FEATURE
15
PREACHING IN A DIFFICULT CONTEXT
Valerie Thom
Valerie is a Church Army evangelist who leads a rural church in County Tyrone and also has an evangelistic ministry to marching bands. She has previously ministered on the Shankill Road in Belfast, the site of much sectarian trouble in the past, and also preaches during trips to Brazil.
‘ The Shankill Road is like any inner city: it has its challenges with drugs and poverty and lack of educational standards, and lack of ambition. Those were all much more pressing problems than the political situation. The political situation would hit the headlines, but people are people whether they are in Belfast or Rio.
‘ I see adversity as part and parcel of everyday life. In the farming community, the dairy farmers are struggling and with many farming accidents and suicides. The big adversity over here at the moment is personal tragedies – people dying young because of cancer, road accidents and suicide. Those would be the biggest adversities in Northern Ireland.
‘ In most parishes there will be people going through all kinds of adversities: those with marriage problems, families where there is a dispute, others with difficulties conceiving a child or financial problems. All those things are going on every week. Although they may not seem to be adversities for everybody, they are for some.
‘ The best way to preach is to just throw yourself on God. With a lectionary system you have a set of readings, and the Holy Spirit can work through those readings.
‘ I wouldn’ t bring politics into my preaching. I would stick to what the lectionary reading says, and try to listen to God and what God wants to say. With a lectionary, sometimes you have to really struggle with the readings to hear what God’ s saying. It’ s too easy to fall into a habit of preaching on what you find easy. The lectionary stops me doing that.
‘ People need to be challenged. I always say, God needs to have spoken to me before I can preach it to somebody else. If God hasn’ t told you something, then don’ t preach it. If God hasn’ t challenged you then there is no point preaching to somebody else.
‘ In Belfast, I once got up to preach in a church and it happened to be that there were some Catholics visiting from an interfaith group that met. When I’ d finished, I thought,“ That’ s the biggest load of rubbish I’ ve ever preached.” I was greeting people after the service and this Catholic lady came out in tears and said,“ That sermon was just for me.” It’ s about the Holy Spirit doing the work, not us doing the work. We’ re God’ s instruments.
‘ Preaching isn’ t all about what we say, it’ s about our hearts and the hearts of the people who are listening. It’ s about what stage the church is at. There are just so many variables from place to place and person to person. Sometimes the most eloquent preacher and best thought-out sermon works, sometimes it’ s a sermon that seems to us to be a load of rubbish that works.
‘ We have to give hope and encouragement – we need to give them the hope that comes from Christ. We need to build up that hope before adversity comes.’
THE BEST WAY TO PREACH IS TO JUST THROW YOURSELF ON GOD. WITH A LECTIONARY SYSTEM YOU HAVE A SET OF READINGS, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT CAN WORK THROUGH THOSE READINGS.
The contexts in which these four ministers preach are very different: from the poverty and troubles of Northern Ireland to the persecutions of Iran, from losing your mental and physical capacities to recovering from the trauma of being involved in a terrible terrorist attack.
However there is something all the stories have in common. Through adversity, the preachers find that their preaching becomes more honest, more real, and more authentic, as they intensely search for God and what God wants them to say. These stories are not of strong people who had the personal fortitude to overcome their situation – but people wrestling with the frailty of their humanity, and discovering the strength and might that only God can provide.
They also discovered that the Bible was written in the midst of adversity: that its central characters face trouble and pain throughout their lives. The Bible is written by and for people who are suffering, and when we are in that battle ourselves, the Word becomes ever more alive and real.
Heather Tomlinson
Heather Tomlinson is a freelance journalist with a passion for communicating the Christian faith, particularly to people outside the church. Prior to her conversion to Christ she worked as a reporter for the Independent on Sunday and the Guardian. She has also worked for mental health services within the NHS. She is on Twitter @ HeatherTomli and blogs at www. heathert. org.