Preaching, Lament and the Work of Showing Up Again Next Sunday

Season 7 of the Ministry Forum Podcast launches September 8 with my conversation with the Rev. Dr. Michael Brooks, Lead Minister at Port Nelson United Church in Burlington and the recipient of the 2026 Paul Scott Wilson Preaching Award.

Michael has been preaching at Port Nelson for nearly 18 years — we talk about the joys and challenges of serving in one congregation for this long, and what happens when the preaching well runs a little dry —because eventually it does. At one point Michael compared preaching to baseball, which might be a helpful analogy for anyone who has ever put a little too much pressure on themselves on a Saturday night. You’re aiming to hit a solid single most of the time. Occasionally you hit a home run. Sometimes you strike out. The Holy Spirit works with what you bring, and before long you’re preparing to do it all over again.

Giving people room to lament

We also spent quite a bit of the conversation talking about Michael’s doctoral work, Lament: From Preaching to Permitting. A project that grew out of a season of grief and loss in his congregation. His work through this time led him into a deeper exploration of lament, as something we find throughout Scripture, and something we should make room for in the life of the church.

“People were hungry to have grief and loss actually named and acknowledged in a sermon.”

Michael talks about lament as a kind of container for grief, a gift our faith already gives us when we don’t have an easy answer for what has happened. And while we might immediately think about personal experiences of death and loss, there’s a communal side to lament as well.

We also talk a bit about what that could mean for churches right now, as many congregations carry grief about things that have changed or disappeared. Attendance isn’t what it once was. A ministry ends. A church closes. People remember what used to happen in a building or who used to sit in a particular pew, and sometimes our instinct is to move fairly quickly into whatever comes next.

There is certainly a time for looking ahead, but Michael’s work reminds us that we don’t always have to hurry people there. Our scriptures give us plenty of examples of people telling the truth about grief, individually and together, and trusting that God can meet us there too.

The gift of the local preacher

We also get into the question of what preaching offers in a time when we have access to more voices, more resources and more information than we could ever actually use. You can pull up a great sermon or TED Talk in seconds, listen to some of the best preachers in the world from your kitchen, and now, of course, there’s AI — which can generate something polished on just about any topic you give it.

Michael’s response to all of that is less about competing with those things, and more about recognizing what is particular about the work of a local preacher.

“Absolutely nothing, including TED Talks and AI, can replace the authenticity of the local preacher.”

Because the local preacher knows their people. They know some of what is happening in their lives, what the congregation has been through together, what is happening in the community around them. They’ve been there for the hospital visits and funerals, the celebrations, the difficult seasons and all of the fairly ordinary stuff in between. All of that becomes part of what we bring with us when we step into the pulpit.

Michael talks about those moments when someone comes up after worship and says, “I felt like you were speaking directly to me today,” even though you weren’t actually thinking about that person when you wrote the sermon. There’s something about preaching within an ongoing relationship that makes those moments possible.

It was a good reminder for me that the value of local preaching isn’t necessarily found in producing the most polished sermon in the room. We’re preaching to people we know, in communities we’re part of, week after week. There’s an authenticity in that which is pretty difficult to replicate.

Lester Randall 2026

Congratulations again to the Rev. Dr. Michael Brooks on being named the 2026 Paul Scott Wilson Preacher. Michael will preach the opening sermon at this year’s Lester Randall Preaching Fellowship, and we’ll be there in the audience to hear it!

Ministry Forum has been glad to support The Lester Randall Preaching Fellowship for the past several years, and we’re excited to be a sponsor again this October. Earlier this spring, we also gave away two registrations to Rev. Marianne Emig Carr and Rev. Barry Carr, who will be joining us this year and sharing a bit about their experience afterwards.

If you’ve been thinking about attending Lester Randall yourself, there’s still time to get it on your calendar. This year’s theme is Preaching Jesus Christ, with a few days of preaching, worship, workshops and conversation alongside people from different denominations and ministry contexts. One of the things I’ve really come to appreciate about Lester Randall is that it’s small enough to actually spend time together. You’re not just listening to people from a stage — you’re sitting together over lunch, continuing conversations between sessions, meeting other people who understand both the joy and the sometimes lonely work of preaching week after week.

So, maybe we’ll see you there this October. And before then, I hope you’ll listen to my full conversation with Michael as we kick off Season 7 of the Ministry Forum Podcast.