LPTC

LPTC

©UPCSA 1990, 2003

COURSE OUTLINESession PageSESSION ONE: The Purpose of Preaching 3SESSION TWO: What to Preach about 9SESSION THREE: Working on the Sermon 14SESSION FOUR: How to begin and how to stop 20SESSION FIVE: Quotations and illustrations 25SESSION SIX: Words, words, words 31SESSION SEVEN : Preaching the Great Beliefs 37SESSION EIGHT: Controversial Preaching 43SESSION NINE: Preaching on Individual Morality 48SESSION TEN: Planning a Worship Service 53SESSION ELEVEN: Practical Preaching Session 55SESSION TWELVE: The Preacher 56

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LAYPREACHERS

TRAININGCOURSE

Bob Orrand

Ian Booth

LAY PREACHERS TRAINING COURSE

INTRODUCTION This course was originally designed and presented in response to a request from Church members in Port Elizabeth. This ‘guinea-pig ’ group consisted four aspiring lay preachers and two ministers who made themselves responsible for presenting the input and guiding the discussions. While this made for a pleasant-sized group with which to work, the material was subsequently used with larger groups. Here we found it advisable for the discussion sessions to take place in smaller groups (say, not larger than six). Most of the input was based on George Sweazey’s book Preaching the Good News (Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1976). In our experience this is one of the best and most comprehensive books on homiletics (the art of preaching), but now, unfortunately, it appears to be out of print. It should be stressed that each session was designed by the ministers as the course progressed and that the ministers tried as best they could to make these designs fit the needs of the participants. This, of course, involved weekly planning sessions in addition to the meeting of the group of lay preachers. We urge anyone who uses this booklet to treat it as a guideline and to develop their own ideas in response to the particular needs of their group. Our experience also indicated that there could, and should, have been more practical work built into the course. This might well Iengthen the time spent on the course, but would make it that much more rewarding for the participants. We must also stress that this course focusses on the ‘how’ of preaching. It therefore needs to be supplemented by other courses as well which will deal with the ‘what’ of preaching - especially doctrine and Biblical content. It is gratifying to know that the ‘first edition’ of this booklet is now sold out. This encourages us to believe that it has been found helpful by those who want to qualify themselves to proclaim the Good News. We have taken the opportunity to make minor revisions to the text, aimed at making the designs of the group sessions easier to understand.

Ian Booth Bob Orr

June 1990

The late Robert “Bob” Orr served in pastoral charge particuIarIy at The Hill Presbyterian Church, Port Elizabeth, St. Andrews Pretoria, and in retirement at General Assemb1y Office. Ian Booth served in the Congregational ministry in Port Elizabeth and Glenashley, Durban North and in ministry as Registrar of Inanda Seminary, Durban.

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SESSION ONE THE PURPOSE OF PREACHING

1. Ask the participants to write down their brief (two or three sentences at

the most in each case) responses to these two questions:

“Why have you come to this course?”

“What expectations do you have of the course?”

Invite the participants to read what they have written. Encourage discussion by the group.

2. Ask the participants:

“Can we explore the differences between a lecture and a sermon?” Sharpen this, if necessary, by asking for a response to the question/s, “What is a lecture for? What is it supposed to do? How does it benefit the

hearers?”The responses could be discussed. Then ask for a response to the question/s,“What is a sermon for? What is it supposed to do? How does it benefit the

hearers?”The responses could be discussed.

3. This could be sharpened still further by inviting the group to think

about the difference between the sermon’s topic/theme/subject on the one hand and its purpose on the other. Here, the following exercise may be helpful.

First, write up what appears in section A below, showing possible themes/topics/subjects in the first column, and the corresponding (possible) purposes in the second column. Encourage discussion, to enable the group to grasp the difference between purpose and theme/topic/subject.

Then write up the themes/topics/subjects that appear in section B and

invite group members to frame a brief purpose for each of these, asking, in each case, “Why would you preach a sermon on this theme/topic/subject?’ Press firmly for a response and discuss the answers.

Then write up the purposes that appear in section C and ask, ‘What

themes/topics/subjects would you choose in order to get this purpose across?” Answers may be discussed.

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Theme/topic/subject Purpose

Section A a) The story of David and Goliath To help the hearers see that one

person, with God, is a majority.

b) The parable of the lost coin To enable the congregation to (Luke 15:8-10) realise that their salvation is in

God’s seeking love.

c) The parable of ‘the unjust steward’ To let the hearers realise that we (Luke 16:1-8) can ‘gamble’ on God’s gracious

generosity.

Section B d) The story of the sheep and the goats ?

(Matthew 25:31-46) e) The story of Peter’s visit to Cornelius ? and its consequences (Acts 10:17-34) f) Account of Paul ‘s confrontation with ? Peter (Galatians 2:11-14)

Section C g) (Luke 4:14-30?) To challenge people to see that God

cares for all irrespective of their race. h) (2 Corinthians 8:1-9?) To challenge the hearers to realise

that what we do with all our money is a divine duty.

i) (Isaiah 58: 11-12?) To enable Christians to see that

worship is useless without sacrificial service.

Invite the participants to note that while the theme/topic/subject focusses on the

text’ the purpose focusses on the hearers.

4. Input, based on chapter 3 of Sweazey’s book (see following pages).

5. Discussion on input.

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6. Assignment in preparation for session 2: Hand out the quotation

from Fred Buechner which appears at the end of the summary of chapter 3 of Sweasey of this Session 1. (The heading is To help prepare for next week on page 8 ). Request the participants to bear this quotation in mind over the next few days and to keep a ‘journal’ of what happens during that period and more particularly of their ‘theological reflection’ on what happens. The group leader could say, for example, “Try to identify where and how God has been at work in your daily life. We will give you an opportunity to share your reflections at the beginning of the next session.”

SESSION 1 INPUT: The Purpose of Preaching(Based on chapter 3 of Sweazey, Preaching the good news) What is the purpose of your sermon? Your answer might indicate that you are not distinguishing between a purpose and a topic. You might, for example, say that your purpose is ‘to give an exposition of the book of Jonah’ or ‘to give a modern view of evangelism’. This does not say why you want to expound Jonah or why you want to talk about evangelism. Many sermons are less effective than they should be because we think we have a purpose when all we really have is a topic. To sharpen this distinction, let’s list some questions the preacher can think about as he prepares his sermon:

What is the sermon’s subject (topic)? What is its object (purpose)? What is its aim? What will it do? What will it achieve? What action will follow? How do I hope people will be different because they’ve heard it? Why am I preaching it? We can deal with the purpose of preaching under various headings: 1. The Bible: The preacher’s task is to close the gap between what the Bible offers and what the people need. His task is to apply the Biblical revelation to human needs. What he preaches is not ‘Christianity in general’ but the specific Christianity presented in Scripture. This, in turn, implies two things. They should be obvious, but they are often ignored:

a. The preacher knows his Bible.

b. The preacher knows his hearers, their circumstances, their situation, their needs.

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We would do well to remember the comment of an experienced preacher who, picking up his newspaper, said, ‘I must see what God is doing with his world today.’

2. God’s Saving Acts: Preachers sometimes tend to talk about anything that seems important to them. What they say could then be called a lecture. It is not necessarily a sermon. A major purpose of a sermon is to communicate God’s mighty acts for our salvation. Apart from these, all our good advice about morals, love, joy, right relationships are like sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. An illusion that dies very hard with many preachers is that all they have to say to their people is ‘Love one another’ and - behold! - it will happen. The unspoken question, which the preacher has to answer is, ‘Why should we?’ This proclamation of God’s mighty acts can be overdone. To tell the people every week that God has saved his people by his stretched-out arm might be rather like announcing before every session of Parliament that the constitution has been ratified by all our provinces. Again, the proclamation of salvation, apart from its specific implications for daily living, can be a pious sham. That ardent evangelist, John Wesley, was also a practi-cal realist: ‘Let someone that has neither sense nor grace bawl out something about Christ, or his blood, or justification by faith and his hearers will cry out, “What a fine gospel sermon!” I find more profit in sermons on either good tempers or good works, than in what are vulgarly called Gospel sermons.’ 3. An encounter with Christ: The sermon’s business is not to remind people of what Christ did way back then but to tell them what he is ready to do now. To preach Christ rightly is to make him present for the hearers. It’s good to remember that in the Bible a ‘word’ is not simply a signal that flashes an idea from one mind to another. A word is something charged with dynamic energy (see, e.g., Isaiah 55:10-11). It does things. Jesus Christ is the Word of God, not only because he translates the language of heaven into a language men can understand, but because he does the work of God (see John 1:4). The word of the preacher parti-cipates in this action: it does something. Rather than seeing the sermon as a lecture or discourse designed to stimulate thought, we ought to see it as an event that stimulates action. The encounter with Christ does not have to be dramatic, an emotional upheaval, though it can do so. St. Bernard of Clairvaux put it this way: ‘The Lord has visited me, and that many times. And although he has often entered into me, I have never known when he came.... He did not enter by the ear, for he is without sound... How then, you ask, when his ways are altogether unsearchable, could I have known that he was present? In the flight of vices and the restraint of carnal affections I have perceived the power of his virtue... In the amendment, however small, of my ways I have experienced his goodness and gentleness. In the renovation and reformation of my mind and spirit... I have seen the fashion of his beauty.’

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4. Teaching: There are three kinds of public discourse in the New Testament. The evangelistic type was addressed to people outside the Church. This told what God had done and called for acceptance of it. The second was addressed to candidates for membership, to prepare them for Baptism. The third was for the members of the Christian community. It was meant to improve their knowledge of the faith, to exhort them to holiness and to instruct them in the Christian life. The epistles are our fullest guide as to how sermons should be used, for they are sermons by an absent preacher. Note, however, that they deal with real questions, real problems raised by real people. (See, e.g. 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16:1, 8:1, 12:1) To proclaim the gospel means to impart information, but the imparting of information must always include the challenge to commitment. Those who accept Christ will never cease learning the implications of the Gospel. Again and again they need to be called to newer, deeper dedication to him. 5. Sustaining: The preacher’s task is to bring the strength, consolation and encouragement of God to those whom life has clobbered. His sermons must be inspired by the golden opportunity to help those who find life grindingly hard. This, again, assumes that he ‘knows where people are.’ 6. The Emotions: Aquinas said that the preacher has three tasks: to instruct the intelligence, to kindle the emotions and to form the will. Making people feel more intensely about what they know already is an essential goal of preaching. So the preacher aims to make people care intensely. He wants them to experience, joy, pathos, passionate indignation, burning zeal. Preaching aims to make people more sensitive, more responsive, more emotinally alive. Examine the style of the Biblical preachers (e.g. Elijah, 1 Kings 18:27-29) including Jesus, and see how they use words that are emotionally charged: ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness...’ So the preacher will often be passionate. He can seldom adopt the detached style and cool manner of the lecturer. In practice, unfortunately, the reverse is often true. Some preachers sound as if they are reading the weather report. Consider Abraham Lincoln: ‘When I hear a man preaching, I like to see him look as if he’s fighting bees.’ 7. Judgement: Preaching must declare God’s judgement on private and social wrong. The preacher must expose traditions, practices and institutions which poison character, break hearts and stunt lives. 8. Decisions: Sermons are intended to change people. John Donne said: ‘For publi-cation of himself he hath constituted a Church. And in the Church... his ordinance of preaching batters the soul, and by the breach the Spirit enters.’ Think of the occasions when Jesus, face to face with individuals, challenged them to make a decision. So the preacher is not there to juggle abstract concepts. Rather, he is an advocate, pleading for a verdict. Preaching does not so much aim to tell people

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what they do not know as to get them to respond as they have not yet responded. 9. Action: When other speakers ended, people said, ‘What a magnificent oration!’ When Demosthenes ended, they said, ‘Let us go and fight Philip!’ The test of a sermon is what happens afterwards. It is often good for a preacher to conclude with a call to specific action, e.g.: ‘Your cheque book stubs are the real confession of your faith. Can you think now of some cheques to write that will truly say what you believe?’ Many an otherwise important sermon is left dangling because the preacher does not connect it with real living. He does not answer the question, ‘So what?’ To summarise: It is the purpose that distinguishes the sermon from a lecture. The treatment of a religious topic is not a sermon unless it is designed to have some result. Preaching is never intended simply to give the hearers some information and leave them where they were before. A lecture looks at ideas. A sermon looks at people. If we think we have a purpose when all we really have is a topic then we shall fall into the trap of ‘aiming at nothing and hitting it hard.’ To help prepare for next week

By examining as candidly as I could the life that had come to seem a kind of trap or dead-end street, I discovered that it really wasn’t that at all. I discovered that if you really keep your eyes peeled and your ears open... even such a limited and limiting life as the one I was living opened up onto extraordinary vistas. Taking your children to school and kissing your wife goodbye. Eating lunch with a friend. Trying to do a decent day’s work. Hearing the rain pattering against the window. There is no event so conwnon place but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognise him or not to recognise him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that, all the more compelling and hauntingly... If I were called on to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this:

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste and smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace. What I started trying to do as a writer and as a preacher was more and more to draw on my own experience, not just as a source of plot, character, illustration, but as a source of truth.

