Sermonising

I first preached the Word in a church context back in May 2006. I was kindly given a go at the lecturn for a new preacher’s night, which was an initiative to give people a chance to write and present a sermon based on a passage of their choosing. I chose Ezekiel 37 and ended up preaching what ended up sounding like an essay on the text, with something about Jesus shoehorned in at the end. The feedback was kind, but, I feel, avoided the truth about the negative aspects of my style and my approach to the text – in hindsight, I realise that I didn’t really approach the passage from a ‘whole Bible’ perspective and didn’t devote much time to looking at how the passage is fulfilled in Jesus, which is a shame, because it’s a golden picture of redemption and recreation and humble obedience to the true King.

Preaching is now part of my job description, and I recently had a go at giving a Bible talk as part of a series on Daniel. Fortunately, my trainer saw fit to give me Daniel 5, which lies in the narrative section and not the acid-trip apocalyptic section, but the challenge remained to conquer the weaknesses of my first attempt. The initial draft blew out to 4,500 words, but with some effort and painstaking trimming, I got it down to a reasonable 3,000 words which still managed to communicate my intentions. I feel that it went off OK on the night.

Did I manage it? You can decide – listen to my efforts right here and see what you think.