The other day I was asked as part of a class assignment whether or not I had ever preached before. (It was for preaching class, so it was a very logical question). I found that questions harder to answer than I first thought. To answer that question I first had to define what it was to preach. If I decided that to preach was to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord, then I would have to answer yes. If I decided that to preach was to give a sermon, then I'd have to define sermon and that just complicates matters more. So I answered "I don't know", which earned me some quizzical looks from my classmates and professor.
Is it preaching or sermonizing when you have a dozen elementary and middle school children sitting around you on a bridge while you retell Bible stories? What about when you sit around a fire with many dozen college students and share stories of how G-d has brought healing in your life? Does that count as a sermon? What about the poor business man who was sitting next to the mission team I was part of as we headed to Cameroon? When we shared the Gospel with him, was that preaching? Does it count as preaching when I translated what the speaker was saying around a campfire in former East Germany from English to German or German to English? Does preaching have to be your own words?
It's probably a good thing I'm in a preaching class. Maybe I'll actually learn what preaching is. However, I welcome your feedback. What is preaching?
1 comment:
Joy, I really enjoyed this post. It is a good question and I am interested to hear the verdict. Where do we draw lines and definitions between preaching, sermonizing, evangelizing, witnessing, etc. I am someone who hasn't fully discovered my "preaching style" yet, but I have a real problem with overt messaging/pushy preaching/guilt gospels... so that begs the question, what is preaching, but with yet another twist...
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