FEATURE
THE RULES OF RECYCLING
My own research suggests that few like
to admit to recycling their sermons. It
feels a little bit lazy – as if they can’t be
bothered to start afresh. To others it
feels lacking in faith – like the Israelites
of old eating yesterday’s manna
instead of waiting for today’s to fall. I
believe it need not be either of those
things if some simple rules are obeyed:
c reaching should always be fresh,
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no matter what ingredients are used.
Only reuse a sermon, either in part
or in whole, if you do so as an act
of love towards those who will hear
it. You wouldn’t serve cold leftovers
to a guest, now would you? By all
means use those old words, insights
and illustrations – but only because
you believe they have an enduring
quality which makes them applicable
here and now.
c reaching should always be local –
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an expression of eternal theological
truth in a specific temporal context.
If you are going to preach the same
local sermon in more than one locale,
it should always be subtly different.
In my previous church, I used to
preach the same sermon at two
morning services – 9.30 and 11.15am.
Since the congregations were
different, the sermon ended up being
different too.
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c f we are going to recycle, it should
I
not be because it offers a short-cut
but because it provides a better
result. Sometimes the reason people
recycle a raw material like timber or
steel is that it has a quality to it which
is too good to miss. Can you say, hand
on heart, that y