The Preaching of Preachers-in-Training

　　For preachers, preaching is an extremely important part of ministry. They need to be faithful to God’s call for their entire lives and dedicate themselves to expounding the Word of God and shouldering the responsibilities of the preaching ministry. By including graduating student preaching into the curriculum seven years ago, the seminary intends to enable preachers-in-training to practice preaching on campus, allowing them to experience God’s grace and the encouragement, admonition and blessings of the entire seminary community.

　　Before they can graduate from the seminary, each of the graduating students will have to stand before the pulpit during the morning chapel service to preach a sermon to all the seminary’s faculty and students. The graduating students carefully prepare their sermons and conscientiously preach the Word of God while teachers and fellow students give them their full support. It is inevitable for these graduating students to feel nervous but what is especially touching and memorable is to be able to listen to one after another sincere sermon and see for ourselves the lives of one after another sincere preacher standing in front of us.

　　Generally speaking, two students are paired up to preach during the chapel hour. They usually preach different sermons. However, sometimes they choose closely related topics or even two closely connected passages so that the messages resonate with each other, like a bird flying on two wings. In this issue, we will publish sermons from three preachers-in-training in the hope that God will use them to inspire and encourage our readers. They are all different and yet, they resonate with each other as they talk about “the perseverance of love,” “submission,” “the willingness to suffer,” “praying with confidence,” and even “sowing in tears.” These sermons are especially valuable as they more or less reveal the reflection of a preacher-in-training on the life quality of a preacher.