As we prepare your future pastors, they often tell us they’re excited about their future vocation, but their knees get a little shaky when they consider stepping into that pulpit.

We know they’ll get lots of preaching practice at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, but we want to give them a positive start here too. So they preach for evening chapel at MLC, and they prepare for it in a course with Dr. Mark Paustian called Advanced Christian Rhetoric.

We asked three preseminary students to tell us about this course—and to share their thoughts with prospective students who might be a little terrified about preaching too.

If you know a high schooler or second-career gentleman who might be encouraged by this article, please pass it on!

Jon Holtz

(St. Paul-Appleton WI)

He gets it: When I was in high school trying to decide if I wanted to go to MLC, preaching was the thing I was worried about the most. So if you’re in a similar spot—don’t worry about it! Seriously, all of us were in the same boat at some point or another. Whether it’s your hometown pastor, your favorite preacher, a random MLC senior, or maybe even the preaching professor—I’d be willing to bet they all had quite a bit of nerves when they started preaching. It’s normal, and you’ll find, in many ways, part of the fun.

How he prepares: My general process follows a little phrase we learned in our Advanced Christian Rhetoric (ACR) course taught by Dr. Mark Paustian NWC ’84, WLS ’88: Study yourself full (hours of digging into the text). Think yourself empty (spend some time thinking and freewriting all this stuff you’re absorbing). Then write yourself clear (distill it down and revise it).

And of course he prays: Whether you’re writing your sermon and asking for help after hitting a roadblock, or your hands are shaking and it’s 15 seconds before you stand up in the pulpit, you’ll get to experience the simple but undeniable comfort that bringing these things to your God in prayer provides.

Psst: I’ll also let you in on a little secret: There are actually quite a few pastors on campus (aka guys that know how to write really good sermons). They are great sources to draw from, and they love it when you run stuff by them. I have used them often.

He loves ACR: This preaching class is awesome. It takes you step by step through the entire process of writing and delivering a message. This slow, detail-oriented pace not only makes the process a lot less daunting, but leads to a quality product that you’re excited to share with people. And it’s very collaborative. Everyone works together, bouncing ideas, offering advice, hyping each other up. Through experiences like this, you really start to form a cool bond with your classmates.

Luke Wegner

(St. Marcus-Milwaukee)

He’s a memorizer: I’m someone who wants to give my best at whatever I do, so I spend a lot of time preparing the message and memorizing it. You never want to forget a line or say the wrong thing, but thankfully, you get to have your message up there with you in case you lose your spot.

When he’s nervous: I say a prayer. God is always with me, and he has gotten me through every nerve-wracking time of my life so far, so I know I can trust him, no matter the situation.

What he learned in Advanced Christian Rhetoric: This class’s main goal is to help you write your chapel devotion. The second half of the class is a cool introduction to Christian apologetics.

When you’re preparing to write your chapel, you don’t just sit down and write about the first thing that comes to mind. Professor Paustian always reminded us to “marry the text,” which really means to fall in love with the section of Scripture that you get to preach about. You want to know it so well and so intimately. You want to ask questions about the text and find answers. Then, once you have prayed a lot about it and have filled up your mind with so many ideas, you want to think them through so that they are clear and organized as thoughts. Then, after the lengthy brainstorming process, the actual writing process is so much easier because, at that point, you have already thought so much about it that you have a pretty clear idea of what you want to say.

ACR is wonderful because you and your whole class are each preparing your own unique chapel message on a different section of Scripture. So, while you’re all in the process of learning how to write and writing your chapel, you get to meet, brainstorm, share ideas, and even practice your chapel in front of each other, getting feedback on what was good and what to improve. This was such a valuable experience for me. “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17).

It’s such an awesome experience and so cool to be coached and mentored by such amazing professors as Professor Paustian at MLC (pictured with Luke).

Why he finds preaching so awesome: The goal is never about what you want to say, but how you can illuminate what God is trying to say. You get to keep the focus on Jesus. You get to show what he’s done for you and proclaim his gospel with joy. (So never forget to smile!) The truth is, you are always preaching to yourself first. In your study of your text, the law cuts your own heart, and the gospel heals it that much more. So later, when you get to preach about the text, you get to take the listeners on a journey similar to the one you yourself have already been on.