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Tuesday, December 08, 2015

"You don't preach right!"

My seminary classmate Steve Heyduck's blog post really is a helpful conversation starter.
Let me quote it, and then we can start the conversation (either here, or on his blog--giving his great blog some PR).

I will tell you a story after Steve's post. I'll address my comments to Steve, but they are for all of you.



YOU DON’T PREACH RIGHT! -

by Steve Heyduck

“You didn’t begin your sermon with the reading of the scripture text. You are always supposed to read the scripture as the beginning of your sermon.”
This is a very close approximation to something a colleague of mine was told recently.  This colleague is soon to go before the Board of Ordained Ministry for commissioning – a major step towards ordination.
Part of the qualifying process is submission of a sermon – both manuscript and video recording.
My colleague asked for my insights as to whether such a particularity could, in fact, derail his quest.
I shared that I cannot remember the last time I read the scripture text as the beginning of my sermon.
For me, anyway, this rarely if ever happens in part because our liturgist reads one of our texts immediately before I stand to preach.  Re-reading the scripture myself would give in to the notion that preaching is not really a part of the worship service as a whole, but rather a stand-alone event thrown into the midst of a worship service.
I encouraged my colleague to continue to preach the Word, and to preach the text for the service, whether or not that scripture text was written into the sermon.
A much larger concern for me is that someone would suggest so simple a component done differently would disqualify a sermon altogether.  What I think really happened was an incident of either
  1. “You didn’t preach the way I was taught to preach” or
  2. “You didn’t preach the way I like to hear someone preach.
Are there specific mechanics that you believe are absolutely essential to the successful preaching of a sermon? Do Jesus’ and Peter’s and Paul’s preaching always follow your rules?  link
--
Steve:
Fantastic post.
It triggered a memory I had buried.
Once, a parishoner took me out to lunch.
You know how that is: you never know if there is an agenda.
Sometimes taking you to lunch is taking you to the woodshed. (:


He cut to the chase:
"I have noticed that sometimes you open a sermon with a story, and THEN you pray."
This of course implied that everyone knows the "correct" way is to pray at the very outset, and THEN start preaching.
I assured him that yes, I had actually done this on purpose.
He was stunned.
I have always varied it a little.  Or a lot.
In fact, if the transcript is accurate, here is one I preached without an official prayer (gasp!)
Sometimes I have read the Scripture pretty late in the game.
Might that sometimes be more biblical?

I wonder what my well-meaning parishoner would think of Jesus' sermons ...or ANY sermons in the Bible.
I can't think of any that started with a prayer...OR the  text!
I remember a college professor, Al Dueck, once suggested that you could wait until the very end to even reveal what Scriptural text you were preaching on.  I was intrigued.  I will tag him on Facebook to see if he remembers saying that, or has examples of doing it.

What's up with the Idolatry of Form?
Steve, did you ever have a class at Asbury Seminary with Ralph Lewis on "inductive preaching"?  Poor guy was called a heretic by some just because he believed you could save your Scripture reading for mid-sermon!
BTW, I love how you prayed in this sermon below.
But..heresy alert, you actually spoke for a minute before you prayed! (:

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Hey, thanks for engaging the conversation!