Believe it or not, in seminary, John Piper got a C-minus in one of his preaching classes.

Yes, a C-minus.

It's hard to believe, but it's true.

And he talked about it a few years back when he was asked where and how did he learn

to preach.

Here's what he said.

Watching my dad, when I was six, eight, ten, twelve, watching how not to do it in lots

of places, being unable to speak from grade five to my sophomore year in college, unable

to speak in front of a group, I think I was learning to preach during that time because

I was so hurt, so wounded, so discouraged, so desperate that I had to go way down into

God and way into Scripture and way into pain and God was making a preacher by shutting

my mouth.

You don't become an effective preacher by becoming low-quacious and effective communicator at age

sixteen.

You become a communicator, clever communicator, but you don't become a preacher of the holy

things of God.

So that was a piece, I don't know, you know, the courses that I took on preaching were

marginally, I got the lowest grade in seminary in my preaching class, I got a C-minus, I think,

in James Dayne's preaching class at Fuller seminary, we never agreed on anything, except

the principle, every sermon should have one point, you said that over and over again,

so I made a terrible grade there, but there were other teachers that, so I think the way

I became a preacher was by being passionately thrilled by what I was seeing in the Bible

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