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Biblical Preaching for a New Generation

By Michael Vandoren

The current generation is growing up under different circumstances than any generation before.

The best way to reach today’s generation is the same way to reach any generation or any culture—through the truth of God’s unchanging Word. This statement concerns what we preach; how we preach the Word is another matter. Not all preachers share the same perception about biblical preaching, and not all know how to deliver unchanging truth to a changing world.

BALANCE IS OFTEN REALITY

Generations share things in common with preceding generations, but they also have their own distinctives. We cannot deny the validity of the past or the need to adjust to the present and future. In some churches, there is little difference between what they were in 1981 and what they are in 2001. These same churches wonder why they are not reaching their communities for Christ. Successful churches have the wisdom to take what is valued from the past and repackage it for the needs of the present.

WHO IS LISTENING?

There are many ways to make preaching listener oriented. One of those ways is understanding your audience. Consider the following two characteristics of the new generation and how they relate to preaching.

This generation is desperately lost. Every generation has been sinful and in need of the gospel, but the apostle Paul says that in the last days there will be terrible times. He describes this godlessness in 2 Timothy 3. We are living in the last days. The current generation is growing up under different circumstances than any generation before. Christian faith is being extracted from the public schools. A high divorce rate has left many children emotionally scarred and distrustful. Suicide rates, drug abuse, crime rates, immorality, and disrespect for authority continue to increase, tearing apart the moral fabric of our country. People lack self-control, a desire to be responsible, and the work ethic of the builder and boomer generations. Most do not understand what commitment to God, church, a spouse, or a job means. Many of this generation have grown up outside the church and without good examples.

Though many positive characteristics of the new generation exist, we still live in a generation that is in desperate need of hearing the Bible proclaimed with a loving, holy boldness. Some preachers are not really proclaiming the Scriptures. Rather, they are proclaiming subjects with complex outlines or are allegorizing the text because they do not take time to study it properly. We need to keep the exposition and application of God’s Word in the pulpits if we hope to reach this hurting generation for Christ.

A second characteristic of the current generation that affects preaching is its way of listening. Members of this generation are capable of handling large amounts of information and processing it from multiple sources. They surf the Internet with ever-increasing demand for data.

A recent survey by PC magazine indicated that 94 percent of its readers use the Web to gather information about a product or service.¹ People today can surf 100 TV channels beamed by satellites. They also read magazines and books, and listen to tapes. Many carry pagers, cell phones, laptop computers, and Palm Pilots. They want information now and become bored with one-main-idea sermons and unexciting preachers.

Watch and analyze newscasts and popular TV shows and you will discover there are multiple scenarios switching back and forth in one program. Today’s listeners are fed a steady diet of changing information; it has reached the point of cultural conditioning. A side effect of TV viewing and Internet usage is shorter attention spans. This does not mean that our entire sermon should be limited to the space between advertisements, but there are mental limits. After these limits, people will tune you out. Pastors would do well to have main points that last between 5 and 9 minutes, depending on the length of the sermon.

The following comments are balanced attempts to revitalize your preaching. Some of them are things you already do; others will require changes.

WHAT WE PREACH: A CASE FOR NARRATIVE, BIBLICAL SERMONS

One of my preaching professors once said that it is as hard to find preachers who are opposed to biblical preaching as it is to find preachers who actually do it. Roger VanHarn observes that "sermons are preached from biblical texts, not on biblical texts."² Sometimes I hear a preacher apologetically state, "Today’s sermon is not very homiletical." As a homiletics professor, I perk up and sit closer to the edge of my seat in anticipation of a sermon that might actually preach the biblical text. My hope is usually rewarded as the minister unfolds the verses, explaining and applying them to today.

"Homiletical" depends on the homiletics one was taught, and homiletics has changed over the past 20 years. The starting point is not, What can I say about this passage? but rather, What is this passage trying to say?

Most contemporary homileticians are saying that we need to get back to narrative preaching and let the form of the text design the sermon structure. Biblical and Early Church examples of preaching were narrative. The Bible itself is narrative, not a set of outlined topics. God knows the best way to communicate. Early Pentecostals preached narrative sermons because they did not have formal seminary training. Author Don Wardlaw and the six other contributors to his book, Preaching Biblically, make a strong case for sermon shapes coming from the biblical texts.³

We do not always need to go verse by verse, but the main ideas of the passage should be the main ideas of the sermon. David Buttrick teaches pastors to write out the plot structure of a passage, list each main item, and then develop it in various ways. He notes that topical sermons are like blown-up snapshots of a passage, but the passage is more like a motion picture.⁴ Our listeners really want the motion picture.

Scripture passages are gardens of truth, not single flowers. They are buffet tables for the church to feast on, not one-course meals. Why reduce the text to one theme when it may have a multitude of truths it is trying to say. If God’s Word can express itself in a 30-second paragraph, we should be able to reiterate it in a 30-minute sermon. When we reduce God’s Word to topics, we may restrict the message God wants to communicate through a passage and may not allow the Holy Spirit—the One who inspired each verse—to speak through the text. A by-product of this approach is that our people do not really know or understand the Word of God, and they become spiritually vulnerable. I am not advocating total abolition of topical sermons, but asserting that they should be rare.

Not only does sermon structure define biblical preaching, but what the sermon accomplishes is also important. William Thompson notes, "Biblical preaching occurs when listeners are enabled to see how their world, like the biblical world, is addressed by the Word of God and are enabled to respond to that Word."⁵ Our messages should call people to identify with what God is saying in the passage and respond to it.

We are preaching in a desperate, wounded age, an age that needs the loving, healing touch of solid, biblical preaching. There is power in the Word; let’s preach the Word.

Michael VanDoren, D.Min., taught preaching courses in the practical ministries department at Southeastern College of the Assemblies of God in Lakeland, Florida, for 17 years. He is currently involved in evangelistic work.

ENDNOTES

1. Ziff Davis Media Online News 14 March 2000.

2. Roger VanHarn, Pew Rights (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1992), 69.

3. O. Don Wardlaw, ed., Preaching Biblically (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983), 11–25.

4. David Buttrick, Homiletic: Moves and Structures (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), see especially chapters 1–3.

5. O. William Thompson, Preaching Biblically (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1981), 10. See also Calvin Miller, Marketplace Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1995) for more on this subject.