My preaching is an evolving animal - it is still developing and forming. They say the first year of full-time ministry is a year of preaching experimentation for the young minister!I have been inspired recently to preach positively - at least as much as the context of the bible passage I have on the day will allow.
Some reflections on this:
My first minister as a Christian, Richard Quadrio, said to us once to always preach grace, not guilt. Guilt, he said, is always a 'too easy' default.
Guilt doesn't achieve anything. Lots of sermons follow this route:
- This is what God says in this passage
- You should do this
- You are not doing it
- Try harder
Sure, God can work within this pattern of preaching. But this gives so little motivation for real change. Also, it tends to focus attention more on us than God.
People are motivated to do what God says when they hear how loving and how good God is, not just how bad we are. Guilt brings on bad feelings with no hope for change. Preaching grace brings hope and desire to change because God is so good.
I keep reading quotes such as this:
Preach with such life and awakening seriousness...and with such easy method and with such variety of wholesome matter that the people may never be weary of you. Pour out the rehearsal of the love and the benefits of God, open so to them the privileges of faith, the joys of hope, that they may never be hungry. (Swinnock, The Christian Man's Calling, 3:905)One of my mentors, David Miles (a wonderful preacher and example of grace-filled preaching) recommended the book Preaching and the Positive Mind by P T Forsyth, which deals with this subject. I am about to read it. With the link you can read it with me!
With thanks to I Love a Sunny Day who wrote some of this post.
7 comments:
Andrew (and Cecily), you are both doing a brilliant job!! Don't Stop!! Keep going strong and learning!!!
Thank you and God Bless!!!!!
Your preaching has been effective for me....look forward to hearing more of it.
From another preacher - yeah! right on! There is an occasional time to preach it hard, but we have to remember that God even kept a note of grace when pronouncing the consequences of sin (Gen 3) (hey, is it obvious from my comments recently I am currently teaching on Genesis?)
I agree, we need to avoid the guilt trip road in preaching (particularly because it serves to make the preacher seem even higher on the morality pedestal over the congregation). However, don't forget Paul's words to Timothy: there is a place for the preaching of the word to be a rebuke or correction. It is possible for us to be gravely wrong by trying to be "too nice" to people.
To be sure Kris. See original post - 'at least as much as the context of the bible passage I have on the day will allow'.
Here's a thought: where there is a description/account of God (or a truth about God) in the passage of the day, can we preach of who God is on its own without our added 'therefore you must not do this because God is like this'?
I read somewhere in John Piper's books of him preaching on the beginning of Isaiah 6. He had no application, no directives to his congregation. He just talked of the majesty of God. As I remember he was frightened of the possible responses. Soon he had people tell him wonderful stories of personal repentance and change.
In other words, can we at least sometimes preach of God's majesty and magnificence alone and rely on that to inspire people to repentance by his Spirit?
Just a thought.
PS - it's weird seeing your virtual pictures - feels like I am chatting to two avatars!
I think you're right. One of the best OT sermons I have heard was one of Kirk Patston's talks on Deuteronomy. The best rebuke to my "I'm OK" sinfulness was in pointing out how God's directives to "purge the sin from among you" came from the fact of how holy he is. As you say, it is determined a great deal by the passage you're working with. Paul himself was not beyond personal rebukes in his epistles (cf Galatians, for example). The beauty of preaching is that you have a great deal of potential for variety in application.
However, one of my fellow workers was always saying "People are minimalists at heart". If all you're saying in a sermon is "Look how wonderful God is!", most people will simply say "Cool!" without applying it personally. Often you have to make that link explicit. Kirk did this in his talk, even though his focus was on the holiness of God.
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