What Advice Do You Have For Developing A Teaching Style?

Q: As someone new to giving sermons as a chaplain candidate in the army, what advice do you have regarding developing my style?

A: First of all, God bless you for your interest in being a chaplain for the army. I assume you mean the US Army. The US Army, like any army around the world, needs biblical, God-loving, born-again chaplains to shepherd and minister to the spiritual needs of the soldiers.

As far as developing your own style, this is something that inevitably takes time. I think it took me about ten years to figure out who I was in the pulpit. What I mean by that is to be confident in who and what God made me to be in my preaching and to be able to just preach as myself.

When we begin teaching and preaching, we will inevitably copy some of the people we admire. It's a very natural thing to do. However, you shouldn't rest there. As you continue to preach and teach, pray that God would give you an understanding of who He wants you to be in the pulpit. Trust that God can really use you. It takes a lot of faith to believe that God can use us as we are, rather than thinking we need to imitate someone we respect.