The topic of preaching has come up a couple of times here in the last few weeks, first when I talked about the conversation between Rowan Williams and Frank Skinner, and later when I wrote about my difficulties with the preaching contest that Mars Hill Church in Seattle recently held. In both those posts I raised the point that for preaching to be most effective, it must be done in a local context in which the pastor knows his flock well.

I've argued this in the past before, particularly when I have discussed the problems with the celebrity pastor phenomenon in modern evangelicalism. And as I have preached on a more regular basis over the past year, I have found this to be true from experience. While there are always exceptions to the rule, in general there will be something lacking from your preaching when you do not know who you are preaching to.

It seems that William Willimon agrees, as I read yesterday in his book, Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry:

Preaching derives part of its power because it is done by pastors. The one who stands in the pulpit to speak on Sunday is the one who has been with the flock, in a variety of settings, throughout the week and over the years. The lonely, detached preacher, cloistered away in the pastoral study for much of the week, is not the most fruitful image for faithful preaching. It is the pastor who stands at that fateful intersection between the biblical text and the congregational context, the one who rises each week in service to the congregation's, 'Is there any word from the Lord?' A sermon is not a perfectly prepared and delivered oration suitable for later publication. The sermon is an act of corporate worship within the gathered congregation. The pastor...[listens] to the biblical text on behalf of the congregation, so that the congregation may better hear the text. Therefore, the metaphor of the pastor as preacher is best employed within the context of the pastoral work within a parish where it is clear that the preacher is also pastor.

As I said above, it would not be fair to conclude that someone should never preach to people they don't know. But those who preach on a regular basis to the same congregation should be intimately familiar with their local context and the people they are preaching to. When the pastor really knows their parishioners, that is when the preaching will connect most deeply with them.