Preaching to People in Pain: How Suffering Can Shape Your Sermons and Connect with Your Congregation

by Matthew D. Kim

Christianity Today  2022 Book of the Year Award (The Church and Pastoral Leadership)

Southwestern Journal of Theology 2021 Book of the Year Award (Honorable Mention, Preaching/Ministry/Leadership)

Offering an important corrective to a pain-averse culture that celebrates individualism and success, veteran preacher and teacher Matthew Kim encourages pastors to preach on the painful issues their congregations face. Through vulnerability and self-disclosure, pastors can help their congregants share their suffering in community for the purpose of healing and transformation. The book includes stories, shares relevant Scripture texts imparting biblical wisdom, and offers best practices for preaching on specific topics. Each chapter ends with discussion questions and a sample sermon.

Genres: Grief, Leadership

240 pages, Paperback

Published May 18, 2021

About the author

Matthew D. Kim (PhD, University of Edinburgh) is professor of preaching and pastoral leadership, holder of the George W. Truett endowed chair in preaching and evangelism, and director of the PhD in preaching program at Baylor University's Truett Seminary in Waco, Texas.

He is the award-winning author and editor of numerous books, including Ready to Preach: An Introduction to Homiletics (Baker Academic, 2026), Becoming a Friendlier Church: A Pathway to Genuine Community (Baker Books, 2026), What's God Saying Here?: How to Navigate Awkward, Troubling, and Bizarre Passages We Would Rather Skip (Zondervan Reflective, 2025), We Follow Christ: Helping Women to Discern God's Call (Baylor University Press, 2025), and more.

He has three books under contract: Preaching with Emotional Intelligence: Reconnecting Pastoral Ministry and the Pulpit (Baker Academic, 2027), Chasing Holograms: Redefining and Reforming Our Christian Identity (Zondervan Academic, 2028), and The Ministry Mentors: Best Practices for Pastoral Leaders (coauthored, Baker Academic, 2030).

Reviews

[George P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Imagine that you have the following choice to make for your listeners,” writes Matthew D. Kim in the opening paragraph of Preaching to People in Pain: “(1) They can listen to sermons that only address the topic of success in the Christian life, or (2) They can listen to sermons that only discuss the issue of pain and suffering?”

Kim acknowledges that this hypothetical presents a false dilemma. Pastors can and should preach about the full range of human experience, both its highs as well as its lows. But do we?

In my experience, the answer is no. (My experience is limited to American Christian preaching.) I have listened to thousands of sermons over the course of my life time, not to mention preaching several hundred. Most of them—including most of mine—rarely touched on pain.

The absence of suffering from American preaching is remarkable. Experiences of pain pervade Scripture. In the Old Testament, for example, scholars estimate that laments comprise 40% of the Psalter. And in the New Testament, the Cross is the inflection point on which salvation turns. Our salvation depends on Christ’s suffering.

The Cross is also the model of Christian discipleship, however. As Jesus said in Matthew 16:24–25:“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” In other words, Christ suffered, and so will we.

So, why don’t American preachers pay more attention to pain? The answer is complex. For one thing, Kim calls preaching about pain “an evangelistic turnoff.” No one wants to listen to a steady diet of bad news, it seems.

More deeply, American culture is shot through with the dream of prosperity, and this affects what American Christians want to hear. “We, in the twenty-first century, internalize a love/hate relationship with the prosperity gospel,” Kim writes. “We surreptitiously covet what it claims but hate what it stands for (i.e., what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called ‘cheap grace’).” In other words, we know the prosperity gospel is bad theology, but deep down, we still want what it promises. And so, we turn away from pain.

By doing so, Christians skip across the surface of life and fail to apply the gospel where it’s most needed—at the point of brokenness. All Christians need to turn toward pain, and pastors need to lead the way. The Word of God cannot heal what we refuse to address.

What kinds of pain are we talking about? Kim focuses on pain that arises from six dimensions of life: decisions, finances, health issues, losses, relationships, and sins.

Some of these pains are chosen, even if only indirectly. As Albert Camus put it, “Life is a sum of all your choices.” All decisions have consequences, we might say, but some decisions have bad consequences. And some of those bad decisions are sins, for which we suffer the consequences of guilt, shame, and judgment.

We do not choose some of our pains, however. I didn’t choose to suffer a chronic rheumatological illness, for example. My genes made that decision for me. I just live with the consequences.

Regardless of whether chosen or not, our pains demand a response. Pastors can help their church members and themselves by sharing their suffering. For Kim, sharing means two things: First, it means “communicating with others regarding our pain and suffering.” Second, it means “participating in, feeling, and experiencing the turmoil of others and encouraging them and empathizing with them in the midst of it.”

In other words, pastors help people process suffering through a combination of meaning-making and community-building. Sermons focus on the meaning-making side of the equation, but action outside the pulpit shapes the community-building side. Preaching is an important aspect of ministry, but to truly pastor requires “presence” among the suffering.

