When You're Not Sure Preaching Is Working
A leader article on invisible fruit, lectionary preaching angles for June 7, useful links, and a discipleship series from the archive.
One of the reasons this week’s theme feels personal to me is that so much of my own ministry is fruit from someone else’s faithful preaching. Pastor Danny Kirk invested in people, preached the gospel with warmth and conviction, and shaped lives in ways he probably never fully saw. I know because I am one of them.
That is part of what I have been thinking about this week. Preaching often does its deepest work on a timeline we do not control. We prepare, preach, pray, and then wonder whether any of it mattered, while God quietly keeps growing what was planted. Sometimes the fruit shows up years later in another pastor, another church, another season of courage.
Featured Article
Most weeks, you can’t tell. You preach a sermon you believe in. You stand at the door. People shake your hand, say “good word, pastor,” and head to lunch. By Tuesday you are not sure if anything you said landed anywhere.
The article this week is about the hidden timeline of preaching, and why most of the fruit ripens out of sight.
Lectionary Preaching Angles
This week’s lectionary section is built around four short Possible Preaching Angles from the Proper 5, Year A readings for Sunday, June 7, 2026.
When the Call Comes Before the Map
Genesis 12:1-9. Abram does not get a map, only a voice, and the call comes before the destination is revealed.When the Speaker Is the Creator
Psalm 33:1-12. When the God who spoke creation into existence tells you to move, the question is whether you trust the One who is speaking.When Circumstances Do Not Get the Final Word
Romans 4:13-25. Abraham’s trust is not optimism or certainty, but a refusal to let circumstances have the final word.Jesus Crosses the Lines We Draw
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26. Jesus crosses lines others have drawn, moving through social, purity, reputational, and even death-dealing boundaries.
Helpful Links for Leaders
Persuading Like James
Jeffrey Arthurs offers a practical reminder that preaching is not only about getting the point right but about making it concrete enough to live in the imagination. Helpful if you are working hard on faithful sermons and still wondering why some of them land more deeply than others.Self-Control, the Leader’s Make-or-Break Virtue
Drew Dyck on the kind of slow inner strength that keeps leaders from burning through their own calling. A useful companion to this week’s article because invisible fruit often requires invisible discipline too.Avoiding The Trap Of A Punch-The-Clock Mentality In Ministry
Karl Vaters names a ministry posture that quietly drains joy and turns calling into mere output. Worth reading if your week-to-week work has started to feel more transactional than pastoral.Derwin Gray, The High Definition Leader
One of the strongest recent lines in my Readwise stack came from Derwin L. Gray’s book The High Definition Leader: “We are no longer in a black or white America. We are in a multicolored, high-definition America.” That vision is not trendy window dressing. It names the kind of cross-cultural leadership the church still badly needs.Traditional Hot-Button Issues Still Dominate Political Talk from the Pulpit
This one is worth reading less for outrage and more for reflection. It raises a fair question about what pastors keep centering from the pulpit, and what that reveals about our imagination, our fear, and our blind spots.
A Legacy Worth Revisiting
Part of why this theme matters to me is that I am still living inside the influence of Pastor Danny Kirk’s ministry. I have been preserving more of his sermon notes and messages at Preaching for Change, both because they continue to help me and because I think they can still serve other pastors and churches.
Start with Messages by Pastor Danny R. Kirk
From the Archive
If you are preaching or leading around the question of faithful formation over time, the This Is the Way series is a useful archive to revisit. It gathers sermon resources around the actual shape of following Jesus, not just admiring him from a safe distance.
A Quiet Note
If you are leading through a season where the next step feels hard to name, I offer coaching for leaders who need a quieter place to sort through burnout, calling, clarity, and courage. I also help churches and organizations communicate more clearly through 5ox Creative when the work is more about websites, messaging, or digital strategy.
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Keep going. The next faithful step counts.