What does it actually mean to be called to pastoral ministry, and how do you become good at it? In this episode of the Courageous Ambassador Podcast, Danny Garcia sits down with Pastor Jim Shemaria of Celebration Bible Church to talk about the craft of preaching, the danger of platform-building, and what Eugene Peterson taught a generation of pastors about staying faithful to their flock. If you are a pastoral student, a young minister, or someone trying to figure out where God is calling you, this conversation is for you.
Truth at Face Value
Danny: Something I’ve always appreciated about your style of preaching is that it draws people in. It’s not just presenting truth at face value; it’s like you’re inviting people to actually partake in it. Is that something intentional, or has it developed naturally?
Jim: The most important thing for any preacher is knowing who you’re preaching to. When I preach at Celebration Bible Church, I’m speaking to people I know. I can look out into the congregation and have a general sense of what’s going on in their lives. It’s so different to preach that way than to just put together a lesson.
Beyond that, I’m really captivated by the idea that every time you preach, something alive is happening. That’s the Holy Spirit at work in the Word of God. As you sit there with whatever is happening in your life that day, and I stand there with whatever is happening in mine, the Word of God is moving between us. It’s living and active, just like Hebrews says. When we preach well, we leave space for the Holy Spirit to do that. We ask people to bring themselves to the text, just as we’re trying to bring ourselves to it, and trust that the Spirit will fill those gaps.
Less Performance, More Presence
Danny: What has changed in how you prepare a sermon now that you’ve gotten to know your congregation?
Jim: If I were to look at my preaching from ten or fifteen years ago compared to now, the biggest shift is that it’s much less performative. Early on, most people who preach want people to know they’re a good preacher. There’s this desire for someone to walk away thinking, “Wow, that was a great sermon.” Now, my preaching is much more pastoral. I’m less interested in performing and more interested in bringing my people into the text of Scripture.
I’m thinking less about big ideas and sweeping concepts. My intention is not trying to change the world with my sermons; I’m trying to get people to pay attention to what God is doing in their little moment right now. My whole approach to pastoral work has become about getting smaller. More focused on this congregation, not about what I’m putting out into the world.
The Danger of Preaching to a Camera
Danny: We live in a digital age where everything has to feel like a production. How do you navigate that tension?
Jim: One of the best things I’ve done is detach myself from a lot of that. It’s so hard when you’re constantly measuring yourself against every preacher out there. And it does seem like many people are preaching with one eye on how something could become a fifteen-second clip or be Instagrammable.
That’s fine; social media has its place. But I’d be doing a disservice to the people who are actually present in that room. I’m preaching to those people on Sunday morning at 10 o’clock at 4690 8th Avenue Southwest. That’s what’s happening.
That smallness has been healing for me. When I engage in the small, I stop worrying about whether something is TikTokable or how it’ll help a platform. And I think it’s pretty radically countercultural, because there aren’t many places in people’s lives where they’re being encouraged to just be present in the smallness. Social media is constantly asking us to curate and to expand our platform and sphere of influence. But in church, a guy I know, Trig Johnson, said it well: when we show up to church, we’re not being asked to perform. We’re just being asked to pay attention. That’s been a really important concept for me. I’m not here to perform. I’m just here to pay attention.
Authenticity as Theology
Danny: Taking yourself out of that equation gives you freedom to actually work with the Word of God. It’s different from how we’re used to showing up in the world, where you have to present yourself a certain way. But this is like, God wants me just as I am, and He’ll take that and transform me. That’s the true authenticity.
Jim: That’s right. It’s a theological truth about who God is and who we are that we’re trying to teach even through the way that we preach, not just what we preach but how we preach. Being focused on these people validates something: this little church in Grandville, Michigan, matters. God is at work in these people.
