Preaching to the Post-Christian World

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Session 1. The Necessity of Preaching

The world thinks preachers are the last thing it needs. The world couldn’t be more wrong. The need within the church is also urgent.

Questions for reflection:

  1. What do you think of Forsyth’s claim that the church ‘Stands or falls by its preaching’? How true is this? Is it exaggerated? Can you think of historical exceptions?

  2. What characteristics of preaching make it a unique (and vital) means of communication?

  3. Why does preaching especially seem like ‘foolishness’ (1 Corinthians 1)? How might this connect the preacher to Paul’s idea of the ‘weakness of the cross’?

Session 2. The Essence of Preaching

It’s essential first to better appreciate what preaching is. What is going on when a preacher faces a congregation and opens up the bible to them? I’ve become more convinced over the years that one of the greatest weaknesses of the 21st century church is a flat and dull concept of preaching. We reduce it to a mundane and flat exercise even without realising it. It’s possible to celebrate individual sermons (even to preach them!) and enjoy the benefits of good bible teaching, while not knowing the gravity of preaching. We can be like children playing with toy guns, unaware that, in fact, we carry loaded weapons.

Preaching is more than the disclosure of data. It’s the Lord’s presence: the voice of the living God.

Questions for reflection:

  1. What do you think we’ve lost in our understanding of the gravity of preaching, and how do you think we might have lost it?

  2. What might be involved in a ‘sacramental’ view of the christian life in general? What difference can this make?

  3. Does this bring a solemnity to the work? Is there any danger in this?

Session 3. The Call to Preach

There is a repeated theme in the bible - the calling of the preacher - a reoccuring narrative, each with its own features. It’s there in the story of Moses at the burning bush (although he’s given Aaron as a mouthpiece). Later we see it in the calling of the young Samuel. Then there are Isaiah and Jeremiah’s stories. In the New Testament we have the calling of the twelve apostles and the calling of Paul. We also pick up features of Timothy’s journey into preaching. As a backdrop to these we’ll always have the story of Jesus growing into his unique preaching vocation, as described centuries before in Isaiah 61. Along with some other scriptures, these combined examples should reserve the place of the ‘called preacher’ in our ecclesiology (our idea of the church).

Questions for reflection:

  1. We can overemphasise the plurality of gifts and also the uniqueness of the call to preach. Explore and consider the dangers in both of these extremes.

  2. Self awareness has to play a huge part in discerning a genuine calling to preach. What are the typical defeaters of self awareness? How do we prevent these?

  3. Have you seen examples of people being called to preach? Consider some differences and some common features.

Session 4. The Parameters of Preaching

Preaching means proclaiming the word of God. The preacher is a messenger for someone else. He will answer for how faithfully he delivers this message (‘we who teach will be judged with greater strictness’ James 3.1).

So the preacher is not called to declare his own opinions. Nor is he to regurgitate the ideas of his contemporaries - or of any other age. He’s been delivered from the futility of simply speculating. Instead, the preacher has the unspeakable privilege of being a mouthpiece for heaven on earth.

The preacher needs to settle on the wonder of this and discern the genuine treasure with which he’s been entrusted.

Questions for reflection:

  1. The 21st century church doesn’t generally share the concept, held by the 16th century reformers, of faithful expository preaching as the ‘very word of God’. Why do you think we may have drifted away from this perspective?

  2. Preachers will be often tempted to preach their own thoughts and not the Lord’s. What are some subtle ways this temptation attacks us?

  3. How can we learn to preach not only the message of a text but its tone? What are some of the pitfalls?

Session 5. The Goals of Preaching Part 1

In Romans 12, the apostle Paul urges believers to make use of the various spiritual gifts with which they’re endowed, ‘each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned’. Within this section of teaching he refers separately to the gifts of teaching and exhortation.

It’s instructive to note that these are two distinct dimensions of communication, each necessary for spiritual health, and each given, by the Holy Spirit, to the church.

Fruitful preaching must take elements of both teaching and exhortation into account. Biblical models of preaching are rarely reduced to one or the other. Exhortations and imperatives need to be made on the basis of revelation and argument. The epistles are good examples. The general layout of most of Paul’s letters is several statements (even chapters) of sustained teaching before any instructions are given.

Questions for reflection:

  1. Some perceive a division between theological richness in preaching and spiritual power in preaching. Why do you think this thinking comes about? Do you think it is ever fair?

