Issues in Contemporary Preaching

Erik Raymond: How to Preach a Stale Sermon

Sermon preparation is a delight and chore for the pastor. It is a delight because we love the Word of God and the people of God. After all, God uses preaching to initiate and sustain the joyful worship of his people, which in turn glorifies God (2 Tim. 3-4).

It is also a chore. This is because sermon prep is hard work. Thorny interpretive issues, homiletical hurdles, and church family dynamics often make sermon preparation difficult.

But there is another aspect of sermon prep that is too often either assumed or neglected. I am talking about the preparation of the pastor's heart to actually preach the sermon. Preparing a sermon is not only about exegesis, reading commentaries, articulating propositions, and finding appropriate illustrations. Sermon preparation is also about personally discovering, digesting, and delighting in the truth.

This crucial aspect of preparation can be neglected or assumed. We might assume that the text is in us because we have read it, researched commentaries, and written our message. However, this is a costly leap. Instead of assuming that the text is in us, we must ensure that it is. Such subtle, oft-neglected oversight in preparation can become a foe to our preaching.

So why is it dangerous to neglect preaching the sermon to your own heart? Keep reading

John Stackhouse: Preaching that Avoids the Scandal…and the Centre

I’ve been impressed recently in reading the early chapters of the Book of Acts by the confrontational clarity and boldness of the apostles’ public preaching. How can one not be so impressed? Peter, John, & Co. not only dare to champion the renegade Jesus in the very city in which he was recently killed quite horribly for saying nothing more challenging than what his disciples are now saying, but they dare to assert the apparently preposterous notion that God raised this Jesus from the dead.

Indeed, after a couple of accounts of such sermons, the narrator writes, “With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all” (Acts 4:33).

As it happens, I’ve been interviewed recently by a variety of media regarding church planting, church growth, and church “success” (by various definitions) here in Vancouver, in Cascadia, and in North America more broadly. These queries have prompted me to fresh alertness as to what our contemporaries are doing by comparison to what I have been reading in Acts. And I see one or two differences perhaps worth submitting for Christian consideration. Keep reading