Spicing Sermons
Variety in Biblical Preaching by Harold Freeman, Word, $12.95
Reviewed by Calvin Miller, pastor, West Side Baptist Church, Omaha, Nebraska
“The validity of biblical preaching is not determined by its form!” says Harold Freeman, professor of preaching at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. There are other ways of preaching than the way we are now doing it, and so he nudges us to courage.
“Don’t be afraid,” he coaxes. “Try new forms.” But beware lest you “let your eagerness for creativity and innovation lead you into faulty hermeneutics. No matter how interesting your product may be, it will not be a biblical message if it does not interpret accurately the Scripture it deals with.”
Freeman’s book, Variety in Biblical Preaching, is rewardingly confrontational. I’m not necessarily a veteran of preaching, but I have been at it now for three decades. Still, as I read I found myself questioning my own tendency to settle into a comfortable homiletical groove. (Maybe rut is more honest.) The validity of Freeman’s arguments nettled me.
I have tried most of the varieties he suggests: the dramatic monologue, the narrative, and sermons that are dialogical, segmented, or media- and drama-augmented. My problem is that I know leaving my customary way of preaching involves work, which is, of course, a four-letter word.
Years ago on the ungraded rural roads of Oklahoma, I learned that “jumping ruts” is a hard and jolting experience. Ruts (sermonic and otherwise) are not very interesting, but they are comfortable.
Still, Freeman’s book nags at us. How do we jump sermonic ruts? How do we face our fears and get started?
Freeman suggests we pick forms we can handle naturally and our congregants can best tolerate. We should “begin in the least conspicuous way,” slipping small segments of the innovation into our regular sermon form.
When should we venture such innovations? “Don’t tackle the complex at the eleven o’clock hour of worship on Sunday morning,” is Freeman’s reply. A midweek or Sunday evening service might reduce the shock of rut jumping and “provide a better setting for your first use of an experimental form.”
In the first part of this not-too-long book, Freeman frankly discusses the need for variety in sermon forms. He tells us bluntly that people greet sermonic sameness by putting on “invisible earmuffs.” These first three chapters provide a welcome rehearsal of the principles of good communication. While Freeman respects preaching’s return to the expository mode, he is out to keep people listening.
Are all the forms he is suggesting biblical? “Any sermon is a biblical sermon if it confronts the hearers with an accurate interpretation of the biblical revelation and its present meaning for their lives.” And, according to Freeman, the preacher’s dilemma is that tension between biblical revelation and present meaning. Our fault can be either to absolutize the text and fall several centuries short of the right-now, or existentialize our own present world until we miss the impact of the ancient, revealed Word altogether. We can get so now that we miss the then, or be so then that we ignore the now.
Variety is more than the spice of life. It keeps people listening while we emphasize both now and then.
Two forms seem to be missing from Freeman’s catalogue. The first of these, which has grown immensely popular in recent years, is the “sermon as lesson.” This form is often accompanied by fill-in outlines, Greek word-study sheets, and the use of audio-visual equipment.
When I asked Freeman about this omission, he referred to the form as “oral exegesis.” The form can be wonderful and authentic, but he feels it tends to teach the Word as history and often bypasses contemporary application. Oral exegesis can also fall prey to the sole (and sometimes overdominant) authority of the pastor-teacher.
The other form conspicuously missing from the book is what Freeman called the “direct biblical-authority sermon.” This sermon form exposes Scripture on the basis of an outline drawn from the content of a passage, and relies on argument and exhortation to make the truth of the passage known and applicable to life. The reason for its omission is its common use by nearly all pastors.
Freeman believes this basic sermon form (the one, in fact, he teaches his students) should be well learned. From this basic form we can then move to other varieties.
Though he heartily endorses this basic form, he warns, “It is the most easily corrupted of all.” Its outline can be alliterated or assonanced till the outline is cute but little more than a snag for the memory of the listener.
