For Sunday's sermon, I once again opted out of the traditional "sermon" model and simply told a story. I am doing this more and more, and my preaching is developing into a narrative style. I appreciate that people seem to connect with stories in ways I can never predict or explain. When I preach a traditional sermon, I tell the congregation exactly what I want them to hear. But when I tell a story, it touches people in profoundly surprising ways. I guess this is because stories have layers that resonate with the myriad layers of people's own narratives. And then that connection just… happens.
For a while, I felt guilty for straying from the traditional 3-point sermon, from all of the homiletics courses of seminary (my seminary was known for cranking out outstanding 3-point preachers). But as I reflect on the Christian tradition, I realize that there's a pretty good model for story telling. I mean, most of us who profess the Christian faith hold that the core of our tradition is the life and ministry of the man Jesus. And, according to the biblical accounts of his ministry, exactly how many sermons did he preach? Two: the "Sermon on the Mount" (Matthew) and the "Sermon on the Plain" (Luke), and really, these were pretty much the same sermon. (So we see that like any good itinerant preacher, he had one great, stock sermon that he used over and over again.) Our scriptures hold that Jesus had one sermon that he preached twice. And how many stories did he tell?
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2 comments:
Out of curiosity, was there a main text that was used for the homiletics courses at your seminary? At our school, the buzz word is the "Big Idea" from Haddon Robinson's book Biblical Preaching.
For a bit of spice, we were also assigned The Sermon Maker: Tales of a Transformed Preacher by Calvin Miller. He uses a story (what else?) to urge others to move away from the 3- (or 17-) point sermon and utilize storytelling a bit more. I highly recommend it based on what you've described.
"When I preach a traditional sermon, I tell the congregation exactly what I want them to hear. But when I tell a story, it touches people in profoundly surprising ways."
Rachel, I love this sentiment. It is so true. One of my great struggles with preaching is that it is often us telling the people what to think -- or least spouting our own particular view of the text with no competing or complimentary voice. But in storytelling, you engage the listeners as meaning-makers. I've never tried to do a full sermon as a story. Sounds like a great idea.
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