Faithful to the Call: Five Practices for Women Finding Their Preaching Voice
By Rev. Dr. Leanne Ketcham
Finding Your Voice
When my daughter was about two years old, I recorded a video of her calling our dog to come back inside. She stood there with a stern look on her face, clapped her hands, and yelled the dog’s name. She’s her own person, but her expression, stance, demeanor, and tone of voice are mirror images of my own. Over the coming years, she will become her own person more and more. Her mannerisms and speech will be her own. She will find her own voice in every part of her life, but today her voice sounds a lot like her mother's.
Voices We Imitate
This happens in preaching. At the start, our voice sounds an awful lot like the voices of our spiritual and homiletical mentors. When I knelt down, I embodied the pastor of my college-aged youth, a tall man who knelt to be closer to the people. When I paused with a smile, I reflected on my first homiletics teacher who never seemed to rush. He always gave us listeners time to catch up and soak in an impactful phrase, giving room for the Spirit to work in us.
I was shaped by the church and theological education. When I first started preaching regularly, I also sounded a bit like my professors with academic turns of phrase.
The Invitation to Preach as You
Yet all of those voices aren’t my own. I tried them on. I spoke in their tone and manner. They are a part of me, but they aren’t mine.
God had called me to preach. Not only me — my voice isn’t the only or “most right” voice for preaching — but including me. I could either preach as an imitation version of someone else, or I could let God help me find my voice to proclaim the Good News.
If you have been preaching but it feels ill-fitting, or if you want to preach but you haven’t encountered preaching that resonates with who you are, the following may give you some ideas of where to start.
Five Practices for Finding Your Preaching Voice
1. Develop confidence.
Confidence comes from resting in God’s call on your life. Sometimes women have been told, “You have to be twice as smart to get half as far.” This has pushed us to fill the sermon with proof of our intelligence. You should still do research, and your sermon should still bear the evidence of careful consultation with biblical scholars. But the woman who preaches in her voice stewards these as gifts of God to the people of God, not as proofs. God has called you to bear witness to the resurrected Lord. You join the women of Scripture and the women of history. You have nothing to prove, only a call to be faithful to the One who calls.
2. Take every opportunity.
To find your voice, you have to use it. There is no way of learning your preaching voice by thinking or reading about it. You have to do it. Sunday morning worship may not be available to you, but there are plenty of other opportunities to preach. Offer to preach to the youth or children. Go to the local nursing home and ask if there is a worship service you could lead. Lead a devotional at MOPS. Ask your small group if you could preach a sermon to kick off the discussion. Get creative and get moving. Don’t wait for people to ask. God has already called you — so preach!
3. Find models.
Some research suggests that 20% of lead pastors are women. Other data puts it lower — around 12–13%, or even 3% for evangelical congregations. Regardless, many women who want to find their preaching voice have mostly been shaped by male preachers. If you want to find your own voice, seek out more models. Even if you’ve had women lead pastors, find more. Watching how others embody their own unique voice will encourage you to find your own. You’ll feel empowered knowing other women are also walking in their calling.
4. Inhabit your body.
Preaching is an embodied act, yet many women are deeply disconnected from their bodies. Some carry trauma or cultural messaging that has taught them to shrink back or stay small. There are many reasons women struggle to take up physical space and speak with power. But your body is made in the image of God, named good by God. Take up space. Let your voice ring out. The preached word is an incarnate word. It must be embodied. So come back and make peace with your body.
5. Give it time.
No child or teenager knows who they will be as a tween or teen. And just like growing up, developing our own preaching voice takes time. Trust that God is at work over time — as you rest in your call, seize every opportunity to preach, find preaching role models, and learn to inhabit your body. God is using your everyday, ordinary life to strengthen your voice.
Trust Him, and preach on!
Further Suggested Reading
Women’s Voices and the Practice of Preaching by Nancy Lammers Gross
Emboldened: A Vision for Empowering Women in Ministry by Tara Beth Leach
Preaching as Testimony by Anna Carter Florence