Fred Buechner.

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SESSION TWO

WHAT TO PREACH ABOUT

1. Invite the participants to share their responses to the assignment mentioned at the end of the previous session, allowing sufficient time for each person to take part. The group leaders ‘started the ball rolling by sharing their own responses.

(Personal content: On every occasion when we heard the results of this assignment, it proved to be a most moving experience:)

2. Offer time for reflection on the value of this exercise. 3. Stress that personal experience (‘I know whom I have believed’) is one

very valuable source for sermons. Explore what other sources there may be. Newspapers, for example. Quote the minister who picked up his newspaper each day with the comment: ‘I must see what God is doing with his world today’. Ask “What other sources are there?” (e.g. television programmes, novels, other people.)

4. Invite the participants to look at the Lectionary. It would be good to have

a duplicated version of the Lectionary handy for this purpose. Alternatively, it may be written up in summary form or displayed using an overhead projector. Point out how the Lectionary ‘fits in’ to the Christian Year and covers the aspects highlighted by, e.g. the Apostles’ Creed.

5. Input, based on chapter 8 of Sweazey: What to preach about. (See following pages.) 6. Discussion on input. 7. Assignment to help prepare for Session 3: Ask the participants to

read Chapters 1 and 2 of Mark’s Gospel, to select any passage in these chapters and to prepare a sermon outline based on the chosen passage. Stress that each participant should write one sentence to express the purpose of such a sermon.

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SESSION 2 INPUT: What to Preach about(Based on chapter 8 of Sweazey: Preaching the good news) Perhaps our first reaction to the title is to say ‘But there’s so much to preach about, one hardly knows where to begin ‘ In fact, though, most preachers (whether beginners or veterans) often worry about finding ideas and material for sermons. Sweazey encourages us here. He says that the sermon source is like an unused spring of water. The more that is taken from it, the greater is the flow. He writes, ‘When we get into the habit of thinking homiletically then all our reading, conversa-tions, adventures and misadventures, prayers and meetings produce material for our sermons.’ (‘Homiletics’ - the art of preaching.) He is encouraging us, in other words, to see preaching not as a kind of ‘extra activity’ but as a ‘way of life’ in which we keep our eyes peeled and our ears open (remember Buechner?) for material which we can use as resources for our sermons. Let’s be more specific. How do we analyse and classify our preaching material? 1. General Preparation Many preachers find that it’s very helpful to keep a note book with us at all times and to jot down ideas that strike us from conversations, books, TV programmes, news-paper and magazine articles, even adverts. If we want to do this systematically, we might even think of setting up a filing system of indexed cards to help us arrange our thoughts, quotes and references by themes or topics. If we train ourselves to reflect on our daily experiences and learn to handle the rough parts of life creatively, we shall have a seed bed for sermons. It is when the ability to reflect is added to the ‘academic’ knowledge of theology that sermons prove to be most helpful to the hearer. For example, the preacher who has himself been through suffering of one kind or another and has used that experience to learn more of God’s gracious love is in a far better position to help his hearers. One minister was able to respond to his wife’s long illness and death from cancer in such a creative way that his congregation was moved to thank God for the example he gave them of the power of the Gospel The most important experience of all for sermon preparation is what comes from our personal knowledge and love of God. If we do not have regular times when we are alone and quiet with God, we shall miss out on an important area of sermon prepara-tion. A previous Bishop of Pretoria once said, ‘I cannot afford not to pray.’ Also important by way of general preparation for preaching is the regular study of the bible. We do not mean reading the Bible in order to ‘find sermons’. This kills our use of the Bible for our daily diet. Use it, not to find ‘What God wants me to say to them,’ but to find ‘What God is saying to me.’ By regular intercourse with the Scriptures we are to ‘soak ourselves’ into the Bible and the Biblical way of thinking.

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And let’s do our best to keep up the study of theology, literature, the daily paper - to see what others are thinking, to see what God is doing in his world. All this lay be no substitute for our own thinking. But it often gets us thinking. 2. Direct Preparation How do we go about choosing a particular text, theme or topic? Our choice can be determined by:

1. What appeals to us; 2. What appeals to the congregation; 3. What will please God. 2.1 Yes, there is a need for preachers to be careful of focussing only on their ‘pet’ themes and for them to aim at well-balanced preaching. But it is still true that a preacher’s best sermons are in the area of his personal interest. These could be evangelism, justice in society, the gifts of the Spirit. This is all right, provided the preacher realises that there are other areas, other themes in the Bible that need his attention also. Let’s realise, too, that if a preacher finds politics difficult or doctrine dull, then these may well be areas where God wants his understanding to develop. If our preaching interests do not change, we may suspect that we are not growing spiritually. 2.2 The preacher should preach on what appeals to his people. Yes, Jeremiah warns against prophets who say only what people want to hear, rather than what God wants them to hear (Jeremiah 5:30-31) but it is still true that our sermons should take into account the needs (often different from the wants) of the people and try to answer those needs. Reflect for a moment on the people known to you personally and ask, ‘How many of these folk need a message of comfort, strength, joy, encouragement?’ 2.3 Our choice of a passage or text will also be determined by what will please God. This is the ultimate test. What does God want me to preach about? Is this what he wants me to say? This highlights the importance of prayer. When we focus on God and his will for the Church or the nation, then our decisions about texts and themes will also contain a word from God for ourselves. 3. Theological Perspective Because there are so many things we would like to preach about, we have to choose between what is less important and what is more important. Thomas Merton, who has written some profound books on spiritual growth, tells us that, as a confused stu-dent hungry for faith, he started attending a church in New York. ‘The minister... was very friendly and used to get into conversations on intellectual matters and modern literature, even D.H. Lawrence, with whom he was very familiar. It seemed that he counted very much on that sort of thing - considered it to be an essential part of his ministry. That was precisely one of the things that made going to that church such a

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sterile experience for me. It was modern religion and politics he talked about, not religion and God.’ Of course there are times when we shall hold the life of the nation under the micro-scope of God’s Word - but our politics should be subordinate to that Word. What is important? Our answer to that will depend on our theological perspective. There is nothing wrong with that, provided we realise that our theological perspective is bound to be limited and that it needs to be corrected by God’s Word. It would be good to aim at fulfilling the ideal expressed by Lex Miller, a Presbyterian minister,: ‘I am a High Church Reformed Protestant Catholic Evangelical Christian.’ Once again, it is important to stress balance.

4. A Balanced Preaching Programme Sermon subjects may be classified under various headings, e.g.

1. The great beliefs; 2. Individual morality; 3. Social morality; 4. Personal problems; 5. Christian disciplines. (There are other headings which you may wish

to think about and add.) Each subject can use different styles: (a) We can draw out and make plain the meaning of a text or passage (expository);(b) We can focus on God at work in the life of individuals, e.g. Moses, Abraham,

Peter (biographical);(c) We can begin with a problem or subject of daily interest and then bring

Scripture to bear on it (topical). Preachers should aim to be good ‘general practitioners.’ If a preacher feels called to specialise in, say, God’s ministry of healing, he will have to be very careful to take into account the general needs of the people and offer a ‘balanced diet.’ The preacher himself needs a balanced diet, of course, and will only get it if he plans to cover a wide range of subjects in his preaching. This is where long-range planning comes in useful. It is also helpful to look over the subjects one has already covered and to ask oneself, ‘What subjects, themes etc, have I not dealt with?’ The lectionary is also a very good discipline in this respect. During the second World War, Christian ministers in Germany adopted the practice of meeting for a full day each week. In the morning, they would study the passages prescribed by the lectionary, using all the help they could get from the commentaries. Later in the day they looked at and discussed what was happening in their country. Finally, they tried

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to weave the two together - what Scripture said and how it bore on their under- standing of current events. When the Nazis accused them of preaching ‘political’ sermons, they pointed out that they were simply following the lectionary. 5. Using Series of Sermons If a preacher knows that he will be preaching to the same congregation for several Sundays, he may well find it helpful to work on a series of sermons having a recog-nisable link. Examples would include sermons on the Parables, the Creed, Barriers to Belief and so on. It is good to let the congregation know the titles of the series and of the sermons comprising it. Warning! The series should not last too long! About five or six is as much as most congregations (and preachers) can take. An extra bonus of using the lectionary or embarking on a series is that one is saved from the (often desperate) search for a subject or theme. 6. Conclusion The Word of God and the world of men contains all we need to keep us going in sermons. If our interest in God and his world is sustained, we shall not run out of ideas or fail to hear the voice of Him who speaks in his word and through his world.

The Reformer describes the Preacher A good preacher should have these qualities and virtues. First, he should be able to teach in a right and orderly way. Second, he should have a good head. Third, he should be able to speak well. Fourth, he should have a good voice. Fifth, a good memory. Sixth, he should know when to stop. Seventh, he should be sure of his material and be diligent. Eight, he should stake his body and life, goods and honour on it. Ninth, he must suffer himself to be vexed and flayed by everybody. Martin Luther.

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SESSION THREE

WORKING ON THE SERMON

1. Ask the participants to indicate which passage they chose from Mark’s Gospel and to share the outline of the sermon they would preach on the chosen passage. With each participant, probe to discern the purpose, asking, for example, ‘What would you aim to achieve by preaching that sermon? Spend considerable time on this.

2. Input, based on chapter 13 of Sweazey: Working on the sermon. 3. Discussion on the input. 4. Assignment in preparation for the next Session: Invite the

participants to select one of the following themes and to write the introduction and the conclusion of a sermon on the chosen theme:

a. Baptism and what is means for modern man. (Purpose: to enable

the hearers to see the significance of Baptism in life today).

b. The temptation/s of wealth. (Purpose: to challenge the hearers to use their wealth responsibly and creatively).

c. What to do when God says ‘No’. (Purpose: to enable the hearers

to argue honestly with God).

d. Our responsibility as stewards of creation. (Purpose: to enable hearers to see how they can help care for the earth and its resources).

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SESSION 3 INPUT: Working on the Sermon(Based on chapter 13 of Sweazey, Preaching the good news)

There is no one way of preparing a sermon. Preachers find that, over the years, they develop the method that best suits them. What follows, therefore, may be seen as guidelines and helps, not a rigid prescription.