Books tend to rebuke us separately at the point of our individual needs, so I met the section on dialogue preaching with restiveness. I agree with Freeman that all preaching is dialogical and that “whether we like it or not, they [our auditors] are talking back.” No one likes the preacher who seems to be saying, “You sit still and listen while I tell you something!”
Still, Freeman’s suggestions make me edgy. I am not prepared to dialogue away the sense of authority that resided in Jesus and missed the scribes. I think of myself as a thus-sayeth-the-Lord-er who doesn’t always know how to be “congenially authoritative” in our relational age in which sociology seems as important as theology to many listeners.
Though Freeman recommends it, I will probably never have presermon “feed-in” or postsermon “feed-back” groups. Others do it all the time, I know, but for me it somehow does not seem to rise out of a true prophetic spirit.
For a minute, though, Freeman had me wondering if any reluctance to seek out human input and evaluation is because I’m like Amos of Tekoa or because I’m sermonically insecure.
Surely it’s because Amos and I are so very much alike . . . surely.
Standards without Suits
Church Discipline and the Courts by Lynn R. Buzzard and Thomas S. Brandon, Jr., Tyndale, $6.95
Handbook of Church Discipline by Jay E. Adams, Zondervan, $6.95
Reviewed by Douglas J. Rumford, pastor, First Presbyterian Church of Fairfield, Connecticut
“A society’s morals are like teeth,” said George Bernard Shaw. “The more rotten they are, the more sensitive they are to the touch.” Increasingly in recent years, as the church has tried to deal with “cavities” through disciplinary action, it has gotten bitten.
The celebrated court case of Marian Guinn against the Collinsville Church of Christ in Oklahoma (1982) brought the issues to the fore. Guinn sued the church for invasion of privacy when it took steps to discipline her for having an affair with the town mayor. That brought up questions: Should courts discipline churches who discipline their members? And how can a church be faithful to biblical injunctions for discipline without opening itself to legal and financial nightmares?
Lynn Buzzard, professor of constitutional law at Campbell University and a leading authority on the legal relationship of church and state, tackles these questions from experience. He has pastored four churches, taught in seminary, and served as executive director of the Christian Legal Society. His coauthor, Thomas S. Brandon, Jr., is the Texas regional director for the Christian Legal Society.
“We wrote the book for both pastors and the legal community,” Buzzard told me, “to help them see where the mine fields are.” Aware of those land mines, Christian leaders may feel anxiety as they attempt to apply discipline in their own settings.
Buzzard understands. “Our priority,” he said, “is to develop first a certain character of church community: one with a strong, redemptive life. If that is lacking, discipline becomes judgmental and destructive.” And, we might add, dangerous.
Buzzard and Brandon begin by analyzing the contemporary social trends that are hostile to church discipline, such as individualism, the loss of norms and values, and the rejection of guilt.
Then they outline discipline in the Old and New Testaments and throughout church history, providing much-needed perspective for present-day applications.
Their working definition: “Church discipline includes all the ways and means by which the church invites and exhorts persons to live in faithfulness and obedience to Christ. … Discipline includes teaching ministries, exhortation, counseling, encouraging, enabling. Discipline is part of discipling.”
The authors list some of the prime abuses of discipline: using the process to get rid of people rather than reclaim them, reducing faith to a set of rules stated almost exclusively in negative terms, or making discipline highly impersonal, “especially where it is administered by formal ecclesiastical courts, thus lacking the love and care of a community so essential to restoration and forgiveness.”
“We caution the church against using discipline as a power game,” Buzzard said. “We emphasize again and again the redemptive, restorative goal of discipline.”
Due process and proper procedure are constant themes. They write, “The association (i.e., church) may have the right to make its own rules, but it must then abide by them.” When that is not done, and procedural claims are brought against the church, the word from the court may be, “You had a right to dismiss members, but not to do it the way you did.”
Approximately half the book covers issues of American constitutional law and the legal system, including the rights of association, confidentiality, defamation of character, invasion of privacy, and the infliction of emotional distress.
