Preach Magazine Issue 5 - Preaching to the unconverted | Page 49

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In 1957 The British Weekly described WE Sangster as ‘the central voice
of Methodism’.1 He was arguably the most renowned preacher in the
denomination and its leading homiletician, whose books influenced
generations of preachers in the late twentieth century and are still widely read.

S

angster entered ministerial training
immediately after World War I
and served in a number of circuits
before beginning a sixteen-year
ministry at Westminster Central Hall
on the day Britain entered World War
II. He was President of the Methodist
Conference in 1950 and left Central Hall
to head the Home Mission Division of
the Church in 1955 until ill-health forced
early retirement in 1958 a mere two years
before his death.
That Sangster wrote so voluminously
about preaching and (with some
reluctance) published a two-part
collection of the Westminster Sermons
means that there is readily available
material to assess his approach.
However, that it still remains impossible
to do justice to it. Sangster believed that
the sermon was primarily an oral event,
that the written text lacked the power of
the sermon ‘to do one thing and to do it
once’.2 With that caveat, three features
can be identified as central to Sangster’s
pulpit ministry.
The first was meticulous preparation.
‘No man [sic ] can be a consistently
effective preacher who begrudges the
time which pulpit preparation takes’.3
For Sangster, preaching required
industry and that industry needed
to be closely related to the preaching
event. He therefore counselled against
using the same sermon twice and was
utterly scathing about anyone who was
pretentious enough to present another’s
material as their own.4 This industry,
moreover, cooperated with rather than
excluded the power of the Holy Spirit;
he could be caustic5 about those who
believed that inspiration negated the
need for hours of prayer and study. But
it was not simply time that Sangster
believed was essential to preparation.
He was also an advocate of careful
method which (rather than simply a
discussion of the form of the sermon)
is the theme of The Craft of Sermon
Construction. His central question in his
homiletical writing was always about
what enabled effective preaching.

Key to that was the use of illustration.
Significantly, The Craft of Sermon
Illustration preceded its companion
volume on Construction, though in
Sangster’s thinking the illustrations
were always subsidiary to the theme
and purpose of the sermon. Appropriate
illustrations, he maintained, enabled
the sermon to do what the sermon was
there to do. Whilst Sangster came close
to arguing that illustration is essential to
good preaching,6 it remained for him a
secondary element, the purpose of which
was to achieve clear communication of
the gospel, so the published sermons are
littered with such phrases as ‘Do you see
my point?’ and ‘Do I make my distinction
clear? Let me illustrate.’ ‘Illustration’
was a broad category for Sangster,
embracing a wide range of devices,7 but
unlike in some more recent approaches
to homiletics, these did not carry the
content of the sermon; rather, they were
they to support (sometimes ‘to prove’) the
argument that he was making.
That argument was almost invariably
about Jesus Christ. The third inescapable
feature of Sangster’s preaching is its
Christocentricity. In the second volume of
Westminster Sermons every title begins
‘He…’; even that for Trinity Sunday is
‘He shares society in the Godhead’.8
The centrality of Christ Jesus in his
preaching was, of course, a reflection of
the centrality of Christ Jesus in Sangster’s
life. In ‘Four Judgments on Jesus’9
Sangster invites his congregation to
affirm that Jesus is ‘my Lord and my God’,
a declaration that opens the believer to
the transforming power of the Saviour,
echoing the earlier approach in He is
Able: ‘Testimony will have preference over
opinion and the argument of fact will be
given precedent over all other arguments.
Jesus can do it. Jesus has done it. Jesus is
doing it… Jesus did it. Jesus!’10
Paul Sangster recorded that ‘of the
hosts of people who heard him, few
could explain why it was such a great
experience’.11 Perhaps the answer (as
William Edwin Sangster himself might
have given it) was simple: they met
with Christ.

Key features of the preaching
of William Edwin Sangster
c Preaching is Christocentric

and intended to offer Christ.

c Preaching is supported by

illustrations.

c There is careful preparation

for pulpit ministry, with
attention given to the
structure of the sermon.

c Preaching is personal in that

it comes from the preacher’s
experience without that
obscuring the Word of God.

c Preaching is pastoral in that

it offers Christ to meet the
congregant’s need.

cP
 reaching is from Scripture

(the sermon begins with a text).

c Preaching is central to worship.
1. Doctor Sangster London: Epworth 1962, page 220.
2. S
 angster, WE (1960), Westminster Sermons,
volume 1, London: Epworth, page ix.
3. S
 angster, WE (1951), The Approach to Preaching,
London: Epworth, page 28.
4. Sangster, WE (1949), The Craft of Sermon
Construction, London: Epworth, pages 199–202.
5. For example, Sangster, WE (1958), Power in
Preaching, London: Epworth, page 47.
6. S
 angster, WE (1958), Power in Preaching London:
Epworth, page 11.
7. S
 angster, WE (1946), The Craft of Sermon
Illustration, London: Epworth, page 13.
8. Sangster, WE (1946), The Craft of Sermon
Illustration, London: Epworth, page 110.
9. S
 angster, WE (1960), Westminster Sermons,
volume 1, London: Epworth 1960, pages 38–47.
10. S
 angster, WE (1949), He is Able London: Epworth,
page 13.
11 S
 angster, WE (1962), Doctor Sangster London:
Epworth, page 28.

Rev Dr Jonathan Hustler
Jonathan Hustler is a Methodist
presbyter who has ser