big picture of what God has both said and done." The group also gave time and attention to studying other aspects of the preaching workshops.
They considered what the term expositional preaching means. One of the subgroup teams submitted a definition that would later become the basis of the commission's statement on exposition. Their definition particularly demonstrates the heart as well as the content of such preaching:
Expository preaching is the public and passionate teaching, proclamation and application of a biblical text in its context in the power of the Holy Spirit and, inasmuch as the preacher's message is faithful to the original meaning, it is authoritative and binding - the very Word of God. Such preaching exalts Christ Jesus as He is revealed in all the Scripture, and calls its hearers to exalt Him in their lives.233
This collegial gathering of sixteen proceeded to articulate a rationale for expository preaching from the practice of preaching found in Scripture. To put the argument succinctly: when we read the Bible, we are reading the authoritative revelation of God, who is communicating to us in the manner of his choice. Thus, when we examine what preachers are doing in the Scripture, we must believe them to be doing God's work in God's way. The type of sermon found in the Bible is the simple exposition of God's Word, and the type of preacher found in Scripture is generally an expositional preacher.234
Realizing that expositional preaching is the model of preaching presented in Scripture, we must train today's preachers to exalt Christ Jesus as he is revealed in all the Scriptures. Preaching workshops will not only strengthen a new generation of preachers, but they could very well be the best means of uniting the present generation of preachers and supporting every generation.
Strategy: Residential Training
In early summer of the year 2000, St. Helen's Bishopsgate (the church that has served as the primary connecting point for a growing community of like-minded preachers in England) played host to their annual Evangelical Ministers Assembly. The theme for the conference that year was "church planting." Nearly one thousand pastors attended. Don Carson, research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, located just outside of Chicago, made the trip, not only to speak at the general sessions, but to lead a workshop for attendees on the importance of the relationship that exists between church planting and training men for ministry.
In his breakout session, Carson highlighted the convergence of three ideas necessary to train preachers. They are classroom instruction, ministry experience, and pastoral mentoring. Put differently, the indispensable components for building learned and godly ministers are threefold. First, the next generation of preachers needs a strong foundation of biblical doctrine - including but not limited to theology, original languages, and an understanding of church history. Second, preparation for gospel work will be best enhanced if those in training can be placed in a local church setting where they have opportunity to test and grow their gifts and usefulness. Third, preachers are best grown under the watchful and supportive eye of an older preacher already seasoned by years of gospel ministry.
Carson is correct. The fusion of these three seemingly independent factors can produce what is needed to build a generation of preachers. Interestingly enough, they are the very three things the preachers of the early Elizabethan period were intent on providing for those who would follow them.
In speaking with the visitors from Cambridge, the seasoned preacher referred to above was introduced to "A Mean for the Establishing of a Learned and Sufficient Ministry."235 At its core, the document described a collegiate strategy to address the problem. It referenced the efforts at the universities at Cambridge and Oxford to train young men for the pastorate. One of these efforts was a regular event hosted by Laurence Chaderton of Cambridge. Chaderton, himself a preacher for more than five decades at St. Clement, held a number of academic posts: fellow at Christ's College and later master of Emmanuel College from its founding. A man with one foot in an academic setting and the other in the practical ministry, Chaderton's "prophesyings" were meetings for students meant to complement the rigors of scholastic education with training in the practical exposition and application of the text in a pastoral setting.
Some years before Chaderton, Richard Greenham had seen the importance of connecting training to mentoring and ministry exposure. His commitment in ministry was such that "he might train up some younger men to this end, and communicate his experience with them."236 Much later, in Puritanism's flowering moment, preachers were still intent on making the same point. It was Richard Baxter who said, "But (if you can) at first settle a competent time in the house with some ancient experienced pastor, that hath some small country chapel, that needs your help."237
Fortunately, this synthetic and localized training model, a marrying of practical and educational techniques, has parallels in our culture. One of the more influential documents in evangelicalism in the last quarter century is certainly the Lausanne Covenant. In the section on education and leadership, the covenant provided the renewed impetus for training preachers and teachers from local settings:
We recognize that there is a great need to improve theological education, especially for church leaders. In every nation and culture there should be an effective training program for pastors and laity in doctrine, discipleship, evangelism, nurture, and service. Such training programs should not rely on any stereotyped methodology but should be developed by creative local initiatives according to biblical standards.238
The covenant affirms a need for training leaders and also suggests that this training should occur according to local initiatives. What better place is there to train a pastor for a congregation than in that congregation? What better strategy can we concoct for the local church than to train up indigenous leadership with both the benefits of a seminary education and local experience?
