All preaching special.
Everyone had something to say about preaching last week.
Jared Wilson interacting with Ed Stetzer Your Next Sermon May Be Your Last. If you get hit by a bus on Monday, was the last thing you preached moralistic therapeutic deism?
Albert Mohler underlines the importance of preaching by asking ‘How Will They Hear Without A Preacher?‘
In the post Mohler interacts with an article by The Times religion correspondent, Ruth Gledhill.
Gledhill has recently published a number of articles to do with preaching.
To some, sermonising is a sin, but Christians still value the preacher
Spreading the word of preaching, from the transcendent to the bumbling
Church riots tonight: Hear the world’s greatest living preacher speak out.
Great quotes abound from both.
Gledhill:
“In many churches this most vibrant of moments has withered to little more than 20 minutes of tired droning that serves only to pad out the gap between hymns and lunch.”
“The best [sermons] are inspirational invocations on how to live a better life in the grace of God; the worst, soporific ramblings that remind the congregation merely of how uncomfortable the pews are.”
Gledhill describes the preaching of Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury in these terms: “there is something about his innate humility combined with breadth of knowledge and intellect, plus Celtic spirituality and a true, deep faith, that add up to make even the most ‘ordinary’ little sermon by him an unforgettable spiritual experience.”
Mohler:
“Indeed, preaching is the central act of Christian worship, but its great aim reaches far above merely changing the world. The preaching of the Word of God is the chief means by which God conforms Christians to the image of Christ. Rightly understood, true Christian preaching is not aimed only at this earthly life, but is the means whereby God prepares his people for eternity.”
“…there is no hope for a recovery of biblical Christianity without a preceding recovery of biblical preaching. That means preaching that is expository, textual, evangelistic, and doctrinal. In other words, preaching that will take a lot longer than ten minutes and will not masquerade as a form of entertainment.”
Malcolm Mclean has been posting excerpts from Robert Findlater. Findlater wrote to his father and in the letter suggested that it was more difficult to preach to mature Christians than to less mature believers or to non-Christians. This is his father’s response:
‘26th March, 1807. I do not savour your opinion when you say “It must be more difficult to preach to established Christians than to those who are not, or those who have not yet attained to the knowledge of it” – except you mean a graceless minister: in that case, you are right, as he cannot preach Christ, neither knows he what way a Christian lives upon the gospel, so as to preach to them. But I never knew a godly minister but would rejoice upon having the people of God to preach to – yea, they are out of their element when they are saying any thing but “Feed my sheep – Feed my lambs.” You mention that it is to a young preacher the difficulty would be. There should be no such young preachers in the world that could not preach to the oldest Christians in it. However young the ministers of Christ are, they can say all to the oldest Christian: We have received the same Spirit of faith, therefore we speak. Without this Spirit they cannot speak, neither will they be understood. They know not the voice of a minister that is a stranger to the same Spirit of faith with themselves. I hope before you enter upon preaching you will change your opinion, which I pray God of his mercy, may grant you. Your mother prays the same.’
At Church Matters, Michael Mckinley offers a great quote from Humphrey Jones who was a 19th century evangelist whom God used to great effect in the Welsh Revivals.
In a letter to a student friend, he gave ‘Two Things to Aim At in Preaching‘
“Preach pointedly and rousingly — aiming at the conscience each time… and beware of displaying yourself in any of your sermons. I try to aim at two things in studying and preaching: one is, not to say anything to show off myself; another is, not to say anything to amuse the people.”
Kevin DeYoung has three posts on preaching this week. One at Church Matters, two at his own blog.
One Thing I Remember from Preaching Class.
“When you come to a passage there are four things you can do: illustrate, defend, explain, apply. I rearranged the order from seminary class so the four points make a convenient acronym: IDEA.”
DeYoung spends a little time expanding on the practical outworkins of this basic model.
Then in two posts on his own blog he outlines his sermon preparation routine in more detail.
Part one here and part two here.
DeYoung’s sermons go forty-five minutes or so, are planned out six months in advance, and he seems to preach from detailed notes with some written paragraphs.
Interesting about whether to start with the text or the congregation by way of introduction.
I pretty much always start with the text.
Thabiti Anyabwile weighs in on a running discussion at the Church Matters blog with some comments about ‘Using Commentaries‘.
Maybe it’s my imagination, but the Pillar Series seem to get mentioned positively by many.
I know that’s a lot of stuff, but it’s an important subject.
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