Homiletics, Sabbath Justice, Page 2

November 24, 2009August 25, 2017

Preaching with Power – Henry Wright

As we continue our discussion of the book Preaching With Power by R. Clifford Jones we get to Pastor Henry Wright. Henry Wright is the Senior Pastor of Community Praise SDA Church in Alexandria Virginia. He rose to prominence when he was a professor in the Department of Religion and Theology at Oakwood College. Over his career he has also been a Conference president and Union Secretary. He is well known and considered by many to be a great preacher of the Gospel.

Understanding of Preaching

Elder Wright sees preaching as “God’s Word manifested in human personality.” He states that this is why he resists the idea of copying anyone else. I think this is an important point. There is a reason why God has called you as an individual preacher to preach the gospel. Our individuality manifests itself in our selection of texts, the questions we ask the text, and even what we do and do not emphasize. Wright continues this idea by stating that the sermon is “God’s word sifted through human experience.”

Wright’s understanding of preaching includes an agony of preaching that that manifests itself in 3 ways. First, the preacher recognizes that he or she is a part of the problem that the preacher is addressing in the sermon. Second, the preacher recognizes that often there are some who know more about the Bible than he or she does. Finally, we realize that the Gospel is always beyond our ability to describe or define it.

Method of Sermon Preparation

Pastor Wright has a very extensive 8 step method of sermon preparation. Before he describes it he states that he makes certain assumptions of the preacher. The first assumption is that the preacher is constantly reading the Bible, theological works, professional material, as well as magazines of current events. The second assumption is that the preacher is living a life of prayer.

Step 1 is to select the passage and read it in as many different translations as possible. During this reading Wright jots down any thoughts that come to his mind. He says that it can take him 2 hours to do this step.

Step 2 is to look up key words making use of his Greek and Hebrew reading ability. He asks questions like who is writing, what is the situation of the writing, to whom was it written? During this step he consults several commentaries and Bible Dictionaries.

Step 3 is to find a theme statement for the sermon. During this phase he asks the question what am I trying to accomplish? He notes that a passage of scripture can point to many differnt possibilities so during this step he decides on the one that he will preach in this sermon.

Step 4 is to find illustrative material that is applicable to the people that he is preaching to. His favorite source of illustrations is the Reader’s Digest.

Step 5 is to write out the sermon. Wright says that he is a manuscript preacher and thus writes it out word by word. While he has a good memory and therefore is not tightly bound to the manuscript, 9 times out of 10 he takes it into the pulpit with him.

Step 6 is to think about how he will end the sermon. He emphasizes that you don’t raise new things in the conclusion. This reminds me of one thing my intro to homiletics professor said “Start Strong, End Strong, and make the middle as short as possible.”

Step 7 is to evaluate the sermon based on his evaluation method. This method includes asking himself questions like does the sermon flow correctly? Is there unity of thought? Does it have purpose?

Step 8 is to rehearse by reading the sermon out loud.

Understanding of Black Preaching

Wright is both a believer in and not a believer in Black preaching. He states that we should remember that black preacher’s learned to preach from white preachers. He notes that the white preachers that Black preachers learned from were not the lecturn lecture-like preachers that we think of today, but the preachers of the plains like Jonathan Edwards. This thought is also echoed by Henry Mitchell in Black preaching that even states that there is a white counterpart to whooping.

After having said that he defines black preaching as a style of preaching that was story-telling, incisive, highly descriptive. He notes that such a style was important for the slaves who could not read the Bible for themselves.

Understanding of Adventist Preaching

In this place he does not directly address Adventist preaching but he does note that our preaching has become more hands on in the last few years versus the years when he was younger. Today you are more likely to hear sermons that tell you how to get along with people or succeed than sermons about doctrinal content. While he believes there is a place for such sermons, he notes that we cannot forget the doctrines or teachings in our sermons.

November 24, 2009August 25, 2017

Preaching with Power – Dr. John Nixon

Our next preacher in the book Preaching with Power is John Nixon. He is an associate ministerial secretary of the North American Division Ministerial Department. He is currently transitioning from being the senior pastor of the Oakwood College Church in Huntsville, AL to being the senior pastor of the Collegedale Church at Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, TN.

Understanding of Preaching

Pastor Nixon believes that preaching is taking that which is behind the text and explaining it to the people. Thus the purpose is to find the meaning of the text and interpret it for today. This is an explicitly theological approach to the preaching event.

Method of Sermon Preparation

Pastor Nixon provides a pretty explicit sermon preparation model. To begin Elder Nixon suggests that the preachers spend 30-40 hours in 5 days on the sermon alone. One wonders how one can keep up such a large number of hours if one is a pastor. Pastor Jones actually asked him twice and Pastor Nixon confirmed. One thing that is pretty certain is that if you spend so much time on a sermon and you follow a plan you will probably come out with a very good sermon.

The first step in preparation is to read the passage several times in different translations. This step is completed before any formal exegesis. This will serve as an orientation for the preacher to the passage. I have seen this suggested by other homilititians like Brad Braxton in Preaching Paul.

Next the preacher will perform formal exegesis to get at the orginal meaning of the text. Pastor Nixon emphasizes that there are two horizons of the text the meaning in the past and the meaning today. This serves to emphasize what was spoken earlier about “the meaning” of the text rather than the text itself being what the preacher is emphasizing.

Next, the preacher must determine the “Christocentric Theology of the Text.” This is the component “behind the text” that teaches the gospel. Where is the Gospel in the text? where is the good news in the text? These are the components of the text that we attempt to pull out at this point in the process.

