Teaching Preaching

On Saturday, March 20, I spent the day with students from the Lay Worship Leaders program of Ottawa Presbytery.  I was teaching them about preaching. Whenever I do this, I realize that this is one of my favourite things to do.  I love teaching and I love preaching....so what's better than teaching about preaching?

At the table there were 12 eager students.  One of them is a member of our church.  Another student is a close friend.  I've taught a lot of lay preachers and it just never gets tired.  There is always something new to learn from students and there's always something new to teach.  For my part, I think that preaching is THE most important thing that pastors do.  The reason?  The sermon exposes both their beliefs and their dreams for the future.  Sermons are about the real stuff of life -- birth and death and everything in between. 

Sermons talk about God in a contemporary way even though we use ancient scripture as a way to get into the present.  Now, let's think for a moment.  What if we didn't have scripture?  We'd be able to talk about any of our own hobby horses.  With scripture, we have a grounding that leads us into universal stories that relate to us even today.  Scripture provides a template that helps us to be focused on the continual wrestling about our understanding of God.

I know that when I returned to the church after quite a long absence my favourite part of the worship service was the sermon.  It was the part of the service that uniquely reflected the person standing there.  I never in my wildest imagination thought that I'd be a preacher one day.  Sometimes I still can't believe it!! But one thing's for certain, I love it.