The challenge, of course, is that many pastors and churches still need to be convinced. According to the Field Guide to U.S. Congregations, only 16 percent of congregants rank "training people for ministry and mission" as one of the three main roles their minister, pastor, or priest actually carries out.239 This is not nearly enough. We must convince pastors across the country and around the world of the importance of this local-and-learned strategy. We must show them how it can work - as it did for Chaderton and the Puritans who followed him.
Some churches have initiated local initiatives, and in doing so have moved away from a purely seminary-driven model of training pastors. In a 2002 Christianity Today interview, Rick Warren said, "We've trained more pastors than all the seminaries combined,"240 referring to his church's responsibility to teach their principles of ministry to others.241 Countless churches around the United States hold conferences and training classes for pastors to learn new methods of ministry and focus on current issues in ministry. However, if we are going to succeed in preparing a generation that is equipped to withstand the pressures of the coming years, every local model must begin with and flow from that fundamental aspect of pastoral ministry - preaching God's Word. Simply put, we must rebuild our local endeavors with biblical and intellectual vigor. Merely putting an ever-larger number of men into ministry is not the answer. A movement away from formal seminary education and toward a model of training from the local church settings creates the danger of placing too many men into ministry without any formal classroom instruction. If our church-led training models produce preachers who are doctrinally impoverished, incompetent in the rudiments of Greek and Hebrew, and void of comprehending or even appreciating the broad strokes of church history, we are going to be ill-equipped to fulfill our gospel calling. We must all be ready to adapt and change - not settling for anything less than "godly and learned" pastors.
A few residential training schemes exist that embody the necessary convergence of classroom instruction, ministry exposure, and mentoring. The Ministry Training Strategy (MTS), a training scheme that grew out of Phillip Jensen's ministry in Sydney, Australia, bears mention. It begins with what is called a "challenge," consisting of a series of conferences and an extensive network of coaches designed to challenge young men and women to consider full-time ministry. Participants then work as apprentices under MTS trainers in churches for two years, learning through participation in the church's evangelism and Bible teaching ministries. For those heading into full-time ministry, this apprenticeship serves as a prelude to theological studies at Moore Theological College.242
In summary, even though the skills that seminaries teach in language, rhetoric, and theology are essential preparation for preaching, we must nonetheless find creative ways to supplement seminary education in the very center of practical ministry - the local church. Residential training schemes that do not forfeit classroom instruction but instead remain committed to biblical learning, languages, and godly living will not only strengthen a new generation of preachers, but will also provide the framework for training all generations.
Strategy: Pastoral Communities beyond the Sixteenth Century
Central to the logic of workshops is the idea of a community of pastors gathering together for refreshment in the Word and further training in the preaching of the Word. In that sense, its greatest value is developmental for men established in full-time ministry. And central to the logic of residential training is the idea of a community in which the experienced preachers lead the less experienced and the skilled preachers lead the less skilled. Its greatest value is for young men at the beginning of full-time engagement in ministry. These aspects of community are timeless - from the New Testament, to the early Puritans, to our day. Yet, it is our day that presents both diverse challenges and tools beyond those of our sixteenth-century English brothers, and at least three strategies should be advanced.
First, one of the greatest advantages to living after the Information Age243 is that connecting - being in constant relationship to others through technology - is so much easier. We have and will have a myriad of tools - from e-mails to instant messages, blogs to wikis, devices and platforms yet to be created - aimed at giving us the ability to communicate when we must be apart. Imagine working with a small group on your preaching at a conference. You share your outline for next week's sermon and you sharpen each other. When you return home, you are still connected online. You have the ability to share your outlines, discuss your preaching, ask your questions, and discover the secrets of great expositional preaching with the help of the latest technologies. We must find ways to foster such collaborations and such digital communities.
