(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
I FEEL SORRY FOR PREACHERS
Imagine studying Scripture for many hours during the week, and then having to preach a sensible, unified, nice and tidy sermon on Sunday.
So much of what you saw in the Word, what intrigued you, what reminded you that God is much bigger than your comprehension, that God’s ways are not yet your ways…. So much that you admire in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…. So much of what drove you to be a preacher… must be left behind. You may not understand it yet, although you’re intrigued. It may not fit what you carved out as the sermon’s “big idea.”
And so is born another good but unsatisfying sermon.
SERMON SIDENOTES
I have long thought that preachers should at least make room in their sermons for sidenotes. They might sound like this:
“SIDENOTE! There was something in this verse that really caught my eye. I don’t know what to do with it yet, or even if it’s all that significant. It goes like this….”
“Now, back to the main point….”
By using such sidenotes, a preacher could model a healthy, humble amazement at God’s revelation.
#homiletics #preachingmethod #sermon #sidenotes