1. The Theme You may begin with text or a theme. If you believe it is right to preach on the theme of, say, the Christian’s responsibility concerning wealth or poverty, then you will need to find a suitable text (either one verse or a series of verses). Here a concordance will offer limited help. The best resource, however, is our own knowledge of the Bible. The preacher who is thoroughly acquainted with the Bible will find his theme developing around a particular text. Sometimes you will not be able to find a text exactly fits your theme. There are several passages that touch at it or hint at it but none that is totally suitable to it. What then? In these circumstances it is best to say, ‘My theme is .......’ and go ahead without quoting a text at the beginning. Such a sermon can still be truly Biblical if it is faithful to the insights of Scripture. Themes are chosen for a variety of reasons. The Christian Year and the lectionary help to determine themes. Needs in the congregation or community can also guide us. It is stimulating to reflect on the preacher who prepared his sermons with the Bible in one hand and the morning newspaper in the other. 2. The Purpose If step one is to choose the theme, step two is to formulate the purpose. (refer again to the paper on The purpose of preaching.) The purpose (aim, objective) of the sermon is so vitally important that it should be worked our right at the beginning. It is wishful thinking to begin writing the sermon believing that the purpose will look after itself. Many sermons fail because: (a) they do not have a purpose (b) they do not have a clearly stated purpose, or (c) they do not keep the purpose consistently in view. 3. Biblical Spade Work With theme and purpose settled, the next step is to do the Biblical spade work, or, as Sweazey calls it, Bible Research. Many preachers, however, find it useful to add another step before researching the Bible. They take a sheet of paper and put down, without worrying about logical order,

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all the thoughts that come to us on the chosen theme or text. This will include facts or illustrations one has come across in the course of one’s work, or reading, one’s own feelings on the matter, all the relevant Biblical material one can think of. There is a twofold value in this. The material you are putting down is yours and the more you use your own thinking, the less dependent you will be on others. Second, this process frees your mind to concentrate on the Bible and the commentaries. Now we’re ready to go to the Bible itself. Let’s assume that I have decided to preach from Amos. I already know that it has a great deal to say about God’s people and their attitude to wealth and poverty. But I don’t have a particular text as yet. I open the Bible at Amos. Here it is good to pray. To be a channel of God’s word to his people is a heavy responsibility and we need to be open to the leading of God’s Spirit. So, with the open Bible before me, I will pray. And continue to pray while the sermon is being prepared. ‘A lively sense of God while the sermon is being prepared, ‘says Sweazey, ‘is likely to be communicated to the congregation. The next step would be to read through the book of Amos - not a formidable task, because Amos is not a long book. It is always good to become thoroughly familiar with the context of our passage. When Paul, for example, gives very practical advice to husbands, wives and children (Colossians 3:18-22), it is important to realise that this practical advice flows out of his theology - see Colossians 2:20. Again, when he gives advice about Christian giving (2 Corinthians 8:1-7), this is firmly based on the self-giving of Jesus himself (2 Corinthians 8:9). Back to Amos. As I read his book, I will write down on another piece of paper, a list of the verses (and ideas) related to the theme. Here it is helpful to re-read these verses using a translation different from the one I normally use. As I do so, I keep jotting down reflections that come to mind. Notice that we have not yet consulted the commentaries or other books. To go straight to other people’s ideas hampers the development of my own thought. We need to develop our own skills in exegesis. (‘Exegesis’ = working out what the Bible actually says. ‘Exposition’ = working out what the Bible says to us.) Once I’ve read the Bible and made my list of passages and comments, I can go on to study the commentaries. At this stage I will not cut down the list of passages but will try to read as widely as possible. I will also keep in mind the need for a New Testament passage to give the Christian view. Commentaries are not always as helpful as we would like. The writers seem to focus on questions that we are not asking. So we may want to cast our net a little wider. In the general article on ‘Prophecy’ (Peake’s Commentary), for example, there is a helpful section on the ethical teaching of the prophets. So I will read this and anything else on Amos I can lay hands on.

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(As time goes on, the preacher will undoubtedly want to build up his own library of commentaries. In the beginning stages, it will be helpful to use the resources of the local public library.)As I read, I make further notes, putting down anything that seems to be relevant to my theme and purpose, and also jotting down my own thoughts. At this point I may well begin to clarify for myself the main points of Amos’ message and I write these down as well:

1. God is speaking to his peoples through Amos. So, earthly things are to be evaluated in the light of God’s will.

2. God is concerned about wealth and the way we use it. Economic exploitation offends him.

Then we see that the book of Amos is deeply concerned about the nation

3. In Israel, extreme wealth and extreme poverty exist side by side. The rich are ruthless in exploiting the poor. They live in luxury while their neigh-bours go hungry. The economic system promotes iniquity and injustice.

4. This violates the truth that rich and poor are dependent on one another because they are both under God.

The next conviction to emerge concerns judgement:

5. Those who abuse their position of privilege will pay for it. Trouble is

coming. The Day of the Lord is not something to look forward to. At this point, the sermon could well be left for a day or so. The exegesis (working out what the Bible actually says) has been completed and certain ideas have begun to emerge. Now it could be helpful to let the subject ‘simmer’ in on one’s mind, to let the sub-conscious do its work. 4. Interpretation (Exposition - what the Bible says to us.) Here’s the next step: how do I apply what the Bible says to life as I experience it? We may think immediately of the economic recession. Are there many people who are still truly wealthy? Perhaps not. But relatively speaking many are comfortably off, while others are out of work. So Amos’ message is still relevant. In the meantime, I have read in the paper the startling facts of economic exploitation given by Eugene Roelofse of the SACC to the Housewives’ League. And I am upset by what my neighbour tells me concerning the wage he pays to his domestic. In these and other ways I listen to what God is saying to me not only in the Bible but in daily life. We may remember the method used by ministers in Germany during the Nazi regime. Groups of pastors met together once a week. In the morning they studied the lectionary passage/s for the following Sunday - and they did it with typical German thoroughness. Later in the day they studied the national situation - the most recent Nazi decrees, the consequences of those decrees for the church and the country, detentions, etc. Then they brought together the two worlds and the sermon was born.

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Something like this is what I have to do with my sermon on Christian responsibility concerning wealth and poverty. This is interpretation, or exposition. It seeks to show what the Bible has to say to our own situation. By the time this is done, I should be ready to prepare an outline of the sermon. 5. The Sermon Outline At this stage, we should not focus too heavily on the introduction. That can be done last. It is the outline of the main body of the sermon which needs most thought. An outline should have:

a. the theme running through it;b. development of thought or progression of ideas;c. advance towards the conclusion and provide for culmination of effect;d. it can have three or more points - these should provide for progression of

ideas.

Into the outline I need to fit exegesis, exposition and application and such illustrations as are necessary. How is this done? Many preachers begin with what the Bible says and then apply what it says to the situation. This is legitimate, but it is interesting to observe the method often used by the Biblical writers: they begin with a description of the situation and only then bring in their ‘Thus says the Lord....’ If your outline has points, each point or section could begin either at ‘the Bible end’ or ‘at the situation end,’ working through the sermon in cycle fashion. The arrangement of exegesis, exposition and application can and should vary from sermon to sermon. 6. Proportioning Proportioning is important. It would not be right to spend a great deal of time on exegesis and very little on exposition and application. It would not be right to spend too much time on stating the problem and not enough on what the Bible says. Look, for example, at Romans 5:20: ‘Where sin increased, God’s grace increased much more’ (GNB). Unless there is careful proportioning, the sermon will spend three quarters of the time on sin and only one quarter on grace. This reverses the proportion of the text and leaves a negative, rather than positive impression. Proportioning is easier when we write out our sermons in full. 7. The Conclusion We spoke earlier of the purpose of the sermon. If the purpose is clear from the beginning, and has been held in mind throughout the preparation of the sermon, then one knows what the conclusion must be. ‘The sermon is as direct a path as possible to the conclusion’ (Sangster). It must never be ‘stuck on’ as an after thought. It must grow out of the sermon. Some preachers believe the conclusion to be so important that they write it first. The conclusion should not be skimped because we are tired or so not have enough time left when we come to it.

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We shall think about the conclusion in more detail when we come to the session on ‘How to begin and how to stop.’ 8. The introduction We put this least because of its importance. If we don’t interest our hearers in the first two minutes, how can we hope to do so later? The introduction should be brief interesting and relevant - relevant not only to what immediately follows but to the whole sermon. We can begin with the Bible, but the sermon is more likely to attract attention if it begins with the life situation of those listening. If the introduction is in the form of an illustration, it will be best if this is from the local scene, not some place far away. 9. Writing Out Sermons Should we write out sermons in full? There are advantages - but there are also disadvantages.

In favour: a. Writing, reflecting, then writing again assists thinking.

b. It gives us the opportunity to work out the clearest, simplest, most powerful ways of saying what needs to be said.

c. Writing guards us from making impulsive statements we might otherwise regret.

d. Written sermons can be revised. e. They permit more thorough preparation - you can say better what you

know you are going to say. f. They guard against the preacher floundering around wondering where and

how to stop.

Against: a. Writing takes time.

b. What you write may not be in a style suited to preaching.c. The habit of writing can make one dependent on it.d. Manuscripts in the pulpit can have an inhibiting effect and stifle

spontaneity. Each preacher must find what is best for him. Some preachers write out the sermon in full, but take only an outline into the pulpit. If you take a full manuscript into the pulpit, be sure to have read it over several times beforehand. Manuscripts should be written or typed in letters large enough for the preacher to see without difficulty. If you don’t want your manuscript to be obvious, use one side of the page only.

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SESSION FOUR

HOW TO BEGIN AND HOW TO STOP:

1. Brainstorm* : What are the characteristics of a good beginning and a good ending?

2. Input: based on Chapter 11 of Sweazey:

How to begin and how to stop. 3. Ask the participants to rewrite the introductions and conclusions that

they did at home. Then ask them to share both the ones done at home and the revised ones with the group, and compare them.

4. Assignment in preparation for the next session: Using the radio,

television, magazines, newspapers or personal experience as a source, bring one illustration of one point within a particular theme.

[*A Brainstorm is a technique used to determine the immediate response of the group to a particular statement or question. Any member of the group is free to express his/her immediate response, and every response is recorded without comment, on a sheet of newsprint which is visible to all. ]

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SESSION 4 INPUT: How to Begin and how to Stop (Adapted from chapter 11 of Sweazey: Preaching the Good News) Every sermon has to have an introduction and a conclusion. Both are critically important. If they are good, they can rescue material that is otherwise inferior. If they are bad they can wreck material that is otherwise first-class. Let’s see why this is so on the case of introductions. 1. The opening makes the first impression, good or bad. It gives the preacher either a flying start - or a handicap. His opening may set his hearers for him or against him. They may decide that he is someone to be trusted, someone who has something important to say. On the other hand, if he is hesitant, unsure or unprepared, they may well come to the conclusion that he has nothing to say. Manner and ‘body language’ are important. Some preachers take a friendly look right round the congregation, establishing eye contact. Others have a long pause to ensure that everyone has settled in their seats and that he has each hearer’s attention, thus indicating that he is getting ready to plunge into something tremendous. The first words should be well in mind and spoken looking at the congregation, not at notes. Whatever happens with the remainder of the sermon, the content and the delivery of the introduction and conclusion need to be well prepared. 2. The opening has to command attention. In most cases the congregation will be in a state of transition, settling down after a hymn or the Creed. The Scripture reading may not have ‘grabbed’ them. The preacher’s introduction has to grip their minds and persuade them to listen. 3. The introduction gives the sermon’s theme. It may, at least by implication, make a ‘bargain’ or ‘contract’. It promises the hearers what they will get if they give their attention. 4. An introduction can reveal the plan of the sermon with a preview of the main points. Bernard Montgomery, speaking on the way he addressed gatherings of officers, used to say, ‘First I tell them what I’m going to tell them. Then I tell them. Then I tell them what I’ve told them.’ This is valid for preachers as well, provided we don’t do it every time. Don’t do anything always What to do and what not to do

a. Do not make the introduction too long. This steals time that is needed for the rest of the sermon. Hearers will be impatient: ‘I wish he would get on with it.’’

b. Do not begin with on apology. If you do, you will be persuading people that

they need not listen. If you feel you have to apologise, then apologise to the one who really matters - God. And do so before the service.

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c. Prayer before the sermon? In one sense, it’s too late. On the other hand, it is appropriate to ask God’s help, not with what the sermon is, but with what it does. Prayer is better offered before the Scripture is read, so as to apply to both reading and sermon.

d. Do not use the introduction to dwell on the scholarly preliminaries. If you

take two or three paragraphs to explain the geography of the Jerusalem - Jericho road, or to reconcile a version of the indent in Mark with the version in Luke, you’ve lost your hearers. They’ve switched off.

