Long-Range Preaching

25 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by John McClure in Connecting the Dots, Views from the Street

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communication, communication model, communication theory, Four Codes of Preaching, homiletic method, homiletic theory, homiletics, long-range planning, plan, preaching, sermon, sermon preparation, strategic communication, theology and preaching, transmission

Many of us view preaching as a short-term (tactical) practice of transmitting information. Communication theorists, however, have drawn attention to the inadequacies of the sender-message-receiver or “transmission” model of communication, inherited largely from classical rhetoric. There are a whole host of other elements at work in any communication situation: conventions of listening, worldviews, local history, felt needs, language repertoire, physical setting, and so on. J. Randall Nichols calls this the larger “communicative field” for preaching.

The “long range preacher” develops a preaching plan that contains certain goals for changes within this “communicative field” in the future. As a long range preacher, I see preaching as part of a process that takes time to complete, a process designed intentionally to promote over time certain themes, messages, doctrines, approaches to scripture, attitudes, theological worldviews, core values, or understandings of the relationship between Christ and culture. Preaching is a shared journey, and I am in it for the long haul.

This journey, of course, involves the entire communication life of the church and is most effective when the goals for my preaching are integrated with similar goals in religious education, congregational meetings, publicity (newsletters, website) and so on. In this way, preaching is seen as a part of what Seward Hiltner once called the larger “communicating perspective” on ministry.

In order to develop a long-range vision, I might want to engage in congregational study or careful critical reflection and try to discern theological gaps, inconsistencies, issues, or aspirations within the congregation. After such study or reflection, I might establish long-term goals for the communication life of the church, perhaps in consultation with my church board or leaders in the congregation.

For instance, my congregation might be ready for diversity of membership, increased knowledge of biblical history, a more socially-conscious approach to theology, a firmer knowledge its heritage, and more openness to the certain cultural and social changes. From this list, I can develop a list of concepts, messages, values, attitudes, and forms of communication that will, over time, contribute to bringing about these changes in the congregation.

It is probably too bold to say that sermons actually construct the way that a listener is situated within a communicative field. Listeners are participants in multiple subcultures and negotiate messages from the pulpit at the intersection of many overlapping discourses.

Over the long term, however, preaching can provide new categories of thought and encourage new forms of speaking and practice. Preached messages push, pull, nudge, encourage, and cajole listeners. If these messages are consistent and strategic, they can, over time, shift the position that listeners occupy within this complex communicative field, opening up new possibilities for thought and action.

Several approaches to preaching have attempted to take into account the ways preaching has the potential to re-shape the signs, symbols, theological worldviews, and conventions of listening within congregations over time. (see for instance, McClure, The Four Codes of Preaching: Rhetorical Strategies, Tisdale, Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art, Nieman, Knowing the Context: Frames, Tools, and Signs for Preaching).

Don’t Re-hash the Bible. Exposit or Interpret it.

11 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by John McClure in Views from the Street

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Bible and Preaching, Biblical Hermeneutics, biblical preaching, expository preaching, Four Codes of Preaching, hermeneutics, homiletic method, homiletic theory, preaching, sermon, sermon illustration, sermon invention, sermon preparation, text-to-sermon, textual preaching, theology and preaching

In my previous post, I focused briefly on sermons that incorporate “wind-ups” that actually “wind-down” sermons. I asserted that one such wind-down occurs when the preacher begins the sermon by re-hashing the biblical text. I made it clear that by “re-hashing” I was referring to a non-interpretive, non-expository walk through the text – sort of a “tour-guide” approach, pointing out this over here, and that over there as we go, providing more background for this, identifying the original significance of that for the ancient community. The kind of thing one finds in a good non-thematic, verse-by-verse Bible commentary.

