Imaginative Preaching Part 3: A Little Change Will Do You Good

Written by Rev. Dr. Heather Henson, Director of Quest

 

Welcome to week three of our series on imaginative preaching, where we are looking at how your process for developing a sermon can help you embrace imaginative preaching. Our hope is that we preach in a way that invites the listener to lean forward and draw closer to the Word of the Lord. This isn’t about having a different or gimmicky format. Imaginative preaching requires us to rethink the process we use as preachers.

In the last post, I shared one method to help move toward imaginative preaching. It was a perspective shift that invited you to enter the Scripture and text from the unexpected, unnamed, and typically unseen perspective. This week, we’re going to explore how our physical space impacts our sermon writing.

Where do you typically find yourself when you are doing your sermon preparation?

Perhaps we are in an office or at a desk surrounded by books, papers, and emails. As we all know, offices are usually the best place to come up with creative ideas.

Just kidding. That was sarcasm.

Offices are some of the worst places to feel inspired! With the gray or blue office carpet, the white walls, and the mountains of paperwork scattered around, they are not places where new, insightful, heart-pounding ideas come. It’s another example of how ironic our sermons are. We want to preach sermons that capture the hearer. Sermons that captivate and invite the Holy Spirit into our hearts and minds. But we find ourselves sitting in a small, cramped office.

We shouldn’t be surprised that these spaces often produce academic papers, not creative sermons. Many a sermon has been crafted more like a research report for Jesus instead of a breath of fresh air from the Holy Spirit.

 

What Happens When We Move?

What would happen, do you suppose, if you moved your actual sermon preparation time somewhere new? What if you even sat somewhere that made you think of the passage you were working on?

Consider how differently I might think about the Sermon on the Mount if I were actually on a hill, reflecting and meditating on what it was like for the hearers to listen to Jesus. Or if I took a walk as I pondered the road to Emmaus. How different is a conversation while walking than a conversation seated at a desk?

What if I was by water as I pondered the passage in Acts when Paul is shipwrecked, or reflected on Jacob wrestling with God while watching a high school wrestling match?

While we can’t always find identical experiences while reading Scripture, we can heighten our awareness of Scripture by simply moving our preparation location.

If I did my sermon prep in a new location, if I found myself sitting outside instead of inside, how might I see the Word differently? Maybe I move to a coffee shop or a local library (Be careful with those two, however. If a coffee shop or library is your “normal office,” then they are still an office…even if they are not in an office building). Maybe I walk as I listen to the Scripture or meditate on God’s Word while surrounded by a large crowd of people, as Jesus often found himself.

How might I see the Word differently?

 

Our Bodies Matter

I’m not saying that none of your prep can happen in the space of your office. But what if some of it didn’t? Offices tend to be a place where we try to control our environment. I think that feeling can seep into how we read Scripture in the sense that we may try to control and manage the Spirit. It feels safer that way.

When we change our location, we change our perspective. We may lose a sense of control if we do that, but maybe that is a good thing?

Our minds, souls, and bodies are deeply intertwined. After all, Jesus came to us in the flesh. He emptied himself of all but love. Thomas touched the holes in his hands and side when he came before the disciples after his crucifixion. He chose to be among his creation as an embodied person. Yet, we often approach Scripture as if God is disembodied. As if Jesus isn’t still in the flesh, seated at the right hand of God. And if we disembody our encounter with the Word and our preparation of a sermon, we will miss the very real, very tangible, very practical, very present thing God is doing in the Scriptures.

Sometimes we need to be reminded of this. That faith is real. That God is real. These are not simply theories or intellectual assent. By engaging in the simple act of physically moving ourselves, we can be reminded of the very real nature of God. All of our senses will be engaged in the process!

 

Try It This Week

Try it this week. It may seem hard. There will be noise from children, people asking questions, and ways you are interrupted. I’d encourage you to listen to those other noises and ask yourself:

How is this passage I’m working on relevant to this very real person standing in front of me?

How is the world around me revealing to me the work of the Spirit?

Creative, compelling, imaginative preaching comes to us not on a scheduled timeline but in the living of life.