Teaching

In another of these ramblings I opined that telling a compelling story will often more than compensate for any “sins” of presentation. That is, if our story is good enough, people are willing to overlook “poor” writing, suspect grammar and stilted wording. I went on to suggest that we could improve our expository speaking and teaching by using elements of story in it. In my opinion, doing so would certainly make it a lot more interesting.

About the time I wrote that my wife and I had dinner with some long-time friends. During our conversation they mentioned that they missed hearing expository sermons. At the church they attend expository speaking is unknown – everything is topical.

Everyone has a message he or she needs to share.

There’s a saying in church circles that everyone has at least one sermon in him. What I mean when I use the expression is that each person, no matter how long he or she has been a Christian, is passionate about at least one thing, one topic. Each person has a message which he or she feels other Christians, or the church as whole needs to hear.

The message might be a very positive one, for example, an aspect of God’s blessing or His grace which this person understands or has experienced more than others. It might be a message of encouragement and hope when others are in despair. It might be a message of comfort in the face of distress and grief. It might be a message to motivate. Or, it might be a message of rebuke to the complacent or those who are drifting away.

Concerning foundational truths.

It used to be that just about every English speaking person in Great Britain and the U.S. had a pretty good idea of what is in the Bible. Even if they lived their lives along totally different lines, they still had a general knowledge of Bible stories, commands, ethics and principles. So, when Wodehouse wrote, “I had been dreaming that some bounder was driving spikes through my head – not just ordinary spikes, as used by Jael the wife of Heber, but red-hot ones.” (Code of the Woosters) Or, that so and so was, “A bit like Balaam’s ass... If you recall, it too dug in its feet and refused to play ball.” (Much Obliged Jeeves)  Or, when Mark Twain  observed a comb which “...had come down from Esau and Samson, and had been accumulating hair ever since...” (Roughing It) it was a safe bet that everybody understood what they were getting at. It ain’t that way any more.

Why do we have sermons, and is there a better alternative?

Those of us who have grown up in the church are so conditioned by the way things are done that we rarely, if ever, ask ourselves why we do it that way. Even those outside the church, but have grown up in a Western culture, have a mental image of what a church assembly is supposed to be like. There’s no doubt that the centerpiece in most protestant church assemblies, whether evangelical, charismatic, fundamentalist, conservative or liberal, is the sermon. But why? What’s so special about sermons and why is so much importance given to them?

Lest I incur the premature wrath of any preachers who happen to read this, let me hasten to say that there is a time and place for sermons. I give them, too. But I do question the emphasis given to sermons and the exalted role they have in the typical church assembly.