Steve Mathewson on "Long Haul Preaching". (HT: Transforming Sermons) An excerpt:
I cross the line from healthy critique to unhealthy blame when I forget that life-transformation takes time.
Why don’t I get this? Perhaps it’s because God sometimes bring dramatic, instantaneous change in listeners’ lives. Sometimes. But these “sometimes” raise my expectations that God will do this almost every time. Yet that is not God’s usual way of working. As Richard Mouw claimed in a sermon a couple decades ago, we need to hear more about the slowness of God. God has the power create and change things instantly. But from our vantage point in the unfolding drama of redemption, it appears that God takes his time. Sanctification is a slow process. It happens over the long-haul. So behind my impatience with my listeners, myself, and the process of preaching is impatience with God. Lord, have mercy on this impatient preacher!
Good stuff.
The concept of investment and the virtue of patience are practically forgotten in church culture today.
Also:
Triple D highlights The Challenge of Preaching Christ from All of Scripture as proposed in Sidney Greidanus's book Preaching Christ from the Old Testament.
Yup yup yup.
Cheers to Christocentric preaching.
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