Preaching that Shows

Margaret Cooling

Description

For many years the resolution plot has dominated homiletical theory, made most famous by the ‘Lowry Loop’ – a staple of preaching theory for today’s ministry student. Whilst the approach is important, some have accused ‘resolution plot’ of leaving little room for ambiguity, and failing to reflect the messy reality of life.
Offering a ground-breaking approach as a counter to well-worn preaching strategies, 'Preaching That Shows' explores the ‘revelatory plot’, focused more on the gradual revelation of relevant truths within the biblical text through character and embodied insight, and through imaginative and sensory detail rather than through answering the questions ‘how and ‘why’. It will prove an invaluable resource for students, homileticians and preachers alike.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Preaching
• Christian Ministry
• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd
• Date de parution: 25 avril 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780334061861
• Langue: English

Extrait

Preaching that Shows
Revealing Relevance
Margaret Cooling






© Margaret Cooling 2022
Published in 2022 by SCM Press
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The Author has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of this Work
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
978-0-334-06184-7
Typeset by Regent Typesetting
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd




Contents
Acknowledgements
Illustrations

Introduction
1. Show and Plot
2. A Constellation of Characteristics
3. Embodiment and the Language of Earth
4. Art and the Sermon
5. Every Picture Tells a Story?
6. Creating Sermons that Show
7. Issues, Beginnings and Endings
8. The Language of Showing
9. A Big Issue
10. Imagination
11. Interpretation
12. Knowing
13. Where is the Application?
14. Theological Foundations
15. Sermons and Commentary
Concluding Thoughts




Acknowledgements
I want to express my thanks to the Revd Professor David Wilkinson and the Revd Dr Kate Bruce for five years of support and guidance. I am indebted to the Revd Stephen Bowen and Mike Simmonds who read every page of this book and offered valuable comments and advice. Thanks are also due to the Revd Dr Stephen Wright, whose work on the Spurgeon’s MTh in Preaching was a stimulus for this book, and to the Revd David Day, whose preaching freed me to preach in a revelatory style. Lastly, I am grateful for the patience and support of the congregation of St Mark, Cheltenham, as I experimented with different forms of preaching.
This book has a supporting website: www.preachingthatshows.com .



Illustrations
Figure 1: The resolution plot.
Figure 2: Lowry’s stages.




Introduction
I have been preaching in my local churches for over thirty years and much has changed during that time. I am a lay preacher and I take my place on the church’s preaching rota. Over the years I have attended various preaching courses as part of developing my preaching. One course I attended was run by the College of Preachers. I was nervous. I was aware that my manner of preaching was different from that of many preachers and I was fearful of being told my preaching style was wrong. Although my sermons are deeply embedded in the text, I tend not to quote verses or work through a biblical passage. Part of the course involved preaching in front of a small group and getting a response from a lecturer in preaching. I looked at the sermon I had prepared and the more I looked at it the more I felt my confidence draining away. Fortunately, before I had to deliver my sermon, I heard David Day preach; he was then Principal of St John’s College, Durham. I was stunned. He took us deep within the biblical narrative in a way that was both relevant and challenging. My confidence moved up a notch. David Day had an unusual preaching style – maybe it was all right to be different.
The time came when I had to preach in front of a small group and I discovered the lecturer for my group was Dr Stephen Wright from Spurgeon’s College, London. I need not have worried; they do not come more encouraging than Stephen Wright. That day sparked an interest in narrative preaching and, when I was able to, I enrolled in the Masters Course in preaching at Spurgeon’s followed by a PhD in homiletics at St John’s, Durham.
My initial degree was in theology and my working life has been spent communicating Christianity in an educational context, particularly through the creative arts. My studies in theology, my work in the creative arts, preaching and a lifetime’s thinking came together in this book. The subject is how to show a biblical text when preaching rather than telling people about it. I have embedded this within a new revelatory approach but the guidance on showing can be used in any style of sermon.
The revelatory approach detailed in this book has relevance threaded throughout, as it is a deeply earthed and embodied form. Relevance is the pot of gold at the end of the sermon rainbow. It is that nod of recognition from the congregation: ‘This concerns me.’ ‘Yes, that is what life is like.’ ‘That’s how I think and feel.’ ‘This changes what I do.’ Relevance is also the aspect of preaching that gets preachers sweating. Typically, as a preacher, you look up the reading for the following Sunday early in the week. That gives you the rest of the week to ponder, pray and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit. With a groan you realize the reading for next week is the story of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16.1–13). How on earth do you show the relevance of that parable to working in an office or factory on Monday, looking after toddlers and the isolated lives of some of the elderly members of the congregation? How does it relate to twenty-first-century life? As one preacher commented, ‘When desperate reach for Julian of Norwich’:
All shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well.
This is a practical book that describes an approach to preaching in which the relevance of texts is revealed rather than applied. Ways of using language and art are explored to aid preachers in showing a biblical narrative in a sermon. This practical approach stands on biblical foundations and four key theological themes: creation; being made in the image of God; incarnation; and revelation. Practice is underpinned by an understanding of how biblical texts are interpreted, how people come to know through sermons, and how the imagination can function in preaching.
Using this book
This book contains various ways to show in a sermon, and throughout there are exercises to try and questions to respond to. Reading the whole book without doing the exercises gives an overall understanding of the approach. Once that is done, preachers can choose sections to try, questions to respond to and exercises to work through. I refer to the work of various scholars throughout this book; some are named in the text, the work of others is detailed in the notes at the end of the chapters. The notes act as further reading for those who wish to delve deeper. Please note that many of the sermon extracts are laid out like poetry; this just happens to be my style and is not an integral part of the approach of this book.




1. Show and Plot
Showing
‘Show and tell’ is a refrain that many people remember from childhood. It involves children showing a favourite toy or object and telling the rest of the class about it. For many children this is their first attempt at public speaking. Some people look back on this experience with fond memories, others hated having to ‘show and tell’. In preaching there is a different refrain: people training to preach are often told to ‘show not tell’. The advice is to show a situation, event or character for the congregation to ‘see’ rather than tell them about it. This is easier said than done. How do you show a biblical narrative? There is advice concerning showing across the preaching literature; this book gathers some of that together as part of a new showing style and adds some new perspectives on showing. Through the course of this book practical and detailed ways of showing are explored, though the word ‘show’ is not always used. Showing is indicated by the words:

Display
Present
Exhibit
Lay bare
Manifest
Reveal
Expose
Slice of life

These words all indicate what the preacher does to show a biblical situation to a congregation. The other side of the coin is how a showing style is received; this is indicated by words that describe people imaginatively seeing what the preacher shows. A showing style from the congregation’s perspective is indicated by the word ‘see’ but it is also signalled by the words:

Perceive
Glimpse
Recognize
Notice
Observe
Identify
Watch
Witness
Look at
View

Plots
We now move on to the second half of the title of this chapter – plot. If a mantra is needed it is ‘show and plot’. You may be wondering what plots have to do with preaching. People have all sorts of associations with the word ‘plot’ (conspiracy, garden plot, story plot) but not many of them include the words ‘showing’ or ‘sermon’. In literature and drama, a plot is what shapes t