Here are some examples of introduction that could be helpful.

a. Announce the text. Repeat it in a wondering/puzzled/baffled tone of voice. Say, ‘Surely, Paul can ‘t be serious! Everyone knows that’s not true!’

b. Say something startling: ‘Ours is the most murderous generation in

history’; or ‘Moses was an absolute fool.’’

c. Use an aphorism: ‘If the gates of hell are locked, they are locked on the inside.

d. A question: ‘How do you know you are a Christian?’

e. Be provocative: ‘You say you love God. I believe you. Do you like him?’; or

‘Do you think God has a sense of humour?’

f. A line or two (not more) of poetry: ‘A garden is my soul, which I must tend or slight until I die. ‘ Warning: do not use obscure poetry.

g. A quotation: ‘John and Phoebe Brashear were astronomers who worked

together for years. On their tombstone is written, ‘We have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night’. Or: ‘People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing’.

h. Something shocking: ‘In the time it took me to read the story of Jesus

blessing the children, four children starved to death.’

i. Humour can be helpful: ‘Last Sunday I said that our stewardship campaign was a visitation. Someone then reminded me of the dictionary definition of a visitation: “An affliction sent by God”.

Occasionally — not often - the best introduction is no introduction. The preacher simply plunges immediately into the full swing of his sermon. The secret, here as elsewhere, is variety. Don’t do anything always.

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Finally, my brothers The preacher needs to give extreme care to the content and delivery of his closing paragraph or sentence. Why is that? 1. Because the conclusion gives the final chance to impress the message on the

minds of the hearers. Those who have not quite followed him, or whose minds have wandered, have one more chance to understand what has been said.

2. The conclusion has the best chance of being remembered. What the preacher

most wants his hearers to recall can be said very clearly at the end. Whatever techniques he has used - an alliterative outline, key words and so on, can be reviewed at the end and anchored in the people’s minds.

3. The enduring impression depends on the close. Whatever mood the preacher

wishes to be the final effect can best be imparted at the end. That mood should never be drooping. Sermons should face reality, but the final reality they face is God.

4. If the sermon looks toward any sort of definite result, the conclusion can point people directly towards it. It can be a crisp hammering home of the purpose (not the topic).

5. The conclusion may bring the sermon to an impressive climax. The main body

of the sermon may have aimed at teaching, analysing and so on, without much to stir the heart or the will. But a good conclusion can lift people to a height of strong feeling about it all. (Sam Goldwyn’s formula for a good movie: ‘Start with an earthquake and work up to a climax’!)

Watch out for two handicaps:

a. The conclusion is prepared when the preacher is most tired.

b. The conclusion is heard when the congregation is most tired. Some preachers guard against a. by working on the conclusion first. This has the advantage that he knows where he is going and consciously works towards it. The drawback is that the sermon often takes shape as we work on it. The solution could be for us to make a rough draft of the conclusion when our minds are most alert and then leave the final draft to the end. Do not go on too long. If you haven’t struck oil after twenty minutes, then stop boring. Or, as Luther put it: ‘When you see your hearers most attentive, then conclude. ‘Sometimes a preacher feels he must cram in at the end all the other good things he thought of. This is fatal and can ruin an otherwise good sermon. Keep it for another Sunday. Do not introduce a new idea into the conclusion. This is totally distracting.

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Do not, in the last quarter of the sermon, say anything that suggests you are about to end when you are not. In any extended performance (sermon, concert, sporting event) when the hearers are physically and mentally expecting a change, it is unpleasant to have it snatched away. There are many old jokes on this, and they are all bitter. (An optimist is a guy who reaches for his hat when the preacher says, ‘And finally, brethren....’. Even Paul fell into this trap. At the beginning of his third chapter of Philippians he says, ‘Finally...’ and then goes on for another two chapters) Suggested ways of concluding

a. A quotation: e.g. ‘It is possible to give without loving, but it is impossible to love without giving.

b. A poem, or a verse of a suitable hymn. Be brief!c. A call for decision. Make the call crisp, clear and unmistakable in its

meaning. Avoid this kind of call ‘So now let ‘s all go out and do something about it! The ‘what to do’ should be very specific.

d. An illustration.e. A promise.f. A sudden stop.g. A challenge.h. A series of questions.

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SESSION FIVE QUOTATIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

(Ian Booth and Bob Orr began this session by outlining the requirements for practical work. It is hoped that group leaders will have done this by now, if they have taken the point made in the introduction. In the original courses, practical work involved the writing of a 5-minute sermon on any theme. Arrangements were then made for the sermon script to be discussed by the writer and the group leader/s. After possible revision, in the light of this discussion, the sermon was preached to the group (see session 11) and this, in turn, was followed by discussion.)

1. Ask the group to share the illustrations they have found. Focus strongly

on which point in which theme these are intended to illustrate. 2. Input, based on chapters 18 and 19 of Sweazey: Quotations and

illustrations and the use of humour. See following pages. 3. Discussion on input. 4. Assignment in preparation for the next session.

a. Ask participants to find at least three synonyms for each of these words:

‘nice’, ‘bad’, ‘cold’, ‘quiet’, ‘noise’.

b. Ask them also ‘Think of your five favourite words and be prepared to share them with the group telling us why they appeal to you.’

c. And ask them to study advertisements in the newspaper or

magazines, picking out the words which (at least in the minds of the advertisers) will move consumers to buy the advertised product.

Ask the participants to begin work on their five-minute sermons.

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SESSION 5 INPUT: Quotations, poetry and illustrations (with an appendix on humour) (Based on chapters 18 and 19 of Sweazey: Preaching the good news.)

Quotations, poetry and illustrations - each of these has great advantages and great abuses. So this paper will, to a large extent, present the pros and cons.

1. Quotations Why use quotations? 1. They can bring beauty, force, excitement into a sermon in a way the preacher

cannot match. 2. Quotations bring the support of respected authorities. 3. A quotation can offer a tactful way of saying what the preacher would rather not

say himself. It is wise to use someone else’s statement if the point is likely to be controversial, charged with emotion or may sound authoritarian.

4. A quotation can enliven the sermon with a welcome change of pace. 5. The Bible’s words are often just what we need. We struggle to find the way of

making a point, while an apt quotation from Scripture would say it perfectly. 6. Quotations can add colour and drama. But when we use quotations there are certain warnings to be remembered: 1. Too many quotes spoil a sermon. There is a ‘scissors and paste’ style of sermon

which is made up mostly of items the preacher has harvested from his reading. It is not what most congregations need to hear.

2. Sometimes quotations are treated as proof of the point being made. They are

not. They are supportive testimony. 3. Some preachers who use quotations may be showing off their learning. 4. There are good reasons for quoting the Bible, but we must resist the tendency

to keep throwing ‘odds and ends’ of Scripture into our script when our own words would suit better.

5. Be accurate in your quotations. A preacher who misquotes familiar words runs

the risk of being thought sloppy by his hearers.

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2. Poetry In many ways, the aim of the poet is that of the preacher as well. Both try to inspire, to seek the depths of the human heart. Both try to bring beauty, to stir people to love, indignation, horror, pity, ecstasy. It has been said that ‘Poetry is the natural language of all worship.’ The poetry we use should be judged only by how well it serves the intended purpose. Unfortunately, this rules out a great deal of poetry for the hearers have to sit and puzzle through its meaning. Even if we love it and long to convey what it means to us, it may be too subtle to be caught at the speed of preaching. If so, we have to find some other way to share that particular truth. There is no place for trashy, over-sentimental poetry in worship. Our congregations will often include discriminating people and this will make them feel out of place. Quotations from poetry, etc It is usually not necessary to quote poetry at length. Use only that part of the poem which is necessary to make the point being stressed. Poems are often used for conclusions and, less often, for introductions. But ‘don’t do anything always.’ There are collections of poetry aimed especially at preachers. Many of these are not worth buying, though a few are selected with judgement and taste. Look for a good collection with a topical index. A good source of poetry is the hymnbook. Many of the newer hymnals have topical indexes.

3. Illustrations

In a later session, we shall be looking at words as sermon tools, but we can note here that single words in themselves can be illustrations. Such picture words (and illustration means, simply, picture) are ‘green’ or ‘raw’ rather than ‘new’; ‘hoary or tottering’ rather than ‘old’; ‘heavy-hearted’ rather than ‘sad’. Jesus was a master of illustration. He used ‘quickies’: ‘You are the salt of the earth’; and long ones: ‘Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye....?; and extended ones: ‘A certain man had two sons...’ The most spiritual message in the world was conveyed in a wealth of material terms.

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Some reasons why illustrations are indispensable: 1. Tangible pictures help the congregation understand. ‘A picture is worth a

thousand words. ‘Often it is the illustration which makes the hearers see what the preacher is trying to say.

2. They make the sermon interesting. ‘He is the best speaker who can turn ears

into eyes’ (Arab proverb). Without illustrations, a sermon is like a TV programme with the picture tube switched off and only the sound coming through.

3. Illustrations put abstract concepts into a form the congregation can grasp.

There’s no such thing as brotherhood, only people in brotherly relationships; no such thing as beauty, only people and things that are beautiful.

4. Illustrations make the preacher’s reasoning understandable. He may have

shown, to his own satisfaction that social and political questions are, basically, theological questions, but many will not follow his thinking until he asks them to look at industrial pollution of lakes and rivers and see this as a sin against the world’s Creator.

5. Illustrations serve as demonstrations. For example, in preaching about courage,

it is a great help if we can briefly tell the story of a courageous action.

6. Teaching often calls for repetition. What we say in a flat statement can be said again in an illustration.

7. Illustrations make the point memorable. 8. Illustrations can break down resistance if an illustration makes a strong appeal,

people may be more inclined to accept an unwelcome duty or a hard truth. 9. Illustrations can move the emotions. No preacher can do without emotion. The

choice is never between emotion and no emotion but between right emotions and the wrong ones.

10. A good story makes for congregational participation. The hearers are enabled to

identify with the characters and participate in the story’s plot. 4. Some Skills needed and some Hazards to be avoided: 1. The illustration should be as brief as possible without sacrificing its effect. 2. Do not use multiple illustrations to make the same point. Preachers are tempted

to add illustrations) either because they cannot bear to leave them out or because they feel that none of the illustrations seems quite right.

3. Do not use an illustration that does not really clarify your meaning just because

it is interesting, entertaining or decorative.

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4. Beware of illustrations that may sound good but cannot stand up to analysis. To say that we come to God at last as rivers find their way into the sea is not really in line with Christian belief.

5. It is seldom right to build the sermon round the illustration. 6. The mood of the illustration should fit the mood and dignity of the subject. It is

not appropriate to use a little girl ‘s impatience to finish her piano practice as an illustration of the Christian’s longing for Christ’s second advent.

7. Use dialogue and direct quotation, rather than reporting in your own words. ‘He

said “I’m coming.” is more direct and dramatic than ‘He said that he was coming.

8. Be varied in your use of illustration sources. Some preachers always seem to

draw the illustrations from ancient Greece, or athletics or Scottish life. 9. Don’t pretend that fiction is fact. Say whether the story is true or not. 10. Check the accuracy of your illustrations and the facts in them. Yellow fever, for

example, is not caused by the anopheles mosquito; malaria is. 11. It is fatally easy to be tactless in illustrations. We may criticise Christmas cards

with pictures of cute doggies - and embarrass those who have already sent cards like that.

12. Avoid illustrations which show the preacher at his best, even if they are true. 13. Never betray confidences in your illustrations. A popular Christian magazine once asked its readers to submit a list of the illus-trations they’d heard so often that they deserved a rest. The list included: ‘That is how dawn comes up in the Pyrenees.’‘He’s not a burden; he’s my brother.’Gabriel: ‘What if your disciples do not obey your command to spread the gospel?’

Jesus: ‘I have no other plan.’‘You should have seen this field when the Lord worked on it by himself.’The jigsaw puzzle with a map of the world on one side and a human face on the other. 5. Where do we find illustrations? 1. Best source is the Bible itself. Using Biblical illustrations also has the advantage

of developing the congregation’s knowledge of the Bible. 2. Some publishers have put out collections of sermon illustration, arranged by the

topics or points which the illustrations are intended to illustrate. the editor has

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good taste and understanding, such a collection may be useful. 3. The best collection of illustrations any preacher can have will be in his own file.

The preacher can and should accumulate from many sources: his own experience, the experience of others, his reading. Illustrations come when we are on the alert for them. They are to be found in newspapers, magazines, novels, plays, biography, history, TV programmes.

4. The sermons of good preachers are a good source. Acknowledge where they

came from.