  2. Theological conviction is not the same thing as theological correctness. What is the difference?

  3. Which of the three tendencies outlined above do you most commonly drift into? What might you do to make for more balance in your preaching?

Session 6. The Goals of Preaching Part 2

We’d do well to reflect still further on the necessity and the task of engaging the hearts of our hearers, in the fullest sense, reaching all three faculties of mind, emotions and will.

Consider the sequence there, which is not accidental. We start with the mind because the preacher’s route to the emotions is that way. A direct assault on our hearer’s feelings without any appeal to reason is a denial of their humanity. We treat them as little more than lizards that way. The limbic cortex is capable of instinctive responses which bypass the rational. If you tap my knee in a certain place my leg will move. I don’t take time to consider the decision - nor do I find my yearnings aroused towards it.

It’s possible to provoke similar results, preaching for direct emotional effect while ignoring the mental faculties. God did not make our hearers for this. We’ve been dignified, as creatures, with a higher capacity (a capacity that distinguishes us from beasts of instinct and impulse, and even calls us to rule over them). The image of God in us and in our hearers demands the involvement of reason.

Questions for reflection:

  1. Is there any genuine spiritual danger in preaching that merely exhorts but doesn’t teach?

  2. Spending time and energy teaching the gospel to people who have been conditioned to low levels of attention and cognition can feel less rewarding than preaching which provokes an easy emotional response. How can preachers push through this pain barrier?

  3. Are you more like a gas heater or an electric one? Why should you bear this in mind in the context of your own preparation and delivery of sermons? How might ‘gas heater’ and ‘electric heater’ people misunderstand and even unfairly judge one another?

Session 7. The Goal of Preaching (Part III) - Engaging the Will

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book The Tipping Point tells the story of a medical clinic at a USA university which, every winter, became overwhelmed with flu outbreaks amongst the undergrads. In order to prevent this the staff tried all kinds of campaigns to ensure that students took their flu jab in good time. They made flyers and posters each year, trying every creative approach in the hope of successfully connecting with students and motivating them to take the medicine. None of their efforts seemed to work, however, and every year the spread of influenza seemed more or less the same as the year before - despite some impressive and even lurid attempts by the medical department to advertise the injection. The situation changed dramatically one winter when the university launched a flyer about the flu jab, featuring a very simple and prominent map with directions to the clinic. This boring strategy was the game changer. Annual campus flu outbreaks became manageable from this point on.

Here we see a principle that needs to be held in tension with the wider point we’ve made. And, in fact, let me make it again, loud and clear: real change must be heart change. Transformation in the soul comes through the renewal of our affections. So the preacher’s main task is to present Christ in a way that warms the hearts of listeners. Our hearers are not transformed by mere lists of commands, nor sheer exhortations and imperatives, nor descriptions of better behaviour.

Questions for reflection:

  1. Sermons with no application are like mouths with no teeth (I’m not sure if that analogy works but I’m pressing on…) There can be various reasons why preachers neglect application. Think of a few of these, so that you’re more aware of the danger. One free answer to get you started: lack of courage.

  2. When it comes to maturing in our speech (‘seasoned with salt’ Colossians ___) the book of Proverbs may be our best guide. What are the key lessons we learn from there?

  3. Aiming for accumulative gospel growth in our hearers should shape our practices, expectations and maybe our emotional journey in preaching. Think of some ways this will be so.

Session 8. The Goal of Preaching (Part IV) - Engaging the Will (II)

Those sermons that call for immediate response will remain a necessary part of the congregation’s diet. When preachers aim for immediate response they must aim for it wholeheartedly, unapologetically and confidently. At appropriate times, preachers will preach intentionally with specific measurable outcomes in view.

Questions for reflection:

  1. If the ‘exhorter’ is the preacher who naturally leans into addressing the will with imperatives, and the ‘teacher’ is the one who generally targets the mind with indicatives, which one of the two are you? How can you develop in both areas?

  2. What do you think of evangelistic appeals? Do you have a theology for them? What is it? Can you defend it from the bible?

  3. Think of examples of jargon which prevent clarity when it comes to evangelistic appeals.

Session 9. The Substance of Preaching:
Christ (I)

The message we preach is Jesus - who he is and what he has done. We have nothing better and there is nothing better. This is our instruction and this is the model we have in scripture. And this is the message with actual life changing potency.

Questions for reflection:

  1. If the ‘exhorter’ is the preacher who naturally leans into addressing the will with imperatives, and the ‘teacher’ is the one who generally targets the mind with indicatives, which one of the two are you? How can you develop in both areas?

