Fuller, Reginald. The Use of the Bible in Preaching, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981.

This is a book about biblical authority, interpretation and preaching. Fuller’s main point is that biblical criticism is for preaching what the ceremonial law was for Paul. If Paul was prepared to be all things to all people, shouldn’t the modern preacher be biblically conservative to biblical conservatives, and a biblical critic among those who have been exposed to and have accepted biblical criticism? “If we find that inconsistent with our integrity, then we can only say that See Paul, while he valued his personal integrity, was prepared to sacrifice even that so that Christ might be known, that….his gospel might be heard. Is this perhaps what he meant when he said of the apostolic ministers that they were ‘deceivers, and yet true’ (2 Cor. 6:8)?” (P.74).

With fundamentalists, Fuller affirms that in the Bible we hear more than just the speech of human beings. And there is an essential unity between the Old Testament and the New. But “we can’t leave our historical-critical brains outside when we come to study the Bible” (p.9). There are countless textual variations, contradictions, and examples of “cultural conditionedness” throughout the Bible. The Bible is pluralistic (we read Isaiah 53 on Good Friday but what about the idea of a messianic military victory in Psalm 2?). As with the Sacraments, we have earthly vessels in which a heavenly treasure is contained. “The fundamentalists deny the earthiness of the vessel . . . the radicals deny the heavenly treasure”(p.16). The Bible is the Word of God only within the believing community. “The Bible is Word only as it is proclaimed Word….So preaching is absolutely integral to the Bible as Word”.

Bultmann held that exegesis involves establishing what the text means to us today. Krister Stendahl is concerned with what it meant originally. The weakness of Bultmann’s position is that the biblical material is often forced into categories of German existentialist philosophy. Conversely, we can only avoid making exegesis a purely academic exercise by seeing it as a first step to something else. The first step in all sermon preparation is to ask, what did the author say? And second, what did he mean? Use a Greek – or literal English – text at this stage. Then look at textual questions, and list theologically significant words. Study the syntax of the passage, then its context. Then interpret the pericope historically (here commentaries may be helpful). Then write a final paraphrase, which should say what you think the author meant. If a lectionary is being followed, avoid the trap of harmonizing. (Unfortunately, says Fuller, the subordination of the O.T. lesson to the Gospel does not allow the O.T. to speak in its own right. And we might add, this maybe an indication of the lectionary’s being devised by people with, mostly, white skins!).

The task of the preacher is analogous to forwarding a letter to a different address. The structure of the sermon should be determined by the structure of the pericope. Sometimes we will preach “from above”, starting with the biblical word, sometimes “from below”, from contemporary human situations and needs. Our task is to build a bridge between the two. “So along with constant study of the Scripture, the preacher should be “au courant” with what people are reading and thinking in the world”.

Chapter 4 has some excellent examples of “putting it into practice”, following the steps listed above. (Fuller’s view of the resurrection appearances may be more difficult to believe, than the simple Luke-Acts version. Certainly the risen and ascended Lord appeared to Paul, so the apostle claims, but we don’t therefore have to put the other resurrection appearances in the same category).

Fuller’s conclusion has some interesting, and provocative suggestions. He seems to believe that “pulpit teaching” must include biblical criticism (therefore it ought to be relegated to the lay class). Surely “teaching” is part of preaching: too many contentless or merely hortary sermons become tiring, even boring.

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Lischer, Richard. A Theology of Preaching (The Dynamics of the Gospel), Abingdon Preacher’s Library, 1981

Lischer attempts to show how “theology informs preaching and preaching informs theology”. Preaching’s exclusion from theology, he says, has resulted in a lack of substance (“treacle” to use Spurgeon’s phrase), a contrast between the sophisticated historico-exegetical skills learned in the seminary and their simplistic execution in preaching, loss of authority, and irrelevance or faddism.(Perhaps the second factor here is simply a result of “offering-plate strategy”: very few preachers have the conceptual tools to translate their critical studies into good pulpit-work. Their attempts are not usually appreciated by tile congregation).

Theology, says Lischer, is more than dogmatics. It is in fact the mediator between exegesis and preaching, although in Barth and Ott preaching and theology are almost the same thing. The preacher is concerned both with the contemporary here-and-now and the biblical then-and-there. Preaching is thus a corrective of theology. It can never stray very far from the gospel (as can academic theology). Theology recover. its orality in preaching(“the Gospel should not be written but screamed’ – Luther). And preaching rescues liturgy from me re formalism.

