Homiletical Sensings

I recently read a blog entry posted by Jason Goroncy “William H. Willimon: Advice for New Pastors.” The link for the post is here.

I am currently writing a text A Turn towards the Listener. The following is an excerpt from the section entitled, “Changing the Function of the Function.”

In homiletics, the terms “aim,” “purpose,” and “function” are often been used to describe what the preacher intends the sermon “to do.” Preachers intend that sermons accomplish certain ends; realize particular consequences. Preachers intend to persuade hearers to become and consequently to act. The most oft used definition of a function statement comes from Tom Long, Witness of Preaching. Quoting David Kelsey: “Part of what it means to call a text ‘Christian scripture,’ is that it functions to shape persons’ identities so decisively as to transform them … when it is used in the context of the common life of Christian community.”[1] Advocating that biblical texts say things that do things, and the sermon is to say and do those things too. Content and intention are bound together (focus and function), and no expression of proclamation is complete without them. Long writes, “A function statement is a description of what the preacher hopes the sermon will create or cause to happen for the hearers. Sermons make demands upon the hearers, which is another way of saying that they provoke change in the hearers. … The function statement names the hoped-for change.” [2] Function statements raise the question of how the preacher’s words will be taken up, acted on, or become embedded in the practices of the congregation. More »

Recently, a GST student James Prather and I received a grant that would enhance students using iPads while engaged in ethnography. See the ACU Press Release here.

A pdf version of the ACU Press Release      A MSWord version of the Grant Proposal More »

The Eucharist in an Unarticulated World

Mikhail Bakhtin’s understanding of dialogism and heteroglossia implies that all discourse communities are located in historical situations that involve complex interactions. To address what teenagers within Churches of Christ believe about the Eucharist, there exists the need to return to the naked immediacy of experience as it is felt within the utmost particularity of a specific life. Subsequently, an ethnographic journey of what teens believe and practice about the Lord’s Supper will involve other conversation partners. Seeing and participating in a weekly observance of communion gives these teens access to a larger conversation. For teens to experience “deed” (in Bakhtin’s system), they will need to mediate between their lived experiences of the Lord’s Supper and their reasoned representation of the act. The question this research asks is: are teens able to account or give meaning to the act of participating in weekly Communion? Or as Bakhtin says, “For as much as I have experienced and understood in art, I must answer with my life, so that what I have experienced and understood in art does not remain without effect in life” (Art and Answerability, 56). Can these teens “answer with their life” in the context of the act of the Eucharist?

In the book, Soul Searching, author and researcher Christian Smith wrote a detailed analysis of his findings from the National Study of Youth and Religion. In it he wrote: More »

Mutuality Leads to the Harvest of God

Focus: God calls us to participate in the advancement of the Gospel.

Function: To encourage the church to mutually edify one another for the advancement of gospel intents. More »

On Sunday, September 4, 2011 I will be preaching at the Maryneal Church of Christ. Below is the sketch of my sermon. The focus of the sermon is simple, God’s oneness creates a future for our diversity. The function follows: To encourage the body of Christ to demonstrate its ontological oneness even in the midst of its vast difference. The sermon was entitled, A More Excellent Way based on the text in 1 Cor. 12:1-27.

Times are changing. In a 1990 book on Educational and Psychological Measurement and Evaluation, the editors noted, “You probably once learned, and then mercifully forgot, the barbarous, tedious procedure for calculating the square root of a number. The computations are so time-consuming that in our opinion it is an unwarranted expenditure of time to relearn the computational mechanics. In 1965, a calculator with the square root feature cost $1400. Today, hand calculators that give square roots silently and more quickly are available for under $10! Stop squandering your riches on things of lesser value and get yourself one.” More »

This summer (2011), I was asked to preach at the Water Street Church of Christ in Charlotte, TN. Below is the schedule published in the church bulletin followed by complete sketches of the sermons.

Where Is God?

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Assemblies that move us to a more profound alleluia!

Everyone has assemblies. Even non-religious people have assemblies. The Moose Club on 5^th Avenue has assemblies. Football lovers have assemblies. Art guilds have assemblies. Assemblies define who we are. We choose which assemblies are primary for us.

Christians have assemblies. God has gathered us together to be God’s people. As God’s people, we gather each week in joyful assembly. More »

During the spring semester the Graduate School of Theology assigned me the task to develop two new courses on intercultural leadership and leading in contexts. Both courses will be offered for the first time in the fall of 2011. My understanding of “leadership” prompted me to gather a bibliography on the subject of practical theology. I recently posted the bibliography on the resources page linked in the right sidebar. While not an exhaustive bibliography, these are the books that have shaped my thinking through the years. May these books bless your ministries.

Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia (341 C.E.) was the first to establish Ascension as a separate and special day. It may not always be possible to hold special services on Thursday (forty days after Easter). On this special service, we connect the resurrection to the ascension. Christ death and resurrection secured our hope for eternal life. Christ ascended to the right hand of God assured us of our future glorification. His ascension set the stage for the coming of the Spirit.

In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:1-11) More »