How High Should You Preach?

I’m a teacher and I speak in churches a fair bit. Yet I’ve always been perplexed as to how academic, highbrow, and rigorous one’s preaching should. Now for me preaching at college chapel is one thing, where I know most of the students, but speaking at a local church where people range from toddlers to retirees is a big mix. On the one hand, I don’t want to preach esoteric theological doctrines, go into the minutia of Hebrew and Greek exegesis, and add quotes in Latin and drop names of great theologians because it simply leaves people baffled. No point getting folks lost in the details of some Bible Nerd sermonizing out of the window of his or her ivory tower. But on the other hand, I don’t want to preach light and fluffy non-sense that is full of mundane platitudes, permeated with pseudo-spiritual wisdom, and is as intellectually nourishing as eating mud.

I’ve heard two different stories about this. In oral tradition, I’m told that Graham Goldsworthy (you know, of biblical theology fame, like Gospel and Kingdom, etc.) once had a parishioner complain to him that the sermon was over his head. Goldsworthy retorted, so I’m told, “well, then, lift up your head”. Makes sense. Christians are not meant to be spoon fed, but need to actively listen and learn and to stretch themselves because sermons are their main teaching diet in Christian instruction for the week.

Yet there another story that I just heard from my colleague Andrew Prince about Charles Spurgeon. Apparently Spurgeon taught: “Christ said, ‘Feed my sheep…feed my lambs.’ Some preachers, however, put the food so high that neither the lambs or sheep can reach it. They seem to have read the text, ‘Feed my giraffe’s.’” There’s the opposite problem. Preaching that is unaccessable to the people in the pew will get no benefit out of it.

What I try to do in my homiletic journeys is: (1) Identify with your audience. Preaching to a youth group aint’ the same as speaking at a retirement village. But make sure everyone can grasp what you’re talking about. When in doubt, simple is better. (2) The form should be easy and aesthetically nice to heart, but the content should be theologically informed. (3) Remember, preaching is based on good exegesis, but it is not a display of your exegesis. (3) Preaching is about persuasion, changing peoples’ hearts and minds, not just imparting more information; and (4) The most important elements of the sermon are the first thing and the last thing you say, so find a way to make it sing and sting!

Lenny Luchetti

Thanks for your thoughtful post. I teach preaching to Seminary students. We wrestle often with how a sermon can be both theologically substantive and contextually relevant. I used to think that it was impossible for a sermon to be both. However, a sermon development process that intentionally makes adequate space for the exegesis of the Bible, exegesis of the people, and prayer for the Holy Spirit to connect these two forms of exegesis fosters substantive and relevant sermons. The Gospel of God’s incarnation, I believe, makes us relevant to God. Good preaching done by good, not perfect, preachers will communicate this Gospel. Lenny Luchetti
John Thomson

Amen. Totally agree. What are the rules for writing?

I know, there are different constituencies in writing. I take this up to a point. However, if a theological argument is so nuanced, loaded with assumed freight lexically, and complicated that the average pastor finds it above his head, is it really reliable? Is it of value? If in language and concept it is so esoteric is it really part of the counsel of God or has it become mere abstractions and mind games; endless genealogies and science so-called.

I wonder too, if esoteric jargon is necessary to express theological debate do those who discuss really understand what they discuss? Do the terms and language of discourse become so abstruse and rarified creating the illusion of profound learning that ideas dressed in this pseudo-sophistication gain credibility and traction that in the more mundane world of the pastor and Scripture would be discarded.

To put it another way, should we, as Chesterton said, refuse to believe anything that cannot be described in coloured pictures?

Or, to put the point yet another way, if the pastor is responsible to preach so that the congregation understands what he is saying and where he gets it from in Scripture should the writer not be subject to the same constraints, or at least write in such a way that the average pastor can understand what he means and where he gets it from in Scripture.

I suspect these constraints on pastor and writer would lead to more biblically true preaching and writing.
Lenny Luchetti

Thanks for your insights John. I developed a guide to help me craft sermons that are bibilical, theological and contextual. You can find it on my blog post linked below. I look forward to your critique: http://lennyluchetti.blogspot.com/2011/10/sermon-feedback-form.html
Robert Hagedorn

Saint Augustine couldn’t do it. But can someone else explain what kind of fruit Adam and Eve ate in the story? After thousands of years it’s time to think, read, and give the real explanation based only on the facts in the story. No guesses, opinions, or beliefs. We’ve already had way too many of these. Treat the whole thing as a challenge. You can do it! Or can you? But first, do a quick Google search: First Scandal.
Allen Browne

Thanks Michael.
One of the guys who preaches in our church gets this balance right. Tim’s message is so simple and story-based that everyone (children, new believers) get the main thought and know how to respond. But in his stories, this truth is nuanced in ways that people who’ve been walking with God for 50 years hear it as freshly challenging and encouraging and “inciteful” (if you can be incited to good responses).
Amazing how stories can do that.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1846284634 Ray Pennoyer

I agree with your concerns, Mike, and I like your 4 principles very much. I would suggest two more for preaching in general:

1. Every sermon should touch on some aspect of the redemption we have in Jesus. The impact and meaning of the Cross/Resurrection is so rich, so multifaceted, that we can never hope to plumb the depths of it. And it affects everything.

2. “See that you feel the truths that you speak” – advice from the great evangelist George Whitefield in a letter to a missionary to the Alleghany Indians.
http://epeuthutebetes.wordpress.com/ Lue-Yee Tsang

When John Donne preached in the country, he did indeed adjust his sermons. For one thing, he preached for a much shorter time.