It’s worth remembering we’ve only had to think about livestreaming for about six years. My church was absolutely not livestreaming before COVID, and I think that’s true for most churches. Every sermon being public domain wasn’t even a thought. Preachers were always preaching to their congregation because no one else was going to hear it. But now a twenty-person church puts their sermons online, and subconsciously there’s this sense that more people than just your church are watching. That has radically shifted how we approach church, and we didn’t give enough thought to it before we jumped in. I don’t mean my church specifically; I mean American church culture in general. We didn’t stop to ask, “What is this going to do to the way we gather together on a Sunday morning?”
Finding Your Place on the Spectrum
Danny: When I was coming into understanding who I was, I really struggled with that. The pastors I saw most prominently looked very different from me in terms of their giftings. You had the Rick Warren and Andy Stanley types, very gifted at organizing churches and systems. Then on the other hand, you had someone like Mark Driscoll, everywhere in 2006, calling out culture. I knew I wasn’t either of those. Those were the two models being held up, and I didn’t know where I fit.
Jim: That’s about the time I started really sinking my teeth into Eugene Peterson’s work and how he talks about the pastor. It helped me think about the pastoral role as a kind of spectrum. On one end you have the professional pastors, the Andy Stanley model. On another, the prophetic voice is loud and culture-confronting. And then you have someone like Eugene Peterson, whom for lack of a better term I’d call the “pastoral pastor.” The reality is most of us fit somewhere in there. But those were helpful models for me to say, “I’m not that, and I’m not that.” Where am I? How has God specifically equipped me through my upbringing, my theological foundation, my life experiences, and my giftings?
Once I wrapped my head around that, it became really key to start being the best Jim Shemaria pastor I could be, because I stopped trying to be someone else.
The Pastor Nobody Was Reading
Jim: Peterson was writing that in the 80s and 90s, when everybody wanted to be Rick Warren or Bill Hybels, building massive churches and massive platforms. And here he was, pastor of a little church near Baltimore, writing books very few people were reading about reclaiming that quiet, sacred role. Nobody was paying attention, but he kept doing it. He kept writing, kept resisting. And now, after that whole era has blown up and we’ve seen the wreckage of the pastor-as-CEO model, Peterson’s voice, though he’s no longer with us, is the thing many pastors are turning to.
So the idea of knowing who God has called you to be and resisting the urge to shape it into something that will sell more is just so critical.
Danny: And sometimes you know something is good, and you still have to fight the awkwardness of going against what the crowd is pushing you toward.
Jim: There are plenty of conversations I’ve had with pastors who approach things differently and look at what I do as stagnant or complacent. Part of me wants to say, maybe they’re right. But that’s when I need to remind myself there’s intentionality in what I’m doing. This is something I’ve worked out, and I feel like the Holy Spirit has confirmed it through the process. The reason Celebration is what it is is because we’re going at this pace. To change that pace would be unfaithful to what God is doing here.
Tending What Can Grow Here
Jim: It’s like a farmer. I’m not making the crops grow. All I can do is help create the right environment and maintain it. That takes paying attention to the weather, understanding the soil, and knowing what doesn’t work in this climate. The attentiveness, the satisfaction with what this land can grow—it might not be what they grow down the street, but what is good about what can grow here?
The Free Solo Lesson
Danny: I’ve been on a big rock climbing kick lately. What got me into it was Alex Honnold, the free solo climber, climbing with no ropes, just your hands and feet. He recently free soloed a skyscraper live, and I found out afterward that his famous El Capitan free solo was basically double the size of that building. So for him, that was light work.
But what struck me watching those videos was the attentiveness to his craft, the time spent, the physical effort, surrounding himself with like-minded people, and constantly asking questions. It’s a whole lifestyle of investment. And that’s what you don’t see with celebrity pastors on social media; you see the surface, but not the hundreds of hours of development. Not the sermons that totally bombed. It’s constant development, working out the skill to find who you are. And eventually you come to a place where you know this is the pace God has called me and my congregation to go.
