Preach Magazine Issue 5 - Preaching to the unconverted | Page 20

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FEATURE

A great sermon may not so much
provide the evidence as provide the
context in which the hearer can
discover the evidence. This struck
me in Thomas Long’s thoughtful
criticism of traditional preaching.
Long noticed the disjunction that
can exist between the excitement a
preacher finds in their studies and
the dullness of the final delivery. ‘On
one side of the bridge the preacher
has an exciting, freewheeling
experience of discovering the text,
but the preacher has been trained
to leave the exegetical sleuthing in
the study, to filter out the zest of that
discovery, and to carry only processed
propositions across to the other side.
The joy of “Eureka!” becomes, in the
sermon, the dull thud of “My thesis for
this morning is…”’5

APOLOGETICS PROVIDES A
KEY TO MAKING A SERMON
THAT CAN BE CHARGED WITH
RELEVANCE.

You may provide evidence through
the sharing your own journey of
discovery. How were you troubled by
an experience of unexpected suffering?
What conversations or experiences
did you have that helped you begin
to make sense of the enigma of evil?
Take your congregation on the journey
of discovery to the places where the
evidence is found. Make them feel the
excitement of being Sherlock Holmes
for a Sunday morning and leading
their own investigation. They hear
your reasons but they make their own
discovery.
Even in telling a story we are
presenting an argument. Does it make
sense? Is it persuasive? The famous
anecdote of the preacher’s notes
that had the annotation, ‘Argument
here weak – shout louder!’ sounds

disturbingly plausible. This brings me
to the important matter of how we
illustrate our theme.

TRUTHFUL ILLUSTRATIONS
Illustrations can serve many purposes
in a sermon. We use them to relax our
congregation, to explain a difficult
point, to offer a mental break, or to
engage the emotions. The apologetic
value of illustrations is enormous. We
may use them to provide evidence.
I am very happy using multimedia
resources and will pepper a sermon
with pictures of archaeological
finds or scientific discoveries when
appropriate to the text. Testimonies
from relevant experts can give
substance to our claims.
However, the evangelical world
is awash with urban legends and
distorted evidence. Too many DVDs
and books continue to circulate
hoaxes and frauds to the unwary.
Google the evidence for Noah’s Ark,
the Red Sea crossing or Charles
Darwin’s conversion and you will
quickly see what I mean. We need to
be painstaking in our evaluation of
relevant evidence. If we tell a story or
anecdote is it really true? Repetition
does not make something so. Check
quotations first hand as well (the
internet can help as well as harm
here!6). Do not rely on self-published
websites to give accurate statistics.
Most of the time repeating an urban
legend or fallacious argument will
do little harm. If our congregation
already believe then nothing
much is at stake. But what about
the one enquiring member of our
congregation who went away and
checked the facts? What if they
discovered that an illustration we had
used was, at best, greatly exaggerated
or, at worst, a complete fabrication?
Might it not serve to undermine
their confidence in anything else we
have said? Far worse, could it not
undermine confidence in God’s own
word too?

DEMONSTRATE THE APPEAL
Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher,
described apologetics in these terms,
‘The heart has its reasons, which
reason does not know. We feel it in
a thousand things … It is the heart
which experiences God, and not the
reason. This, then, is faith: God felt by
the heart, not by the reason.’7 Pascal
is misunderstood when this quote is
taken to imply that reasons do not
matter. His words rightly remind us
that a convincing argument must
not be less than rational but it should
certainly be more than rational.
The preacher works hard to ensure
carefully chosen words capture the
imagination and awaken spiritual
interest. Logic matters, but the
mysterious human person is more
than just a walking brain. Hence,
Pascal pointed out the complex
role of emotion and experience in
awakening an interest in religion: ‘we
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