To help pastors with both activities, Kim identifies nine questions pastors should ask as they respond to pain in their congregations:

1. Which passage will I preach on?
2. What type of suffering is revealed in the text?
3. How does the Bible character or Biblical author deal with the pain?
4. How does this pain in the text relate to our listeners’ pain?
5. What does this pain say about God and His allowance of pain?
6. How does God / Jesus /the Holy Spirit help us in our suffering?
7. How can our preaching show care and empathy?
8. How can we share pain through Christian community?
9. How will God use our suffering to transform us and bring himself glory?

Not every sermon needs to be about suffering, of course, any more than every sermon needs to be about success. Even so, American Christians need to hear more sermons about pain. As Kim points out, “suffering is ubiquitous, success is not.”

I recommend Preaching to People in Pain to any minister privileged with the opportunity of opening God’s Word to God’s congregation week after week. It will help you help others respond to pain with the hope of the gospel.

Book Reviewed
Matthew D. Kim, Preaching to People in Pain: How Suffering Can Shape Your Sermons and Connect with Your Congregation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021).

P.S. If you liked my review, please click “Helpful” on my Amazon review page.

P.P.S. This review is cross-posted from InfluenceMagazine.com by permission.

[Josh Olds · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a pastor, I don’t think it is possible for one to preach with authenticity without recognizing the pain the members of one’s members might be going through—or indeed, without recognizing and acknowledging one’s own pain. Preaching to People in Pain isn’t a primer on how to do a new thing, it’s a primer on how to better do a thing you are inevitably already doing. Your people are in pain. Will the church be able to address it?

After a few introductory chapters, Matthew Kim provides readers with six essays about preaching on different types of pain: painful decisions, painful, finances, painful health issues, painful losses, painful relationships, and painful sins. Notice how Kim defines “pain” here. It’s not just physical, but also mental, relational, and spiritual. It’s an acknowledgment that pain exists in a variety of ways and the church is called to respond to it all. Each chapter concludes with a sample sermon on each topic, allowing the reader to see in specificity what Kim has drawn up generally.

Each chapter has Kim develop the topic around nine different guiding questions:

1. What passage will I preach on?
2. What type of pain/suffering is revealed in the text?
3. How does the Bible character or biblical author deal with the pain?
4. How does this pain in the text relate to our listeners’ pain?
5. What does this pain say about God and his allowance of pain?
6. How does God/Jesus/the Holy Spirit help us in our suffering?
7. How can our preaching show care and empathy?
8. How can we share this pain in Christian community?
9. How will God use our suffering to transform us and bring him glory?

I don’t care to get too deep into it, as this is a review and not a theological debate, but that last question leaves me a bit unsettled, as it seems to be indicating that God must redeem all suffering or that all suffering must have redemptive purpose. That belief rather downplays the severity of any evil or suffering because it rests on the assumption that God needed it to obtain glory. I don’t think that’s the case at all. I don’t think it’s helpful, for example, to tell a rape victim that God will use their suffering to transform them and bring God glory. God does indeed “make beauty from ashes” but I don’t believe he’s the one creating the ashes.

While the bulk of the book is devoted the topic of the title—Preaching to People in Pain—I appreciated that Matthew Kim included a section on preaching out of pain. In fact, he makes this the introductory chapter of the book, setting the tone of pastoral leadership as someone who is a part of the community they lead, sharing their lives with their congregation as fellow followers of Jesus. Too often, pastors are expected (by others or themselves) to be relationally and emotionally separate from their leadership role. They are expected to be “professional.” I recall one pastor describing having a miscarriage immediately prior to a service and went ahead and performed the service, believing it to be their duty. While Kim advocates for balance—the pulpit is not a place to air grievances—it is a place to connect with one’s congregation and share one’s life.

Overall, while it’s a good foundational work and a helpful guide toward preaching on pain, the content feels a little generic and superficial. The structure lends itself to repetition and Kim’s writing does nothing to break that cycle, with the result that the advice, though good, comes across as rather bland and a bit too generic to be of much specific good. It’s perhaps a good volume for developing preaching theory, maybe as an undergraduate homiletics text, but it lacks the depth to truly be the type of work that most pastors need to do effective pastoral work.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should a pastor speak to our personal pains directly from the pulpit? In Preaching to People in Pain, Matthew D. Kim explains how suffering can shape your sermons and connect with your congregation.

Sharing Our Stories

The book is divided into two parts. In Part 1, Naming the Pain, Kim shows the unique ways pastors suffer and experience pain – allowing them a means to preach in a personal way to their congregation. Part 2 details six different types of pain that are prevalent in many congregations.

Kim confesses that there are reasons why we tend to avoid preaching on pain, but he ultimately believes there are benefits to sharing our stories. Self-disclosure humanizes us, self-disclosure connects us with people and their pain, self-awareness is necessary for good leaders, and self-disclosure helps us model how to overcome suffering and pain.

