Proclaimer Blog
The language of a sermon
This Sunday, one of our congregation came up to me after I had preached Jude 20-25 and said "nice speech, pastor." I was a little bemused. I suppose, in some ways, my sermon was a speech – I was speaking. But a sermon is more than a speech or a talk or an address. I understand that we might use those terms on occasion, especially with unbelievers present. But we mustn't be ashamed of proclamation language. Like many others, I recoil when, as a preacher, I am introduced with "now Adrian is going to explain the Bible to us" or "now Adrian is going to come and talk." A sermon is not less than those things, but it is certainly more.
And the danger of reduced language is that it soon becomes a reality. Introduce me too many times with the "explain the Bible" thing and, after a while, I might just start doing that and nothing else. We have a South African evangelist in our church – a great man! – and when he is leading the service, he always says, "now Adrian is going to come and preach to us." I like that. He's not ashamed of what preaching is and what a sermon should be. And neither must we be. Moreoever, we have to teach our congregations to believe that a sermon is more than a talk or a speech. It's only when they understand this (humanly speaking) that they will pray, listen and act on God's word as we pray and long that they would.