Summer 2009 | Volume 67, No. 4

Steven Smith: The Preacher's Spirit

by Keith Collier

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“I don’t remember much about it. I just remember begging God that I wouldn’t blow it,” Steven Smith says jokingly about his first sermon in a church.

Although he had preached a message in chapel at his junior high, this 18-year-old was now standing in front of a crowd of teenagers at a revival meeting in what would become a defining moment in his call to preach. He realized the seriousness of the task, and the weight forced him to a place of spiritual desperation.

Smith, a fifth-generation minister who felt called to preach at the age of 15, has come a long way in his preaching since that time, but he has never lost that spirit of humble desperation in proclaiming the Word.

In college, Smith preached in revivals, pulpit supply, and area-wide crusades with his father, Bailey Smith. He then spent eight years in the pastorate before coming to teach preaching at Southwestern in 2004.

Smith hopes to ingrain the same sense of genuine humility in his students. Realizing that some students trust too much in their abilities, Smith challenges them to understand the weight of Scripture so they will not treat it lightly.

“The greatest liability to our pulpit is the giftedness of its preachers,” says Smith.

Rather than rely on style and presentation, he encourages students to be driven by the text and guided by the Holy Spirit. He believes the starting place for preaching is a humble spirit birthed out of a correct theology of preaching. 

“This is not about you,” Smith tells students. “The pulpit is never a place to showcase rhetorical device. If there’s anything in you that is drawing attention to yourself, in so much that it is, it’s drawing attention away from the text. If you draw attention away from the text, then you draw attention away from Christ.”

Using 2 Corinthians 4:1-8, Smith teaches students that Paul’s template for ministry was suffering on behalf of others.

“Paul saw preaching as the act of dying,” says Smith.

Paraphrasing Paul’s sentiments, Smith says the preacher must communicate to his people “I’m going to die to my right for you to think I’m smart. I’m going to die to my right for you to think I’m a good communicator. And in this death, you’re going to live spiritually.

“The more a preacher dies to himself in the pulpit, the more the people live,” Smith says.

Smith has written a book on the subject entitled Dying to Preach: Embracing the Cross in the Pulpit, which will be released this fall. In it, he argues that the message of the Gospel is the chief metaphor for its proclamation.

“Christ died so that we might live,” Smith says. “We go into the pulpit, and we die so that people might live. There can be no cross from the pulpit unless there’s a cross in the pulpit.”

Smith also warns students against false humility, which he says is really a form of pride. In an attempt to appear humble, some preachers hold back when the passage screams.

“If the text is screaming, and we’re quiet because we want to be authentic, we’re pretentious. We’re no longer authentic.”

Smith concludes that being an effective preacher starts with the right spirit. This foundation sets the preacher on a course to a long-term ministry characterized by a commitment to the Word of God and submission to the Holy Spirit.

“The guy who is going to be impressive is the guy who is a great preacher in 2020, not necessarily in 2009,” Smith says.  Truly great preaching is distinguished by consistency and longevity throughout one’s lifetime.

“In order for him to see that, he’s going to have to start with humility and faithfulness to the text. Skills are important, obviously, but a student can learn the skills in terms of rhetoric and communication.”

Because of a robust M.Div. program, Smith says current Southwestern students have a strong biblical theology and can handle the text very well. People outside of the seminary often ask him what kind of “preacher-boys” he has in his classes.

“If they could hear what I hear in the classroom,” Smith says, “they would be very encouraged about the future of our convention.”

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