Reforming’s Company of Preachers
Why and How We Train to Preach Christ
I've been reading this book lately — a realistic read of the ministry of John Calvin and his fellow-preachers and elders in their ministry of reformation at Geneva. It has been informative and inspirational, as much as it has been a gritty description of church-life for that time and place.
And here is one of the things I love about Calvin (among many).
When Calvin came to Geneva, he did not simply preach himself and hope others would copy him. He was intentional. He was deliberate.
Calvin gathered, trained, served with and sent out a Company of Pastors — men formed together in doctrine, character, and practice, so that the churches of Geneva and beyond would be served by faithful ministers of the Word.
Now as I look at the city of Bendigo, and our region — I see a place in desperate need of reformation. Actual, biblical, reformation. A recovery of expository preaching, a rediscovery of the doctrines of grace, and a rediscovery of biblical ecclesiology.
We need not a heretical "new apostolic reformation", but a real biblical reformation. For that to happen I would like to recover that same instinct of Calvin for our own day.
So as Preaching Elder — as the person ordained, called, and responsible for the preaching and public worship at Reforming — I am initiating and instituting Reforming's Company of Preachers.
Why a "Company"
If preaching is pastoral leadership exercised through the Word, then it cannot be learned in isolation, and it cannot be assessed by a single sermon's polish. It must be formed — over time, in community, under oversight — the way character and conviction are formed: slowly, relationally, and under the gaze of others who know you.
This is precisely the genius of Calvin's Company of Pastors.
It was not a lecture series that produced credentialed speakers. It was a fellowship of men who studied Scripture together, held one another accountable in doctrine and life, and were examined corporately before being sent to preach.
Preaching was never detached from the pastoral office, and the pastoral office was never detached from a company of fellow-pastors who knew the man, not just his sermons.
Reforming's Company of Preachers seeks to be exactly this kind of company: a group of men being trained — together, under the Session, in real relationship — to preach Christ as an expression of pastoral leadership in Christ's church.
How the Company of Preachers Trains Men to Preach Christ
Our training follows a deliberate shape, moving from the who of preaching, to the person doing the preaching, to the whatof the text, to the how of delivery.
Four chapters anchor the course, but each is taught and worked through within the life of the company — not as solo coursework. You can find the online content component of this course over at cruciforming.org.
1. What Is Preaching? (The Who Determines the What)
We begin not with technique but with theology. Drawing on the rich tradition of preaching — from Lloyd-Jones and Stott to Piper, Keller, Robinson, and many others — we ground the course in the biblical pattern of preaching itself: the synagogue pattern of Luke 4 and Acts 13, the apostolic pattern among the early Christians (Acts 18, 20; 1 & 2 Timothy), and the high status Scripture gives to preaching (Romans 10:14; 1 Corinthians 1:21-24; 1 Peter 1:23-25).
Central to this chapter is expository preaching: the conviction that the text determines the message, that preacher and congregation are "on the same page" of Scripture together, and that the sermon flows from an intentional coherence with the text rather than from the preacher's own agenda (Nehemiah 8:8).
We also face honestly the challenges of interpretation — the problem of historical and moral distance between an ancient text and a modern congregation — and find the solution where Jesus himself found it: in union with Christ, who is the one to whom all Scripture points (Luke 24:27).
In other words: before a man learns how to preach, he must be re-formed in what preaching is for. It is not self-display. It is Christ proclaimed.
2. The Person of the Preacher
The second movement of training turns from the sermon to the man. Working through 1 Corinthians 1–3, the company considers how Scripture both teaches and corrects preachers, shaping them to look more like Christ as they preach Christ.
We train through three lenses:
Conviction — that the Bible is God's Word, where God himself speaks; that prayer is dependence on God's power, not a formality; and that the preacher will be devoted to prayer and the ministry of the Word together, as the apostles were (Acts 6:4).
Character — that godliness is the preacher's pursuit (1 Timothy 4:8), that humility shapes his whole persona (1 Peter 5:5), and that Christlikeness governs how he serves in preaching (Philippians 2:1-11).
Competencies — that preachers are not to be compared on personality or performance, that the whole task of expounding Scripture matters (2 Timothy 3:16-17), and that preachers are leaders even when they are not in the pulpit.
3. Discovering the Author's Purpose (The Big Idea)
With theology and character laid as the foundation, the company moves to the craft of handling a text. Here the emphasis is relentlessly on exegesis, not eisegesis — drawing the message out of the text rather than imposing one onto it.
Trainees learn to find their text and then meditate on it through repeated, careful reading — "read, read, read again (read or ruin)." They learn detailed exegesis: tracking vocabulary, persons and proper nouns, connecting words, transitions, repeated ideas, and verbs, as well as correlation with other texts.
Context governs everything, because a text without context becomes a pretext. From all of this, trainees learn to distil the author's purpose — the "Big Idea" — while asking: What is the big question this text raises? Why is this text here in the Bible? Here we also draw on Bryan Chappell's idea of the "Fallen Condition Focus" — the way every text addresses something true of fallen humanity that only Christ can answer.
4. Frameworks for Preaching
Finally, the company learns to put all of this into a deliverable shape, using what we call the "Chapman" method. The Big Idea is turned into a question and the sermon is drafted around it:
An opening prayer connected to both the text and the people.
An introduction that surfaces the listener's need.
A body of two or three points that follow the text's own movement, each point stated, shown from the text, explained, illustrated, and applied.
A conclusion that aims, in the old Puritan phrase, to convince the mind, quicken the will, and move the heart.
Crucially, this framework is taught and practised within the company — men preach to one another, are heard by one another, and are shaped by one another, just as Calvin's pastors were examined and formed together rather than alone.
Christ at the Centre, the Church as the Context
Every chapter of this training opens with the same verse: "For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake" (2 Corinthians 4:5). Whatever else this training achieves — skill in exegesis, competence in delivery, growth in character — if it does not produce men who preach Christ as servants of Christ's church, it has failed.
Just as Calvin understood that Geneva's churches needed not lone voices but a company of pastors, we believe Reforming Church — and the wider Presbytery we serve — is best served not by individuals preaching in isolation, but by a company of men being formed together to preach Christ.
To check out the preaching course that Reforming's Company of Preachers uses, head on over to Cruciforming.org.
