8 Reasons We Need to Rejoice over Preaching to People through a Camera

As a preacher who preaches almost every Sunday, I understand the angst we have in preaching to people through a camera each week during this COVID-19 crisis. I miss seeing faces, watching body language, and hearing responses to the Word. Nevertheless, here are some reasons to rejoice that we have this option:

1. This is an opportunity—not a headache—to preach through electronic media. Recording a sermon weekly would have been much more difficult when I started pastoring almost 40 years ago. Now, we can record in our offices.
2. We have the freedom to proclaim the gospel broadly without fear of persecution. We may not prefer the current preaching delivery systems, but we still get to preach the gospel. In many parts of the world, pastors and church leaders have no such freedom.
3. More people are hearing the gospel as we preach. They’re not all always staying for the whole sermon, but many of us report more views of our sermons than we ever had listeners when we were meeting together.
4. We’re learning the value of using digital means to proclaim the gospel. We’ve been forced to move in this direction, but we’re also realizing that there is great opportunity in what we’re doing. Even we can gather again, many churches will continue to capitalize on this approach.
5. We have to work harder at making our sermons concise and clear. We want to keep viewers engaged, so we have to think about the clarity and length of our sermons. That attention will pay off no matter how we’re delivering our sermons.
6. We have even more opportunity to reach the nations of the world. People from around the world now have access to many of our sermons, and some are hearing the gospel for the first time. Only God knows how broadly He will use our sermons preached to a camera.
7. If we’re pre-recording our sermons, we have the option of re-doing the weak parts of the sermon. When we’re preaching live, we don’t have much opportunity to re-work that confusing illustration, re-do that garbled sentence, or add some needed detail we think about after preaching. Now, we do have those opportunities—and most of us need them.
8. Not having a crowd in front of us is forcing us to evaluate our idols. Perhaps I’m the only one dealing with this issue, but I’m being pushed to ask, “Do I find my joy in preaching the gospel alone, or do I find it in preaching the gospel to a crowd that likes to hear me preach?” If I miss the pats on the back and the verbal affirmations after preaching, I might be leaning too far in the latter direction.

Preachers, what positive reasons to rejoice would you add to this list?