Glen has suggested the following topics worthy of discussion:
1. Handling difficult Bible passages
2. How to read and study your Bible
3. Modern Bible Translations and the KJV
4. What is the Born Again experience?
5. Exploring the SDA 28 Fundamentals (or one of them)
6. Theology 101: What is Arminian-Weslyan Theology and What is Reformed-Calvinism Theology
7. How does the General Conference work and how do we effect decisions and policies of the world church?
Some topics are best left for a small group study and others for a large group such as in the worship service.
Here is my first question: What subjects would you like me to preach on? They could be as narrow as one specific topic such as What happens when you die to broader topics such as Living free from Anxiety or How can I know the future? or How do I know when God is speaking to me? Remember it is hard to go into depth in a sermon because worship is basically for praising God and being inspired to go back to the work place all pumped up, hence the need for stories in the sermons. But I could run a week night series that focused more on teaching certain things such as some of the items of Glen's list.
Please let me know.
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13 comments:
Social Ethics. How should we apply Christian principles to contemporary issues: Literal Creation vs. Intelligent Design or Evolution; Religion in the public schools; immigration; effects of globalization on economy? These are just for starters.
I would love to hear some of the topics glen mentioned. Those are truly steak and potato sermons.
"Remember it is hard to go into depth in a sermon because worship is basically for praising God and being inspired to go back to the work place all pumped up, hence the need for stories in the sermons."
I don't know that everyone is inspired by stories in sermons. Is there research or some other indication leading you to think that?
My favorite sermons are those in which the speaker unpacks a Bible passage and makes it relevant or inspiring, as the case may be.
Glenn
"Remember it is hard to go into depth in a sermon because worship is basically for praising God and being inspired to go back to the work place all pumped up, hence the need for stories in the sermons. But I could run a week night series that focused more on teaching certain things such as some of the items of Glen's list."
Perhaps that is one of the really big problems in modern Christianity. Instead of the church service being about equipping the saints to go out and tell others about the hope that they have, we have made the church service into the worship service.
the concept of sermons is way past it's usefulness. Yes in early times when there was no publishing and very low literacy a sermon would be necessary. But that is not the world we live in today. What you or any preacher can provide in a sermon is barely a drop in the bucket compared to the available information on any subject.
What the church needs is to be equipped to think and respond to challenges. Today this is only happening in Sabbath school classes and the Internet and in rare cases small group settings. We want someone to tell us what to believe and do our thinking for us and give it to us in a sermon. Then we think we have done our duty for the week.
I think I will have to write something on this subject on my blog soon. We have gotten to the point where passively sitting or singing is worship rather then actively thinking and respecting the God whom we worship.
Great comments. When I attended NewBold College I used to go up and hear Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones preach at Westminister Chapel. He would preach for One Hour and it was completely expository. More than a thousand people would come out for his evening service which is what I attended.
I attended a church where the preacher preached for 50 minutes. He was an excellent expository preacher but people complained all the time that his sermons were too long. A few people liked the length but not the majority and His church has grown in size at all.
Teachers of preaching tell us that people attendtion spans today are between 20 and 30 minutes. We live in such an audio visual age with all the sound bites. This is part of the reason that I preach 25-30 minutes.
There is no doubt that there are people like the respondents in this blog who want longer and deeper sermons. But sad to say this is not the majority of people. That is why i am exploring the possibility of an evening series where the primary purpose is not so much to worship God but to study and learn about God.
The definition of worship is "Giving God praise and thanks" It is not even primarily a sermon. Lengthy sermons acutually came in as a rersult of the reformation.
So today we compromise between praise and teaching in our worship. Another point is that we have two services at New Hope and that is why we have to keep to a fairly tight schedule.
Both bulworth and ron posed good questions about worship and that is one reason why different churches practice different styles because of the people who want different things.
I would like to see more sermons that deal with the relationship between faith and obedience, what it means to be prepared for the Lord's coming, the mark of the beast, the abomination of desolation, the judgement, the plan of redemption, the history of the church since the fall of man, salvation... clearly anything that will help me to be ready to meet Jesus in peace and not so much to get ready for work on Monday.
I've been thinking a lot these days about the idea of spiritual community.
At its most basic level "spirituality" is just that aspect of ourselves that yearns for a connection with that which is transcendent, that which is outside of ourselves. I don't believe spirituality in this sense can be dictated by a church or limited by a creed. Nor can it be refuted on the basis of logic and reason alone. Spirituality just is. It is truly an experience, a dimension to our lives that comes from outside ourselves. A person's engagement with spirituality can take many forms--Bible reading, prayer and church. Church is thus both a collective of people who recognize and cultivate the spiritual in their lives.
But it is at the church level where boundaries come into play, either determining who can or will most likely be comfortable as a member of that community. So, the role of the church in this sense is to provide an environment that affirms our spiritual hunger as well as feeds it through various sacremental rites, the worship music, prayer and the sermon.
Although I've come to doubt some of the literalistic assumptions I grew up with, I still believe that the speaking of the Word can be a powerful means of connecting the worshipper with the Almighty, that transcendant source of glory, the divine that lies outside ourselves but which during our weekly lives is too often just beyond our grasps.
All of this is to say that while the sermon will at times attempt to provide information and deal with issues the community is facing, the sermon is also in its most basic nature, not just an informational or instructional sacrament, but is a means of simply communicating God to the congregatation. And I don't think that preaching therefore needs to be inherently theological.
This past weekend for example, Kumar preached from Matthew 7, quoting the text, drawing out some illustrations of the text, and then continually returning to the passage for further reading. And I found the experience, beyond whatever theology was being drawn upon, an uplifting experience.
So, while sometimes issues tend to dominate our thinking, I do think there's an important role for just hearing the Word spoken.
Churches and denominations tend to make things more complicated than they need to be. I wonder if spiritual communities would be enhanced by downplaying explicit or implicit reliance on theology while uplaying the simple reading of the word, allowing the listener, as Jesus did through teaching in parable form, to draw their own conclusions.
Such a service, and I think New Hope goes a long way in creating this environment, allows for the widest range of spiritual seekers and is less tasked with guarding theologial boundaries and policing people's personal lives. At the same time, the importance of theology and relationships can be met through other dimensions of the church, such as in small groups.
Glenn
The responses to this post are most helpful. The preacher wants to be biblical and relevant. I believe that the Bible contains the essential principles for handling any issue that life today might bring. Preaching is meeting the needs of todays society in ways that helps it grow or heal whichever is the stronger need.
I finished the two part series on Sermons and Church you can read them on my blog, your comments are welcomed.
http://cafesda.blogspot.com/2007/02/sermons-training-ground-of-passive.html
http://cafesda.blogspot.com/2007/02/sermons-part-2-local-church-in.html
What always has bothered me about sermons is the passivity. We would not tolerate a sermon from a professor in a lecture, unless he is in front of 300 students then we tolerate it. We want to be able to ask a question or ask for a clarification something that hardly ever happens in sermons. Of course those classes were always the lower level classes. As you get deeper into the subject such lectures would never do, it would seem to be the case for Christian sermons as well.
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