A Way with Words. Adam T. Trambley

A Way with Words

of breaking traditional homiletical guidelines in favor of incorporating long-term sermon material?

Are there particular times you think congregations need to hear practical visions of the future, theological rationales for change, or instructions for developing specific skills and practices?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of lectionary preaching? How might those weaknesses be ameliorated through an extended sermon focus?

Think about a time you have preached on something besides the scripture passages appointed for the day. What motivated your choice? What fruit came from that choice?

Practical Exercises

Think about a change you would like to see in your congregation. Write down the practical vision of how things would be different if the change were made, the theological rationale for why God is calling the congregation to a new place, and the practical skills the congregation needs in order to move forward.

Review some past sermons you have preached or heard. Find some assumptions made about the congregation’s understanding or capacity that may not have been accurate and outline a better approach for that sermon.

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Providing TheologicalRationaleand Practical Vision

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans foryour welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

—Jeremiah 29:11

PART OF THE ROLE of a long-range sermon is to provide hope for the future. Once we have discerned God is calling the congregation to move in a certain direction, we have to communicate that call in ways that are encouraging and hopeful. Like Jeremiah’s words to the exiles, our extended sermon needs to find ways to help our church understand the importance of where they are going and begin to see what life might look like when they get there. We don’t have to have all the answers, but doing our work well will entice the congregation to live into those transforming answers themselves.

Theological Rationale

Thinking about the theological reasons for a change is easy for preachers. They dovetail nicely with the focus of most sermons. We regularly draw on the scriptures to provide a vision for some aspect of the reign of God that speaks to the needs and yearnings of the congregation. We demonstrate how scriptural stories and instruction prod us to live in certain ways that benefit us and those around us. We offer theological perspectives on the issues of the day and the difficult decisions being made by individuals and families in our context. The primary change in moving from a weekly sermon focus to a long-term sermon focus is not so much what we are doing but finding ways to consistently return to the same topic over time.

The concrete elements we use to preach a theological or moral rationale for the necessary change will vary depending on the scriptures for the week. Sometimes we are blessed with the widow’s mite reading during stewardship season or Matthew 18 while talking about conflict resolution. Other times, we might depend more on asides that draw out aspects of numerous texts and slowly build up over time. A focus on spiritual disciplines, for example, can highlight examples of Elijah fasting, or explain why John’s disciples fasted and Jesus’s did not, while noting the variety of ways that Jesus was in relationship with the Father and the disciples maintained their relationship with Jesus. A focus on spiritual gifts can certainly draw on Paul’s letters, but may also find good examples of different gifts exhibited by various disciples or figures from the Hebrew Bible. Spending a couple of minutes discussing how Jesus encounters unfamiliar people with generosity and grace can make an easy link to an evangelism focus. The rest of that day’s sermon can continue with the other aspects of the reading, but the long-term focus will have been advanced.

A scriptural prodding critical of the current situation can also help motivate a needed change. The idea is not to lay on guilt, but to help people come to realize the serious problems of failing to live into Jesus’s call for them.

Congregations, like all of us, are adept at rationalizing away their own particular sins and failings. A lack of evangelism can be laughed off for God’s “frozen chosen.” A culture of backbiting and gossip can be dismissed as “just who we are.” Not supporting each other in prayer and not stopping to deepen relationships with other parishioners is excused since everyone is too busy. In the midst of such concrete congregational problems, a preacher is going to find ways to say over and over that such a situation is not what God wants for that church.

We might find Paul talking about an analogous issue to our church’s in one of his letters, or in another scriptural reading for the day. More frequently, however, we will have to find ways to continue to highlight the issue. One simple way is to include the current issue in a preacher’s list. Most of us have reason from time to time to include in a sermon a list of ways that the world around us is broken, sinful, and in need of healing. When gossip or lack of hospitality shows up next to murder and drug overdoses, our listeners have a sense that they might need to pay more attention to their behavior than previously thought. Simply including something, without comment, in such a list allows the congregation to accept it as they are ready, or as the Holy Spirit deems right to convict them at a deeper level. A couple of such mentions over the course of a few months, combined with coming at the focus from other directions, can slowly change people’s perceptions. Instead of trying to force a congregation to come along all at once, preachers can allow them to come along at their own pace. The goal is to give people “aha” moments that motivate change instead of moments of guilt that spur resistance.

Pushing a little harder than the preacher’s list, a scriptural message that focuses on healing, forgiveness, restoration, or salvation may include a couple of concrete examples of ways that God’s love brings transformation and change. We know that Jesus healed lepers and reached out to Samaritans, and we can assure our people that he also cares enough to help us with our current congregational focus, whether that focus is making time for personal prayer, overcoming bitterness in the congregation, or opening our worship to children. As a church sees its struggles as something that God wants to liberate them from as much as Jesus offered healing and salvation to those in his earthly ministry, its willingness to engage the next steps of the process increases.

Practical Vision

In addition to the theological motivation for change, the congregation will also need practical ones. Practical motivation for change comes from both a vision for the future and from discomfort with the current situation.

Often when we think about vision casting, our minds may go to an overarching theological or spiritual amalgamation of the end of the book of Revelation and Isaiah 2, 11, and 65. These eschatological visions are important, but so are the practical images of what church life could be like here and now if we made the changes proposed by the long-term sermon focus.

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