FEATURE
41
Overcoming
distance
PREACHING THAT CONNECTS
by Martyn Atkins
I
What is effective
preaching? The best
response to that question
I heard came from the
late, great preacher
and homiletics teacher
Fred Craddock. ‘Effective
preaching’, he said,
‘overcomes distance’.
f so, there are different kinds of
‘distance’ a Christian preacher is
seeking to overcome, to reduce. This
short article focuses on three. There’s
the distance between the preacher and
the biblical text, the distance between
the congregation and the biblical text,
and the distance between the preacher
and the congregation. Effective
preaching involves lessening each of
these ‘distances’.
Here I address each in turn, giving
more time to the first two. But it’s
important to realise that although each
contains different grains of insight
and good practice, they’re not three
silos separate from each other: there is
considerable overlap. In my experience
the preparation of a sermon involves
two fluid phases. First, time is spent
engaging with each of the three
distances in their own right, and in
any order. But then, crucially, phase
two involves letting the grains of
insight and good practice from each
one germinate the others. The sermon
created is indebted to it all, but what
results is a new harvest.
Each of the three distances are
complex and complicated. But with
diligence, prayerfulness and the ready
aid of God’s Spirit who delights to
reveal the things of God, overcoming
distance and bringing text, people and
preacher closer to each other and to
God can be achieved.