In my years of church going, I have heard some very good sermons, and some very bad sermons. I once heard a sermon on the story of Jacob's early life where the preacher argued that the Bible clearly teaches that boys should spend more time with their mothers than their fathers, and that it was OK for a boy to know how to cook! On my list of strange and inane things that I have heard from the pulpit, that may take top honors.
I get the opportunity to preach fairly regularly. In addition, I oversee our church's teaching ministry. I have the privilege of helping others become better teachers. This role has caused me to reflect on preaching quite a bit.
It seems to me that most preachers tend toward one of four styles:
1) Commentary Giver - this preacher gives the exegesis of every detail in the text. To him/her success is a thorough explanation of the text itself.
2) Story Teller - this preacher tends to string together stories that make a similar point to the preaching text. To him/her success is getting people to connect the text with their lives.
3) Comedian - this preacher tends to make humorous stories and jokes the staple of his/her preaching. To him/her success is keeping people entertained long enough to tell them about the Bible.
4) Emotional Plea Guy - this preacher tends to make things persuasive and heart wrenching. To him/her success is when people are responding to the sermon with weeping or dancing, grieving or rejoicing; really just any response of strong emotion.
Now, these are certainly four extremes. We all do a mixture of these things, but most preachers will tend toward one of them. I tend toward being a commentary giver. In my view the goal of teaching/preaching is to help people understand the Bible and its implications well enough that they can follow Jesus in love.
What about you? When you go to church, what are you hoping to hear?
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That's awesome, I've heard so many inane things over the years - my favorite: a proof of the importance of Genesis 1-3, it explains why humans wear clothes!
ReplyDeleteOne lecture/discussion at DTS changed my life forever and it was Vic Andersen asking the question what our goal in preaching should be. Life change? Knowledge? Understanding? Yes, along the way, but our ultimate goal has to be to stimulate their faith.
So, I don't know if that makes me Emotional Plea Guy or what but in every message I try to give people something to hope for and believe in and along the way hopefully provide a good synthesis of the passage and a joke or two here and there. I am definitely NOT a story-teller. Obviously, I would like to hear something along the lines of my own style.
Bern,
ReplyDeleteWOW, that's about as bad as mine.
Stimulating faith is an interesting concept. I think he gave us that same talk. I don't think stimulating faith necessarily translates into emotional pleas.
Do you see stimulating faith as a primarily emotional thing?
I don't know, you only gave me four options! Although I don't make cheesy emotional pleas, I do want to create some kind of burning desire for God and following Him (though I don't measure success by tears or hallelujah's). Come to think of it I don't know that I really know how to measure success on a message... gonna have to think about that...
ReplyDeleteIf you want some really juicy whoppers on bad preaching rabbit trails (shoot just bad preaching) check out Pastor Anderson by going to Youtube and searching "One of the Worst Sermons Ever" - should top the list.
Oh, I already saw the men should pee standing up because the Bible says pisseth against a wall thing. holy crap.
ReplyDeleteDude, Pastor Anderson is SO much more than just the pisseth against the wall thing! You really owe it to your self to do some research (http://faithfulwordbaptist.org) - there's years upon years of illustrations in there for making essentials out of molehills!
ReplyDeleteHey I thought of anohter category:
ReplyDeleteBible Dumper - this preacher validates his points by quoting no less than 30 books in any given message. To him/her success is measured by ability to show that his thesis permeates the entire testimony of Scripture.
Bible Dumper, I love it. See also the sub-category Bible Citation Dumper, the guy who doesn't actually read or quote the Bible, but merely gives the reference and at best a word or phrase.
ReplyDeleteThat drives me nuts.
Yeah, I mean, I like to make Revelation-like allusions here and there (for nuance), but I hear you - the BCD does what he does to make a point and assumes we know what he's talking about. I don't dig that, it ain't my style either.
ReplyDelete