Preaching from Preach magazine Issue 33, Preaching Today — Preach magazine - a resource for preachers and worship leaders, putting world events into a biblical context

PREACHING FROM PREACH MAGAZINE, ISSUE 33

THEME: Preaching Today
Preaching Today – what are the implications for our preaching of being located in the here and now? How do we connect not just with the ancient world of the Bible, but with the contemporary world of today? Bible in one hand, newspaper in the other – our task is to speak to the present, not just to explain the past.

CONTEXT: The word of God
Tobi Olujinmi expounds the story of Jesus and the woman at the well from John 4. The well is a place of conversation and encounter, she says: ‘Sermons can be conversations that lead to life.’ In her piece on Ezra, Helen Paynter draws out the implications of his six-hour sermon. It was a key moment in Israel’s history, when they chose to realign their hearts to God. And ‘Preaching is a means of grace to us. It is a means of encounter with the living God.’ Ian Paul writes of preaching as ‘the call of God’, as God’s words are proclaimed and explained. In Jesus, ‘the one preaching becomes the one preached; the message is no longer merely the things Jesus said and did, but Jesus himself.’

APPLICATION
Margaret Cooling reminds us we are bodies as well as souls. Remembering the physical and putting ourselves in the place of the character we are talking about will add life to our words. ‘Embodying’ our words ‘opens up possibilities for preachers and gives ways of showing rather than telling in sermons.’ Jo Swinney writes of ‘preaching as hospitality’. What are people hungry for as they come to hear us preach? How do we prepare to welcome them? ‘Giving thought to the best way to serve your listeners is part of being a good host,’ she says.

SUB-THEMES
There are different types of sermon. John Woods unpacks three of them – expository, narrative and exhortatory – and brings out the strengths and weaknesses of each. In a transcribed interview, John Stott speaks of the joy of expository preaching, and also of its difficulty – ‘there is no form of preaching that is so demanding as biblical exposition’. David Baker encourages us to add Hebrew to the tools at our disposal.

CASE STUDIES
Pastor Marjorie Esomowei speaks of the need for emotional intelligence in leadership, and for balance and focus in how we approach our work. In her case, this has led to a ministry in the red light district of Amsterdam. Dan Randall writes about youth evangelism; peer influence, he says, is the best way to reach young people. David Sims has a preaching ministry on TikTok; his TikTok church posts out around 20 Bibles a month to people who request them.

PREACHING POINTS
James Catford asks, ‘How did we come to remove ourselves from the marketplace for answers to so many of the big life questions that people face?’ We are, he says, ‘in the knowledge business’. We know about the heart – human frailty, failure, forgiveness, redemption. ‘It is in the field of knowing about how to live life well that preaching today will succeed or fail.’ So, whatever kind of sermon we’re preaching, or however long, or whatever our text or passage or theme: what are we offering that will help people live life well?

READING
·       Generous Justice: How God's Grace Makes us Just by Tim Keller (Hodder & Stoughton, 2012)
·       Holy Anarchy: Dismantling Domination, Embodying Community, Loving Strangeness by Graham Adams (SCM, 2022)
·       The Divine Spark: Why Celtic Wisdom can refresh the Church today by Steve Morris (Authentic Media, 2020)
·       The Present Preacher: Discerning God in the Now by Liz Shercliff & Matt Allen (Canterbury Press, 2021)

Please email editor@lwpt.org.uk if you would like a pdf version of the sermon tips.