What makes sermons stick for you? How do you know a good one? If the preacher makes you feel spiritually stimulated and alive when you go home, what has happened? These are questions you are invited and obligated to ask as church leaders. Although teaching elders (commissioned ruling elders, guest preachers) are responsible for the selection of Scriptures and the content of preaching (W-2.2005), the sermon is obviously designed for the benefit of the listeners, not the speakers (W-2007). “The sermon should present the gospel with simplicity and clarity, in language which can be understood by the people” (W-2.2007). The concept of stickiness in communication is well known in educational circles. Recently it has been explored in relation to theological education in an excellent book by Holly J. Inglis with Kathy J. Dawson and Rodger Y. Nishioka (“Sticky Learning: How Neuroscience Supports Teaching That’s Remembered,” Fortress Press, 2014). As a Presbyterian church educator, Inglis … [Read more...]

A few years ago it was popular to urge church leaders to “think outside the box” in their long-range plans for ministry. The evangelist Mark pushes us more radically than that. In the first gospel he urges churches to break out beyond conceivable boundaries and barriers and encounter people whose customs and beliefs are foreign, even hostile. A good case in point is found in the unique details of Mark’s version of the bizarre story of the demoniac with multiple personalities who is healed by Jesus when the pigs are driven into the lake (5:1-20). When Jesus commands the disciples to go to “the other side” of the Sea of Galilee in 4:35, rather than disembarking on the opposite bank after a terrible storm, they end up deep in the interior of the Decapolis, in Geresa (Jeresa in modern Jordan), around 34 miles southeast of the lake. For obvious reasons, Matthew and some Lukan texts relocate the story because later writers doubted that demon-infested swine were capable of such an Olympic … [Read more...]

In the recent film, “The Theory of Everything,” the brilliance, determination and courage of the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking is dramatically portrayed. A major theme is concerned with Hawking’s changing thinking about the origin of the universe and the evolution of life. Although his early research speculated that there might be a Creator God, in his later work (summarized in “A Brief History of Time”) he decided that there was no room or necessity for a divine being at the beginning. It is ironic that although some characters in the script question his scientific findings, no one debates the veracity of his theological declarations. The film ends on the questionable note that as long as there are living beings there is always hope, seemingly putting humanity in the true center of existence. A significantly different conclusion is reached by Bill McKibben, the environmentalist founder of 350.org and scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College. In a book dedicated to the people in … [Read more...]