  2. What do you think of evangelistic appeals? Do you have a theology for them? What is it? Can you defend it from the bible?

  3. Think of examples of jargon which prevent clarity when it comes to evangelistic appeals.

Session 10. The Substance of Preaching: Christ (II)

In the last session we began to apply the principle of ‘Christ Centred Preaching’ to our hermeneutics. If we are preaching the bible as the bible intends to be preached, we will be preaching about Jesus incessantly. At first this can seem a wild claim since the majority of the bible - especially the Old Testament - doesn’t seem directly concerned with him. We must take the Lord at his word, however. It was He who claimed ‘the scriptures testify concerning me’ (John 5). Our task is to search the scriptures so as to find Him as the central theme.

This is a glorious and profound theme. My notes here are just that: notes. Please do not treat them as anything more than a very light introduction. Each point could (and should) be explored further in proper depth. There are good books on this from almost any era of church history and it’s an appropriate field of a lifetime of study for any preacher. (For many people Ed Clowney’s book The Unfolding Mystery has proved a really helpful launch pad).

Questions for reflection:

  1. How does the fact that Jesus is the Lord of the Old Testament, present and active in places like the conquest of Jericho, affect your view of Him and the way you might preach about Him?

  2. We are rightly concerned to make the truth of God plain to people and not to allow obscurities to confuse people. This goal may seem at odds with presenting Jesus as the fulfilment of Israel’s (ancient and culturally remote) story.

  3. Of all of the OT genres, it is probably the wisdom genre that can seem least christocentric. How can we begin to understand the Proverbs (for example) more richly through the lens of the gospel of Jesus?

Session 11. The Substance of Preaching: Christ (III)

We are looking at some principles of Bible exposition that especially relate to centrality of the person and work of Christ – the central theme of scripture. This obviously has practical strategic implications for evangelism, but it is wider than this. In aiming to preach Christ (the gospel) in every sermon we are digging into our apostolic identity and are able to be prophetic, evangelistic and pastoral all at once (though some will gravitate to one emphasis more than another).

Questions for reflection:

  1. Not putting aside propitiatory atonement (for a moment) can you think of aspects of the gospel that might be under-emphasised if we only see this element of Jesus and His work?

  2. From an evangelistic point of view (and perhaps pastoral too) we tend to land at the cross as the non-negotiable point of connection for people to ‘access’ the gospel. Perhaps this is right, but we are forced to reflect when seeing the emphasis on the resurrection in Acts. How might we preach the resurrection more compellingly as a way of presenting the gospel savingly?

  3. Have you noticed, in yourself, a tendency to emphasise the social implications of the gospel at the expense of the personal, or vice versa? How might you do well to counter any imbalance in yourself here?

Session 11. The Substance of Preaching: Christ (III)

We are looking at some principles of Bible exposition that especially relate to centrality of the person and work of Christ – the central theme of scripture. This obviously has practical strategic implications for evangelism, but it is wider than this. In aiming to preach Christ (the gospel) in every sermon we are digging into our apostolic identity and are able to be prophetic, evangelistic and pastoral all at once (though some will gravitate to one emphasis more than another).

Questions for reflection:

  1. Not putting aside propitiatory atonement (for a moment) can you think of aspects of the gospel that might be under-emphasised if we only see this element of Jesus and His work?

  2. From an evangelistic point of view (and perhaps pastoral too) we tend to land at the cross as the non-negotiable point of connection for people to ‘access’ the gospel. Perhaps this is right, but we are forced to reflect when seeing the emphasis on the resurrection in Acts. How might we preach the resurrection more compellingly as a way of presenting the gospel savingly?

  3. Have you noticed, in yourself, a tendency to emphasise the social implications of the gospel at the expense of the personal, or vice versa? How might you do well to counter any imbalance in yourself here?

Session 12. The Power of Preaching: Prayer

The preacher must stand before men having stood before God. That is one thing that distinguishes him from other public speakers. His private life with God is therefore integral to his calling. A man with no prayer life should not preach – and usually cannot fruitfully. Robert Murray M’Cheyne’s famous quotation ‘a man is what he is on his knees before God, and nothing more’ is not over-the-top and should preoccupy your mind, preacher.

It is grotesque for a man to be red-hot in the pulpit but stone cold in prayer. You and I should emulate Howell Harris (18th Century Welsh Calvinist-Methodist) about whom it was said ‘in the secret place with God Harris was in his element...’ Prayer and preaching belong together as two sides of a coin.

