I seem to remember that someone once wrote, "'When Poetry ... keeps its place,
as the handmaid of Piety, it shall attain, not a poor perishable 'Wreath, but a
crown that fadeth not away."
Blessings,
Martin
Rev. Martin Williams
'Seashells'
4A Rampside
Barrow-in-Furness
LA13 0PY
Email - martin.williams@xxxxxxxxxx
Landline - 01229 877882
Mobile - 07484 816555 (NOT a smart phone)
________________________________
From: methmins-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <methmins-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf
of raygarfoot <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: 09 August 2021 10:32
To: dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>;
methmins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <methmins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [methmins] Re: Prophetic Preaching v Pastoral Care
I reckon that most members of the congregation get their theology from hymns,
which are very occasionally good poetry but nearly always bad theology.
Raymond Garfoot.
-----Original Message-----
From: John Barnett <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: methmins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Mon, 9 Aug 2021 8:09
Subject: [methmins] Re: Prophetic Preaching v Pastoral Care
A lot of people in our congregations do not attend Bible study groups and
neither do they read many theological books. The main input they get about the
Christian Faith is through the Sunday sermon. There is therefore a need for
sermons to contain an element of teaching as well as exhortation. I perceive a
number of dangers in this.
Sermons can easily turn into Bible studies, which doesn't work because few
people in most congregations have Bibles open in front of them, and too many
Biblical references become confusing. They can include so much material that
people lose track of what is being said and forget most of it even before the
sermon has ended. They can become so long that people switch off. As a
supernumerary who likes to think he is fairly theologically literate I confess
that sometimes the main thing I remember about a sermon is how many minutes it
lasted.
As a Local Preachers' Tutor I used to advise new preachers not to try to
squeeze too much into their sermons, but to save something for next time they
were with the same congregation. When a sermon draws to a close, people should
be left sighing for more, not sighing with relief.
John Barnett
On 08 August 2021 at 15:55 NEIL BISHOP <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Two thoughts occur to me.
My mentor when I trained as a local preacher back in the 1970s used to say that
he wondered whether Jesus had ever been in love and whether he had been married
- and presumably widowed - before beginning his ministry. Like Ray, he felt
these would be interesting possibilities from the point of view of incarnating
human experiences. He himself had enjoyed a brief period being in love and in a
typical marriage relationship before illness cruelly intervened, so the idea
was of special interest to him.
The other thought is that many of our listeners have not been trained to listen
to and appreciate nuanced arguments and comments. They only hear the headline
not the paragraphs or concluding sentence clauses of subtle qualification which
follow. I have heard this used as a reason to keep theology out of sermons and
I can understand that but it is of course not the right answer to the problem.
Neil Bishop
