What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Culture Catch Up

    I’ve been on annual leave for the last week. It was my (rather late) post-Christmas break. Just after Christmas, I didn’t want to be away from either home or St Mary’s, probably due to having just come back from my three-month sabbatical. Hence, I put off taking time off until now.

    This year I threw myself into a culture catch-up with a wee trip to London.

    Here are the scores on the doors:

    Takin’ Over the Asylum at the Citz in Glasgow – solid reworking of a good TV series for the stage Rating: ★★★½☆

    La Traviata at the Coliseum     – all done with curtains. The curtains open to reveal a set of curtains, which in turn are pushed apart to reveal a set of curtains, which in turn…. All in all a rather good postmodern interpretation. Then end worked well. You need a good seat for this one. Some of the action happened amongst the audience. Rating: ★★★★½

    Cocktail Sticks – a new piece by Alan Bennett about his parents. Made me laugh. Made me cry. Rating: ★★★★☆

    This House – an enormous new play by James Graham about the politics of the 1970s and 1980s. In other words, a play about the politics that I first remember. Rating: ★★★★☆

    Merrily We Roll Along – The Play. This was a mistake. Booked it at the last-minute thinking I was booking Merrily We Roll Along the Musical. The play is incomprehensible, particularly so in a rehearsed reading. This was a rehearsed reading. Lasted until half time. Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

    People – another new play by Alan Bennett. This one had the wonderful Frances de la Tour being an imperious old aristocrat. It also had an actress, a bishop and enough trouser-dropping to prove that farce has not died just because Brian Rix is no longer in charge. It is not Alan Bennett’s greatest work but greater than so many other people’s greatest work nonetheless. Rating: ★★★½☆

    Ice Age Art – the Arrival of the Modern Mind at the British Museum. This one is selling out every day – you need a timed ticket to get in. Fascinating, beguiling show of bits and bobs from Europe made by people we know so little else about. Enigmatic “venus” figurines and a ghostly puppet were my favourites. Rating: ★★★★☆

    Light Show at the Hayward Gallery. From prehistoric art to the art that depends on the technology of today. (I think we can be pretty sure that none of this will be around in 27000 years). An interesting show. Would perhaps have felt spiritual and holy if one had had the chance to go around it alone. As it was, there were too many other people. (Which was the theme of one of the Bennett plays above, oddly). Rating: ★★★☆☆

    Oh, and I met one or two people I know and one or two I know now.

    There we go – not a bad week all told. Four and a half plays and two big art shows. Oh, and I also worshipped last Sunday in a small congregation in the West End (just 19 of us gathered right where London’s heart beats strongest) and at Westminster Abbey on Tuesday evening for a gorgeous Evensong with dozens in the cast and hundreds in the congregation.

    God was present in both these services.

    And in the rest, I’d say.

    Quite a lot of dashing about, not least as I was only in London for three nights.

    And that’s what I did on my holidays. Rating: ★★★★★

8 responses to “More sermons”

  1. ryan Avatar
    ryan

    Listened to one of the sermons (the wife for Isaac one) and it struck me that the one thing all proper episcopal preachers that I’ve heard have in common is an attractive voice. Is this taught at theological college, or are prospective ordinands vetted, Simon Cowell on X Factor style?

    Reply
  2. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    You are too kind Ryan. And the idea that people at theological college should be taught anything to do with preaching is delightfully charming.

    Reply
  3. morag Avatar
    morag

    just read the kingfisher sermon,you really do have a beautiful way with words and imagery.I believe God is with us every day.I was walking with my dog in Kelvingrove park the other night and in the pond standing quite still and majestic was a large heron.He looked magnificent but nobody else seemed to notice they just walked on by.God is definitely in my local park,Victoria.There is a sort of semi wild section of large yellow Peace roses there and their scent is truly heaven “scent”I love to sit theredrinking it in and have quiet thoughts with God.This web page you have is truly unique and it is wonderful to come across someone in the church who so obviously has a living ,loving relationship with God

    Reply
  4. David |daveed| Avatar
    David |daveed|

    And the idea that people at theological college should be taught anything to do with preaching is delightfully charming.

    May I beg to differ, at least for this side of the pond.

    Both of the seminaries which I attended in the USA, had a department with professors dedicated to teaching homiletics & worship. At Perkins School of Theology, SMU, we took two required semesters, which included writing weekly sermons to be delivered in class for critique by both professors and classmates. Each semester we also had three sermons which were videotaped at staggered points in the class for us to be able to witness and have record of our own improvements.

    I was even asked to preach one of my three in my native Spanish and was critiqued by the hispanic community, staff & students at Perkins.

    Preaching and Worship are pretty standard fare at seminaries in the USA & Canada.

    Reply
  5. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    My apologies, David. I’d forgotten that we had gone global.

    I would say that I learned a lot about liturgy and worship during my training, much of it from other students. I don’t think there was much more than 15 minutes devoted to homiletics in all my training.

    I think that the theory was that this would be done whilst on placements in congregations. Although one can learn a lot in such placements, I think that preaching is something that everyone can always learn to do a bit better and that the church should not be shy of trying to teach.

    Reply
  6. ryan Avatar
    ryan

    I’m always curious as to whether preachers write out a full script of a sermon, actor giving a reading style, or if there is an element of improvisation. A 60 minute sermon,at average speaking speed, works out at 6,000 words which is surely a lot to write out in full each week.And what happens if there are pastoral crises that prevent completing the writing of a sermon? Do you guys have a folder of back-up material for such occasions? Are you allowed to plagiarise or is that a big a vice as it is in academia?

    Reply
  7. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Thanks Ryan. Those are good questions.

    First of all, no-one in their right mind preaches for 60 minutes in the UK, do they? I think you will find on listening to mine that you get about 12 minutes. I think that if you are a regular preacher and you can’t say what you want to say in St Mary’s in 15 minutes you’ve probably started to preach next week’s sermon a week early. My recent one about dating strategies was just over 10, and there was a lot packed in!

    The readings that we use come round in a three year cycle so quite often one may have as a starting point what was said three years ago or six years ago. Using a common lectionary also means that a lot of people are preaching on the same thing at the same time and there are a lot of websites with emergency resources and other people’s ideas.

    I’d say that most preachers use other people’s ideas. Often it is nice to acknowledge them. Since putting all mine online, I’d say that I use other people’s material much less. I do sometimes use things that I’ve used before and in other contexts. If it was worth saying once, it might be worth saying again. Again, however, putting it online makes that kind of thing more risky now. They might have heard the jokes before.

    In a good week, I will have been thinking about the lectionary readings all through the week even through the pastoral events that come along. They feed into it somehow.

    Lots of my influences come from people I encountered when I was reading Divinity at St Andrew’s University. At the time I learned a lot from a prominent feminist theologian and have since learnt the importance of the Liberation Theologians that people were trying to get me to appreciate. At the time, it bored me silly. Now it is the stuff of life.

    They key is to develop a range of ways of reading the Bible. A repertoire of styles.

    Reply
  8. David |daveed| Avatar
    David |daveed|

    Ryan, there are many styles, and we all have to find which of them is a best fit for us personally. I know a few who preach from the barest of notes on a 3 x 5 card. Others who read verbatim from a type written manuscript. I think the majority of us type a manuscript and refer to it, however, certainly not slavishly, leaving room to expand or alter “as the Spirit moves.”

    The axiom I was taught by both John Holbert and Marjorie Procter-Smith was that if you preach more than 15 minutes, you do not know what you are talking about.

    Reply

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