Questions for reflection:

  1. DL Moody is quoted as saying: ‘I would rather teach one man to pray than ten men to preach’. Statements like this may seem to come from another universe. What thoughts does this provoke in your own mind?

  2. What are the two main practical steps you could make today, immediately (right now…) in order to improve your own prayer life?

  3. Why are you not doing them?

  4. Do them. Now.

Session 13. The Disciplines of Preaching: Study & Learn

Good preachers are readers. John Wesley believed that if his guys did not spend at least three hours reading every day, then Methodism would die out in a generation. In fact I can’t resist throwing in what he has to say to one of his preachers on the circuit:

What has exceedingly hurt you, in time past, nay, and I fear, to this day, is want of reading. I scarce ever knew a preacher read so little. And perhaps, by neglecting it, you have lost the taste for it. Hence your talent in preaching does not increase. It is just the same as it was seventy years ago. It is lively; but not deep: there is little variety; there is no compass of thought. Reading only can supply this, with meditation and the daily prayer. You wrong yourself greatly by omitting this. You can never be a deep preacher without it; anymore than a thorough Christian. Oh begin! Fix some part of everyday for private exercises. You may acquire the taste which you have not: what is tedious at first will afterwards be pleasant. Whether you like it or not, read and pray daily. It is for your life: there is no other way: else you will be a trifler all your days and a pretty superficial preacher. Do justice to your own soul: give it time and means to grow. Do not starve yourself any longer. Take up your cross and be a Christian altogether. Then will all the children of God rejoice [not grieve] over you…

Questions for reflection:

  1. Disciplined, intentional and broad reading is one of the surest ways for preachers to remain sharp, inspired, excited, insightful and ‘worth listening to’. Perhaps we don't associate passionate and fruitful preaching with ‘study’. Why do you think this is?

  2. What, amongst the reasons given above for not reading, is the one that most applies to you? Can you suggest other reasons that might be given? What responses might you give to them?

  3. After reading this session, what are three specific steps you can take this week in developing your reading habits?

Session 14. The Vocation of Preaching: Finding Your Voice

Humans wrote the bible; humans preached the law; humans prophesied to Israel; humans preached the gospel. God could have done it all directly, but He deliberately didn’t... Even the time he came to speak to us most definitively, He became human to do so.

For some reason God wants to speak through people – He wants his word, His self-revelation, to come though flesh. Flesh formed from dust.

This should give us a thrill about the dignity of preaching. Yes there are other ways God will speak to people, but preaching stands in no mean tradition.

Questions for reflection:

  1. Can you think of examples of God’s wisdom shown in the matching of a preacher’s personality to a particular message (beside the examples of this in the bible)?

  2. What is the difference between a healthy emulation of a preacher we admire, on the one hand, and an unhealthy attempt to clone ourselves into their image?

  3. How are you at listening to feedback? Whose feedback do you seek? Why? (I have sometimes rejected critical feedback at first but come to agree with it some time later.)

Session 15. The Craft of Preaching:
Preparation

When it comes to preparing messages there are two obvious dangers to avoid: Over preparation and under preparation. Like a pendulum you may find yourself swinging between the two. My general advice is that it is safer (for you and your listeners) to err on the side of over-preparation in the early days and become looser as you grow in confidence. I guess there are lessons which only experience can teach.

As a schoolteacher just starting in my training I remember being a little daunted by the amount of planning required for each lesson. I’m glad I had mentors who wouldn’t let us wing it. When I protested on one occasion an experienced teacher told me that the more diligent I was with planning in the early stages the easier it would become in the later stages. I reckon that is a transferable lesson.

This especially applies to the skills of study and exposition. Getting to grips with the book is the main thing to which we must apply ourselves. Sweat over that and there will be times when it flows easily and your study will pay off. Don’t get lazy with the bible.

Questions for reflection:

  1. It’s obvious what is meant by ‘under-preparing’, but what do you think might be meant by ‘over-preparing’?

  2. What stages in the process described above seem most challenging to you?

  3. Some preachers especially struggle to cut material from a sermon. Why is this the case? How can this be made easier?

Session 16. The Context of Preaching: Engaging Culture

The message is one thing – the mission field is another. You will preach to people who create and live in culture. Like Jesus we must learn the culture into which we have been sent, incarnating it, challenging it from within and creating a community within the culture under His lordship.

