Team Preaching for Pulpit Supply

Being without a pastor can be challenging for a congregation. Elders and deacons often take on more responsibilities, including finding someone to preach every Sunday. In addition, the sermons of visiting preachers don’t always mesh with the congregation’s current experiences and concerns. 

Some churches, though, have learned to be proactive in situations like this by experimenting with a team approach to pulpit supply, and that has helped to provide consistency in preaching and a greater sense of continuity for church members. The team-preaching approach was first piloted nearly two decades ago by Willowdale CRC in Toronto, Ont., in 2008.

“When Willowdale first developed the concept, its primary rationale was a longing for preaching that knew what lived in the congregation and intentionally shared the Word in a way that spoke directly to them,” said Syd Hielema, one of the pastors involved in Willowdale’s team preaching model. 

We tend to call churches “vacant” when they are searching for a new pastor, and that is really a misnomer, noted Lesli van Milligen, director of Thrive and a member of two team-preaching groups in the Toronto area. “They may not currently have a pastor, but God is very faithful in raising up leaders from within the body to continue the work God has called that congregation to,” she said. “I think the ‘vacancy’ feeling comes from a lack of continuity in the pulpit,” and this is “felt deeply because that is one place the entire community is reminded that they are still looking for their next pastor.”

A common approach for churches without a pastor is to create a schedule after contacting available preachers in the area to see who can take a Sunday. As a result, there is often a different preacher each Sunday—and no coordination between them. The visiting preachers also tend to use sermons they have already preached in other congregations. 

The team model that Willowdale piloted is different. 

“A preaching team is a group of preachers (anywhere from three to six) who fill the pulpit of a vacant church among themselves and coordinate their preaching with one another,” explained Ben Gresik, who recently wrote about this model in a post on The Network. 

“This coordination is an essential part of a preaching team,” wrote Gresik in a report he included with the Network post. “When a team works together, they meet once a quarter to plan the preaching for upcoming months. In this time, they brainstorm, plan sermon topics, and determine who is preaching on which Sundays. In between these meetings, preachers share some information about their sermons to help create continuity. In one team, preachers were asked to share a three-sentence summary of the message of the sermon, and then three sentences about the preacher’s experience in worship. These summaries would go into a Google Doc that each member could access and refer to for their own preparation between meetings. One preacher is usually chosen as the ‘quarterback’ and helps send emails, schedule meetings, and take any communications from the church.”

The coordinated sermons can be a series on the same Bible passage, a series that follows a book of the Bible in order, or a series that explores a specific theme. The point is that the sermons are intentional and designed to meet the spiritual needs of the church community.

This model has worked, said the team preachers and the congregations they have served.

Hielema, who was part of Willowdale’s original pulpit supply preaching team in 2008, said that a group of three pastors worked together to coordinate their messages for about a year until a full-time pastor was found. 

“The preaching team took steps to get to know the congregation by having discussions with various leaders,” he said. “What especially helped in Willowdale was an after-church question-and-answer time reflecting on the sermon. This immediate feedback loop was invaluable for fulfilling the council's goal for the preaching team.”

When Willowdale found themselves in transition again years later, they implemented this model a second time, with both Hielema and van Milligen participating. This time the team preaching continued for five years while the congregation figured out their next steps.

“I have been on two preaching teams now,” said van Milligen. “And both of those churches said it did not feel like they were vacant. Interestingly enough, I didn't do much other than preach . . . ..maybe a few workshops or brief consultations . . . but I didn't attend leadership meetings. Instead, the God-provided leadership was stepping up in these churches to create another level of leadership continuity, and yet the broader community still felt less anxiety because they didn't have to wonder about what would take place at a Sunday worship service.”

After serving on two preaching teams at Willowdale, Hielema said he has now taken the approach to another congregation and continues to find deep joy in it. 

“Preaching is a solitary activity, so reflecting with a team every three months on what we’ve learned from the previous three months and where we hope to go in the coming three is very life-giving,” he said about being part of a preaching team.

To learn more about this approach, including an exploration of some advantages and disadvantages in the team-preaching model, see Gresik’s Network post.