Matt Woodley and Kevin Miller discuss their own experience with “Preaching Through Personal Pain.” Consequences often include physical exhaustion, and a false belief that personal pain disqualifies you from preaching. In this episode, you’ll find that it’s not uncommon for pastors to wrestle with pain, and there are ways to sort through it. Matt reflects on preaching the most difficult sermon of his life, at his dad’s funeral. Kevin talks about his experience pastoring, while wrestling with his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.

Check out the show notes:

• St. John of the Cross' poem “The Dark Night of the Soul”
• Kevin Miller’s sermon “Learning from Job”

2 Corinthians 11:28-29 (ESV)
“And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?”

Colossians 1:24-25 (ESV)
“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known."

Matt Woodley is the pastor of compassion ministries at Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, Illinois.