Preacher's Block

This preaching tip was shared by Preacher’s Block co-founder, Hunter Bethea. If you’re interested in joining the most focused preachers in the world and getting these tips sent to your inbox every week, sign up here.

Mother’s Day is often portrayed as a joyous occasion—one when mothers are celebrated and children praise the ones who gave them life. That makes for nice Hallmark movies and sells lots of cards, chocolate, and spa gift cards… but it’s just not real life.

Mother’s Day—like most civic holidays—is complicated. Some mothers can’t be called; others can’t be celebrated; yet others don’t even know their children. Some children despise their mothers; some children have been buried; and some children are still being longed into existence.

In other words, Mother’s Day is complicated. Today, as I looked around my congregation I saw all sorts of people: those whose college kids were home to celebrate them, those who had recently lost a mother and grandmother, those who are reeling from a miscarriage, those whose mother recently had a scary diagnosis, those who are being raised by a foster mother, those who wished they had children but don’t, those who are estranged from their child, those who are estranged from their mother, those who have had to bury a child…

A day as complicated as Mother’s Day reminds us of our charge as preachers: to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Every Sunday, it’s highly likely that there are multiple people feeling afflicted in your pews. They need to hear from the God who sees them and knows them. They need to be comforted by God through your words.

And every Sunday, it’s highly likely that there are those who have become comfortable. They have phoned it in as Christians and will continue to do so until they feel a bit of affliction. They need a bit of a kick in the pants, a fire under them, to wake them up to the life God calls them to. They need to be afflicted by God through your words.

We would do well to remember these two categories of people each week. Is there hope and comfort in your sermon for the afflicted? Is there tension and challenge in your sermon for the comfortable? If not, how can you hold these two values in tension as you preach this week?