In Defense of High School Preaching Competitions

Last week our Christian school participated in our state’s Fine Arts, Bible, and Academic (FABA) competition as part of the Indiana Association of Christian Schools (IACS). I know, lots of acronyms. Since I’ve been on staff at our church/school, I’ve had the privilege of coaching guys preparing to preach for this competition. This was quite natural for me, because when I was in high school, our church participated in a different program called Talents for Christ (TFC) that also had a preaching competition. It seems like I’ve always been around “sermon competitions,” and I’ve always been a big fan. But some people are uncomfortable with preaching contests. I understand the hesitancy, but I think they’re worth it, and I want to make the case for why.

Should We Really Be Doing This?

Before I begin, let me steelman the case against high school preaching contests. Some argue that preaching isn’t the kind of thing you should judge or give awards for. “Congratulations, you are the best preacher.” Can we really know that? Should we really give out 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place medallions… for preaching? Someone who may have a technically excellent sermon that is well presented may not truly honor the Lord, and someone who struggles through a much weaker message might delight Him. God is looking on the heart, we only see the outside. How can we hope to say who is the best?

Plus, the true measure of a sermon is not what score a judge gives it but how God uses it. I think we’ve all walked away from impressive messages essentially unchanged, while at other times we’ve walked away from a speaker who wasn’t nearly as smooth or polished, yet a phrase or two that they said was greatly used by God to impact us. Do we really want to teach, then, that writing sermons and presenting them is all about technical excellence when God is the one who must work?

Furthermore, wouldn’t “winning” a preaching competition be counterproductive? Nothing will do more to stymie a preacher than pride. If it is the Spirit who must work for eternal spiritual fruit to result, why would we tempt young men to pride because we tell them they are good preachers, winning preachers? And if they don’t do well, might that not wrongly convince them that they aren’t cut out for this?

Despite these legitimate concerns, I think these competitions are helpful for the following reasons…

Preaching Competitions Give Opportunities for Preaching

This may seem obvious, but sermon contests give a chance for preaching. The reason I say this is not because there are no other opportunities for young men to practice preaching, but this is a great excuse to get started, and to get started early. I was in 7th grade when my senior pastor told me, “Ben, we need to get you preaching in Talents for Christ next year.” I was elated. We did get started, and I preached my first sermon in 8th grade. I then preached every year after that through my senior year. This introduction to preaching gave me a love for the discipline that continues to this day. I’m sure I probably would have gotten a chance to preach in high school even if I hadn’t done those competitions. But I doubt I would have been preaching in 8th grade.

Every year I encourage all the guys in our school to try the sermon category at least once. Maybe they’ll like it and be surprised to find that they are good at it. Maybe they will tank, and that’s fine. Not everyone is cut out to preach, but some guys are cut out to preach but won’t know it until they do. I’ve seen guys who weren’t the ones you would have picked start preaching and get excited about. Sermon contests are an easy, low-pressure way to make that pitch. They are a great excuse to give it a try.

Preaching Competitions Give Opportunities for Mentoring

When done well, these contests give opportunities for seasoned preachers to sit down with young men and work on a sermon. Now, that could happen without a sermon contest, but again, a sermon contest facilitates that a lot more than I’ve seen happen naturally. I still remember going into my senior pastor’s office as a junior higher when he walked me through what a thesis was, gave guidance about choosing main points, and then helped me as I wrote a sermon. And then he did that every year until I graduated. My senior year he taught me Greek, and when I won the state level he took me on a road trip to compete at the national level.

Now I have the chance to invest in other guys. We sit down and talk through what goes into a sermon. I help guide them through the process of picking a text or a topic, shaping that into a proposition and an outline, work through explanations, illustrations, and applications, and eventually give them feedback on their presentation. It’s fun to watch them go from awkwardly stepping into my office the first day we meet to cracking jokes by the end of our time together. Could we develop a program whereby we coach guys who are interested in preparing a sermon without the structure of a “competition”? I suppose we could, and maybe someone has done that, but I’ve never seen it.

Preaching Competitions Give Opportunities for Discipleship

But what about that nasty idea of “winning” and “losing” at, of all things, preaching! Well, I would say that life is about learning to enjoy the highs and lows in ways that honor God, because life is going to have both highs and lows. There’s no avoiding the fact that once you call it a competition, guys are going to want to win. And they will be excited if they win and disappointed if they don’t. Both of these are further opportunities for discipleship, for reminding them about what really matters and what truly counts as success in God’s eyes. And from what I’ve seen, many of these guys get it. There’s a special joy in watching someone work and work and then not get the result they want, and be content with the knowledge that they did their best, they grew, and God was honored. There’s a different kind of joy to watch someone who didn’t expect to win work hard and be surprised with success, and yet to humbly turn the attention back to God.

 

This year we had 19 young men compete in our state’s high school FABA competition. They trained, studied, prayed, and met with pastors on staff who coached them, mentored them, encouraged them, and supported them. We had good success the day of the competition, but that isn’t what stands out to me. What stands out to me is sitting in my office and hearing several of my peers talking through homiletics with 10th graders. What stands out in my mind is a junior pouring over his outline and moving things around to make sure his points are crystal clear. What stands out in my mind are the people who’ve gone through our school, done the sermon competition repeatedly, and are now training for ministry.

Preaching competitions aren’t perfect, I get that. And there are real dangers of pride and a certain degree of artificiality that must be overcome, I get that, too. But I’m in ministry today in part because a pastor invested in me as junior higher so that I could compete in a preaching competition. They might not be perfect, but from what I’ve seen, high school preaching competitions do a lot of good.

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Ben Hicks is the Associate Pastor at Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Indianapolis. This article originally appeared on his Substack.