Preaching with Presence

Interestingly, Kim requests preachers take an inventory of the pain of their listeners. Naming the church member, identifying their type of pain, and timing their length of pain will help you meet the urgent and long-term challenges of your congregation. Kim reminds us that pain comes in waves, and pastors must preach with their presence.

The six different types of pain that Kim addresses are (1) painful decisions, (2) painful finances, (3) painful health issues, (4) painful losses, (5) painful relationships, and (6) painful sins. Each section includes preaching principles, discussion questions, and sample sermons.

Painful Finances and Losses

I was most challenged by the chapter on painful finances. Kim says we should preach on money regularly (not just during building funds). He connects our relationship with money to our responses to human dignity, noting how it often separates us. Insightfully, he notes that preaching on contentment will eventually lead to giving. He speaks about “affluenza” – extreme materialism and consumerism. Kim offers hope with financial wisdom and stewardship, telling us to trust God with our money.

I was most moved by the chapter on painful losses. Kim writes with vulnerability, sharing about the loss of his brother. He showed how speaking about the incident changed the way he was viewed by his congregation, transformed him to be more empathetic, and ultimately brought glory to God. Kim’s wisdom and sensitivity throughout the book are remarkable.

Our Pain is Not in Vain

As an Asian American, I can identify with the pitfalls Kim lists of preachers and congregants. True vulnerability in sermons is seldom. Admitting pain, even in small groups, is awkward and unusual. I am inspired to share my own weaknesses with my church family in order to show Christ as strong.

In the immediate aftermath of COVID-19, we are a people in pain. We also can’t be sure of what lies ahead. Through many losses, the church will persevere. Pastors must continue to preach the Good News. Christ hears our cries. He makes us whole. And he promises that our pain is not in vain.

I received a media copy of Preaching to People in Pain and this is my honest review.

[Peter Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pain and suffering are not the most popular sermon topics, but, because they are unavoidable realities in every human life, they are among the most important and relevant topics for preaching. In Preaching to People in Pain, Matthew Kim provides guidance for preaching on pain in a planned and intentional way, rather than simply ad hoc. He offers a helpful taxonomy of various kinds of pain experienced by people in the pews. He identifies six primary types of pain: painful decisions, painful finances, painful health issues, painful losses, painful relationships, and painful sins, each with their own further subdivisions. Each type of pain is explored through an introduction, nine preparatory questions, a few general principles, and then all of it is modeled by one of the author’s own sermons. Discussion questions at the conclusion of each chapter provide an opportunity for personal reflection and would make for a good group study. Appended to the end is a “Worksheet for Understanding Pain” that pastors could use regularly in preparing their sermons.

Preaching to People in Pain, however, does more than assist pastors in addressing the pain of others. In the first chapter, “The Preacher’s Pain,” Kim begins by inviting preachers to identify, acknowledge, and enter into their own personal pain in appropriate ways. Those with personal painful experiences have more credibility with hearers in pain, and they are often better equipped to address pain with compassion and understanding. Conversely, those who have not experienced pain or have never processed their own pain are more likely to say things that are trite, superficial, and even damaging. In this text, as well as in his own sermons, Kim models how to do this as he shares some personally painful experiences with the readers.

While helpful for preaching, the usefulness of this book goes beyond the pulpit. Kim’s analysis and understanding of pain can also be applied in pastoral teaching, counseling, and visitation, and lay people would benefit from his in-depth consideration of pain as they seek to comfort “with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:4). For those who want to go deeper into a topic, Kim’s citations provide ample resources for further study and reflection on pain. While the author approaches preaching from within the Protestant tradition, preachers from other traditions will still benefit from his general insights and approaches. In contrast to the “prosperity Gospel” that seems to be everywhere, Preaching to People in Pain will aid preachers in bearing their crosses and in enabling their hearers to do the same.

[Daniel Wong · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent volume from one who has experienced pain in a number of spheres. Matthew not only discusses areas of painful experiences but also provides insight and sermons reflecting on these areas. I was touched when I sat down with Matthew and he shared these experiences with me previous to writing this book. Matthew is an excellent author, preacher, professor, and pastor. All of these come together in Preaching to People in Pain.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a challenging read which encourages me to dig deeper into the bible and to empathize with the pain which resides in every believer’s heart. One star off for perhaps making too many assumptions into the unspoken pain and thoughts of bible characters which the biblical narratives themselves do not bring forth. And for perhaps leaning too much into a topical rather than exegetical emphasis in preaching the Word of God.

[Rachael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy. This is a really useful book. It's clear, honest and encourages preachers and pastors alike to engage with their pain and bring it to God as they minister to others whilst highlighting the difficulties and stumbling blocks along the way.

[Rob O'Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am reviewing this book for Interpretation and my review will appear there soon.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wise and sensitive presentation of preaching on pain with sample sermons.

[Daniel Im · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great framework and ideas around preaching about pain to your congregation. This is a fantastic resource!