Questions for reflection:

  1. What are some vital practices for learning the culture of our hearers? What prevents us doing this and what might be some traps to avoid?

  2. Some preachers learn a great deal from heroes in cultures remote from their own (eras or places) but fail to adapt the lessons to their own context. Other preachers only learn from their own culture and fail to benefit from such inspiration and example. How can we find the sweet spot, where we glean all we can from the giants God has given to help us, but stay fully engaged in our own time and place?

  3. Think of a commonly cited objection to christianity which is levelled by those to whom you preach. Consider some of the assumptions upon which this objection is based. See if you can show how the assumption is inconsistent with a worldview which rejects Christ.

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Session 17. The Journey of Preaching:
General Advice

Here is a disordered and jumbled section with some important advice that wont fit elsewhere. In other words, it’s like one of those messages that breaks all the rules (no order, no overall theme, no flow of ideas…hence the lame title ‘Journey of Preaching’) but… deal with it.

Questions for reflection:

  1. Which of the five common mistakes at the start of this section do you find (or imagine) yourself making most easily? (There may be more than one.) Would other reliable people agree with your choice? Are there any steps you can take to begin to prevent these?

  2. If there are dangers involved with a preacher’s over dependence upon written manuscripts, what would be the counter dangers that come with freedom from manuscripts? Have you known preachers to make insufficient use of written notes?

  3. A confident feeling of authority as a preacher is not easily retained. What are some decisions and disciplines that would help in this? The answers may not be obvious. We are talking about staying aware of God’s presence and calling upon our lives, but also we are talking about a certain perspective and attitude toward the people to whom we are sent.

Session 18. The Focus of the Preacher:
Loving People

In John 10 we have Jesus comparing the true shepherd to the hired hand. Ultimately self-interest seems to signal the difference.  The true shepherd is driven by sacrificial concern for the sheep he’s called to protect. The hired-hand is willing to sacrifice the sheep for his own gain. In our 21st century context, Jesus might envisage a preacher primarily concerned with career development. There is generally not a lot of money to be found in preaching (of course some have managed to make it lucrative… ingeniously), but mammon is not the only distraction to lure the hired hand. Some degree of worldly honour (worldly seems a strange word to use, given how small the church ‘world’ really is. But it’s amazing how reputation, even within the subculture of the church becomes a snare) will quite easily be enough to turn some of our heads - even to the point where we see congregants as a means to the central aim of raising our profile. If this drives us, we are the hired hand of John 10 - and sheep are not safe with us. 

Questions for reflection:

  1. ‘Preaching’ and ‘compassion’ are concepts that are not naturally joined in our culture. But in Jesus life we see precisely this:

    Mark 6:34 [34] When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. (ESV)

    His compassion for the crowd was the very thing which led Him to preach to them. Why might this seem strange to us? Name some of the other motivations that could drive us to preaching.

  2. How might love for the people to whom we preach affect our preparation, our delivery and our interaction with individuals?

  3. Taking into consideration your own temperament, what would be a realistic way in which you might grow in this area?

Session 19. The Burden of Preaching:
Fighting the War

The key thing: preaching is warfare. To preach and then be surprised by tough seasons is like breaking into a stranger’s house in the early hours and being surprised when they strongly object. You have a relentless enemy who hates you anyway, but is especially annoyed when you herald the gospel. You’re breaking into his domain (John 14.30; Eph 2.2; 2 Corinthians 4.4; 1 Peter 5.8-9). So prepare for a skirmish.

Questions for reflection:

  1. Think about your own emotional wiring. Do you think that you are generally more likely to succumb to discouragement or to over-confidence? Do you see how pride may be involved either way? Are there any close people with whom you can discuss this?

  2. How does discouragement affect you? Do you see patterns in the relationship between emotional lows and temptations to sin? Can you see enemy tactics here? How might you prepare more strategically for this?

  3. If you want to ask someone for specific feedback, how would you maximise the usefulness of the exercise? What questions would you ask them?

APPENDIX: The Refuelling of Preaching:
Other Resources and Models

This preaching course is intended to start a journey for you. If it stirs you to read good books / resources on preaching and look for good role models from whom you can really learn, then it’s achieved something very worthwhile. This section may send you in a good direction:

Here are some books and resources. Some of the books are out of print, but they will be well worth hunting down:

BOOKS:

  • I Believe in Preaching - John Stott

    • A textbook on preaching, taking into account its theology, its importance and its craft. It’s inspiring, wise and practical, written by a model expositor.

