Preaching the Word

Point’s Center for Compelling Preaching is helping preachers adapt to the challenges of ministry in the 21st century

BY AMBER BOWMAN

In the last five years, the unpredictability of the world we live in has become hard to ignore. Along with these changes has come a new epidemic: one of anxiety and loneliness. While these issues are more obvious among young adults and teenagers, no one is immune to them. One demographic that has witnessed the effects of an ever-isolated society is ministry leaders and pastors.

According to a 2022 study conducted by the Barna Group, 65 percent of pastors report feeling lonely or isolated in the past three months, as opposed to 42 percent in 2015. Additionally, while 92 percent of pastors say they feel well-supported by people around them, only 49 percent report feeling so frequently. The demands of ministry life are constantly increasing, and without proper support, these leaders run the risk of burnout, which is potentially damaging to their own spiritual lives, as well as harmful to their families and the ministries they serve.

One of Point University’s primary goals has always been to train preachers. Since its founding in 1937, Point has educated multiple generations of ministers who have served the church throughout the world. Although the University has since expanded its programs to include other majors, the College of Biblical Studies and Ministry continues in that work through the education of all Point students and through its newest initiative, the Center for Compelling Preaching.

In 2022, Lilly Endowment Inc. announced its new Compelling Preaching Initiative, which “seeks to cultivate practices among aspiring and active preachers that can help them to proclaim the gospel to a variety of audiences in more engaging and effective ways.” Eligible organizations were encouraged to submit their grant proposals for up to $1.25 million to be used for up to five years to launch their programs. A team at Point developed a proposal, which was selected by Lilly Endowment, along with 81 other organizations all representing the diversity of Christianity in America. These organizations are affiliated with mainline Protestant, evangelical, Catholic, Orthodox, Anabaptist and Pentecostal faith communities.

Point launched the Center for Compelling Preaching in 2024 with the goal of equipping full-time preachers, students pursuing ministry, and laypeople who have a call to preach, but no formal training. The Center is structured into five preaching peer groups led by professional coaches, most of whom are professors in the College of Biblical Studies and Ministry at Point. In the first year of the initiative, the Center received more sign-ups than there was capacity to accommodate, which was an encouragement to the leadership team that the program was greatly needed.

The preaching peer groups will run for one year. In 2024, the program kicked off with a weekend preaching conference in Atlanta.

“We brought in a world-class speaker, Dr. Mark Rutland, who is just off the charts in terms of content,” says David Allgire, executive director of the Center for Compelling Preaching. “We asked him to start with an inspirational talk to speak to the heart of preachers, and then he did more technical talks after that. All our people were there for the kickoff.”

The conference was a great encouragement for those who attended. “When you’re in the trenches of ministry, it can be hard to remember why you signed up in the first place,” says Dr. Nathan Jones ’07, associate professor of Christian ministry at Point. “From night one of the conference, it was like, ‘Oh, this is why.’

I think if you asked anyone there, it was a re- minder of the calling God has put on our lives and the joy that can be found in serving him.”

After the kickoff conference, the peer groups will meet virtually over Zoom once a month to discuss the loose curriculum provided by the Center. “We have content for each month,” says Allgire. “But we’re asking coaches to pivot based on the needs and makeup of the group.” For example, a group made up of more students than full-time preachers would require different content focused more on training and preparation than real-life experiences.

The peer groups serve multiple purposes for the participants. The primary aim is to sharpen the preaching skills of everyone in the group through mutual feedback and collaborative development. “We really want their preaching to become more compelling overall,” says Allgire.

The groups also exist to help carry the burden of preaching that many leaders experience. “We want the joy of preaching itself to be greater by lessening the burden of the overall preaching process through them helping each other. We want it to generally be more fun for them,” says Allgire.

Though the groups will only meet formally for one year, the long-term objective is that they would continue on after their year is over. “The vision and hope is that the groups would be perpetual,” says Allgire. “We know that it’s likely that some groups will stay together, and some will not, but our hope is that it’s a strong enough experience for them that they want to continue on.” Whether or not the groups stay together, the Center will add five more groups for the 2025 session and will continue to do so for the following years. “In the end, we would expect at least 125 preachers or potential preachers to have gone through our program,” says Allgire.

Point University’s mission is to educate students for Christ-centered service and leadership throughout the world. Through the Center for Compelling Preaching, the University is able to expand its mission to include more than current students in this goal. “The University has so much information, education and training available for its students,” says Allgire. “But it also has the capacity to raise up leaders who aren’t students. It can be a great resource to the church at large through things like the Center for Compelling Preaching.”

“Preaching has always been what Point is all about,” says Jones. “So as we change and grow, it just makes sense that this is what we’d be doing as an institution. Sure, it benefits the students who are in a peer group and get to learn from people who are practitioners right now, but the benefit is to the local church as much as it is to the University.”

The life of the Center for Compelling Preaching is still in its beginning stages, but Allgire and Jones are eagerly looking forward to how God will use the Center in the lives of preachers and the church at large. “There are so many ways this can serve the kingdom,” says Allgire. “I think we can help preachers be more effective, but we can also offer them encouragement and give them a longer life in ministry.”

Allgire is most eager about how the Center will serve lay people in the church who are not formally trained in preaching. “These people want to serve their churches, and their churches have a need for biblical teaching,” he says. “They may just not have access to a lot of resources. I’m most excited about giving access to the art of preaching to people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to or an opportunity for it.”

Jones believes that in a time of great discouragement for preachers, the Center for Compelling Preaching will help to spur them on. “I know that along the way, wheth- er we know about it or not, there’s going to be a preacher who is lonely and feels like they don’t want to do it anymore,” he says, “but because the Center for Compelling Preaching has supported them, they’re going to stick it out and do the kingdom work where they’re at. I’m really excited about that.”

The Center for Compelling Preaching also serves as a place for people who may not have interacted in their normal lives to meet and grow together. “I love that we’re learning from one another,” says Jones. “We’re all coming from different places, different backgrounds, different perspectives, and I think that can only help us get better, especially in the world we live in today. If we’re trying to reach people outside the church, and we can learn from each other and learn best practices, then there is no doubt we’re going to get better at what we’re doing.”

Registration for the 2025 cohort is already open, and due to overwhelming interest, there is currently a waiting list. Interested individuals should consider two qualifications before applying to the program. The first is a desire to grow in the craft of preaching. Second, that desire should be connected to some type of call to ministry. “That can mean a hundred different things,” explained Allgire. “Maybe you don’t want to call it preaching. Maybe it’s teaching or communicating, but ultimately, the primary requirement is a call to preach in some form.”

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 tells us, “Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their efforts. For if either falls, his companion can lift him up; but pity the one who falls without another to lift him up.” The work of preaching is not one that we are meant to bear alone. It can become far too weighty for one person and lead to mental, physical and spiritual health issues. With the support of a strong community, however, the responsibility of preaching to the church can be full of joy and purpose. Through the Center for Compelling Preaching, Point University is preparing a generation of preachers to do just that: preach the gospel to all with purpose and overwhelming joy.