Appendix on humour1. Sermons need humour in order to reveal truth.2. We need humour in church to save us from fanaticism. Our minute grasp of

Gods immense truth is often revealed by humour.3. Humour in preaching helps people to be aware of the absurdity of their own

pretensions.4. Humour is a healing force. People who laugh live longer than those who do not.5. Laughter is one of Gods gifts to be enjoyed with gratitude.6. Humour and its response can unify the congregation.7. Humour is often helpful in relaxing the strain of listening. but.... Some humour is not appropriate in sermons. This includes ethnic jokes and those based on personal defects (being fat, thin, bald, bearded, old, unmarried.) There is no place for humour that has the slightest suggestions of bad taste in such matters as sex, sacrilege, or what is disgusting or ugly. A good rule is, ‘When in doubt, leave it out.’

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SESSION SIX

WORDS. WORDS, WORDS

1. Invite the participants to: a. share their synonyms for ‘nice’, ‘bad’ etc. b. share their five favourite words, and the reasons for their

being favourite words.

c. share the words they have found in advertisements. 2. Input, based on chapter 15 of Sweazey: Words, Words, Words

(see following pages) 3. Discussion on the input. 4. Assignment in preparation for the next session: Ask the participants

to ‘Write a paragraph in which you express your own belief.’ Stress that this should not be a ‘paraphrase’ of the Creed, but should be a personal statement of faith. (The group leaders should participate in doing this assignment also.)

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SESSION 6 INPUT: Words(Based on Chapter 15 of Sweazey: Preaching the good news.) Winston Churchill was both a statesman and a great orator. When he died, President John Kennedy said of him: ‘In the dark days and darker nights, when England stood alone and most men save Englishmen despaired of England’s life, he mobilised the English language and sent it into battle. Like politicians, playwrights, poets and journalists, preachers must aim to be professionals’ in the use of words. We need, therefore, to see words as our ‘tools’, develop our skills in using them and mobilise them for the spiritual battle in which we are engaged. We need to take to heart the truth of Pascal’s saying: ‘Cold words freeze people and hot words scorch them, and bitter words make them bitter, and wrathful words make them wrathful. Kind words also produce their image on men’s souls; and a beautiful image it is. They smooth, and quiet and comfort the hearer.’ Or, more simply, as Kipling puts it: ‘Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.’ 1. The Character of Words Words have their own character. Someone has classified words into the following categories:

Tall and skinny words lily, intellect Fat words bomb, clobber Feminine words slipper, peekMasculine words oak, steakFast words piccolo, rocketSlow words cow, dampYoung words surprise, tickleOld words lavender, velvet

Quite apart from their meaning, words in themselves can be beautiful or ugly. Some poets asked to identify the loveliest English words chose: violet, lullaby, golden, murmuring, wearily, lovely, tranquilly, fluting, hush, melody. 2. On speaking to be understanded of the people There are problems in the way preachers (particularly ministers, perhaps!) use words: a. They use common words in special ways. This can be irritating. Examples

include: involvement, relevant, posture, image, role, encounter, confrontation, wholeness, stance.

b. They use non-religious words which few people understand, like efficacy,

laicised, self-awareness, paradigmatic, febrile, epiphenomenon.

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c. They use words that are neither understood nor appreciated by many people: eschatology, apocalypse, blood, redemption, consecrated. We need to take to heart what Paul says: ‘In church worship I would rather speak five words that can be understood, in order to teach others, than speak thousands of words in strange tongues. (1 Cor. 14:19). And, reverting to our picture of the spiritual battle in which we are engaged, we can take to heart another saying of Paul’s: ‘If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle?’ (1 Cor. 14:8). There are many common Christian words that become familiar to theologians and preachers, but which cannot be understood by those who have little or no knowledge of the temple sacrifices, Hebrew history or the Greek-Roman context in which Paul wrote; examples include atonement, adoption, justification. We have to learn to put the timeless faith into clear and vivid modern terms. Part of our difficulty is that people in our congregations may well speak different languages. ‘If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle?’ could become: ‘Unless the trumpet lays it right on the line, who will do a bang-up.’ Men’s Fellowship ‘Unless the trumpet has the dimension of urgency, who will activate his objectives in the area of group antagonisms?’

Christian Education Committee. ‘Unless the trumpet tells it like it is, who will be turned on to the hassle?!’

Youth Group ‘Without a clarion challenge to conquest, who shall fling his heedless heartheadlong into hostilities?’

A preacher sold on alliteration. Yet we do need to learn the language(s) our people speak. C.S. Lewis says:‘It is absolutely disgraceful that we expect missionaries to the Bantu to learn their language but never ask whether our missionaries to the American or English can speak American or English. Any fool can write learned language. The vernacular is the real test. If you can ‘t turn your faith into it, then either you don’t understand it or you don’t believe it. Preachers may need technical language for their own thinking, but for preaching they do not really need ‘hubris’ rather than ‘pride’, ‘eschaton’ rather than ‘the end of the world’, ‘Christocentric’ for ‘centred in Christ’. On the other hand, we do have to recognise that unusual words have their uses. A knowledge of what the New Testament means by sin, save, love, lost, forgive, is sorely needed by this generation.

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Preachers must, therefore, be as plain as they can be, must try their utmost to use the people’s language, must constantly resist the temptation to use cant and jargon. However, when uncommon words will do the job best, then they will use them and explain their meaning. 3. Words to favour Nouns and verbs carry the real load; adjectives and adverbs prop them up. Try to use nouns and verbs that are strong enough not to need support, e.g.: Instead of

a violent gusty wind use tempesthe walked aimlessly sauntered, or ambled

For vividness, never use an empty word when you can find a loaded one, e.g.: Instead of

a bad man use crook, scamp, wastrel, ibertine.a bad woman a minx, hussy, baggage, harridan

he went dashed, charged, slouchedhe thought pondered, reflected, musedhe looked peered, scanned, go led.

Be specific. Jesus never said ‘providentially, ‘ but ‘your heavenly Father’; he did not speak of ‘humanity’, but of ‘your brothers.’ Do not say ‘tree’ when you know it is an ‘oak’ or ‘weapon’ when you can say revolver’. Compare these two sentences for punch: In proportion as the manners, customs In proportion as men delight inand amusements of a nation are cruel battles, bull-fights and gladiators’and barbarous, the regulations of their combats, they will punish by hanging,penal code will be severe, burning and the rack. Avoid the obvious word/s in favour of the unexpected one/s. If the sentence is important, back off from the first words that come to mind and try some less automatic ones. Compare these two for punch:

You knew he was a good man when you When he walked, his left foot saidsaw him walk past. ‘Hallelujah!’ and his right foot

said, ‘Amen!’ Anglo-Saxon supplies the common, household words. They are more readily under-stood than those that come from the Latin. They are also more likely to be forceful and specific. Compare ‘gut’ and ‘intestine’, ‘louse’ and ‘parasite’, ‘belly’ and ‘abdomen’. (See the quotation from George Orwell at the end of this paper.) There is no such thing as an exact synonym. Every word has its distinctive shade of meaning and a preacher must often search for the word that conveys precisely what he means to say. A thesaurus is a very useful tool in this respect. (Roget’s Thesaurus groups

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these words together - not the subtle shades of meaning: fastidious, nice, dainty, delicate, finicky, pernickety, squeamish, particular, punctilious, fussy, prudish, strait-laced.) Alliteration is another useful tool, provided it is not overdone or used too often. A personal example: ‘Punctuality is the politeness of Presbyterians and prelates.’ Note the sound of words. For some reason, for example, the ‘d’ sound suggests depression. Think of all the dark, dreary, dismal words that begin with d’ and the ‘dis-’ and ‘de-’ words that are so discouraging, despairing and depressing, not to speak of the other deadly, dull and doleful ones. 4. Words to avoid Guillotine all the words that add nothing: face up to; he was called to a rural church situation; he devoted the duration of his life to research; a member of the student body. Listen to many politicians and develop your critical skills in this area. Leave out ‘that’, ‘which’, and ‘who’ whenever the meaning is clear without them: ‘He said that he was going’; ‘The way that I do things’; ‘He deserves the approval which he gets’; ‘The man whom I admire. Be concise. Wherever possible, replace a phrase by a word or two; Practice on these:In the near future... Made good their escape...Because of the fact that... Express deep gratitude...Occupy the pulpit... Make fervent intercession...Draw to a close... Undergo considerable expansion...Give consideration to the question of... Prior to the commencement of... Avoid the empty words ‘some’ and ‘thing’. Too much preaching ends up somewhere over the rainbow: ‘...and in conclusion, I urge you to do something.’ ‘Somehow, sometime we have to be specific, so why not now?’ If ‘it is a hard thing’ means ‘It is a hard fate’ (or ‘situation’ or ‘decision’) why not say so? Avoid worn-out, obvious words. There are, for example, tired pairs which try for emphasis by redundancy: well and good; sick and tired; one and only; each and every; prayerfully and carefully. Self-deprecating expressions sound insincere: ‘I may be wrong’; ‘If I may suggest’; ‘As one humble observer’; ‘What I am trying to say is...’ They are not necessary. No one thinks you are omniscient. Then, too, to say ‘I may be wrong’ invites the silent response, ‘I bet you are!’ Use the active voice rather than the passive. Compare:He rode his horse to... The horse was ridden by him to...They stoned Stephen... Stephen was stoned by them...

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Any living language is a growing language. But be careful of coining or misusing words or over-using them. ‘Hopefully’ is being sadly misused. ‘Meaningful’ is less punchy than ‘significant’. And watch out for the suffix ‘-wise’: ‘Time-wise; ‘Action-wise’; ‘Cost-wise’. Adjectives and nouns tortured into verbs can be excruciating: to pastor a church; to dean a conference; to fellowship around the coffee table. Positive words usually tell more than do negative. Compare ‘tardy’ with ‘not punctual’; ‘dull’ with ‘not interesting’; ‘away’ with ‘non-resident.’ We close with a quotation from Alasdair Paterson’s address when he was Moderator of General Assembly: I remember a holiday afternoon at Ramsgate on the Natal south coast. The clouds had piled up blackly and there was a dark and heavy storm. We thought that we should have to forego our customary bathe. But hope springs eternal in the breasts of the Paterson family when they have set their hearts on bathing. So we set forth. And suddenly, miraculously, the sun shone through. It shone beneficently, warmly, brightly, through the falling rain so that the drops glittered in its light. When we got to the beach it was crowded and everywhere faces were smiling and friendly. There was a haze from the lightly failing rain, and a haze from the spume of the breakers, but it was a light—transfused, translucent, ethereal haze. And the sea itself entered into the mood and hastened in from its greyness, becoming of a sudden peacock blue and flinging itself pure green, white-foaming upon the glistening mother-of-pearl of the smooth, wet beach. And for a sign God put a rainbow, vast, full-arched, complete, majestic across the entire glowing bay, and people were happy without knowing why. And I remembered the words, ‘I do set my bow in the cloud and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.’

George Orwell invites us to compare these two passages: I returned and saw under the sun, that Objective consideration of con- the race is not to the swift, nor the temporary phenomena compels the battle to the strong, neither yet bread conclusion that success or failure to the wise, nor yet riches to men of in competitive activities exhibits understanding, nor yet favour to men no tendency to be commensurate with of skill, but time and chance happeneth innate capacity, but that a consi- to them all. derable element of the unpredictable Ecclesiastes 9:11 KJV must be taken into account. Ecclesiastes 9:11,

as ‘re-translated’ by Orwell.

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SESSION SEVEN

PREACHING THE GREAT BELIEFS

1. Invite each participant to read his prepared statement of belief. (The group leader/s may well ‘start the ball rolling’. Each statement may be discussed, with a view to clarification and to asking why certain aspects of the faith have been highlighted or omitted. Keep the group away from ‘judging’ the statement being discussed.

2. Invite the group to examine the Creeds of the Church, including modern

statements of Faith commended to Church members. Encourage the group members to examine each Creed or Statement to discern what it is saying, why it is saying it and what it is not saying.

3. (If the group include, say, Congregationalists and Presbyterians,

explore the differences in approach of these two Churches to the Creeds, in terms of ‘confession’ and ‘covenant’.)

