Volume 9, Number 4
Pastor Phil Hirsch reminds us of the importance of listening carefully and reading widely in order to inform our preaching. Pastor Bob Johannes evaluates narrative style and “Lowry’s Loop” from The Homiletical Plot. A list of Law-Gospel pairs is also listed.
Read Widely
You’ve been around the block enough times now to know when someone is feeding you a line. How did you come across it before? By listening. You know this. You’ve heard it many times. You’ve said it: “Before one can speak well, one must listen carefully.” And he should listen to many people, in many different contexts, saying many different things. The wise listener who listens to all these different messages is the one who actively listens (“Why did he just say that? What is he trying to prove now? Where will he be going next? Why didn’t he say it this way? What is he not saying? Why?”) . . .
A Spin on Lowry’s Loop
Narrative preaching has been a hot topic among American preachers for almost 20 years. The method intrigued me but I had avoided trying it. I don’t consider myself a good storyteller (I have to practice just to tell a joke effectively). I’d read a number of narrative sermons in which the story, rather than the text, appeared to be the point of the sermon. . . .