A shift toward exposition, however, will put the preacher into a slightly different posture – one that allows the text to interpret us. Theologian Karl Barth was a proponent of this approach. According to Barth:

“I have not to talk about scripture but from it. I have not to say something, but merely repeat something. If God alone wants to speak in a sermon, neither theme nor scopus should get in the way….Our task is simply to follow the distinctive movement of thought in the text, to stay with this, and not with a plan that arises out of it.”

Barth’s approach is not far from “re-hashing.” Those who know Barth’s theology will know that he’s worried about too much interpretive intervention by the preacher. He seems to want something fairly close to simply repeating the text. Notice, however, his reference to the ‘movement of thought’ in the text. This is crucial. The preacher doesn’t just “walk through” the text, but does so, over the course of the entire sermon, in a way that helps the listener discover how thought moves in the text, how the semantic motion within the text captures our thinking and re-shapes it in some way.

A shift toward interpretation (hermeneutic) will put the preacher in yet another posture – one that interprets the text by moving the listeners attention toward a particular aspect or dimension of the text in order to draw out a particular meaning for today. In this regard, I posted a few weeks back on five “places” to find a sermon in relation to biblical texts. Each approach assumes that sermon listeners are invited to take a particular perspective or angle of vision on the text. Is the preacher drawing my attention to some analogy to my life in the text (place 1), to a profound historical continuity between Matthew’s church and our church (place 2), to the way the language works and wants to shape us (place 3), to a timeless theological truth (place four), or to a hidden trajectory of meaning we could never have seen, if it weren’t for what’s happening right now in our church or world (place 5). No matter which of these interpretive models is at work, the biblical text will be heard in its fullness, but from a particular hermeneutical perspective.

Re-hashing gives the sermon listener little or nothing of either exposition or interpretation. Re-hashing is largely movement-of-thought-less, and perspective-less, and leaves the listener groping for an angle of vision on the text. When this occurs listeners will provide several of their own…or just check out altogether for lack of focus and direction from the preacher. From great biblical preachers you’ll always hear the text (its content, world, context), but from a particular perspective – one charged with theological meaning and energy.

Some of us are correctly concerned that our listeners don’t get to hear the biblical text often. In a biblically illiterate world, it is natural to feel that by repeating the text in slow motion, we create a better opportunity to hear Scripture and let it soak in.

I have two things to say to this. First, we need to counter the assumption that “front-loading” scripture is the best way to get the text heard. With most biblical texts there’s a lot going on – a lot to take in and process! For the sake of both memory and understanding, it is better to introduce the biblical text in dynamic ways throughout the sermon. Each movement of thought in a sermon can capture some aspect of the text and bring it to life – creating a picture of the whole. For the biblical preacher, there shouldn’t be a single thought communicated that can’t be pegged to something in, under, behind, or in front of the biblical text. We can allow our listeners to re-hear the text dynamically throughout the sermon, instead of at the beginning only. Here’s a picture of this:

	Sequence 1	Sequence 2	Sequence 3	Sequence 4
Theology
Message
Experience
Scripture

In this model, each sequence of thought in a sermon contains four things (see The Four Codes of Preaching): 1) a biblical warrant (again, see the five places to get a sermon), 2) a message to our listeners, 3) theological shaping, and 4) some kind of experiential connection or illustration. In this way, scripture is heard strongly throughout the sermon.

Second, we need to work on interpretive reading. If a unit of scripture is read aloud in worship service each week, we can work hard to make it a dynamic, energized, and interpretive reading – one that accents and emphasizes those elements in the text that will be crucial for the sermon. If we are those who read the text aloud, we can provide clues regarding what to listen for and how to hear the text. If we use lay readers, we can work with them each week to insure that this is occurring. A good reading should stand alone, and will do far more than a tour of the text to bring the Bible alive in the hearing of listeners. Even an intervening children’s sermon or anthem between scripture reading and sermon will not dull the impact of Scripture well-read!

