A conversation on sermons a few weeks back raised the question about their importance in church services. Today an article by Philip Yancey made me wonder about the history of the sermon. His introductory comments in a review of American Sermons hinted at the history of the sermon, indicating that the Puritans elevated it to the form it is today, and that Catholics and Anglicans at one time de-emphasized the sermon (Anglicans reduced it to a quarterly occurrence).
Obviously this entry isn’t full of rigorous academic research, but I am curious about sermon history now. It’s probably one of those things I’ll never get around to looking into, but I’m still curious.
If you want to know where the sermon is going (according to leaders of the emerging church), check out this great article from FaithWorks:
http://www.faithworks.com/articles/articles2.htm
The preaching staff from House of Mercy presented papers on the subject of “preaching” at a conference sponsered by the Arts and Religion journal Image. They are quite interesting–more so I suppose for people like me who’ve spent a fair amount of time at House of Mercy.
http://houseofmercy.org/image_conf/russell-image.pdf
http://houseofmercy.org/image_conf/debbie_image_pp.pdf
http://houseofmercy.org/image_conf/mark-image.pdf
I don’t think the sermon is dead… the Apostles preached so it’s not only biblical… but time honored and an ancient practice. I do think it is dead as the “only” way to learn about God/spirituality/the Way. I think the emerging church and others are rediscovering that being preached at doesn’t make very good Christians. It tends to make “just barely” Christians.
The world isn’t going to be won by “just barely” Christians- it’s going to be won by holistic… prayer warriors… died to self… dyed in the blood… totally desperate… missional Jesus freaks that consider a good sermon the icing on a week spent with their God.
I hope to one day, by His mercy, become one of the aforementioned people.