Concerning confidentiality: “The protective privilege ends where the public peril begins. … Lawyers, for example, have a privilege not to reveal confidences from their clients regarding past acts, even heinous crimes, but the privilege does not cover contemplated future criminal acts.”
Buzzard and Brandon conclude with practical advice to guard against being sued. Suggestions include having a clearly articulated discipline process in church bylaws, explaining this process through sermons and membership classes, and then adhering stringently to these procedures. Members’ rights include the “right to notice of the charges, right to a hearing before the body that decides, and adequate notice of any meeting to be held, including the time, place, and purpose of such a meeting.” Sample guidelines and forms of church discipline help make the principles concrete and understandable.
Rather than taking the legal perspective, Jay Adams’s Handbook of Church Discipline develops a process based on Matthew 18:15-17. In a straightforward, here’s-the-way-it-is style, Adams lists five steps to corrective discipline.
The first is self-discipline, which he says “is the beginning and the end of church discipline because it is the most basic element in all discipline.”
He writes, “Discipline is the process that leads to the peaceful, orderly condition of self-control in the individual.”
The second step is the one-on-one confrontation of a problem that separates one believer from another. The key principle: “Deal with the problem on the level at which it presents itself, making every effort to involve no one other than those already involved.”
“One moves on to the next step in church discipline,” writes Adams, “only when progress is not being made toward reconciliation because the other person has dug in his heels and is unwilling to do whatever is necessary to be reconciled.”
The third step involves bringing one or two others into the process. They are to witness the attempts at reconciliation, not necessarily to have been witnesses to the event that caused the breach.
The fourth step moves from what Adams terms the “informal stage” of discipline to the formal stage, in which the church officially takes cognizance of the problem. Initially, this “telling the church” step means bringing the issue before the church board, and then, if necessary, taking it to a closed meeting for church members only.
If all this fails, the fifth step is “removal from the midst” of the church fellowship, with the understanding that “Satan and the world are providentially utilized by God to bring about repentance.” Adams, like Buzzard and Brandon, stresses the need for faithfulness to the formal church process and thorough documentation in the church record.
Next remains the process of restoring the repentant person to fellowship. Adams writes here of the grace the people of God extend to forgive and assist the disciplined person. He makes it clear that the process is not complete until the reaffirmation of love and acceptance by the congregation.
Although not everyone will agree with his treatment, Adams is concerned that discipline be used to disciple people rather than alienate them or further divide the family of faith.
Both books point to the need for positive nurture and discipleship. As we teach and practice the theology and principles presented in these books, the process of discipline may eventually become more like regular brushing than pulling teeth.
Keeping Ahead of the Age
MegaTruth: The Church in the Age of Information by David McKenna, Here’s Life, $12.95
Reviewed by Scott Wenig, singles pastor, Bear Valley Baptist Church, Denver, Colorado
What book was on the New York Times best-seller list for a record sixty straight weeks?
What book is currently on more library shelves in the United States than any other volume, including any version of the Bible or any single work by Shakespeare?
The answer to both questions: Megatrends, futurologist John Naisbitt’s analysis of social and technological movements he predicts will shape the direction of America.
What are the spiritual implications of Megatrends? And how should the Christian community respond to the life-changing developments Naisbitt describes?
In MegaTruth, David McKenna confronts these questions. McKenna, president of Asbury Theological Seminary, believes the church must respond to the megatrends of our time with “MegaTruth,” which he defines as the Spirit’s application of Christ’s Word to the revolutionary changes of the present era.
McKenna helps us recognize the present monumental change from the older Age of Industry to the Age of Information. The most significant result of this change for the church is an emerging “crisis of truth,” in which traditional values and established institutions are seriously questioned.
Rather than viewing this crisis of truth negatively, McKenna argues that it could be the very factor needed to advance the gospel throughout today’s society. In his view, “whenever ultimate Truth is up for grabs, the church contests on its own turf.”
But to do this, McKenna believes the church must properly arm itself with MegaTruth. This biblical world view is then applied to contemporary society in three ways, which McKenna describes as synthesizing, norming, and futuring. Synthesizing allows us to sort truth from error in the face of information overload. Norming provides a moral standard in an environment of information mush, and futuring promises an expectant hope in an era of information pollution.
