It seems that there is a crisis in preaching. How often do you hear church goers complaining about the length of the sermon? Or how boring it is? Or how irrelevant it is? I heard Leigh Hatcher talk about 'Preaching in a 'look at me' world', and I'll try and post some of his thoughts up here. But to set the scene, here are some thoughts on preaching by some well known contemporary preachers.John Stott:
"The standard of preaching in the modern world is deplorable. There are few great preachers."John Woodhouse:
"Much of modern preaching is deadly dull, and we long to hear preaching that is alive."Peter Jensen:
"We need to look again at what we do in church, our reading, our prayers, (YES!!) our preaching."Bryan Chapel:
Congregational interest in any message is a minor miracle - that no minister should ever take for granted."Martyn Lloyd Jones, on the British experience going back to the 1960’s!!:
"Many of the younger reformed men in Britain are very good men who have no doubt read a great deal, and are very learned, but they are very dull boring preachers."Richard A. Jensen:
"There’s a crisis - in the theory and practice of preaching."
3 comments:
Not sure what I think about this myself, but Jordan reckons preaching is for those outside the church. Teaching is for those within. Perhaps it is our expectations that are the problem.
I don't see why it has to be an either/or? What does it say about our understanding of 'church' if preaching is just for those outside the church?
It's probably worth mentioning that Justin has recently done a series on preaching too.
It says a lot about our misunderstanding of church!
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