Joy Clark

It’s a great visual image often used in sermons and pastoral counseling: If you want to dance the tango, you need two able dancers working together. This is true when applied to spouses working together in love, but there is a problem with this illustration. Most often, we apply this not to cooperation, but to who is responsible for marriage problems. Essentially, if there is a problem in a relationship, both people are a part of the problem.

As I write this, I am a preacher on sabbatical after two years of weekly preaching. I am a “young” preacher in that this is my first preaching job, although not young in age. I have done exhausting jobs before, but this exhaustion caught me by surprise. So, for the sake of the tired preacher who feels unseen or for the congregation member who wants to understand the unique fatigue of their pastor, here is my attempt to explain why preaching, particularly with time limitations, is exhausting.