Five ‘Places” to Find a Sermon (part two)

20 Saturday Aug 2011

Posted by John McClure in Connecting the Dots

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Bible and Preaching, Four Codes of Preaching, hermeneutics, homiletic method, homiletic theory, homiletics, interpretation, Preaching Words: 144 Key Terms in Homiletics, sermon invention, sermon preparation, text-to-sermon, theology and preaching

In this post, I indicate two more places to find a sermon. Unlike the first three, the following two places are discovered, not by beginning with the biblical text, but by beginning with your operative theology (Place 4) or historical context and situation (Place 5).

Place 4. In the Theological Claims of the Text. In this approach, your operative theology (liberationist, feminist, evangelical, existentialist, etc.) and/or tradition (Lutheran, Reformed, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Baptist, Methodist, etc.) becomes much more active and acts as a guide, leading you to the place where you find a sermon. Following the lead of this theological guide, you travel toward a key theological claim at work in a text; a claim about justice, mercy, sanctification, salvation, hope, etc., depending on your operative theology. Once you arrive at that claim you will allow it to shape the message and form of the sermon.

William Sloane Coffin, whose theology was often strongly liberationist in tone, once preached a powerful sermon on the healing of the paralytic. His theology drew his eyes to the moment in the text when the paralytic, whose sins had been forgiven, was invited to get up from his pallet and walk. For Coffin this moment in the story revealed a crucial theological claim – that new forms of ethical responsibility should accompany and in fact complete our experience of forgiveness by Christ. To paraphrase Coffin’s words “the problem for the paralytic was not forgiveness, but responsibility – response-ability – the ability to respond to the love of God….to get up off that stretcher and walk.” Coffin then highlighted the tendency among many Christians to spend their time celebrating and basking in the blessings of forgiveness in a way that effectively kept them on stretchers – unwilling and unable to get up and do the liberating work of God. For Coffin, the theological claim of the text was the unity of justification (forgiveness) and sanctification (liberative action), and it was from this theological place that he preached his entire sermon.

When preaching from this place, your theology generates both the tone and focus of your sermon. The language of the sermon will not reiterate the words on the page of the Bible (place 1), develop continuities with historical events or formations such as “empire” or “exile,” (place 2) or imitate the way the language of the text works (place 3). Instead, the sermon will focus on a particular moment, or set of moments in the biblical text that identify, focus, or illuminate a particular theological claim you are making. Sermon listeners will hear those biblical moments shaped into a sermon by your theological claim regarding forgiveness, liberation, hope, idolatry, obedience, love, etc.

Place 5. In today’s situation as catalyst for the text’s meaning. In this approach, you begin the journey toward a sermon with something significant that is going on in your situation or broader context. You then ask what meaning or idea in the text is catalyzed by its confrontation with your context today. Throughout history we have seen how meanings in the biblical text are catalyzed by our own moment in history. Often these are meanings we could never have known before. For instance, the civil rights movement catalyzed new meanings from the biblical text about slavery, systemic evil, and oppression. The feminist movement catalyzed new meanings regarding sexual violence, forgiveness, and atonement.

Adopting this approach, you might pick up the newspaper or reflect on an important issue confronting the larger community or congregation. Then, ask “What meaning lies dormant within this text awaiting this moment in our history or life together as a nation, community, or congregation, to be discovered?” Although this may lead to a dead end (or to frightful eisegesis – so be careful!), it is amazing how often you will find a genuinely helpful idea, or an entire re-framing of the current situation provided by a seemingly unrelated biblical text.

The Sunday after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon I was slated to preach at a large church. I had originally chosen to preach John 3:16 – a difficult sermon in which I was trying to re-think more exclusivist interpretations of this passage. After the attack on the trade towers and Pentagon, I felt strongly that the situation at hand was catalyzing a different trajectory of meaning from the text – one that hovered around the deeper meaning of “belief” (“whoever believes in me”) as a form of trust. I moved the entire focus of the sermon toward the ultimate trustworthiness of God in a world where trust had been shaken to its core.

