Why Preaching Should Be a Team Sport by JR Miller

Talk about it...

commented on Nov 10, 2012

The main thrust of Dr Miller's article is sound. The title trivialised the subject which was unfortunate, because it is obvious in many churches that Christianity is in danger of becoming a liesure activity. There is clearly great danger in a "one man band" ministry. However leadership in its many aspects and the actual preaching of the Gospel need to be understood in their own context. The service of preaching can only be fulfilled by one man at any one time. If leadership in a church is not fulfilled by a number of persons, men and women in their own biblically authorised service, then the fellowship will be poorly served. One other thing, and I feel that it is important, Christ is never described in the New Testament as King of the church.

David Mcclain

commented on Nov 10, 2012

This position was popularized in seminarys over 30 years ago with the works of Gene Getz (Sharpening the Focus on the Church) and Earl Radmacher (The Nature of the Church) to name a few who stressed that biblical eldership was plural- even in the pulpit. Its implementation proved to be challenging to the point that Getz acknowledged that one man usually "rises to to the top" and becomes the primary leader even if he is not the sole preacher. Willow Creek, Saddleback and Fellowship Church give us some working models of how team preaching can work effectively. The point is years of experimenting with this model should not be ignored- there numerous pastors who attempted this approach and found themselves undermined by others seeing it as an opportunity to ursurp authority. Someone still must lead and if it is not the lead pastor someone else will- and they may take it in different direction.

Tim Nissly

commented on Nov 10, 2012

Yes and no. I get that there was a plurality, but I think that the author is too rigid on the location of his interpretation. Not too many people are going to argue that there is a necessity for there to be many preachers. But if you interpret these passages to mean only a local church setting (ie. some if these passages have a context much wider than just each local church. The plurality mean elders in general not multiplicity in one location...although I believe in a multiplicity of elders I don't think that these passages are arguing that) than you unnecessarily force a hermeneutic on the scripture that will effect ones ability to properly and accurately interpret these passages. Good idea...there are some biblical models of this....I just don't think that you can communicate it dogmatically as though it is THE paradigm of NT preaching ministry. I think he's on to something though.

Dean Johnson

commented on Nov 13, 2012

OK, the topic of the video is one thing--I found it helpful. But I'm just as struck by the way it was presented, as a video filmed at the speaker's computer, with added photo's and texts, etc. to the right. I wonder if I need to look into this as a way to present teaching on certain topics for our people on our church web site. What do I need to be able to do what this speaker did?

Jr Miler

commented on Nov 18, 2012

@Dean Johnson, Hi Dean, the software I use is called ScreenFlow from Telestream. I cant post links here, but if you Google the name, you will find it. If you have further questions, you can contact me through my blog. The link is below the video in the author bio.

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