Why I’m a Closet Preacher and You Should Be Too

I am a closet preacher. By that I mean that I literally practice preaching in a closet.

My wife makes fun of me.

As newlyweds, we lived in the smallest one bedroom apartment imaginable. It was old, falling apart, and had the ugliest blue carpet you have ever seen. This carpet was so worn that it was flat in the middle of the room, but fluffy next to the walls.

Since there was no space, I had nowhere to rehearse my sermons in private.

I was too nervous to practice in front of her. So the only place I found to get away was our closet. I would go into the closet, shut the door, and preach to the coats.

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Without fail, every time I finish practicing, my wife says, “So, you finally decided to come out of the closet.” She laughs. I shake my head. That’s the routine.

But I am a creature of habit. This weird routine stuck. I still practice every sermon in our closet, even though I now have a lot more space in our house.

But here is one thing I have learned: If you want to preach like a great preacher, you have to prepare like one.

In college, I remember picking up the autobiography of Billy Graham, Just as I am.  Before he was a famous preacher and evangelist, Billy would go out into nature and practice his preaching to animals and trees.

That thought stuck with me. Billy Graham put in the work. He wasn’t just born a natural preacher. In fact, he wrote about how terrible his first sermon was. But while other people were out doing normal things, Billy was preaching to trees.

When nobody was watching, he was getting better. He was honing his craft.

I recently read the book Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. In the book Malcolm writes about the 10,000 hour rule. The rule basically says that it takes roughly 10,000 hours of practice before somebody becomes an expert at something.

“Practice isn’t the thing you do once you are good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.”

– Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

The reason people are successful is not always that they is more talented than everyone else. Most of the time it is that they took the opportunity to put in the time to get better earlier.

Billy Graham got his hours in early, and it paid off.

So as weird as my habit of preaching to coats is, I am putting in my hours. I am doing the work it takes to get better at my craft.

If you want the most out of your preaching, you have to put in the time.

Do the work.

Put in the hours.

It doesn’t matter if you are preaching to trees, coats, or a mirror. Keep practicing. Keep working on it.

Don’t settle on thinking you can get by on  talent alone, or fall into the trap of thinking you aren’t  talented enough.

If you have the fire inside you to preach, put in the hours.

You may not see results immediately, but over time it will pay off.

Where do you practice your preaching?

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