When preaching a sermon from this place, you will use language that shows how the listeners’ own context is, in fact, already there, in the world projected by the biblical text. The ultimate meaning of our context exists as a latent trajectory or horizon of meaning in the text awaiting this moment to be discovered. Instead of hearing you draw dynamic analogies from the words of the text (place 1), identify historical continuities behind the text (place 2), re-perform the text’s rhetoric (place 3), or locate specific theological claims in the text (place 4), listeners will hear you dig deep within the immediate situation and discover there a thought or image that serves as a catalyst for a hidden trajectory of meaning within the biblical text.

In summary, there are at least five places to find a sermon:

Place 1. On the page of the biblical text, finding equivalences to its obvious features

Place 2. Behind the biblical text finding historical continuities between then and now

Place 3. In front of the biblical text, in what the text’s language does to us as readers

Place 4. In the theological claims of the text, attenuated through the lens of our operative theologies

Place 5. In our situation, where trajectories of meaning from the text await this situation to be discovered.

For more about these options, see The Four Codes of Preaching: Rhetorical Strategies, and the section on “hermeneutics” in Preaching Words: 144 Key Terms in Homiletics.

Narrowing the search for the right sermon illustration

15 Friday Jul 2011

Posted by John McClure in Connecting the Dots

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Claiming Theology in the Pulpit, homiletics, John S. McClure, other-wise, preaching, sermon, sermon illustration, theology and preaching

In the old days (meaning when I was a parish minister) publishers produced books such as 5000 Best Sermon Illustrations, or Stories for Sunday, and we would plow through mostly irrelevant, sentimental, and usually dated ditties culled from Reader’s Digest and well-known sermons for a gem, often wasting untold amounts of precious time. Nowadays, the Internet stands in, and the preacher’s wrist is worn out clicking on link after link – sermon helps, newspaper websites, blogs. Of course, preachers also search for illustrations in lots of other places – books, pastoral and personal experience, etc.

When illustration-searching seems to be going nowhere, it might be due to one, very simple problem – the need to narrow your search. We all know that the key to good browsing is to know what we’re looking for in the most specific terms possible.

In our book, Claiming Theology in the Pulpit, Burton Cooper and I identify several needed “theological moments” that should go into sermon preparation, and one of them needs to occur before going in search of illustrations. This “theological moment” can be tremendously helpful for narrowing one’s search for the right illustration. Here’s a little process to try.

1. Identify what, in particular, you are trying to illustrate or illumine with an image, picture, story, etc. Write it down.

2. Now stop. Don’t start searching yet! Have a “theological moment.” Ask yourself what broad theological category you are illustrating (sin, faith, the human condition, evil, church, hope, God, salvation, eschatology, grace, etc.).

3. Without over-ruling the theological emphases in the biblical text, remind yourself what you, within your operative theology (liberationist, evangelical, process-relational, existentialist, feminist, etc.) want to communicate on an ongoing basis about this theological category. For instance, if the broad category is sin, remember that sin looks different for a liberation theologian (Segundo, for instance) and an existentialist (Tillich, for instance). Right? For the liberationist, sin is the oppressive misuse of power, for the existentialist, sin is any idolatrous attempt to secure oneself against one’s finitude. If your category is a bit more specific – forgiveness, for instance, remind yourself of any issues attached to the idea of forgiveness that you don’t want to forget from within your theological perspective. A feminist-liberationist, for instance, will want to remember the close relationship between forgiveness and justice.

4. Now, return to the task of finding an illustration. Hopefully, this little exercise will considerably narrow your search. If you’re an existentialist, you now know that you’re looking for an illustration for sin that is a picture of self-securing idolatry. If you’re a liberationist, you’re now searching for a picture of oppressive power. If forgiveness is your target idea, and you’re a feminist-liberationist, you’ll go in search of a story where the restoration of justice and right relationship precedes or accompanies forgiveness.

This simple practice, applied consistently, can considerably narrow your search for illustrations, assure theological consistency, and save you precious time in sermon preparation. Try it.