For the last half-century every decade has witnessed the publication of a landmark book on the art of preaching. From memory, roughly in chronological order: W E Sangster’s The Craft of the Sermon; James Stewart’s Heralds of God (he was selected by Preaching Magazine as the 20^th century’s greatest English-language preacher), John Stott’s I Believe in Preaching, John Claypool’s The Preaching Event (he’s the best preaching writer or writing preacher in the English language, in my view) , Fred Craddock’s Youtube talks (he’s better heard than read),  Tom Long’s The Witness of Preaching,  William Willimon’s Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry, Walter Brueggeman’s Finally Comes the Poet,anything by Eugene Peterson  – and I could go on…

Now in this decade Tidball’s latest book on the subject will be hard to beat. An evangelical British Baptist pastor-theologian, he’s ‘walked the walk’, pastoring churches and teaching ministerial students at the London School of Theology, Spurgeon’s College and elsewhere.

Let’s start with the only paragraph where I put a ? mark:  ‘As preachers, the test we face is not that devised by… management, with its list of tick boxes that measure everything’ (p. 163). Now I understand where he’s coming from (later in that paragraph: ‘The test is the eschatological fire to which our work will be subject and which will reveal the quality of our work as measured in eternal terms’ (p. 164). My visits to the UK have taught me that on that side of the ‘pond’ business feedback mechanisms are eschewed by pastors. No American would have written that critique of preaching as it relates to the ‘felt needs’ of hearers… But, yes, of course, preaching which ‘tickles the ears’ and aims at popularity rather than prophetic integrity is to be avoided at all costs. But put me down as someone who encourages feedback (at Blackburn Baptist Church we invited the congregation to fill in ‘Carecards’ with comments and suggestions every Sunday).

But that’s a minor point. Here’s a summary of Derek Tidball’s ‘idolatries’ with a key hortatory (he doesn’t want to be ‘judgmental’!) summary-comment:

1. The pulpit: ‘Inflated ideas of preaching can lead to inflated ideas of ourselves’.

2. Authority: ‘The preacher’s authority lies in scripture. Preachers are called to ‘preach the word’ (2 Tim 4:2) rather than their own thoughts and opinions.’

3. Popularity:  ‘Even good encouragement may become distorted until we develop a dependency on people’s praise and make popularity the rule by which we measure all things. We become “encouragement junkies”…’

4. Success: ‘When success (or growth) becomes the objective to which everything else must bend, rather than the natural by-product of faithfulness to God, it has truly become an idol’.

5. Entertainment: ‘I have heard many humorous preachers entertain an audience… but they have done so at the expense of the message they longed to communicate’.

6. Novelty: Dean Inge’s famous aphorism: ‘Whoever marries the spirit of the age will soon find himself a widower in the next’.

7. Secularization: ‘Enshrined in our educational system… people are taught to examine everything from everybody’s viewpoint… The only sin is the sin of dogmatism’. (Interestingly there’s no discussion of ‘postmodernism’ except tangentially).

8. Oratory: P T Forsyth: ‘The Christian preacher is not the successor of the Greek orator, but of the Hebrew prophet. The orator comes with but an inspiration, the prophet comes with a revelation’.

9. Immediacy: ‘Peter Berger has spoken about our “homeless minds” which are unable to settle anywhere for long, in respect to beliefs and convictions, and therefore easily get converted and reconverted’.

10. Professionalism: ‘Beware of anything that competes with loyalty to Jesus Christ. The greatest competitor to devotion to Jesus is service for him.’

11. Busyness: Conversation between frustrated pastor (Eugene Peterson) and church leaders: ‘An elder said: “Why don’t you let us run the church?” I said, “You don’t know how.” He said, “It sounds to me like you don’t know how to be a pastor either. How about you let us learn to run the church and we let you learn how to be a pastor”?’

12. Familiarity: Phillips Brooks described [a certain type of preaching] ‘as a boiler that has no connection with an engine. Plenty of steam escapes, but it is never converted into energy that proves productive.’

Challenging, and sometimes – for us preachers – scary!

Rowland Croucher

Jmm.aaa.net.au

October 2011