The third of our three day training conference focussed on preaching itself. Having laid the foundations of Doctrine of Scripture and Hermeneutics now we looked at the biblical basis and some biblical examples of expository preaching and then I introduced the men to the process I teach for the preparation and preaching of sermons.
We had another new member of the group today, joining us by zoom, and as ever, I found these men to be hugely engaged with and responsive to the teaching. I don’t believe they needed persuading about the principles I was advocating, but there was evidence that they were encouraged to realise that an expositional approach to preaching is not only logical and reasonable, it is thoroughly scriptural and has the promise of God’s blessing on it.
As we shared stories over coffee and lunch from our own experiences, it is clear that in all our cultures – Poland, US and UK are represented here – the Church is as weak and ineffective as it is because it is suffering from a serious deficiency of a solid, passionate, authoritative declaration of “Thus says the Lord!”
Each time I teach preaching, whether at College or in situations like this, my own head is re-convinced about the work and my own heart re-invigorated with a burden to “preach the Word”. Now in my 50th year of preaching I am as excited and passionate about preaching as ever I was and I pray God would continue to give me that fire in my belly.
After the final session of the day, Adam drove me to his home which is in the little village of Blogoszcz (don’t ask me to pronounce it!) nearly two hours’ drive east of Warsaw and on the other side of the city of Siedlce where he serves. Caroline and I visited this little village with Adam and his wife, Dagmara, back in 2019, when all there was to see of their house was the foundations. Now they have a lovely and welcoming bungalow, in a rural setting, outside of but near to the busy city where the church is.