What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Six Points for Preachers

    I’m scheduled to attend a conference on preaching soon so inevitably I’m thinking about how preaching works and about how to extend my homiletic repertoire.

    Someone asked me a good question yesterday – “How did you improve as a preacher”. It is a good question because it is affirming and something that all preachers should be able to have a go at answering. (It was asked of me incidentaly by someone who has never heard me).

    I remember long ago during my curacy, one of my training rectors (I got through more than most) saying after one of my sermons “That was good, you’re going to be an excellent preacher one day”. What was intended to be a compliment made me fizzing mad. I wanted to be excellent than (and maybe even thought I was).

    I wasn’t, but I know I’ve got better.

    Which leads me to six things that I think have helped me:

    1 – Accepting that there is always more to learn. When you think you’ve got preaching sussed, you are a long way from even beginning to get better. Everyone can improve. Learning to learn is a learnable skill.

    2 – Putting it online. I’ve got better as a preacher since I started putting sermons online. Why? Well, for two reasons – firstly, because I listen to myself preach when I’ve made a recording and that allows me to reflect on what worked and what didn’t. Secondly because I know who might listen – people who taught me; people who are close enough to me to be honest with me; people who are apt to criticise me. I preach not only for those sitting in church but for all the rest who might be listening along – including the angels. It may be that those who are most help in learning how to preach are those whose opinions you value the most and those whose opinions you value the least. Listen to both.

    3 – Learning to fail boldly. To preach is to risk. Accept it and know that sometimes what you hoped for won’t work. Experiment. Play.You don’t have to fit it all into one sermon and you are not going to be 100% right all of the time so why pretend?

    4 – Trying to learn what makes people smile. That is different in different places. People usually like it when you tell stories about yourself. But be careful for local variations. I was recently in a place where someone said “Don’t try self deprecatory humour here. if you do they’ll say, ‘Oh, you’re not that bad’ and give you a self-help book.”

    5 – Knowing that people like it when you give something of yourself. Yes, preaching, like blogging, is a striptease. Don’t show them everything. But know that if you don’t show them anything they may go away disappointed. Reveal yourself. That’s what God has given you and in the bizarre economy of the Kingdom of God your own feeble experience of God may be the pearl of great price. But only if you keep sharing.

    6 – Realising that people need to be told that God loves them. And told again. And told again.

    ,

72 responses to “Baptism and the Churches”

  1. Erika Baker Avatar
    Erika Baker

    Thanks Kelvin and all for the interesting discussion. As a member of the Episcopal Church in the US, I only ever used the Baptismal Covenant in an argument against the necessity of the proposed Anglican Covenant. For me, the Baptismal Covenant is an assent to the New Covenant of Jesus Christ, so I saw absolutely no need of another covenant. In fact, I don’t see the Baptismal Covenant as something different from the New Covenant.

    With respect to whether Baptism or the Eucharist is a/the sacrament of initiation, wouldn’t the answer be both? In the early church, the person was baptized and received the Eucharist during the same service.

    Also, I wonder if people from other Anglican churches are aware of the great diversity of views held by Episcopalians in the US. That all the orders of ministry should be open to all the baptized seems to me simply a matter of the justice and equality that all Christians should strive for as members of the Body of Christ.

    Reply
  2. Erika Baker Avatar
    Erika Baker

    Sorry, I’m posting on Erika’s computer, but the comment above is by me, June Butler (aka Grandmère Mimi).

    Reply
  3. Alan McManus Avatar
    Alan McManus

    It’s so refreshing to read a discussion where everyone’s listening and learning through that dialectical process. Here’s my tuppennyworth: the disparaging mention of magic by churchpeople always makes my hackles go up – mostly as our Christian legacy of persecution of wise healers as witches is still largely unacknowledged and certainly unatoned – but also because the RC in me hears this as a facile Protestant jibe against metaphysics (if you want my views on that buzzword look here: http://robertpirsig.org/Alchemy.htm ) and though Vat 2 officially u-turned on slavery (yay! who says the RC church can’t change, eventually) it didn’t move away from an essentially sacramental view of Christian ministry.
    I feel that underlying this discussion may be a difference in sacramental theology. I hold the traditional view that through the creation, the incarnation and ongoing sanctification, the Spirit of God is at work metaphysically in the world and that means neither solely spiritually nor physically but betwixt and between. The RC church is just as guilty of virulent hatred of non-clerical women healers as others but the convivial nature of the relationship which sometimes occurs between Roman Catholic and ‘curandero’ (wise traditional healer) in Latin America is for me an affirmation of the ecological connections inherent in both cosmologies – though often forgotten in the RC church it must be said.
    The part of the SEC liturgy I find most alienating is ‘Lord unite us in this sign’. This speaks to me of cognition not communion. In these words I feel the lack of belief in a metaphysical reality. I feel that this discussion may have brought up a similar divide in concept about baptism: is it or is it not efficacious?

    Reply

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