Rev. Joshua

Generally a minimum of six semester hours (2 graduate seminars) is required, with the understanding that only a percentage of those in seminary will actually be preaching on a regular basis. Those who are planning to enter pastoral ministry are encouraged to do at least an additional two courses. Since I was planning on doing a Ph.D. in Homiletics or a related discipline, I took every preaching course that was offered.

Fred Craddock's Preaching is one of the standard intro textbooks used in mainstream seminaries. It makes interesting reading for anyone curious about the field as well.

Joshua

Rev. Joshua

I grew up a fundamentalist, spent my adolesence and early college years as (essentially) a Unitarian, and ended up a liberal baptist.

Joshua

Rev. Joshua

ROFL. Not much chance of that Hezekiah. I think even if I tried to abandon it, religion wouldn't abandon me. I'm a person of faith in every fiber of my being. I'm wired for it.

Joshua

Oxidizing Material

You are, -so- fucking cool.

hezekiah jones

I knew you would get a kick out of that.

Egoinos

The trainee ministers in my college have to do one course per year - so two lectures & a seminar per week, plus additional preaching in the churches they are assigned to for the four years of university. I don't know what they do in their course on homiletics though, as I don't do that course for obvious reasons

Different places do different things. Church of England preachers are all taught that stupid voice, the one which goes up and down and sends congregations to sleep as well as sounding insincere.

--Egoinos--

[Edited because I can't spell]

[ July 28, 2002: Message edited by: Egoinos ]</p>

Buffman

Rev. Joshua

There should be plenty of opportunities for theological give and take, but the homily is the 15-20 min. period during worship when a trained theologian who is familiar with the pastoral care issues and theological questions within his/her faith community reflects on those issues within the context of Scripture and the traditions of the faith.

Is this confined exclusively to the "NT" Scripture and traditions of the faith? Would these identical homilies have a practical application were they not found in Scripture and the traditions of your specific faith beliefs? If they don't have universal application, what prevents them from becoming little more than tedious moralizing lectures or admonitions to the faithful to remain faithful...or else?

Based on your statement, I get the feeling that this is the time alloted to the trained propagandist to reinforce the conditioning of the specific supernatural faith belief which he sells and services.

HelenM

I was thinking about this more...the community has given 'assent' to the preacher, to preach without interruption and they want to hear what he (or she ) has to say.

It would be rude to interrupt someone that everyone else wants to listen to.

When you read a book you can't give feedback but I expect you still read books, for information, right? You don't 'resent' that the author isn't right there to receive feedback? And in many cases there's not a obvious way to get feedback to him or her at all.

And - when people go to hear someone speak on a secular topic, or maybe to a 'class' to learn, they aren't resentful that the speaker gets to speak, without interruption are they? And if it's some bigshot person they probably won't hang around much at the end for comment because they'll be heading back to the airport to catch a plane...

Of course, there's the danger that someone might interpret one person speaking and the rest listening as saying "the only person who has anything worth saying is the one speaking" and/or "here's what to think - please don't try to use your own brains...just absorb this unthinkingly" - but, that really isn't the way the churches I've been in, are.

Of course the person preaching thinks they are sharing the truth, in a general way. So if you disagree with them they are unlikely to agree with you unless they made a mistake. But that does not mean they aren't open to feedback, given afterwards, in some appropriate manner.

And, Joshua rightly points out that the one preaching often has more knowledge than the listeners - so, it really is in some ways like reading a book for information, or even, searching the Internet... . And hopefully the preacher, through practice, is quite good at delivery. I think that in most churches they wouldn't want just anyone to try to give a sermon - they might have people with a lot of knowledge but who couldn't do public speaking to save their lives...(as it were)

(In a way it's a bit of a problem that the bar is so high on sermon delivery - it shouldn't be the point - and yet, who wants to be bored on Sunday mornings? And people can listen better to what is interesting. So, I appreciate anyone who tries to make their sermons interesting/fun enough to be easy to listen to )

Anyway, it might be different where I go to church because my church is in the evangelical tradition where the sermon has become relatively more important and the communion/mass relatively less important, than, say in the C of E. The sermon gets about half the service time altogether (it used to be a half-hour of a 70 min service but our service got 10 mins shorter when we added a 4th one, so the sermon is probably down to 25 mins now). My church is non-liturgical and has communion only once a month. So the rest of the time is worship which is done through singing/playing music, reading and praying. But no liturgy - we don't have any.

Joshua I'd love to hear why/how you went from being a Unitarian to a liberal Baptist. I'm curious what brought you back to a somewhat more Jesus- and Bible- based faith - which is what I think that means, but please correct me if I'm wrong!

love
Helen

DMB

Well if you think the book is simply a load of waffle, you can stop reading it. You are not a captive audience, as you are in practice in a church. In the case of an interesting book where you want to take something up with the author, unless the author is dead, you simply write to the author care of the publisher.

Rev. Joshua

No. The homily is drawn from one of the four readings for that day (There's one reading each from the Hebrew Bible, the Psalms, the Gospels, and the Epistles.)

No. Although there is certainly some practical content to the homily, its primary function is to describe the interaction between the text and the situation of the congregation. It's not interchangeable with a secular morality tale or ethical discussion.

The complex nature of the texts as well as the honesty and skill of the preacher are all factors that determine whether or not this happens.

I could see where you might read that into what I said, but it's certainly not the purpose of the homily. Throughout the week, the pastor engages the congregation personally and theologically in several settings. He or she is familiar with their questions and concerns as well as the areas where they are confident or perhaps arrogant. In the role of preacher, the pastor shapes all of that into a dialogue between the congregation (with the pastor as their representative) and the tradition/text.

Sometimes the preacher may say, "I don't know the answer to that" or "perhaps God has failed us here" because that is the best answer they have. Hopefully, the honesty of the preacher will prevent the kind of vapid brainwashing you describe.

In addition, the preacher should be someone who has considerable credibility with the congregation anyway. She or he is their pastor/counselor/friend - who has been with them through births and deaths, depression and joy. They've sat together over coffee and debated theology. They've sat in Sunday School and questioned and studied these issues together.

There's much more involved than some irrelevant stranger standing up and blathering on incoherently for a few minutes.

Joshua