Some pastors pride themselves on didactic preaching-teaching of the Bible, expressing profound theological truths. These sermons will often be prepared with the same attention given to a college term paper. Didactic preaching nourishes the intellect and helps "renew the mind."
I came to faith in the Pentecostal tradition where much of the preaching was intended to touch the heart. I remember one old radio preacher whose delivery was so impassioned, so fiery, it was said that he could preach the phone book and people would come forward in repentance. For some of my friends in the Pentecostal tradition, to be "fed" by a sermon was synonymous with being emotionally moved.
Other preachers focus on the ethical demands of the gospel. They believe it is not enough to know the right things, or to have the heart moved, because "faith without works is dead." Instead, each sermon must call the hearer to do something to express love for both God and neighbor.
Today's more popular preachers offer practical help for daily living, with "keys" and "steps" to a better life. I attended one such church last summer with the opportunity to hear one of America's most popular television preachers. My colleagues quickly dismiss this man's preaching as superficial, but I found his practical advice disarming in its simplicity.
As I left it struck me that the thousands who attend this church, and the millions who watch the preacher on television, are testimony to our need for simple words of encouragement.
Finally, there are preachers whose sermons seem more like entertainment than classical preaching, with titles such as "Desperate Housewives." One preacher I know had moto-cross bikers doing cycle tricks across the stage as a part of his sermon. Another church advertised that they offered "innertainment for the heart." It is impossible to be bored at these churches. The messages are intriguing.
Theological teaching, passion and inspiration, ethical imperatives, practical pep-talks, or "innertainment" for the heart; which of these types of sermons define excellent preaching today? The answer for me is not found in any one of them, but in elements of all of them.
In the early 1900s, many of the agricultural youth clubs in America joined forces under the name "4-H Club." The name itself came from a high school educator who suggested that to help youth reach their full potential, educators had to engage "the head, the heart and the hands," to which a fourth "H" was later added, "health."
I hear an echo of the New Testament version of the shema. Moses, and later Jesus, commanded God's people to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, addressing the entire person for full transformation. Likewise, our preaching should speak to head, heart, and hands, and, in the end, it should contribute to our hearers' spiritual health.
As you prepare your next sermon, ask yourself, what in the sermon will teach? What will inspire the heart? What response is the sermon seeking from the hearers? And will people find the message helpful? These four elements may help us define effective preaching today.
Adam Hamilton is senior minister of United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas.
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