David Richardson

In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a guy everyone admired for his good looks.  One day, he noticed his own reflection in a pool of water.  He became so obsessed with his reflection, that he literally spent the rest of his life looking at himself in that same pool.  He was unable to look away and live.

It is from this story that we get the word “narcissism.”  It’s all about self-centered ego and pride.  And it doesn’t care one bit about others.  At all.

Let’s get real for a minute.  If we pastors aren’t careful, we can fall into the destructive trance of pulpit narcissism.  When this happens, our attention is locked on our own appearance, voice, personality, and preaching style on Sundays.  After the crowd has left, we climb into the car pondering, “I wonder how I did today?”

See what’s going on here?  It’s all about the unholy trinity of me, myself, and I.  Pulpit narcissism enslaves us to a self-absorbed mindset that completely misses the point.

When we preach, our two-fold mission has got to be the following:  calling attention to God, and helping our congregation.  It’s about His glory and their edification.  After all, He is deserving of their focus and they are needy of His touch.

Notice that preaching is not about us pastors.  It’s not about getting people to tell us we are funny, cool, relevant, creative, or smart when they are leaving the sanctuary after the worship service.  It’s not about people stroking our egos and praising our names.

Sure, we can’t help but appreciate positive feedback and encouragement from time to time.  Occasionally, God may even send someone to lift our spirits and tell us we are doing well in the pulpit.  But it’s important to remember that getting affirmation from others can not be our motive or driving force for preaching.  If that is what we are preaching for, we are in it for the wrong reason.

Fellow pastors, let’s just remember our place.  We are ambassadors for the King.  Everything we say and do in our sermons must revolve around Him.

There’s simply no room for narcissism in the pulpit.

I remember being ordained into the ministry in May of 1996.  One of my uncles, Dr. Philip Reynolds, said something to me during the ceremony that was more true than I realized at the time.  He came up to me, put his hands on my shoulders, and said, “David, just be you.  Be yourself when it comes to ministry.”  The longer I’m in ministry, the more I see what he was saying.

Today, I will illustrate this truth for you.

As a parent, I’ve noticed that kids usually go through at least a short stage where they like to play “dress up.”  It’s a fun time for them to put on an outfit that makes them look like someone else.  My son has been the most recent one to do it.  I’ve seen him dress up as Indiana Jones, a Transformer, Spiderman, Bob the Builder, and several other folks.

Some pastors play the same game on Sunday mornings.  Am I still talking about dress up?  Absolutely.  When it’s time to preach, they suddenly become someone else.  It’s almost like they flip on a switch and morph into this other being.  Kind of creepy, if  you ask me.

When it comes time to preach, some pastors play dress up by doing at least one of the following:

1. Changing their tone of voice.

2. Changing their personality.

3. Changing their clothing style.

4. Changing their beliefs.

This does happen in churches.  All the time.  And the reality is, people in the pews can spot it a mile away.  They’re not dumb.

At 39 years of age, I’ve grown comfortable with myself in the pulpit.  I just want to be me.  The David Richardson that God made.  On Sundays, I’m going to talk like me, act like me, and even dress the way I know to dress.  Playing dress up with the congregation of First Baptist Sebring is just not something I’m going to do.  And I can bet you they don’t want me to play that game either!

Pastors, God made you the way you are for a reason.  Allow that congregation to see who you really are.  Warts and all.

Maybe you’re scared for people to see the real you because you don’t have everything together in your life.  So what if you aren’t perfect?  Neither is anyone in the pews!  That just means you are all members of the same club…the human race.

Don’t play dress up when it comes time to preach.  Be yourself.  Allow God to use the real you that He designed and created years ago.  I know He will appreciate that.  And so will your congregation.

Let’s leave dress up to the kids.

Have you ever been around someone who is choosy?  Whether they are dealing with food or clothes, they only like a few things, and refuse to try something new.  They’ve made up their mind, and there is no changing it.  Another way you can describe them is picky.

Some pastors engage in pulpit choosiness.  Maybe you’re wondering what I’m talking about.  Pulpit choosiness has to do with addressing the same scripture and topic week after week, without any variety.

It could be any subject.  Marriage.  Money.  Leadership.  Spiritual gifts.  The sanctity of life.  Prophecy.  A choosy pastor picks one topic and serves it up repeatedly to the congregation, Sunday after Sunday.  Meanwhile, the people in the pews are growing weary, bored, and spiritually malnourished.

How sad.

God has entrusted us pastors with a special privilege.  We get to play a role in the spiritual development of men, women, boys, and girls.  That’s serious business.  Realizing how important our position is, we must be sure to give them the entire word of God, rather than a portion of it.

I remember learning at Beeson Divinity School the phrase “whole Bible.”  That had to do with preaching ALL of scripture, instead of a few, select, favorite passages.  The idea of being “whole Bible” has not escaped my mind yet.

Pastors, let’s preach the New Testament and the Old Testament.  Let’s preach on familiar passages and passages nobody ever thinks about.  Let’s preach on matters that make us comfortable and matters that make us squirm.  Let’s preach on the love of God and the wrath of God.  Let’s preach on Heaven and Hell.

Do you get my point?  Let’s give our congregations ALL of Scripture rather than part of it.  Now that’s responsible preaching!

I’ve never done it before, but I’ll bet it’s fun.  What am I talking about?  Karaoke.

You’ve seen it before.  A bunch of friends get together with a sound system and enjoy a night of music.  With microphone in hand, they belt out popular tunes and have a blast.  Of course, the key to this working is they are reading the words off a monitor as they go.  Word-for-word, they sing along.

Over the years, I’ve heard of pastors engaging in pulpit karaoke on Sunday mornings.  Do you know what that is?  Preaching sermons word-for-word, that other people wrote.

That’s just never been my style.  It would bother me greatly to do it.  Even if I pulled it off and nobody caught on, my conscience would bother me.  Why? Here are a few reasons:

[1]  It’s lazy. We pastors have the whole week to seek a word from God and then prepare to share it with our congregations.  I would go so far to say that is the most important thing we do as pastors!  Good sermons serve as the result of time spent in prayer and study.  This includes writing and re-writing.  It also includes practice.  Don’t our congregations deserve that?  I say “Yes.”  Pastors who word-for-word preach sermons that other guys wrote are taking the lazy way out.

[2]  It’s dishonest. To stand in the pulpit and try to pass of someone else’s work as our own is simply a 30 minute lie.  When I was in high school, I learned about plagiarism.  When we wrote our term papers, we had to make sure we gave other people credit if we quoted something they had already written.  Pastors, if you are going to preach sermons other people wrote, at least have the integrity to tell your people you are doing it.  Just get up in the pulpit and say, “Today, I am preaching a sermon that Andy Stanley wrote.”  At least you are giving credit where credit is due.  The congregation may even be ok with it.  Maybe.  But they will not, and should not, be ok with you acting like a sermon someone else wrote is your own.

We must preach our own sermons out of our own walk with God.  Pastors, each of us has a unique and complex congregation that has specific needs.  God knows what they need to hear.  Let’s seek a word from Him that speaks directly to our own congregations, and let’s share it on Sunday morning.  And if we are going to share something that someone else wrote or said, we must be honest and give them credit.

Karaoke on a Friday night with good friends and loud music sounds like a blast.  I just may try to belt out some 80’s tunes one day.  Ha!  Ha!

But pulpit karaoke?  No thanks.  I just don’t think that has any integrity.  God and our congregations deserve a whole lot better than that.