4. Input, based on chapter 21 of Sweazey: Preaching the Great Beliefs. 5. Discussion on input.

6. Assignment in preparation for the next session: Ask the participants, ‘Please think back to the sermons you have heard over, say, the last five years. Identify a sermon that made you angry or provoked disagreement. Be prepared to say to the group what the sermon was about and why it made you angry or provoked disagreement.’ (The group leader/s will need to prepare for step 1 of the design of the next session.)

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SESSION 7 INPUT: Preaching on the Great Beliefs(Adapted from chapter 21 of Sweazey: Preaching the good news.) 1. Objection to Doctrine Some people do not like sermons on Christian doctrine (teaching, belief). They see them as dull and difficult to understand. They prefer what they call ‘the simple gospel.’ Unfortunately, some sermons on doctrine are dull and difficult to understand. One reason for that may be that the people concerned have been starved of doctrinal preaching and are therefore not used to this kind of sermon. It is true that good doctrinal sermons, compellingly presented, are not easy to write. As a result, many preachers prefer easier Biblical or topical preaching. But does doctrine need to be dull? Dorothy Sayers does not think so: ‘Here we had a man of divine character walking and talking among us - and what did we find to do with him? The common people, indeed, “heard him gladly”; but our leading authorities in Church and State considered that he talked too much and uttered too many disconcerting truths. So we bribed one of his friends to hand him over to the police, quietly, and we tried him on a rather vague charge of creating a disturbance, and had him publicly flogged and hanged on the common gallows, ‘thanking God we were rid of a knave.’ All this was not very creditable to us, even if he was (as many people thought and think) only a harmless crazy preacher. But if the Church is right about him, it was more discreditable still; for the man we hanged was God Almighty. ‘So that is the outline of the official story - the tale of the time when God was the underdog and got beaten, when he submitted to the conditions he had laid down and became a man like the men he had made, and the men he had made broke him and killed him. This is the dogma we find so dull - this terrifying drama of which God is the victim and hero.’ ‘If this is dull, then what, in heaven’s name, is worthy to be called exciting? The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused him of being a bore - on the contrary: they thought him too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround him with an atmosphere of tedium. We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified him “meek and mild”, and recommended him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.” (Form her book: Creed or Chaos? Methuen, 1954. The whole book is very relevant to our subject.) 2. The Need for Doctrine Why is it important to preach on the great beliefs? Because beliefs are what people live by. For example, can I believe that there is a God and that (in spite of all appearances) he is working out his purposes for the world and for me personally? If I can’t, is there

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any alternative to despair and hopelessness? This points to the need of a doctrine of providence. Belief that there is a God’ - is that enough? James doesn’t think so. ‘Do you believe that there is only one God? Good! The demons also believe - and tremble with fear’ (James 2:19). From that kind of belief we need to move on to trust - from believing that there is a God to believing in God. And as soon as we try to explain what this means, we are involved in doctrine. When we have come to believe in God, what next? Trust, belief in God reconciles us to him (not the other way round) and assures us that we are forgiven. But what do we mean by reconciliation? And forgiveness? Once again we are involved in doctrine. When God reconciles us to himself, what difference does this make to our relation-ships with others - with believers, with non-believers? Here we move into the area of our convictions about the Christian community (the Church) and about witnessing and evangelism. Doctrine again. Those who say that what people need is the ‘simple gospel’ of Jesus to save them from their sins are, though they may not realise it, underlining the need for doctrine. Beliefs are vital. In the fourth century AD, the Church had a protracted struggle with the teaching (doctrine) known as Arianism, named after Arius who was its first proponent. Briefly, Arianism maintained that the Son of God was not eternal but was created by the Father from nothing as an instrument for the creation of the world. This meant that he was not God by nature but a changeable creature. It may sound mystifying and irrelevant, especially when we are told that Arianism summed up its teaching in the compound word (Greek) ‘homoi-ousios’ (of similar nature) while the orthodox Church used the word ‘homo-ousios’ (of the same nature). Yet centuries later, Carlyle could say, ‘If Arianism had won, Christianity would have dwindled into a legend.’ Why? Because if Jesus was only ‘like God’, then God did not come all the way into our world, into our human life! That leads naturally into another indication of the need for doctrinal preaching: the need to combat error. This means that occasionally doctrinal preaching will need to have a negative thrust. It will seek to expose false beliefs taught by, e.g. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons. We will also need to expose the ‘false gods of sensualism, materialism, security, etc. Then, too, we are witnessing the growth of ‘Christian’ groups which make extreme claims concerning the healing ministry and concerning the ‘prosperity’ which God wills for his people. A word of warning: ‘negative’ doctrinal preaching needs to be liberally dosed with charity for those whose error is being exposed.

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3. Belief and Behaviour We said earlier that ‘beliefs are what people live by.’ If we believe God is a God of justice and peace, we shall continue, in spite of discouragements, to work for justice and peace in our nation. If we believe he is a God of love, we shall continue to hope in spite of personal discouragement and disappointment. Belief leads to behaviour. Creed leads into conduct. It is interesting to study Paul’s letters from this angle. Time after time he grapples with the great beliefs of Christianity and then says ‘therefore’ - and goes on to show how these great beliefs affect our behaviour. Three examples: He spends the first eleven chapters of Romans dealing with forgiveness, faith, life in the Spirit. Then, in chapter 12, he begins, ‘So then, my brothers, (i.e. because of all that he has been saying)’... offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God’ - and goes into detail as to the kind of behaviour expected of the Christian. In 1 Corinthians 15, he gives us his glowing picture of the resurrection of the body and then concludes. ‘So then... stand firm and steady. Keep busy always in your work for the Lord, since you know that nothing you do in the Lord’s service is ever useless.’ Again, in Colossians 3:l8ff., he gives very practical advice to wives, husbands, children, parents, slaves and their masters. When we look further back in this letter, we see that this counsel flows from his conviction that ‘You have died with Christ and are set free from the ruling spirits of this universe’ (2:20). This provides us with a helpful criterion for our own doctrinal preaching: once we have expounded the truth of this doctrine (whatever it may be) what difference does it make? How does it affect the way we live? 4. How to preach Doctrinal Sermons Traditionally, preachers handling a doctrine began by explaining what the Bible says about the subject, then they showed how the subject was developed in the Church Fathers (the great teachers of the Church in the early centuries) and in the Reforma-tion, then quote some modern authority (Barth, Tillich) and conclude by urging their hearers to live by this doctrine. This model is not to be disparaged. If we are careful in our craftsmanship, this kind of preaching can be very nutritious to a congregation which has been trained to worship the Lord their God ‘with all their mind.’ However, we can preach doctrinal sermons by starting with an everyday incident. The death of a child from leukemia, or the consequences of a tragic accident can lead us into a treatment of the doctrine of suffering and evil. We might begin with racism and injustice and lead into the Christian doctrine of man. ‘Women’s liberation’ as the

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feminist movement understand it is one thing, but Christian doctrine has radical things to say about women’s rights. Often a doctrinal sermon could begin with a question someone has asked, or the report of a study group. 5. Evangelistic Preaching and Doctrine There is a sense, of course, in which all our preaching should aim to be ‘evangelistic’ in that it offers the good news of God in the midst of our predicament and calls for a decision to respond to that love, in one way or another. More specifically, evangelistic preaching is preaching which aims directly at and calls for repentance and conversion. Here, doctrine is inevitable. What kind of God is God? What is his attitude towards sin? Towards me? What has to happen before I can be set right with God? What is repentance? As we try, as simply as we can, to respond to such questions, we are involved in doctrine. In fact, if evangelistic preaching does not include doctrine, we may doubt whether those ‘converted’ will be properly converted. 6. The Preacher’s Own Doctrine All of us have a doctrine, all of us have a theology that is our own. We face two challenges: a. how to stretch and deepen that theology so that it includes more of the

truth God wants to reveal to us (woe to us if we think we have it all

b. how to take our doctrine and live by it and live up to it. How do we stretch and deepen our doctrine? Partly by continuing study. The more we study the Bible (not just for preaching purposes but for our own growth in grace) the more we may expect God to open up his truth to us. It is helpful, too, to read theological books, being careful to wrestle with and question what the writer is saying before we assimilate it as our own. Partly - and you will find this interesting - by preaching doctrine. For as we preach it we have to keep asking ourselves, ‘Do I really believe this? and again, ‘What difference does it make to me if this is true?’ However, there is one vital way of stretching our belief which does not always receive the emphasis it deserves: reflection on our experience in the light of our Christian belief. Here the quotation from Fred Buchner (see the first paper in this series) is relevant and important. We could say that all our life, God has been giving us the ‘raw materials’ for our theology. They come to us while we are praying on picketing, in laughter or in tears, when we find ourselves agreeing with another person on the things that really matter and when we find ourselves in radical disagreement with another person.

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Here some questions may be helpful. What did we learn about God (or what was God wanting to teach us - the two don’t always coincide) when:

— We fell in love?

— We got married?

— Our first child was born?

— Someone close to us died?

— We were promoted?

— We lost our job? 7. And Finally Should we ever preach more than we can believe? Sweazey says ‘Never!’ We should preach all we possibly can, ponder it and then push on for more. There are others who would courteously disagree with this. They would say that the faith we proclaim is not simply our own, it is the faith of the Church as a whole. Therefore we have to preach more than we, at this moment, can attain. Great care must be used here. Our hearers are more skilful than we may think in picking up points on which we ourselves feel doubtful.

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SESSION EIGHT

CONTROVERSIAL PREACHING

1. The group leaders offer examples of controversial preaching in Scripture. (Take a look, e.g. at the prophets or at Luke 4:18—30. Other examples should not be too difficult to find!) Highlight what it is in each example that stimulated controversy.

2. Ask the group to brainstorm on: “What issues would be controversial

today?”

3. Invite participants to share their assignments from last week (see step 6 of session 7).

4. Invite the group to discuss the question: “Should controversial issues be dealt with in sermons? In sermons by ministers? In sermons by lay preachers?’

5. Input, based on chapter 20 of Sweazey: Controversial Preaching. 6. Assignment in preparation for next week. Say to the group “You are

paying your domestic worker more than your neighbours are, because you believe it is right to pay a living wage. This is making your neighbours twitchy and spoiling their relationship with you. You feel strongly enough about this to deal with the issue in a sermon. How would you go about it?”

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SESSION 8 INPUT: Controversial Preaching(Based on chapter 20 of Sweazey: Preaching the good news) We may define controversial preaching as preaching that will meet substantial disagreement. It cannot be avoided. Christianity collides head-on with what people want to think. It is not a common-sense religion. It cannot always be ‘warm, comforting and uplifting’ (which, one preacher commented, reminded him of ‘Maidenform.’) The gospel has to arrive as good news before it can be the good news. Whether the opposition is called human nature or Satan, any attempt to proclaim with faithfulness the teachings of Christ and to apply them to our human situation is sure to meet with resistance. In fact, our Master warned us that this would be so. See Luke 12:51 and John 15:18-19. Compare also 1 Kings 8:17, Isaiah 30:10, Amos 2:12, 7:12-13. It is when matters of faith and conduct are made specific that they become con-troversial. It is safe to generalise, but when the preaching gets into the realities of daily life the opposition begins. A worshiper heard his preacher thundering against drink and responded ‘Hallelujah:’ Against gambling: ‘Hallelujah.’’ Against womanising: ‘Hallelujah!’ And against tobacco-chewing: ‘Now he’s stopped preaching and started meddling.’ Difficult decisions for the preacher are often raised by public issues. Should he preach about them, knowing that he is called to deal with real life, or shall he see his function as upholding the great Christian ideals, leaving the congregation to make the applications? Perhaps the only solution is pragmatic, the preacher deciding in each case which way will do the most good in the long run. An interesting ‘case-study’ might be the question whether or not to preach on the subject of couples cohabiting before marriage, a practice which, according to all the evidence, is on the increase. How would one preach on this subject knowing that the hearers might well contain one or more such couples? We should also remember the possibility of deluding ourselves by emphasising the tradition of controversy in the Bible and in the history of the Church. Some preachers may come to feel that if they are not arousing the wrath of the congregation, they must be unfaithful. Controversial preaching will, it is true, be only a fraction of a rightly proportioned preaching programme. However, we must face the fact that for most of us the danger is not that we shall seek controversy but that we shall seek to avoid it.

