The recipient of the Joseph P. Blades award will be declared by Taylor’s PREACH program this October.
The award will recognize an everyday pastor faithfully doing his job with $5,000, an invitation to receive the honors and an offer to preach during a chapel service, said Timothy McConnell, director of the PREACH initiative.
The PREACH program, which stands for Preparing, Resourcing, Equipping and Coaching for Homiletic Excellence, is offering the Blades award for the first time this fall. PREACH offers classes on homiletics, the art of delivering sermons.
McConnell hopes students and alumni nominate pastors from all across America, he said.
“We’re really hoping to honor not just necessarily a large platform, but faithful preaching: faithful to the Word, faithful to the congregation, faithful to Christ,” McConnell said.
McConnell teaches PREACH classes through an online platform while pastoring Trinity Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs. He travels to Taylor every few weeks to work with students in person.
Through PREACH, McConnell hopes to instruct students in the basics of preaching. Life as a pastor is increasingly difficult: pastors grapple with how to respond to political issues and expectations from their congregations, he said.
That’s why it’s important to celebrate the role. The Blades award is an intentional first step toward this, McConnell said.
The accolade seeks to honor small-town, ordinary pastors, not to make pastors famous, Ethan Kleiman, graduate assistant of the PREACH program and teacher’s assistant for McConnell’s class, said.
“The goal is to recognize a small town pastor who is faithfully serving his community,” Kleiman said. “We want him to feel seen for the good work that he or she is doing.”
PREACH seeks to recognize existing pastors. It also strives to disciple the next generation of pastors by teaching students to craft engaging sermons, Kleiman said.
PREACH isn’t a complete seminary program. However, PREACH students interested in becoming qualified to pastor can learn the foundations of preaching through the program, McConnell said.
Kleiman encouraged anyone interested in the program to reach out.
“The PREACH initiative is for anybody, young or old, who is intrigued about the craft of preaching and wants to hone that craft,” Kleiman said. “If a student has a hunger in their heart to share the word with the rest of Taylor on the chapel stage, a great way to prepare for that is to be part of these initiatives.”
JD Jones, junior Christian ministries and Biblical literature major, has taken PREACH classes and spoken in chapel. Jones is passionate about preaching the Word of God, he said.
He felt God call him to preach when he spoke to a group of middle schoolers several summers ago, he said.
“I really felt through that experience that the Lord was calling me to that, because I really enjoyed it and had a passion for it,” Jones said.
Preaching is powerful because the Bible is powerful. Teaching can change lives, whether through a one-time experience or subconsciously over time, he said.
The Bible must be carefully interpreted. In the worst-case scenario, handling the Bible sloppily can unintentionally lead to heresy, Jones said.
“We want to start training pastors, or just training people, to preach the Word of God rightly,” he said.
That’s what the PREACH initiative seeks to do — teach students how to properly interpret Scripture, so they can rightly share it with others, he said.
An important way to accomplish this is to understand the original audience. This practice makes the author’s original intent clearer, so that the message can be applied to a modern audience, Jones said.
Jones also learned to interact with his audiences through Dyson and McConnell’s instruction. When Jones spoke in chapel, the two sat down and combed through his message, helping him convey his message effectively.
Dyson and McConnell taught him to simplify his message using examples his audience could identify with, he said.
McConnell hoped more PREACH students would share messages in chapel in the near future, he said.
PREACH hopes to offer a preaching minor through the program as well. Currently, the program is developing this minor, facilitating fellowship events for PREACH students and pastors and developing additional classes, he said.
Kleiman encouraged any students curious about the process of preaching, interested in learning more about the PREACH initiative or excited about the idea of sharing a message in chapel to reach out and consider plugging into the PREACH initiative.