Pastoring as a Craft
Jim: I really like the idea of thinking about pastoring as a skill you develop. We use the language of calling a lot, and that can feel mystical, like you’ve been called, so now you’re a pastor. But there’s also this act of learning and walking into it. We all know people who may have been called to this work but, for whatever reason, didn’t hone the craft.
I take pastoring very seriously. It’s not the kind of job where I come home physically exhausted every day. Because of that, it can be very easy, if you’re not self-disciplined, to not take it seriously. Most people wouldn’t notice if you got up and preached a half-decent sermon. They’d be fine with it. But I like to think I have respect for what God is doing in me and in my congregation. This is not just my day job. This is a vocation, an integration of work, practice, and life.
The Right Next Step
Jim: That free solo example is powerful. There’s all that background work, and then there’s the moment of the climb itself. Part of it is muscle memory; he knows where to put his hand because he’s done it so many times. That’s like spiritual formation. Why do we pray when we don’t feel like it? So that when we do, we know how to.
But there’s also this sense of “I’m going to put my hand here, even though it’s unspectacular, because this is the right next step.” This would look cool; this would make a great Instagram shot, but that’s not the right move right now. And you only know that through the craft.
Danny: He finished this incredible climb, something no one had ever done, and when they told him how remarkable it was, he just said, “I don’t think I did my best.” His standard isn’t survival. For him, it’s an art. That mentality has shifted the way I approach ministry. These are meaningful actions that impact not only you but also those around you. It’s exciting, but it’s less about yourself and more about the larger body of Christ you’re called to serve.
A Body of Work, Not a Single Sermon
Jim: Most people don’t remember what I preached on a couple weeks ago. I’d probably have to look in my notebook to fully remember myself. But hopefully what people receive, over the course of years and decades, is a unified voice that God is using. The congregation is hearing the Word of God preached, not necessarily any one particular sermon. That bigger picture helps me when I have those complete bombs. Monday morning it always feels better. And I’m reminded that this is part of a larger body of work that God is doing through this.
Advice for the Pastoral Student
Danny: As we close, a piece of advice for two groups. First, the pastoral student is actively working toward becoming a pastor. And second, the student looking toward their future, who may or may not go into ministry but has their life and plans ahead of them.
Jim: To the pastoral student, embrace this season of what God is doing in you. Pay attention to that. And hold two things at once: don’t think you’re more important than you are, but also don’t underestimate what God can do through you. God is going to use you in profound ways if you allow that to happen. But you are not necessary. God is always the initiator. God is always the actor. Go is always the one moving.
You have to understand the importance and significance of this role enough to take it seriously, and you can only do that if you have a real understanding of who you are and what God is doing in your life. But when you hold that too tightly, that’s when you become an ego. That’s when you become destructive to the gospel. So hold it; be confident in it, but also, like Christ in Philippians, do not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but humble yourself, taking on the very form of a servant. You are a steward of God’s people. Don’t make yourself the big deal.
Advice for Everyone Else
Jim: To everyone else, I end every sermon by saying, “Brothers and sisters, you are the children of God.” There’s great honor and weight in who you are as a child of God, known by God. Know that you are who you are because God has knit you together. As insignificant as you might feel right now, as much as you feel like just a cog in a machine, you are the child of God. Know that, embrace that, but use it as a lens to simply start paying attention to what He’s already doing. We don’t say that to build ourselves up so much as to give us eyes to see. God is at work in the little mundane things you’re doing right now. Cultivate an understanding of what God is doing in your little context, and lean into that.
For Future Pastors and Ministry Leaders
If you’re exploring pastoral ministry, and you sense a growing desire to shepherd people with humility and conviction, Grace Christian University can help you take the next faithful step. In Leadership & Ministry or Biblical Studies, you’ll be trained in Scripture, and mentored by professors who know your name and invest in your growth. You’ll learn to handle God’s Word carefully, lead with wisdom, and serve the local church with steadiness. If that’s the road in front of you, we’d love to walk with you as you learn, grow, and serve, starting right where you are today.