  • Preachers and Preaching - DM Lloyd-Jones

    • A series of lectures given at Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia) in 1968. Lloyd-Jones didn’t much believe in homiletics (preaching craft) as a subject worthy of study, so it was exceptional for him to give this kind of focus to training preachers in their work. As a result these talks are unique and represent MLJ’s opinionated and quirky views (some might call them hang-ups). But what Lloyd-Jones does like nobody else is recover the solemn and eternal significance of preaching. For him, this is deadly serious and deserves our most earnest attention. 

    • It’s also instructive to listen to MLJ. You can now find a regular podcast (from the MLJ Trust) backdating live recordings. He didn’t approve of sermon ‘tapes’, but thankfully this didn’t prevent people taping him.

  • Expository Exultation - John Piper

    • Unique as a comprehensive theology of the purpose of preaching. Piper wants us to see that revelation of God’s glory in Christ is the great goal and that we should therefore maximise preaching to achieve this. He gives a range of techniques to help with this - all compellingly argued from scripture. A really remarkable book.

  • The Supremacy of God in Preaching - John Piper. 

    • I vividly remember discovering this book on a gap year in 1994. I picked it up, out of curiosity, from a shelf in a bookshop in Nairobi. The opening sentence was the first thing I’d ever read by Piper and it arrested me: ‘People are starving for the greatness of God’.

  • The Gift of Prophetic Preaching - Michael Eaton

    • Michael Eaton was a protege of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, perhaps especially in his view of preaching and the work of the Holy Spirit. In this simple, pithy and quite eccentric book he stands on Lloyd-Jones’ shoulders, exploring the way that preaching must be a different kind of speech than any other - anointed by the Spirit of God.

  • Lectures To My Students - CH Spurgeon

    • These are weighty, punchy and deadly serious, but sometimes seriously funny. Spurgeon takes a whole range of topics in hand here, in what are transcribed occasional lectures he would give to the students at his college. There is wisdom on staying close to the cross in your sermons, dealing with critics and opposition, using illustrations, looking after your vocal chords (a bigger issue in days without amplification), going after souls, and many other themes. Common sense, straight talk and gospel fire.

  • Explosive Preaching - Ronald Boyd-Macmillan

    • I like this book because of its breadth as well as its pithy insights. The author, who is enthusiastic about the subject, has a practical approach and shares wisdom learned from a wide range of historical examples and from non-western cultures. There are lessons to learn on preaching from persecuted churches in Russia and China, for example.

  • Preach the Word - edited by Greg Haslam

    • This collection of talks, given at a training course, hosted by Greg Haslam in London in the 2000’s, is so helpful. He managed to get a fantastic range of people to speak. Some of them (including Greg) were giants who have now gone to be with the Lord, and their wisdom shouldn’t be lost and forgotten. The passion for God, His word and His Kingdom, comes through in every section and there don’t seem to be many dull pages.

  • Why Johnny Can’t Preach - T. David Gordon

    • Gordon laments the prevalence of poor preaching in too many churches. He writes as someone weary with mediocrity and concerned that most are accustomed enough to settle for it. He links this underachievement with poor reading diets amongst pastors. Preachers who don’t read texts thoughtfully will tend to speak in platitudes. The book places the bar bracingly high, and perhaps the diagnosis could be more rounded, but the challenge is a healthy one.

  • The Power of Speaking God’s Word - Wilbur Ellsworth

    • Possibly the most unusual book on this list and probably the hardest to get hold of. The focus of the book is on preaching as an oral (not textual exercise) and, therefore, not to be over dependent upon notes and manuscripts. Even if you are not convinced you might be stimulated by it. Easily the best (and longest) chapter is his delve into church history where he shows that extempore preaching has been way more normal in church history than we might have realised.

PAPERS: (to be found online)

A PODCAST SERIES

  • Preaching in a Postmodern World - Ed Clowney & Tim Keller.

  • https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/course/preaching-christ-postmodern-world/#introduction-to-the-cours

  • I’ve recommended this series of recordings to many over the years. Ed Clowney and Tim Keller work as a potent duo with Clowney providing the theological and biblical spine to the course, while Keller shares wisdom on making it work in 21st century contexts. A whole range of practical ideas and themes are covered in fascinating ways. Keller had an enormous effect on the way I have thought as a leader and pastor and definitely as a preacher, and this series is probably the best way to grab hold of his insights.