Second, the dominant culture in America must begin serving the ethnically and racially diverse population in this country. From African-Americans to Latinos to Asian-Americans, an increasingly polyglot country affects every aspect of culture on every social level. Intentional efforts must be made to train the next generation of preachers and demonstrate how true exposition of the Scriptures in preaching is not bound by race or tradition. Rather, collaboration across racial lines, with an equal seat at the table for everyone, will lead to the enrichment of all. To this point, the African-American tradition serves as an exemplary model of residential mentoring over the last 150 years in the United States. According to one source,
Early generations of black preachers started predominantly in apprenticeship positions under more mature preachers. This tradition prevails today. God was held certainly as the primary teacher. But the call to ministry and the gifts of preaching were developed in apprenticed positions or on-the-job training. The subsequent generations of preachers have advanced this mentoring model of training.244
The opportunity to draw upon such a tradition for the good of the whole church should not be wasted. Rather, we must gather together as a community of preachers - all preachers - unified by a commitment to faithfully expound the Word. Only then will we have a full community, one reflective of our world.
Third, we must not neglect considering our rapidly changing culture and how biblical exposition might interface with it. Like every major political and economic institution, the church needs think tanks. These could be small centers, strategically located in large cities and near research universities. They could establish community by serving both the academician and the pastor. They could be places where professors and preachers both could go for sabbatical to write and think about issues.245 The materials they produce could have the credibility of scholarship but the purpose of helping the church. As Jim Packer wrote (while attending a consultation on this very issue), each one could be "a long-term residential community of evangelical scholars and pastors who, through personal research and interpersonal interaction, further the progress of God's Word in the church and contemporary culture."246 Indeed, we must find ways to foster such communities. They may be the most strategically important communities in an effort to bring about a new beginning.
A Call to Preachers
According to Genesis, the book of beginnings, God's Spirit hovered over the face of the waters. Only then did God speak. Shortly thereafter, we are told that a mist went up from the land and watered the whole face of the ground. Indeed, throughout history, whenever God is gracious to his people, it is attended by Word and Spirit going forth together in great power - and often expressed in the language of water. In writing this essay, I have found myself longing for Spirit and Word to come once more and water the world afresh with gospel glory. Like preachers of old, it would be nice to stand on the good earth in a season of harvest.
With this narrative from the Elizabethan era, I have attempted not only to describe Puritanism as a great movement of the gospel, but also to show how smaller streams and rivers made such a movement possible. In the process, I have come to think that preachers are not so much born as they are made. Clearly, God must raise them up, but we must be engaged as well. First, we must commit to work on our preaching in regularly held gatherings with other pastors. Further, we must carefully consider the young men in our own churches - and we must do everything possible to train some of them for Word ministry. This system will require committing our time and resources. Further, these initiatives will not be accomplished by pastors' efforts alone. They will be the result of other deeply committed men and women who, for the joy set before them, enter equally into gospel partnership with us through financial stewardship. Then, we must continue to be in community with one another for the good of the ministry and the glory of God. With this kind of effort, and these kinds of initiatives, the early Puritans launched one of the greatest revolutions the church has known. If preachers in this day will give themselves to the same things, and if God is pleased to pour out his Spirit upon us, we might discover a simple truth - good preachers come from good preachers.
And so the seasoned preacher stood, considering the future and his friend the Archbishop. He was aware that with the morning light Grindal would be leaving his residence to cross the Thames and make his appeal to the queen. With that same resolve, we now must make an appeal to the King of kings. Pray that Jesus Christ would receive all the praise due his name. Pray that God would guide the church and her pastors in enacting strategies that continue the work of the sixteenth-century preaching workshops and training programs. Pray that he will bless those endeavors that have already been established. Consider for a moment the possibilities of training a new generation of biblical expositors to serve in every church, every parish, and every country in the world. Pray that God would raise up a host of vibrant biblical churches in strategic centers of influence that could serve as connecting points for a growing community of like-minded preachers. Then commit to doing something to making it happen. For, as Grindal wrote, the world "stands in need not of a few, but many workmen."247