There's lots of good stuff and discussion on the place of preaching in the church. Chris Erdman at odyssey is consistently blogging excellent teaching on how to be good at preaching. Jonny Baker has just made available a rejected chapter on preaching, which contains much food for thought. As the church we need to look beyond and outside the traditional role and shape of the sermon and look at more creative and participatory means of preaching - I encourage you to read Jonny's chapter for some good ideas. Earlier this year I did a session for some of our youthworkers called theology bitesize, with the aim of making our theology accessible, memorable and applied. Too often the preaching is boring, forgetable and unconnected to everyday life. One thing we need to consistently do is preach forests and trees or the big story and the small story - we need to see the wide canvas of the larger story of God and then see where the smaller story fits in and lastly where we fit.
I've just come back from Lemmings which some members of my church are involved in running. Its a weeks holiday for 8-12 yr olds. Reflecting on the teaching in the evening it was often visual, require active participation and told the big and small story - the story of Joseph and the bigger story of how this links with Jesus' story and especially the Sermon on the Mount. In the leaders evening meetings which I was leading I tried to make our times memorable - did bittersweet ritual and a meditation on faces with a powerpoint running of every leader's face. Theology was repeated and hopefully made memorable and applicable. I give this example from Lemmings, one because I've just returned, but two, because the wider church need to learn from the good examples of how youth and children workers preach.
I reflect on those good preachers and one comes to mind in Louie Giglio from Soul in the City 2004. The preaching was accesible, memorable and applicable. One method he used was reducing theology to easy-to-remember phrases - 'I AM not, but I know I AM' and 'I can't, but he can'.
There is still a place for good preaching, but the how and what we preach I believe needs changing. Some suggestions:
1. reduce the length of our preaching and the amount of points we try and make
2. find ways of saying the same thing in different ways
3. don't try and make our preaching neat and tidy, leaving the listeners some work to do
4. tell God's whole story and make links between old and new testaments - ideally use a lectionary
5. make preaching active and not passive - congregation need to engage if they are to learn
6. include different voices in preaching
7. before you preach do the reading work, don't rely on your interpretation or one commentary
8. give space for public response, dialogue and conversation
9. a sit down and listen to sermon is not required every week to be church
10. give the listeners a question to answer or preach in a way that generates further questions
11. reduce theology to memorable preaching
12. read scripture - open the scriptures and read them out loud
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