Finally, the form of the sermon (narrative, deductive, inductive, etc) falls naturally out of the sermon preparation precess itself. In other words the process guides the form of the sermon rather than arbitrarily choosing a sermon form or always choosing the semonic approach.

In addition to the above process, Pastor Nixon seeks to have the preacher gain a “homiletical bias” where the preacher looks at the world through the lens of homiletical possibilities which will allow the preacher to gain all the illustrations one needs without resorting to illustration books.

Understanding of Adventist Preaching

Pastor Nixon emphasies the importance of Adventist preaching being “Christ-centered rather than apologetic.” I interpret him to mean that we should not simply seek to defend the truth of the doctrines we present (apologetic), but that we should constructively seek to preach the Gospel through our Doctrines. In another place he suggests that the Adventist preacher “explain the Gospel in the form of distinctive Adventist Understandings.” I find such an approach to be very interesting.

Understanding of Black Preaching

Dr. Nixon emphasizes that the Black church tradition has an element of form, but it is more theology than form. This way one can actually preach a “Black” sermon in many different styles including a “low-key” approach.

Dr. Nixon defines the theological approach of Black preaching as an emphasis on God’s care and concern for the downtrodden and opppressed. He includes in this approach to Black preaching the judging of Kings and Rulers who do not live up to the truth. Dr. Nixon quickly adds that the Black preacher must be “Biblical and not just political.” It would be interesting to have him further define and describe what he means in other places.

I especially like Nixon’s approach to Adventist preaching which resonates with what I have tried to say. I have attempted to define Adventist preaching as using Adventism as glasses through which we see and understand the Gospel. Dr. Nixon and I both seem to be saying the same thing here. Such an approach opens up the doctrines of Adventism to be used at all times and in all sermons without all sermons becoming didactic or apologetic. I think that there is a time for apologetic and didactic moments, but there are other moments when the preacher must preach in other modes and I think that our Adventism must influence even those preaching moments.

I also like the defining of Black preaching as primarily theological. We have seen such an approach in some of the other preachers in this series as well as other homiliticians such as Cleophas LaRue who defines Black preaching as largely about an approach to the Bible where God is actively invovled in history. The belief that God is standing with the opporessed seems to be a common theme that some homiliticians see as at the foundation of Black Preaching.

November 24, 2009August 25, 2017

Preaching with Power – Dr. James Doggette

James Doggette is a professor at Oakwood College as well as the Pastor of the Madison Mission Seventh-day Adventist Church in Huntsville, Alabama. Dr. Doggette is a dynamic speaker who relatively recently has held an Amazing Facts seminar in Huntsville Alabama.

Understanding of Preaching

Dr. Doggette like Barry Black sees importance in Phillip Brooks definition of preaching as “truth poured out through personality.” Dr. Doggette nuances this insight by stating that “Preaching is divine truth or biblical truth communicated through personality.” Dr. Doggette also echos Paul Scott Wilson by emphasizing that preaching is an event and not “merely verbal communication.”

Method of Sermon Preparation

Pastor Doggette states that he first seeks to know the story, then he condenses the sermon from that story into one sentence. He and Dr. Jones notes that this is what Haddon Robinson refers to as the Big idea. Doggette notes that Haddon Robinson’s work has influenced his preaching more than any other book.

Pastor Doggette’s main exegetical approach is to look at the Biblical story and seek to find the story either in the passage or behind the passage. He states that he is not really concerned primarily about word studies, but about getting at the story. He notes that every passage has as story.

Also Doggette, contrary to much opinion, does not either use a manuscript in the pulpit or write out one. He refers to the performed sermon as a “jazz performance in that feeling plays a big role in the outcome of the sermon.”

Understanding of Adventist Preaching

Pastor Doggette reminds all Black Adventist preachers to be sure to preach the Seventh-day Adventist doctrinal and prophetic themes in addition to themes of liberation and the mangement of power. Doggette does not want Adventist preachers to forget that they are Adventist. He believes that a “greener grass” idea is creeping into the Black Adventist ministry as more and more Black Adventist pastors obtain graduate degrees and doctorates from other schools. Doggette believes that rubbing shoulders with great preachers from other denominations has caused the Black Adventist preacher in many cases to “discount the distinctive truths and values we have as Adventists.”

Understanding of Black Preaching

Dr. Doggette sees black preaching as primarily prophetic in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets. He sees, therefore, a primary purpose of the Black preacher is to “stir things up.” He suggests that Black Adventist preachers who seek to be true to Black preaching and Seventh-day Adventist preaching should study the lives of the prophets and note that they were often opposed but it was God who held them up when others did not.

Dr. Doggette’s brings a theological focus to both Black preaching and Adventist preaching. He sees importance in the Black Adventist preacher being true to both traditions. I like Doggette’s statement that Black preaching is prophetic. Too often we think of Black preaching as just a style of preaching. Others may think of it as a structure to our sermons like “narrative preaching.” Doggette sees it as primarily an approach to preaching that “stirs things up” as it prophetically challenges those with power to use it correctly.

Dr. Doggette also points out that there is a great temptation to set aside distinctive Adventist teachings to run after the “greener grass.” I believe that the Adventist distinctive teachings, but also the Adventist distinctive “mindset” or “theological approach” should undergird all that we do. As I have stated elsewhere “If it ain’t the gospel it shouldn’t be preached, if it ain’t Adventist, why has God chosen you to preach it?”