Encouragement from an unlikely source

Mark Driscoll recently wrote, "By way of preface, I will simply say to all the young preachers that preaching is like driving a clutch; it takes a long time to do well if you live through the practice. In high school I was the student body president who did a lot of public speaking to large groups. In college I got my B.A. in Speech, and following college I spent some years as a co-host for a national radio show while also teaching a college group twice weekly in a multi-ethnic church. So, I began Mars Hill Church ten years ago at the age of twenty-five thinking I could step in and preach just fine, only to discover that it was the hardest thing I had ever done. The difficulty of coming up with fresh insights combined with the difficulty of finding my own voice and speaking with clarity, candor, and confidence, not to mention some comedy, took hundreds of sermons to even begin to overcome regularly."

Though the "cussing preacher" is not my role-model for ministry (or preaching) he does offer some insightful thoughts in his most recent blog.

Seeing i have preached fewer than 15 sermons in my life combined with the fact that he said he takes lots of practice and hundreds of sermons before you really get comfortable in the pulpit is definitely a source of encouragment to me.