“Ancora imparo”: These are the words of eighty-seven-year-old Michelangelo: the man who carved David and spent four long years lying on his back painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. A genius. A perfectionist. A true master of his craft. And yet, near the end of his life, he said those astounding words: “ancora imparo”—“I am still learning.” It’s a stunning thing for a master to say. Yet it gives us a glimpse of what drove him. Michelangelo’s greatness didn’t come from talent alone, but from a lifelong posture of learning: a relentless hunger to keep improving, to keep growing, to keep refining his craft. It’s no different with the art of preaching. If the master of the Sistine Chapel thought he had more to learn, then how much more do we have to learn! It’s a humbling and daunting thing to stand before God’s people opening God’s word. How can we be ancora-imparo preachers?
Our Hearts Captured
French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once wrote:
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
If this is true of shipbuilding, how much more so of preaching! If we want to preach powerfully and deeply, we need our hearts to be captured by the thought of sailing the vast and endless sea of God’s love—and piloting others on those same waters.
When our hearts are captured, everything else follows. We’ll rest in our identity in Christ rather than chasing approval. We’ll labour over sermons because we want others to know God’s goodness. Love for God is the engine of faithful preaching. Ancora imparo: I’m still learning by having my heart captured.
Listening to the Faithful
Perhaps the simplest way to keep learning is to listen to other preachers. It not only sharpens our preaching but feeds our souls: a two-for-one deal! Early in ministry, a more experienced preacher encouraged me to make this a regular habit: not primarily for ideas related to the passages I was preaching on, but to grow spiritually and as a communicator.
There’s much to be learned from watching experts at work. Watching Gary Ablett Jnr. nail a kick inside fifty shows what perfect timing looks like. Watching Colin Buchanan hold a roomful of kids spellbound displays what it means to make truth memorable. Seeing mastery in motion teaches something deeper than mere theory: instinct, timing, and heart. When we listen to expert preachers, we catch a glimpse of how the craft can be handled with truth and tenacity, with humility and honesty. Ancora imparo: I’m still learning by listening to the faithful.
Reading
Another simple way to keep learning is by reading books about preaching. In books, we hear the author lay out their thinking in a clear and logical way. They give us the principles beneath the practice.
Reading pairs nicely with listening. Like watching a YouTube tutorial and then reading the cookbook. Or reading a music score and then hearing an orchestra perform it. One gives you the framework, and the other brings it to life. Ancora imparo: I’m still learning by reading.
Walking with the Wise
Perhaps what’s helped me the most in my ongoing learning has been the wisdom and input of older, wiser preachers. Around a year into my full-time ministry life, I felt convicted that I still had so much to learn. I reached out to my former preaching lecturer to ask if he’d be willing to mentor me. In God’s kindness and this man’s generosity, he said yes.
This mentoring has been invaluable: hearing wisdom forged through decades of preaching, getting advice on tricky passages, being kept humble in successes and strengthened in Christ in disappointments. There’s so much to be gained by sitting under someone more experienced. It’s a principle as old as humanity itself. Skill isn’t just taught; it’s caught. Ancora imparo: I’m still learning by walking with the wise.
Staying Curious
Finally, if we want to be continually learning then we need to stay curious. I love my kids’ insatiable curiosity. They’re always asking questions—why? what? how? This is how they learn and grow. That same childlike curiosity—always looking, asking, and learning—is exactly what we need as preachers. It’s what led me and a friend to create Starting Strong, a podcast aimed at helping preachers keep growing in their craft through honest, practical conversations. If we want to keep growing as preachers, then we need to have an insatiable curiosity, both about God and about what we could learn from others. Because good preaching doesn’t just come from knowledge: it comes from a mind that keeps asking, seeking, and learning. Ancora imparo: I’m still learning by staying curious.
Preaching is a lifelong craft. Like Michelangelo, we should never stop learning. And that’s part of the joy: each sermon is another stroke in the lifelong work of proclaiming Christ and feeding his sheep.
