1 These words are from my heart to you. I say this before God and Jesus Christ. Some day He will judge those who are living and those who are dead. It will be when Christ comes to bring His holy nation. 2 Preach the Word of God. Preach it when it is easy and people want to listen and when it is hard and people do not want to listen. Preach it all the time. Use the Word of God to show people they are wrong. Use the Word of God to help them do right. You must be willing to wait for people to understand what you teach as you teach them.
3 The time will come when people will not listen to the truth. They will look for teachers who will tell them only what they want to hear.
*I Timothy 4.1-3, NLV
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The British Weekly published a provocative letter:
Dear Sir:
It seems ministers feel their sermons are very important and spend a great deal of time preparing them. I have been attending church quite regularly for thirty years, and I have probably heard 3,000 of them. To my consternation, I discovered I cannot remember a single sermon. I wonder if a minister's time might be more profitably spent on something else?
Many editorial responses followed this letter. This was ended by the following one:
Dear Sir,
I have been married for thirty years. During that time I have eaten 32,850 meals ~ mostly my wife's cooking. Suddenly I have discovered I cannot remember the menu of a single meal. And yet ... I have the distinct impression that without them, I would have starved to death long ago.
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The young Timothy is impressed with the importance of preaching to his congregation. He is encouraged to preach when it is easy and when it is difficult. While he is to preach exposing needed changes in the congregation, he is to be patient with the people. Wise advice for a young pastor ~ any pastor.
I, too, began preaching and serving as a pastor as a young man ~ fifteen years old when I began preaching, aged nineteen when I served my first pastorate. The call to preach was thirty-two years ago. Since then I have preached some three thousand sermons in six states.
Over these years I have learned three important lessons about preaching. I will share these briefly.
First, Christian preaching is principally to be spiritually-formational, not informational.
To understand preaching as formational requires us to fathom what Christian spiritual formation is. United Methodist theologian M. Robert Mulholland, Jr., in in Invitation to a Journey: A Road Map for Spiritual Formation, lists four elements in a definition of Christian spiritual formation.
1) a process
2)of being conformed
3) to the image of Christ
4) for the sake of others
Preaching aims to encourage an ongoing process of persevering in spiritual disciplines, or means of grace, to become progressively like Christ, and consequently to serve others as representatives of Jesus Christ.
Second, Christian preaching is principally to be inspirational, not informational.
Inspirational means that preaching can be a means of grace. Actively listening to preaching, to sense how the Holy Spirit might be speaking to the community and oneself, is a communal means of grace. This means the question as to result is more, "Did I (we) receive the touch of the inspiring Holy Spirit through the sermon event?, not "Did I (we) receive good information through the message?"
Third, Christian preaching is principally to be incarnational, not informational.
Christian preaching as incarnational means two things. First, the one preaching embodies the Presence of Grace, is himself or herself a means of grace. Also, the community, as the gathered Body of Christ, is to share the Presence of Christ through their joined openness to the gift of the Holy Spirit through the preaching event.
Therefore, Christian preaching is three principle things. Each is so as opposed to a more cerebally, informationally, based way of preaching. Christian preaching is principally spiritually-formational, inspirational, and incarnational.
Of course, this does not mean information is nonessential. Rather, information finds its fulfillment in the spiritual formation, inspiration, and incarnation of the Body of Christ.
How does contemplation enhance the Christian preaching event, as participated in by laity and clergy? Teresa Tillson, in "The Way of Meditation and Contemplation," observes that one of the more common metaphors for contemplative prayer is the lover or friend. She writes, "God desires our simple presence more than any action or service we might give." We could define contemplation as the offering of our simple presence to God in loving, trusting, and receptive silence. This brings us into immediate openness to the Spirit of Grace.
The ramifications of such openness and Divine Touch, beyond other means of prayer, for personal and communal worship are easy to arrive at with little reflection. Contemplation enhances the three priorities of Christian preaching. I recommend contemplation as the most helpful renewal in the Church for worship and the liturgy, including the Christian preaching event.
No other form of prayer opens the heart to the power and wisdom of the Mystery of God as does contemplative prayer. I have been graced to see how contemplation and means of grace have transformed how I preach and its effect upon many in my congregations that I have served over the last ten years.
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*Story from the British Weekly is from Craig Brian Larson, Ed. Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching.
*Quote from Tillson is at www.stolaf.edu .
*Brian K. Wilcox lives with his wife, Rocio, their two dogs, St. Francis and Bandit Ty, and their fish, Hope, in Southwest Florida. Brian is vowed at Greenbough House of Prayer, a contemplative Christian community in Georgia. He lives a contemplative life and inspires others to experience a deeper relationship with Christ. He advocates for a spiritually-focused Christianity and the renewal of the focus of the Church on addressing the deeper spiritual needs and longings of persons and empathic relating with diverse spiritual traditions, East and West. Brian has an independent writing, workshop, and retreat ministry, for all spiritual seekers.
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