Why I preach different on the road than I do at home

Some folks who hear me at venues or in Gospel Meetings think I can preach others wonder how I’ve been able to stay anywhere for more than a week or two. In all honesty, I tend to agree with the second group! I was listening to a friend the other day who I’ve heard speak in one of our big box events several times. He was preaching on his home turf and I thought “he’s very different at home and away.” I started thinking about why those differences exist. 

1. At home I do not have to have as many disclaimers as I might on the road. I don’t have to take the pains to tell all I’m not saying at home because they know me. There are some verbal short-hands. There are some known pre-discussed non-negotiables. 

2. At home I know the needs more specifically: I will get to the point sometimes quicker. “We are all from here,” and we all know these are the issues we are dealing within our community, our congregation, our area. I know the hurt of a broken heart new or old in the pew because I know that heart and was a part of its life when it was broken. I may be more gentle in some areas and more direct in others because I know pastorally what they are facing. 

3. I love those people differently: Let me explain, I love everyone but I love Lucas, Holley, Mamie Grace, Addy, and Mia more than I love your grandchildren. And if you don’t understand that then you don’t have grandchildren! I will give them more attention, more care. Yes, I love every audience I stand before but I have a deeper and more knowledgable love for the folks at my home congregation. At home, I may lovingly correct even my grandkids but if I’m in the grocery store, I don’t correct the kids at tables around me. 

4. In one of our many big-box events or TJI events we are speaking most often to the leaders and the ministers of the church. There is an expectation of general maturity from those audiences. 

5. There are issues in the brotherhood that may not need to be addressed at this point in my home congregation but may need to be addressed in talking with a broader audience or other audiences. For instance, I have never addressed the issue of dowries at Spring Meadows, but if I preach in Nigeria about marriages it is a subject I better be prepared to deal with. The truth is if you are not prepared to address the specific needs of a specific audience you really are not ready to address that audience at all. When I speak in a venue that might be tempted to lean left, I am going to hit harder on the dangers of allowing the authority of the Word to slip. If I preach to an audience where they have a reputation of leaning right I am going to deal with the dangers of dogmatism. 

In striving to declare the whole counsel of God and to cease not to preach and teach Jesus Christ my duty demand that I care deeply that the Word I string to bring them from the Lord is most effective and above all that I speak truth in love.