Leaders are going somewhere. To lead is to take a group of people from where they are to some other place. We presume that place will be an improvement, though it might not always be the case. There are good leaders and there are bad leaders, but they are all going someplace.

Preaching is an act of leadership, which is to say that it is about taking people from one place to another. We have a vision of another setting we think is preferable. We purpose by our preaching to take others to that place. Sometimes that place is welcome and exciting, like a botanic garden. Other times it is hard and barren like a Judean desert. But preachers know we have to go there, and they will lead us to the place that God has called us.

The Kingdom of God is in motion. We preach the coming of God’s Kingdom. There is a trajectory to the things of God. The church is in motion, steadily pursuing the purposes of God until the day we see in full that his Kingdom has come, on earth as it is in heaven. We do not do well in stasis. We must be moving toward the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. We are going to need a leader.

I admit I am not easily led. I tend to be suspicious of another person’s vision. I am not quick to join the journey to someone else’s destination. It is stubbornness and selfishness, with an unhealthy dose of pride. It’s why I don’t like bus tours or cruise ships or any kind of situation where someone else is dictating the terms of my adventure. I would prefer to choose my own. I like to be in charge, which might be why I chose to be the preacher, so that I do not have to listen and submit to others. (Did I really just say that out loud?)

This is one of the reasons that preaching is so hard. People are comfortable in their places. We chose our church because we like it there. It suits us. We don’t want to have to go some other place. In a world that moves so rapidly, church ought to be the one place where we do not have to change or be confronted with a call to move or grow or be transformed into something we’re not sure we want to be. Inertia, the bane of preachers everywhere, is our preferred state of being.

The first act of leadership in preaching is to lead people to consider that God might offer something else and something better. Preachers have to reveal to us the poverty of our present, while offering us a picture of the promise of the gospel. Preachers who lead will awaken a sense of holy discontent with the poorness of our place in contrast to the promise of God’s purpose. Leaders are able to see a vision of something higher and can preach us to the place where we can see it too.

That might be an actual physical place. It might be that we are called to leave where we are in order to pursue the mission that God has for us. Or that place might be more personal and spiritual—a leading toward a more faithful spirit as we pray and think about the character we show.

I will not forget that sermon that led me to risk my job in order to more faithfully obey what God was leading me toward. I remember the preacher that led me toward a more honest appraisal of my inner life before God.

Being led is never easy until it is—until we find the joy in self-surrender. Preachers also must be willing to be so led.

Kenton C. Anderson is President and Professor of Homiletics at Northwest Baptist Seminary in Langley, British Columbia.