Suggestions would be much appreciated.

This is getting to you somewhat after the fact, and I don’t even know if you’ll read it, but I wanted to let you know that I enjoy reading your sermons. They are not too ponderous and not too light. Pretty much, they are just right.

When you’re a young minister’s assistant, you only have one chance to get your sermon right, unlike a novelist who has months to have his work read and edited and reworked, or a stand-up comic who can hone his routine after many trials.

All in all, you are doing a great job considering the restraints under which you work. Thank you for posting your sermons, and thanks to the Holy Spirit for helping you in their preparation.

Fred Flink

I take several of your points to heart, and agree with most of them. The sermon could certainly be improved. And if I was preaching in the states, to a congregation with whom I would have a long relationship, I would go further. Let’s take the bible reading point, for instance.

You write, “how many people, who before today would not, will read the bible because you said you will find jesus there?” Fantastic question. First, I think a preacher should be careful not to think she has too much pull. Will one sermon drastically change someone’s daily habits? Probably not. If a preacher, on the other hand, in each sermon shows how reading the Bible can be fun, exciting, and take folks to new places in their faith, then I think we can get somewhere. I’m aware that I’m out of here in 3 months. I can push, “Read your Bible” over and over again, but if there’s not support, structures, and a community ethic to do so then I doubt much will change. In this context, many folk are so intimidated by their Bibles (for reasons I can’t go into in such a forum) that they need a year of demonstration that the Bible is not scary before they will pull out their dusty youth fellowship Bible from years past. I’m aware I’m pushing small small steps, but I’m trying to do so at every event at which I speak, and model careful Bible reading often. Several people have mentioned to me, “You sure do talk about the Bible a lot” which I take as movement in the right direction–they’re noticing, and it’s being reinforced.

Regarding another point of yours, “it doesnt feel like there adequate attention was given to the intersection between the jesus of the bible and the lives of the people to whom you have preached.” Again, I hear you, and I agree. I went 16.5 minutes–long for this context–and there were several other places I would have gone if the congregation was used to longer sermons. However, right after my sermon we sang the hymn I quoted and it summed things up like I’ve never felt before. It was awesome: the energy from the sermon peaked during the hymn, which in a few verses said what I had taken so long to say. Great holy spirit stuff.

Not sure about this, but the section on seeing Jesus in community, particularly the intergenerational community of the church was actually mean to push a bit. In two other church forums recently I’ve suggested ways in which they could move towards more intentional community. So in that section I tried to both affirm, and to those few hundred who attended the other forums, renew thoughts of how we can do that better.

Many thanks for your comments. Cheers.

how many people, who before today would not, will read the bible because you said you will find jesus there? it reads more closely to guthrie’s christian doctrine than pulpit proclamation.

the fundamental issue is why believe without seeing? the words and stories about jesus in the bible are a theological student’s answer to where jesus is today, but does that speak as clearly to your average church member? it doesnt feel like there adequate attention was given to the intersection between the jesus of the bible and the lives of the people to whom you have preached.

one preacher asked a great preacher how to organize and write a sermon. his answer was, “you want to learn the art of constructing themata…in my view there’s nothing more foolish than to sit down and try to come up with a theme. for that you must arrange your life sensibly. see to it that every day you have at least half an hour for incidental reading in the new testament, or a devotional work. when you go for a walk you must let your thoughts flutter randomly, sniffing here and there, letting them have a go now here, now there. that is how to arrange one’s housekeeping. themata are the accidents that the week should deliver to you in abundance. but the more you see to it that the dividends are uncertain, the freer, better, richer they will become, and the more striking, surprising, penetrating.”

the purpose of preaching, one of them at least, is to get people to see that they do not believe without seeing. the preacher’s task is to open the eyes of the believer or point them to the truth that god is alive today. the difficult task for a preacher who spends much time in the study is finding theological intersection in congregants’ lives. that is, of showing them that ordinary events are theological. these events are communicated to congregations through stories told in the listeners’ language.

that said, you are a very good writer and your sermons display wisdom and passion, which is a rare combination in the church.