The Witness of Preaching

The majority of my sermons are transferable. In other words, I write them generically in order to use them in different contexts and settings without changing much of the verbiage.

I used to pride myself on being able to write this way, but now I’m learning that this is not always the best preaching practice. Diana Butler Bass reminds me in her book The Practicing Congregation that preachers must speak out of their own narrative, in their own time, to their own people. To do anything else is to soften or neglect the importance of the gospel for that community of grace.

Tom Long’s The Witness of Preaching takes this image a step further and argues that preachers are only preachers because they are birthed out of a congregation and given the holy task of witnessing.

Witnessing, Long argues, takes on two forms: seeing and speaking. A witness may go to the biblical text with eagerness and readiness to see or she/he may stumble upon something unintended. Regardless, in order to preach . . . something must first be seen. This may be the most important part of the preaching ministry because it requires a humble, eager, and mature heart, for not everything in scripture is easy to see.

Secondly, a witness must take the stand and speak on behalf of what was seen. Preachers must tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth . . . but do it in a way that is comprehendible, accessible, and applicable to one’s life. In short, preachers must interpret what is seen and speak it in a way that edifies, unites, and uplifts.

To preach a generic sermon is to witness on behalf of nobody. It neglects the audience. It muddies the claim God has for a community. To not take the witnessing seriously is to deflate the power of the gospel. To not speak of what is seen it in a way that unites is a tragedy, for that is what God is using us preachers to do – spread a uniting message of love, peace, acceptance and salvation.

I love to preach – I just wish I were better at it.