In Buenos Aires, Argentina, Ariel Castro’s church is known in the city as La iglesia de Jujuy Street – translated literally as ‘the church on Jujuy Street.’ Ariel has been a member of this church since he was a teenager, and served in the praise group. Later, he joined the body of elders, first as a deacon and now as an elder. He now teaches from the pulpit as a part of the leadership team.
Learning to order and see the details
His ability to preach clearly and faithfully to his church comes from his training with Langham Preaching. He credits Langham with teaching him the ability to order himself and his teaching, and to not get lost from the main point. “Langham helped me to be more precise in my preaching, through their process of questions and steps that mean I don’t miss details,” Ariel explains.
One of the things Ariel has found helpful about the Langham Preaching Program is the process of doing sermons in small groups and then receiving feedback. He finds it encouraging to hear other students share what they have learnt through his own preaching, and he learns even more through hearing the preaching of others.
Ariel now feels much more confident to identify the heart of a text, and be able to use his own words to show that main point to his audience and help them understand it. “I can capture the spirit of a passage and tell it to those who are just starting out in faith, without diluting it,” he explains.
Previously, Ariel found it difficult to help his listeners connect the meaning of the Bible to their real lives. Now, he finds he can help listeners cross that divide, by building a bridge between what the Word of God has to say and what people are living and experiencing day to day.
For example, Ariel recently taught from Ephesians 4, with a focus on the phrase ‘do not make your children angry.’ He took his listeners through what this command would have looked like in the original context and setting, and how it might look different for people today, in this specific time and place. He found this helped his listeners connect much more to the command given, and understand more clearly what the passage was saying to them.
Uniting a preaching team
Ariel describes his training from Langham as a very useful toolbox for making preaching understandable. “It’s a system. It’s not the Word of God, but it is a system that helps us and brings us closer to what the Word means,” he explains. Previously, Ariel’s preaching was entirely self-taught, learnt from listening to others preach. Langham was the first time he was able to formally study preaching. He is now on the second level of Langham training, and is eager and keen to learn more.
Langham Preaching has also served a vital role in ensuring that the preachers in the team are working with the same expectations and idea of what a sermon is meant to do. “We started a preaching series about a specific topic, and all the people preaching in the series did the Langham course and it helped us be on the same page as we spoke,” Ariel shares. “When we presented the series, the heart of the sermons was all the same, because we were all united in the objectives of the sermon series.”
But there is still room for the different personalities and quirks of each preacher. “We all have our individualities, but we see that preaching in the same structure works. Some make applications at the end, some do partial applications as they go, but we all have the same sermon heart. The biggest thing Langham has done for me has been to get all the speakers in my church speaking the same language and structure,” Ariel reflects.
The responsibility of preaching well
Through his networks to other churches, Ariel has seen the danger that can arise when untrained preachers share from the pulpit words that are not of the Bible or of God. “When someone doesn’t approach God’s Word in its fullness and preaches it in context, there’s a temptation to use it as a tool to manipulate.” Ariel knows those from other churches who have abandoned their faith because of misguided preaching.
Ariel knows how big a responsibility preaching the Word of God is. “The time for preaching is now, and we must rise to the occasion, because it’s a moment when people open their hearts to hearing God’s will,” he shares. Ariel loves and delights in getting to share the Word of God with people, and seeing them connect with the Word. “Every time I preach, I feel this is what the Lord is leading me to, and what he has called me to do.”