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I noticed this quote on a article titled "Can Preachers Make an impact in a post-Christian world?
"At present, it seems as though preaching—in its quality and significance—is often held in low esteem, both within and outside of the church. The common reaction in the British media to Rev. Curry’s preaching is a good example of this. Reflecting on his sermon, one opinion writer in The Guardian noted quite frankly, “I had not expected to be moved.”
Within the Christian community it might be said that the internet, which offers us instant access to a small pool of exceptionally gifted preachers, has produced a general culture of dissatisfaction with preaching. Although few of our local preachers can preach at that superstar level, many of us nonetheless hold them to that unattainable standard. In 2018, it is common for Christians to be enthusiastic about one or two preachers, who are almost never their own pastors, rather than about preaching in general.
T. David Gordon’s Why Johnny Can’t Preach has put forward that current day preaching is not particularly good, and that most churchgoers do not expect it to be. In his argument, the typical 21st-century sermon is a rambling, inarticulate, and unsuccessful attempt to say something that is somehow connected to the Bible. This is the case, he contends, because changes in modern media have made it exceedingly hard to form good preachers: today’s preachers have grown up ignorant of literature in a world that communicates by phone calls, text message, and slapdash emails. For the most part, those preachers never learned to read or compose texts with care, which means—Gordon believes—that they use language sloppily and find it hard to discern issues of greater and lesser importance in a text. Little wonder, then, should preachers hewn from that crumbling cultural rock struggle to understand Scripture and find themselves ill-equipped to preach in accurate, compelling language to advance an identifiable central point.
Is this why I hear such poor level of preaching in most churches I have attended? It seems most sermons are really poorly thought out
"At present, it seems as though preaching—in its quality and significance—is often held in low esteem, both within and outside of the church. The common reaction in the British media to Rev. Curry’s preaching is a good example of this. Reflecting on his sermon, one opinion writer in The Guardian noted quite frankly, “I had not expected to be moved.”
Within the Christian community it might be said that the internet, which offers us instant access to a small pool of exceptionally gifted preachers, has produced a general culture of dissatisfaction with preaching. Although few of our local preachers can preach at that superstar level, many of us nonetheless hold them to that unattainable standard. In 2018, it is common for Christians to be enthusiastic about one or two preachers, who are almost never their own pastors, rather than about preaching in general.
T. David Gordon’s Why Johnny Can’t Preach has put forward that current day preaching is not particularly good, and that most churchgoers do not expect it to be. In his argument, the typical 21st-century sermon is a rambling, inarticulate, and unsuccessful attempt to say something that is somehow connected to the Bible. This is the case, he contends, because changes in modern media have made it exceedingly hard to form good preachers: today’s preachers have grown up ignorant of literature in a world that communicates by phone calls, text message, and slapdash emails. For the most part, those preachers never learned to read or compose texts with care, which means—Gordon believes—that they use language sloppily and find it hard to discern issues of greater and lesser importance in a text. Little wonder, then, should preachers hewn from that crumbling cultural rock struggle to understand Scripture and find themselves ill-equipped to preach in accurate, compelling language to advance an identifiable central point.
Is this why I hear such poor level of preaching in most churches I have attended? It seems most sermons are really poorly thought out