Perhaps the most significant point of application concerns the area of Christian leadership. McKenna believes the church’s ability to make an impact in the Age of Information depends on the spirituality of its intellectual leaders. He writes, “Without abandoning the rational or the relational, we must go beyond a personal commitment to Christ and a theological commitment to a statement of faith. … Spiritual development is even more important than professional development.”
When I asked in what ways his book could be used to help pastors, McKenna emphasized preaching: “I wrote to encourage Christian leaders to discern the signs of the times. Perhaps by sensitizing them to these contemporary issues, they may become stronger prophetic voices within their own congregations. With the Word of God as our text and the Holy Spirit as our teacher, we can know High-Truth in a High-Tech age.”
NEW AND NOTEWORTHY
High School Ministry by Mike Yaconelli and Jim Burns, Zondervan, $16.95
Today’s teenager lives under a burden of stress and anxiety that would traumatize most adults. That’s the conclusion of veteran youth workers Yaconelli and Burns. Many teens have never known a stable family life, are strangers to words like commitment and responsibility, and have no idea what the future holds (or if there is a future). This book begins by thoroughly examining this high school student culture and context.
A second section explains why some youth workers are effective. It supplies strategies for setting goals, recruiting a ministry team, and combating high schoolers’ regular complaints of boredom.
A final section provides program tools-games, discussion starters, role plays, socials, and other activities-and includes a chapter on events that involve the whole family.
Counseling the Depressed by Archibald Hart, Word, $12.95
Almost everyone knows what it means to feel blue, but helping the truly depressed is difficult. Even pastors sometimes struggle to know what to say to a depressed parishioner.
That’s not surprising, according to Fuller Seminary School of Psychology dean Archibald Hart, who believes that to counsel those afflicted with “the most painful of all emotional disorders, you need to be finely tuned to the intricate complexity of this malady.”
So Hart covers in depth the nature of depression, its surprisingly constructive function, and its sometimes biochemical origin. He explains various forms of treatment, from offering a caring ear to helping the person obtain a physician’s prescription. Hart convincingly argues the case for medical treatment of some depressive patients.
Particularly helpful are sections exploring ways to help people cope with depression’s unique effects in childhood, midlife, and old age. He helps readers identify high-risk situations and know their limits and opportunities in shepherding others through their dark valleys.
Involving Youth in Youth Ministry by Thom and Joani Schultz, Group, $9.95
Youth ministries often have a regrettable flaw, write Thom and Joani Schultz: they center around the youth leaders. Through years of hard-earned experience, the Schultzes discovered it’s possible-even preferable-to involve youth in planning meetings, leading activities, and teaching lessons for fellow youth.
The results? “Previously shy, quiet kids now take part in leadership roles with surprising self-assuredness. The kids’ faith has deepened. Their commitment to the church has strengthened.”
The Schultzes offer pointers on how this “youth-based ministry” can happen. While not without its risks and, paradoxically, extra work for adults, such ministry holds great rewards for the kids, the leaders, and the wider church. The Schultzes offer practical outlines and case studies to back up their contention and to help churches revitalize the participation of youth in youth ministry.
Strategies for Church Growth by C. Peter Wagner, Regal, $12.95
Never before has the harvest been so ripe, believes C. Peter Wagner, one of Church Growth’s chief strategists. In this volume he presents sound theory and workable strategies for those eager to respond.
Wagner lays out a biblical rationale for setting goals to reach the lost. He explains the relationship of evangelism to social responsibility. He offers suggestions for dealing with resistant communities, and examines why “frequently so few of those who make decisions for Christ actually end up in church.”
Wagner grapples with common criticisms of Church Growth theory and argues for “consecrated pragmatism” when it comes to methods. He provides case studies and research to challenge the church to find new possibilities for reaching people with the gospel.
Reviewed by Timothy K. Jones, Goshen, Indiana
Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