1. Techniques When a preacher truly believes that some unwelcome truth needs to be spoken, his great concern must be to accomplish the most good with the least damage. There are various factors to be taken into account in this respect.

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1. It is far easier for a preacher if he has a previous relationship with the congregation. This, we may hope, will encourage the congregation to trust him and, at least, give him a fair hearing.

2. If there is to be confrontation let it be, as far as possible, one between the Bible

and the hearer, not one between the preacher and the hearer. 3. The preacher can quote those whom the congregation respects to present what

may be hard to take. For example, the N.G. Kerk is on record as saying that migrant labour is a ‘cancer’ in the life of South African society.

4. The unwelcome part can be sandwiched in between what is welcome, e.g. a. God loves all men.

b. God loves those whom we would see as a threat. So should we.c. God loves you.

5. Affirmation is usually more convincing than argument or denunciation. Accentuate the positive! 6. Clobber the sin but love the sinner. 7. On controversial subjects the preacher must be specially careful of his manner,

gestures and tone of voice. The choice of words is important. Watch our for loaded words, especially adjectives.

8. Sometimes (rarely!) anger may be shown, but never temper. Anger is a highly

contagious emotion and it tends to arouse anger in the hearers, intensifying any opposition and making it more unreasonable. We should also note that anger in the pulpit suggests bad sportsmanship. Our tradition prevents hearers from ‘answering back’ to the pulpit, at least during the service. Expressing anger in the pulpit smacks of ‘hitting a man when he’s down.’

9. Keep asking yourself: What is the purpose of my sermon? What do I want

people to do? How do I want people to change? And what is the most effective way of achieving that purpose?

10. By his attitude and approach the preacher must indicate that he recognises that

he is talking with (not ‘at’) Christians who are trying, as hard as he is, to know and to do the will of Christ. This does not necessarily mean that he has to be tentative or has to run himself down (‘I am probably wrong, but I would like to suggest...’). He can be clear, positive, even assertive in his affirmations and still avoid any impression of arrogance, superiority or ‘talking down.’

11. The preacher must be honest with himself. He has to recognise that there are

factors which may warp his opinions and beliefs. If we are always disagreeing, condemning, finding fault, what does this say about us?

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2. Reassurances There are solid reassurances for the preacher who approaches controversial preaching with some trepidation. 1. He has been called to speak plainly for what he believes.

John Knox, confronted with Queen Mary’s opposition to his preaching, said, ‘Ye said, What ado had I to speak of your marriage? What was I that I should meddle with such matters. In answered that, as touching nature, I was a worm of this earth... but as touching the office wherein it had pleased God to place me, I was a watchman, both over the realm and over the Kirk of God gathered with the same. For that reason I was bound in conscience publicly, oft as ever I saw any approaching danger, to warn the people thereof, for the sake of their souls.’ Andrew Melville, the Scottish reformer, came up against King James who raged ‘There will never be peace in this realm until half a dozen of you are hanged or exiled the country.’ To which Melville replied, ‘Tush, sir, threaten your Courtiers in that fashion. For me it is no matter whether I rot in or above the ground. But God be thanked, it is not in your power to hang or exile his truth.’

2. Church people are professing Christians and it is remarkable how patient they

can be with disagreement. One persistent item of folklore maintains that ministers (who are also preachers!) are under constant financial threat if they deal with controversial matters. Ministers have received such threats, but not often. Those who are most generous in their giving are likely to be the most generous in their attitudes.

3. A congregation can grow during its crises. We do not seek controversy because it can be beneficial, any more than we seek sorrow for that reason. However, if a church can hold together in love, it does its best learning during disagreements.

(If you can get hold of a copy, it is instructive to read When love prevails by J.H. Gilmore (published by Eerdmans). Gilmore was the minister of a Baptist congre-gation in Birmingham, Alabama, which had to face the crisis presented by a black family applying for membership. The sermons contained in When love prevails are good examples of the way a preacher deals with controversy and crisis.)

4. It is reassuring to know that time is on the side of the preacher of righteousness.

Sweazey has observed that on most controversial matters in which ministers have given leadership during his lifetime, they have turned out to be right.

------------------ 0000 --------------------

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To be sure, nine times out of ten, preaching does not have to stir dissent or provoke controversy. But on occasion, the preacher must be willing to say what many will not want to hear. Without courage and independence he cannot be a preacher. ‘The bland leading the bland’ is a sad description of the church. A preacher can come to fit the church so well that he agrees with everyone. He blends into the prevailing point of view so thoroughly that he becomes like those whom Dante described as not good enough for heaven, nor bad enough for hell, nor promising enough for purgatory. A cynic - or was it a realist - said ‘The first duty of the politician is to get himself re-elected.’ For that reason, the politician will usually say what his audience wants him to say. The preacher, by contrast, is called to say what God want him to say. He is not up for re-election.

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SESSION NINE

PREACHING ON INDIVIDUAL MORALITY

1. Invite the members to share their response to the assignment given at the end of the previous session. Here one could brainstorm around the following areas:

: How should one address the issue?

: What passages of Scripture could be used? : What are the essential points to be made? : What would be the purpose of a sermon? : How can the preacher get across his/her point with

the best hope of getting it accepted?

2. Ask: What other themes of individual morality might be addressed from

the pulpit?

3. Input, based on chapter 22 of Sweazey:

Preaching on Individual Morality. 4. Discussion on input.

5. Assignment in preparation for the next session: Ask the participants to think carefully about the aspects or elements of the next service they attend. Ask them to note on paper what these elements are, in what order they appear and what elements of worship, if any, are left out.

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SESSION 9 INPUT: Preaching on individual morality(Based on chapter 22 of Sweazey: Preaching the good news.) Many people are quite unsure about ethical decisions. They need guidance (even if they do not want it.’) The role of guide in this area ‘properly belongs to (preachers) and is one of their gravest responsibilities’ (Chief Justice Earl Warren of the USA). Guidance in personal morality has long been thought of as a chief purpose of preaching. The New Testament epistles, which are models for the content of sermons, have a wealth of examples of this. Practically all the epistles are written on the format:

a. Doctrine (what God has done).b. Ethics (what God calls us to do in response).

The first letter of Peter is an interesting, and slightly more complex illustration:

1 Peter 1:3—22 What God has done for our salvation1 Peter 1:13—25 The kind of lifestyle which God’s action calls for1 Peter 2:1—10 The means of grace at work in the priesthood of believers1 Peter 2:11—3:17 Living to the glory of God1 Peter 3:18—22 How Christ established his lordship over the universe1 Peter 4:1—5:11 The new way of life in response to the awareness that ‘the

end of all things has come.’ Doctrine and ethics (creed and conduct) are two sides of the same coin. There is something false and phony about creed that does not result in conduct. Conduct that is not solidly based on creed degenerates into mere legalism. We must avoid the temptation to make a rule-book religion out of Christianity. The Pharisees tried to have a code so comprehensive that it would tell everyone the right thing to do in every possible situation. Jesus, however, calls us to use our hearts and minds as we search the Scriptures to find God’s will. For him (and therefore for us) the major question concerns our attitudes: if these are right it is far more likely that the right actions will follow. There are some good examples of this in Matthew 5:21-48. It is our love of God, our love for each other and our devotion to the highest that will tells us what to do. That great teacher of the Church, St. Augustine, made this point rather provocatively: Love God and do as you like.’’ So the first responsibility of the preacher is not to offer a set of specific rules, but rather to hold up those supreme devotions that are our guides. Jesus gave the great standards for morality and he refused to derive a set of rules from them, but he did not refuse to give illustrations or to point to specific transgressions of moral standards. The Christian faith is totalitarian: it aims to take over everything a Christian does.

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When he becomes a new person in Christ, that event is meant to transform how he acts in every area of life: how he spends his time, how he relates to his children and his employees or employers, how he uses his money. Everything is different. 1. By what Authority? In the field of individual morality, the preacher’s primary authority is the great foundation truths of Christianity. His source for knowing what is right and wrong is the eternal spiritual Being whom Jesus calls ‘your Father and my Father.’ Because God is love, we are to love. Because God is just, we are to seek justice. Because God forgives, we are to forgive. First you love the Lord your God and then you love your neighbour as yourself. So, as the preacher upholds moral guides before the congregation, he is witnessing to God in Christ. He can preach on them with total assurance. Those are the eternal principles. How are they to be applied? The preacher’s guide is the Bible. Hebrew history shows that there are ways that bring blessing to a people and ways that bring disaster and these ways cannot be transgressed because they are founded in eternity. The Bible’s biographies show that what makes or breaks a person has not changed since David’s heart was broken for his sin and since Peter went weeping out into the night. Let us take an example. Let us examine something of what the Bible says about employment practices. The law of Moses gives a great deal of attention to the matter of justice and mercy in the treatment of employees. See, for example, Deut. 24:14-15. See also Job 31:13-14. Job’s question illustrates the whole source of Biblical morality. It is derived from the eternal principle underlying honesty. See Prov 16:11 and Lev 19:11. Note once again the indissoluble connection between creed and conduct. Money matters are regulated on the same basis. See Lev. 6:2 and Exod. 22:25-27. Again and again, the morality of daily life is traced back to the primary principles of faith. The way these principles are applied changes with the situation. No one now believes, for example, that it is wrong to charge interest, but at what stage does this become what the Bible calls usury? A great deal of what the Bible says about personal goodness could be preached to our congregations exactly as it is written. Study, for example, Job’s closing speech to his ‘friends’ (Job 31:1-32) in which he describes the good man, and ask yourself how many words you would change. Then, too, the preacher has the authority of centuries of Christian experience. It is true that Christians have tried out moral positions on war, race, the discipline of children, the treatment of Jews, slavery etc., that now seem wrong, even for their own time. By discovering the ways of loving that fit Christ’s purposes and the ways that contradict those purposes, the Church has, through the years, learned a great deal about morality which can assist us in our preaching.

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To take one example. There is a fair amount of talk today about the ‘sexual revolu-tion.’ It is not really a revolution. It is a reversion to a morality that has cropped up again and again in the long history of the Church. The reasons used to rationalise it today are much the same as those used in Restoration England. The only real sexual revolution was a revelation, the revelation that came into the world with Christ. This opened up a new and beautiful style of life that contradicted the world’s attitude then, as it has ever since. All true romance is derived from it. The choice for it or against it is just what it has always been. 2. How Specific? Sermons on morality ‘in general’ are usually inoffensive. Reference to particular sins and sinners is another matter. (We may think here of Nathan’s confrontation with David, 2 Sam. 12) What Nathan did is still the function of the Church. It is here to praise what is right and to condemn what is wrong. Take note of Nathan’s method of arousing strong agreement with the principle before pointing to the specific sin. This is a good model for preachers. The Church today does not often condemn particular sinners; it does have to condemn particular sins. It does not publicly and officially reprove wrongdoers as was done fairly often in certain Protestant churches before this century, but it must be specific and definite enough to bring them to reprove themselves. People who come to church thinking well of themselves should often be sent home feeling guilty and unworthy, thinking less of themselves and more of Christ. 3. Character The Church is in business - the business of growing people. In other words, it is a builder of character. It aims to develop personalities that are marked by integrity, real-ness, genuine-ness. Character requires a constancy that holds a life together and saves it from being just a loose bundle of inconsistencies. Christian character gets its stability from Jesus Christ. It has integrity because it is integrated around him. That gives a personality the sort of solidity which, as Jesus said, is like being ‘founded on a rock.’ (Note that when Jesus talked about the wise man who ‘built his house on rock’, he was talking about the man who ‘hears these words of mine and obeys them.’ And what are ‘these words of mine’? They are what we call ‘the Sermon on the Mount’ - which has to do, overwhelmingly, with individual morality!) The Church is in the world to build this sort of character and preaching is one of the chief means it uses to that end. It tries to reach those whose lives have no organising centre, or the wrong centre, or conflicting centres so that these may be integrated around Jesus Christ. Paul has an interesting way of making this point. He says to the Galatians that the object of all his labours is ‘that Christ may be formed in you’ (4:19). If we may put that in slightly different words, it is God’s intention that we should grow to be ‘little Christs.’

