Preaching is a uniquely wonderful but challenging part of congregational leadership and ministry. While many of us do our best to prepare and deliver the kinds of sermons that touch hearts, uplift and encourage people, serve as a catalyst for change, and have people leaving their pews energized and ready to work, we know that not every sermon does that. My peaching professor in seminary began one of our class sessions with a powerful statement that I have engrained in my mind and heart. She said, “everything preaches and teaches.” This short but profound statement carries so much truth. Often, it’s not what we say, but what we do and how we show up that touches lives and delivers the good news in powerful ways.

I admit that I tend to favor preaching from the New Testament. It’s not to say that I don’t love or connect to the Hebrew Bible texts, it’s just that there’s something about the New Testament that captures the messiness and realness of the beginnings of the early church. I especially love the tenacity of very different people coming together to form a new thing. This feels so relevant and needed especially today. I find joy in challenging myself in preaching familiar texts in new ways, I love emphasizing Jesus’ humanity, and I especially love highlighting the stories of women and other “minor” characters that have a lot to teach us.

I recently started a sermon series using texts from the Hebrew Bible. I had worked hard to write the first sermon of this new series to serve several functions. I planned an introduction that served as a bridge to the previous passages we had been journeying with, I made sure to think of personal yet lighthearted anecdotes that could help make the passage relevant to our lives, and I even did my best to write a powerful conclusion that I hoped would encourage people to live out their faith beyond the walls of the church and especially in challenging moments of their lives. All that planning ended up going out the window. That morning I was running late to church. I had gotten a few calls and emails just the night before about changes in worship due to volunteers having unexpected emergencies, and I was trying to make last minute adjustments to adapt to those changes. I had also not had the best week. From having a few restless nights to changes in my family’s schedule due to the end of the school year and all that comes with that—it was a very draining week.

I was not feeling my best. I was tired and emotionally drained. I was also feeling empty in terms of my capacity to channel the kind of energy that it takes to deliver a sermon. I preach bilingually every week and it takes a lot of time and work to write sermons that don’t feel repetitive for those that understand both English and Spanish and that also build and move the message forward while alternating between two languages. I was struggling to follow my own manuscript and ended up preaching a completely different sermon than what was planned. All that I had worked so hard on remained on my iPad unspoken. I shed tears as I preached which made my voice crack. This wasn’t the dynamic way I wanted to preach that day.

But on that Sunday, I embodied what I was saying. I embodied a message that many need to hear and see. God can use you even when you feel overwhelmed and not at your best.

Some days it’s hard to find the energy within yourself to deliver a message that will encourage others. These are the Sundays that I sometimes feel upset and disappointed at myself because I didn’t preach the message I had planned or wanted to share. But—these are also the Sundays when people give me the most positive feedback and thank yous. They share with me how connected they felt to what I was saying but also to how I showed up.

Everything preaches and teaches, and sometimes we forget that the most powerful messages are not always the ones we write.

Published in the June 2023 issue of For the Messengers

Rev. Tanya Lopez is the Senior Pastor of Downey Memorial Christian Church, a bilingual congregation in southern California. She has a passion for helping people create community together in new ways and seeks to lead and serve others from a place of radical hospitality, welcome, and inclusivity.

You might also find helpful:

• Teaching and Preaching — Rev. Sara Nave-Fisher on weaving education and Bible study into Sunday worship
• Preaching for All Ages — practical tips for forming congregants of every age through the sermon
• Characteristics of Disciples Preaching — a grounding in the theology and community practices that shape how Disciples preachers proclaim