What IS a sermon anyway?

All scripture is breathed by God, and it is useful for teaching, for rebuke, for improvement, for training in righteousness, so that people who belong to God may be complete, fitted out and ready for every good work. – 2 Tim 3:16-17

This last Sunday I preached what some might consider a controversial sermon, and it got me thinking about what exactly I aim to do when I preach.

For those who don’t attend a traditional, liturgical service, I have a few prefatory notes. An Anglican service has so much more packed into it than simply 30 minutes of singing and 30 minutes of sermon. There is a confession of sin, a confession of the creed, there are articulate and dense collects being prayed, and there is the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. EVERY WEEK. The amount of stuff that happens every Sunday morning at my church means that the sermon really isn’t the focal point of the worship service. It is an important point; it is the key to the Liturgy of the Word. But it isn’t the only part of the Liturgy of the Word that might feed or help someone, and the Liturgy of the Word isn’t the only (or most important) part of the service.

In one sense, that takes some pressure off of my sermon preparation. The sermon isn’t the microcosm of the whole worship service. If the sermon isn’t great, or it doesn’t fully accomplish its purpose, it doesn’t make the whole morning a wash. It doesn’t even make the Liturgy of the Word a wash, since scripture is read aloud, and that on its own may do some stirring of the hearts of the people.

But, to the point: what is the sermon for? A lot of pastors think of the sermon as a moment for education. As a chance to open up the Bible and teach the congregation. That may be a useful way to approach the sermon, and in the context of what most Evangelical worship services look like (30 minutes singing, 30 minutes preaching), I can understand why many of my fellow pastors use that time in that way.

I just don’t think teaching is the right paradigm for me.

Here’s why. First off, within the context of the aforementioned service, a well taught lesson would be just too long to fit into that space. In order to really teach from Scripture, you need a lot of time to unpack. A lesson from Scripture would show people how to read the text, answer interpretive questions, and equip people to both understand the meaning of the text as well as give them interpretive tools to unpack similar texts. And since I expect people to engage with the rest of the worship service, that takes up too much attention.

The second reason is that I just don’t think that lectures are the best way to teach. At least, not the kind of teaching that I want to engage in. There are certainly a lot of topics that should come from a lecture, but when it comes to the Bible I think learner engagement is key. And learner engagement is hard to do when people can’t ask questions, or dialogue with one another. Teaching the Bible, I think, best fits in a classroom setting, not a sermon setting.

So, what is the sermon for? Well, I think in the context of the worship service (both as a larger part of the liturgy, and as a message delivered), the sermon is for exhortation. Or as Paul puts it, rebuke and improvement. My best sermons are ones that open up the weekly passages and give a concrete and clear challenge. I consider my sermons to be successful if they introduce an idea that people either haven’t or weren’t thinking of; if they spur someone towards action; if they are being wrestled with and talked about a few days later. In my opinion, a sermon like that can do a lot of building up in the life of the believer.

Sometimes I fail. Sometimes my sermons are more about controversy than change. Sometimes the concepts are not clear. Sometimes I preach with the intent to get an “Atta boy” after the service and a few congratulatory tweets in the afternoon. While I selfishly love to get that kind of attention after I preach, that isn’t what I (should) use to gauge whether or not I actually preached well. An email two days later saying something is still sticking in your head, or a disagreement that causes me to have some good conversations after the service, or an action that you (or I) take afterwards because of what we heard from the text – that’s a successful sermon to me.

There are plenty who approach their sermons differently. I’m not suggesting that my approach is the approach for sermons. But given my talents and my context, I think this is the way to go. And it seems to me that a lot more people could use a paradigm shift on preaching. Not may can captivate minds for 40 minutes. Not many can educate via lecture well – and when pastors assume that their sermons have to fit a one-size-fits-all mold of sermon (e.g. hook, three alliterative points, conclusion), what we end up with is pastors who are trying to preach with someone else’s voice instead of their own.

If you preach: find your voice, your talents, and preach that way. If you are a hearer of sermons: don’t expect your pastor to preach like some other pastor. Let them speak in their own voice.

Nothing profound, just a few thoughts. Want to yell at me? I don’t have comments on my blog, but you can go to Twitter or Facebook to give me whatfor.