Not to long ago Caleb and I were blessed with the opportunity to preach a 10-week series on Sunday nights at Mayfair. It was a great time of growth and discipline for both of us, as well as extremely humbling. I didn't do alot of blogging during that time because it was consumed preparing sermons and doing the rest of my job. I had plenty of great thoughts and ideas for blogs, but my writing had an outlet elsewhere. This blog is one of those thoughts.
I think we have a distorted view of what preaching should be. It's gone through phases. The "Hellfire and brimstone" stage, the "3 points and a practical application" stage, the "Grace is all you need" stage, the "prosperity gospel" stage, and the ever popular "Coolest TV show rip-off" (this being the one with no biblical content and just a "relevant" feel good message). I'm all for being serious, practical and full of grace in our preaching, but if you take any these methods to far in one direction, I'm afraid we are loosing a biblical perspective on preaching. The best preachers I know or listen to, adhere to none of these. These preachers have a God given gift to let the text stand on it's own. Yes these preachers are relevant, practical, graceful and even a bit hellfirey, but I think most of them would tell you that those are the benefits and results of preaching the suffering, grace, death, victory and resurrection of the cross. After listening, one walks away challenged, convicted and wanting to repent. I think repentance is key. I challenge you to find a sermon preached in the New Testament where repentance was not the goal, outcome, or forethought. I've written on this before, but repentance is not a one time thing. We don't repent once and then become a Christian, we continue to repent because we are a Christian. Consequently, I believe the biblical model for preaching is to preach for repentance. This is the essence of the Christians walk-sanctification. Yes, God is ultimately the one who does the sanctifying, but repentance, total reliance on his unwavering love and a longing to always be better are essential as well. So the next time you see an octagon cage on the stage, with a sermon series entitled, "Ultimate Faith Fighting", just make sure repentance is the goal-not the cool graphic.
"Hellfirey"--a fantastic term i will add to my vernacular. =o)
ReplyDeleteThere are definitely a lot of preachers and even homiletics teachers trying desperately to put as many bells and whistles on a message as possible. i think the best advice i ever got was: "Look, there's the text, now get out of its way."
--guy
I thought you might like that. Great advice as well.
ReplyDeleteDerek, I believe I coined the phrase "hellfirey" a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteI liked this post, I feel like I get caught up in the feely-goodness of sermons too often.
It's sad when I take home a clever saying from the preacher instead of the text the lesson was
based on. However, moving back to Montana- I find less fanfare. The preachers up here don't get
paid enough to gussy up their lessons too much. It's mostly men who sacrifice a lot because they
are answering a call. Not to say every lesson is worthy of being etched in stone, just simple. Just a
difference I noted now that I'm no where near the bible belt. P.S. I think you rock! Lana