Eric McKiddie’s Pastoralised blog continues to provide interesting content.
Here he identifies four stylistic habits of Tim Keller’s preaching and commend them as worthy of emulation.
1. Provide a road map for your sermon. I’ve sometimes heard Keller briefly list his points at the beginning of his sermon. It’s kinda like when you scan through the turns on Google Maps before you depart. Keller does this with phrases, not sentences. Their brevity is what makes them easy for the audience to remember throughout the message. The trick is to do this without revealing too much. You don’t want to divulge so much information at the beginning that your audience doesn’t feel like they need to listen to you for the next half hour.
2. Expose the souls of your listeners with illustrations from movies and novels. Keller is a master at using characters to reveal the human condition. He draws his listeners in with the story, and holds up a mirror that reflects back to them their need for grace through the experiences of the characters. You have to “exegete” the movies you watch in order to do this. Resolve to jot down at least one illustration every time the credits roll at the end of a movie.
3. Deconstruct your church’s idolatry. This is Keller’s specialty. We all believe false “gospels” and trust in false functional “saviors”. We do this when something (often a good thing) in this world becomes most important to us. Show your people how they tend to make idols out of big things like family and career, and less important things like their local sports teams or scrap booking.
4. Preach the gospel in every sermon. Goes without saying, right? Incredibly enough, there have been several occasions where I have downloaded a message from TGC or heard one of its conference speakers in a church context, and the preacher didn’t preach the gospel. I haven’t heard such a message from Keller (maybe I will someday, hopefully not). The grace of Christ is what changes people. The gospel is the power of salvation, both justification and sanctification. Preach the gospel in every sermon!
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