Preaching is an art, not a form, not learned, but an art, a gift from God from birth.

I have talked about this issue in my last sermon which I posted the audio here.  

Preaching is very close to my heart. I still remember the first time I preached when I was 14 yrs old. From then, I haven't stopped preaching, at least once a month, and then, on a weekly basis. So I've been preaching for the last 25 years!! Wow, that's a realisation. 

I've been to seminary, and has commented how I did in my preaching class. I have also commented how some want to make preaching a mere cerebral exercise, and not an exercise of the heart. I understand that there are many preachers who are not preachers, rather, entertainers. But that does not mean that we shouldn't entertain during our sermon. Not only to keep people's attention, but also, to help them in their memorisation. 

The following post is a good example of the way I view preaching, and I think it's worth having a look at it. 

Here We Are Now, Entertain us
By thefuerstshallbelast

In my early years of preaching, I used to start all my sermons with a good joke, supposing that grabbing the audience’s attention in that way generated interest in my message. 

After my junior year of college, however, when I started taking academics more seriously, I forsook the funny forewords and focused on my homily’s propositions and argumentation, assuming what people really need is not more entertainment, but more theological acumen. 

My favorite preacher at the time reinforced this assumption when he said, “America’s tombstone shall read, ‘We entertained ourselves to death.’” 

Preaching, after all, I reasoned, is not a stand up comedy show. It’s not supposed to entertain us, it’s supposed to transform our minds through logical argumentation – even if it bores us to death along the way. In other words… 

Preaching isn’t art, preaching is argument. 

So I thought. 

Over the last few years I’ve come to realize the wrongheadedness of this…or at least part of it. 

I was right to reason that much of what represents the preaching craft in many churches is pure entertainment for entertainment sake, distracting from the gospel of Christ and reinforcing the “Here we are now, entertain us” mentality of church goers. 

But I was wrong to bifurcate preaching and entertainment under the assumption that entertainment must equal shallow and trite messages. 

This is simply not the case. In fact, more than just being wrong, it is unbiblical. 

The very presentation of the Bible, with its symbols, images, and word-plays; it’s stories of mystery, love, intrigue, and murder all suggest that the Bible is intended to entertain us and stick with us! But that entertainment is not for entertainment sake, it has a telos: the illumination the kingdom of God and our role in it. 

That’s why Jesus tells parables instead of giving logical propositions. These stories talk about both mundane and fantastic events in life. They both reveal and hide the truth. They are literary genius, but were simple enough for illiterate farmers to comprehend. They entertained their audiences with both their form and their message, but they did so with the goal in mind of helping people love God and be conformed more to His image. 

My avoidance of entertainment, then, was an attempt to be more “holy” than Jesus(you know, like Jonathan Edwards!). If Jesus entertained his audiences for a purpose, then we should understand that entertainment is not the Devil. In a sermon, entertainment without the goal of the Kingdom might be trite, but the problem is the wrong goal, not the means of communication. 

Preaching isn’t argumentation. Preaching is art.