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The same thought is present in Eph. 4:15, where Paul says that we are to ‘grow up in every way into Christ. Loyalty to Christ is the source of the firm principles that keep a character from collapsing under pressure. From this loyalty come the ideals that keep a personality from cracking in times of stress. The Bible gives much time to establishing those principles and ideals. So must the preacher. People come to worship to be strengthened and steadied. Life can be brutal; it takes courage to remain steadfast through their daily grind. People listen to the preacher hoping to have their principles renewed, to be shown once again the beauty of holiness (and the ugliness of sin) and to be told what Christ expects of them. They come to re-affirm the decisions they can hold to when the going gets tough. 4. Affirmative Morality There has been enough harsh, narrow, negative moralism and legalism in the Church to make preachers uneasy. Rightly so, for that approach has chilled the warmth and stolen the joy of the Gospel. Yet preachers cannot avoid having a certain amount of intolerance. When an official lowers the booms at a railway crossing, is he not being intolerant? Anyone who has any experience of broken hearts, broken homes, broken lives, will have some things that he very actively hates. The affirmative side is that Christian morality releases us from cautious, crabbed ways and sets us free to live life to the full. The whole purpose of morality is to make life rich and joyful for ourselves and others. ‘If your morals make you dreary, depend on it, they are wrong’ (R.L. Stevenson). Or, as the little girl said in her prayers, ‘Please, Lord, make all the bad people good and all the good people nice.’ Christ does not subdue any high-spirited person; he releases him into the wonder and beauty of the life whose fulfilment will be ‘the glorious liberty of the children of God.’

---------------------- 0000 ----------------------- FootnoteOne of Harry Emerson Fosdick’s best-known sermons is entitled Six ways to tell right from wrong. Here they are: 1. The test of common sense 2. The test of sportsmanship 3. The test of one’s best self 4. The test of publicity 5. The test of one’s most admired personality 6. The test of foresight — where will this end up?

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SESSION TEN

PLANNING A SERVICE OR WORSHIP

(N.B. This session was planned at the request of the participants and is not based on Sweazey)

1. Invite responses to the assignment. Probe with questions like: ‘Why

was that element included, do you think? Why did it come at that point in the service? Why do you think that element was left out?’

2. Pose questions designed to draw out the reasons for the ‘classic’ order

of service. The responses that seem logical to the compilers are in (brackets).

a. When you realise that you and others have come to worship God,

what is your first response? (How great Thou art - praise.) b. When you have realised how great God is, what is your response

to that greatness? (How small and insignificant and ‘un-holy’ we are - confession.)

c. When we confess, what does God do? (Forgiveness - assurance of pardon.)

d. Having been forgiven, what do we need now? (Grace to live as God’s children - the prayer of petition.)

e. Having thus prepared ourselves, what do we need to hear next? (The Word in Scripture and sermon.)

f. How do we respond to the word? (Giving ourselves, through our gifts, thanksgiving, craving for others.)

3. Invite the group to examine Isaiah 6:1-8, pointing out the parallels

between the ‘movement’ in that passage and the ‘movement’ in the ‘classic’ order outlined in step 2.

4. Stress the need for careful preparation of prayers and readings.

Encourage the group members to assess the merits of relating hymns to the theme of the sermon or of not relating them to the theme. Explore the advisability of a visiting preacher choosing hymns or having a knowledgeable person in the congregation choosing them.

5. Assignment in preparation for Session 12: Ask the members to write

a statement (+ 50 words) on ‘Why I want to be a preacher’. For Session 11, remind members to have their five-minute sermons prepared.

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ORDER OF SERVICE — ONE HymnPREPARATION Prayers of Adoration and Confession, with an

assurance of God’s forgiveness

Hymn The Old Testament lesson, or the Epistle, or

bothHymn

MINISTRY OF THE WORD The Gospel The Sermon The Apostles’ Creed Hymn

Prayer of Thanksgiving and Dedication IntercessionsRESPONSE Lord’s Prayer Hymn Dismissal

ORDER OF SERVICE - TWO

Call to Worship (Invocation)Hymn of Adoration

ConfessionPREPARATION Declaration of Forgiveness Psalm Anthem First Lesson HymnMINISTRY OF THE WORD Second Lesson Sermon Silence Creed Hymn Notices, OfferingRESPONSE Prayers of Thanksgiving and Adoration Prayers of Intercession, Petition, and Dedication Lord’s Prayer Hymn Benediction

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SESSION ELEVEN

PRACTICAL PREACHING :

This session was held in the Chapel. (A Church would be equally suitable). Each participant in turn delivered their 5 minute sermon to the group, which was immediately evaluated by the whole group. The proceedings were video taped, and the video was shown to the group with each participant being asked to evaluate their own sermonette.

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SESSION TWELVE

THE PREACHER

1. Ask each member to read his statement on ‘Why I want to be a preacher’.

2. Invite group members to think about preachers they have heard,

saying: ‘Identify one preacher that impressed you. Why did he/she impress you?’

3. Then ask: ‘Identify one preacher who “switched you off”. Why did

he/she awake that reaction in you?’ 4. Input, based on chapter 27 of Sweazey: The Preacher. 5. Discussion on the input. 6. Ask each member (give them five minutes or so to think about this) to

respond to the question: In terms of your growth as a Christian, where would you like to be in two years’ time? How do you believe you will get there?

7. If time permits, it is useful to ask members to evaluate the course as a

whole. Possible questions here might include: ‘What was it about the course that you found most helpful? What was least helpful? Was there anything you found difficult to understand? Was anything left out that you felt should have been included? Other questions, appropriate to local circumstances, could also be asked. The responses of the original guinea pigs’ appear at the end of this booklet.)

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SESSION 12 INPUT: The Preacher(based on Chapter 27 of Sweazey: Preaching the Good News) The most important thing to remember as a preacher is this: the effect of the sermon depends on who you, the preacher, are. This is because we convey two simultaneous messages when we speak in public: one is the words we speak and the other is our personality. 1. Character: Aristotle said that the ethos of the speaker had the most influence on the speech, and identified three essential qualities of a good public speaker: assurance, kindliness, and wisdom. Bishop Quayle is quoted as saying: ’Preaching is not the art of making and delivering a sermon, but the art of making and delivering a preacher”. Thus, an integral part of your preparation to preach must be preparing yourself to speak the words given to you. Keep in mind always that the chief aim of preaching is to blot our yourself, and reveal Christ through your message. However, Christ can only be revealed by you through your personality, as it is true that the medium colours the message. The only way that you will be able to blot out yourself and reveal Christ through your preaching is to ensure that your non verbal communication blends with your verbal communication, thus ensuring an integrity in your delivery. To illustrate this: a little girl was watching a television preacher delivering his message, and turned to father and said “Daddy, why is the preacher angry”? The father looked and listened, and replied “I don’t know, because he is telling about love, but looks like he is angry”. Have integrity when you preach.’ But, a word of warning needs to be sounded. Beware of a planned personality, because then you will become known as a phony. People will see through a “pulpit manner” as they get to know you, and will find it difficult to believe your words if your character is phony. A final word on character - Know yourself! - then you can retain your identity while revealing Christ. 2. Manner and Mannerisms: While being careful of a planned personality, it is vital that you plan the way you look. Know what your manner is going to be, i.e. relaxed, forceful, comforting etc. Know also what mannerisms you have, e.g. talking with your hands, scratching your head, etc., and know you can use these to the best advantage. Knowing how you are going to come across is an important step in public communications. Always ensure that you project the best manner possible - while being absolutely honest with yourself. Planning your style includes knowing how you are going to use the pulpit. For some preachers the pulpit is a barrier behind which they feel secure, for others it is simply a convenience on which notes are kept. Know what it is to you. 3. Qualities: Strive to like those who have come to listen to you, and they will strive to like you, and therefore will listen with greater intent. You need also to respect them as people, and appreciate their worth, by not patronizing them because you know something they don’t. Avoid hostility, because a hostile manner causes opposition, no matter

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what your words say. And avoid scolding without including yourself. Be strong, be confident, be humble. Always employ tact when dealing with people. Tactlessness shows that you have spoken unthinkingly, and that implies that you don’t care. There is no quicker way to be alienated from people than this. While you will, from time to time, have doubts that you will be working through, and grappling with, do not preach on your doubts, as this will make a negative message. Always be positive in the message you offer, because the Gospel is a positive message of love and salvation and that is what people have come to hear. 4. Criticism: A preacher has difficulty in evaluating the work he or she has done. There is no applause, seldom disapproval, there is no supervisor, no sales record, no per-formance chart, no ratings committee which can be used to measure performance. So, you need to set up a system of response to your preaching. Try this by asking a few friends to accompany you when you are invited to preach, in order to honestly evaluate your performance. Remember, you will have asked for honest evaluation - if it is negative, hear it, and respond to it, without being disappointed and feeling put down. 5. The Preacher’s Spiritual Life: As a preacher, you will be speaking to the people for God, and to God for the people, so need to be well connected at both ends. It is essential to stay close to God, for if your friendship with him is not kept growing, your human friendships will be shallow. Remain awed and excited by the Gospel, and thus avoid treating it with familiarity. Let God be alive in you, so that your words are alive in him, then you can be a guide in the Kingdom of God, not merely a signpost directing people there. Beware of the trap of believing yourself to be religious just because you talk about religious things. The people will think like this, and you can easily fall into the trap. How do we avoid this trap? By being faithful always in private prayer, Bible reading, group prayer and public worship. A closing anecdote:In a church in London, there is a bronze tablet with the words: “Here God laid his hands on William Booth”. A visitor came into the church late one afternoon, and stood looking at the tablet for a long time. The caretaker asked him to leave, so that he could close the church, and the man begged to be allowed one more minute. The caretaker hovered around, impatient now, and overheard the man earnestly praying: “0 God, do it again”. The visitor was William Booth. (Salvation Army Founder)

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EVALUATION OF THE COURSE

At the final session, the participants were asked to assess the course. We felt it would be helpful to include their comments in this package. POSITIVE: “My eyes have been opened - I now know what is involved in preaching in terms of preparation, time and commitment.” “I thought preaching was just a case of finding a reading, and sitting down to write a sermon. Now I know different.” “The Course has highlighted the variety of themes and topics that can be preached on.” “The leaders worked well as a team, and this helped up to participate.” “The obviously deep preparation for each session was appreciated.” “The presentation was good and the subject was more than adequately covered.” “The content of the course and the quality of the presentation, enabled us to be committed to the course”. NEGATIVE: “More time could have been spent on the use of the lectionary.” “A session on voice projection and articulation would have been helpful.”

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RECOMMENDED BOOKS FOR LAY-PREACHERS’ LIBRARIES

AUTHORS, TITLES AND PUBLISHERS

PREACHING 1. Stott, J.R.W.“I believe in Preaching” 1982. Hodder & Stoughton (London,

Sydney, Auckland and Toronto) 2. Sangster, W.E. “The Craft of Sermon Construction and Illustration” 1986 reprint.

Baker Book House Co. (Two books in one volume) Grand Rapids, Michigan 49506.

3. Adams, Jay E.: “Preaching with Purpose” 1982. Baker Book House, Grand

Rapids. Michigan 49506. 4. Huston, Dewey (Rev.):”How to Preach” Edited and compiled by Evangel

Publishing House, P.O. Box 28963, Nairobi, Kenya.

REFERENCES 1. Douglas, J.O.:(Organising Editor). “The New Bible Dictionary” Reprint 1977.

Inter-varsity Press, Leicester, England. 2. Richardson & Bowden, Alan & John: “A New Dictionary of Christian Theology”

1983: S.C.M. Press Ltd. 3. Deist, Ferdinand: “A Concise Dictionary of Theological Terms”. 1984. J.L. van Schaik (Pty) Ltd. 4. Davies, J.G. (Editor): “A New Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship” 1986.

S.M.C. Press 5. Goodrick, Edward W. & Kohlenberger III, John R. “The NIV Handy

Concordance.” 1982. Zondervan Publishing House.

6. Zulu Bible Concordance: Word of Life Publishers, 1978.

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