Resurrection is the fountain of all preaching. The New Testament proclaims Easter in the form of narrative, and narrates history in the form of proclamation (Moltmann). Crucifixion and resurrection belong together, as the expression of and protest against human suffering. The Church is not (merely) called to “resurrection triumphalism” (my term) but also to share in Christ’s sufferings. (See p. 36). Thus the story become my story, but the narrative is always unfinished (indeed the Resurrection event itself is not reported but proclaimed) . The rhythm of death and resurrection orchestrates all our worship. We are crucified with Christ. And we are risen in Him.

Preaching is always dialectical. There is bad news and good news. There is law and gospel. Christ is the end (“telos”) of the law, and the essence of a new comprehensive law. An external law has been replaced by an internal one. An adequate dialectic will avoid a mechanical application of law and gospel, grace without judgment (and judgment without grace), a preoccupation with analysis, moralism, and preaching about the text rather than letting God preach through the text. And in our preaching we must avoid preaching the gospel “in a law-tone”.

“Primitive” (my quotes) societies are oral-aural. Before the advent of moveable type printing presses literature was intended for the ears. So for most of history the resonant word became an “event”. Jesus wrote nothing – except a few words in the dust. He was a herald, not a scribe. For the Semites, “Word of God” connotes a creating and shaping of external reality. The Hebrews worship a God who speaks; others’ idols are mute.

“So identified is Jesus the Word with the word of preaching, that the one proclaimed once again becomes the proclaimer. ” “The real Christ is the preached Christ” (Kahler). Further, the Bible is the test of preaching (“It is as difficult to find ministers who are against biblical preaching as it is to find biblical preaching”). However we preach not the Bible, but the Christ of the Bible. Bibliolatry, said Luther, worships the cradle instead of the Christ child in it. “A biblical sermon is an exposition of the Scripture, which is an exposition of the gospel, which is an exposition of the life of God himself. The Second Helvetic Confession said “The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God”. Obedient proclamation – the repetition of the Biblical witness – is no less the Word of God than the Bible (Barth). The sermon, however, is the oral Word of God (so write sermons for the ear! ) .

Lischer’s final chapter (“Christian Anthropology and the Possibility of Preaching”) looks at some aspects of the effects of preaching in the lives of men and women. There is a growing cynicism towards language today: we have learned to distrust words. And it could be easier for preachers to reflect agony than to project hope. “The scary thing about psychoanalytic theory is not that it asks ‘what is man?’ but that it fails to add, ‘that Thou art mindful of him’.” Certainly modern society exhibits a greater intentionality and self-consciousness in its disposal of God than did previous eras. (Who was it said that post-industrial English families were the first in history not to engage in some form of worship?). Within all this alienation and loneliness the preacher comes preaching Christ – “the subject, object and verb of all our sermons”. Christian anthropology has a theology of the Image of God, so Christian preaching is a work of love whose effectiveness lies in its ability to enkindle Christ-like love in others. The preacher has many resources, including baptism (as the gateway to the church, it creates family or community), the community of the past (“we are like pigmies standing on the shoulders of giants”), our brothers and sisters in the familial church, the scriptures (though there is nothing inherently good about reading the Bible unless one is encountering God in it), prayer, and the Holy Spirit (“the great Hermeneut”).

The value of Lischer’s book lies in its repeating the most obvious- and yet most important – elements in Christian preaching and a theology of preaching. Perhaps the question of the authority of the preacher (his ordination) and his relation to the church as its servant could have found a mention somewhere. In fact the whole question of authority in preaching is dealt with only obliquely. Perhaps too the excellent emphasis on the nature and results of the gospel could have been balanced by a discussion of the gospel’s essence: “Christ died for our sins”. The Easter narrative is not merely a sad/glad story with which we identify in our struggles and in our hope. There is “atonement” there somewhere, too.

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Massey, James Earl. Designing the Sermon (Order and Movement in Preaching), Abingdon Preacher’s Library, 1980.

No other book in the Abingdon Preacher’s Library promises more, and delivers less, than Massey’s. It is general inconsequential, lacking originality, with heavy borrowings from other authors and preachers. Some of the insights into black preaching are helpful (probably Massey is black), but very little else is here which hasn’t been written many times before.

The book begins with several important, often-stated assertions: A preacher is more than a maker of sermons. Preaching is rooted in God’s concern for persons, so it is an agency of grace. Preaching is “meant to do things” Gangster). Topical sermons have been the most popular – they allow for the most innovation. Next comes the “textual-topical”, then the expositional. Provided the sermon is biblical in content, its form ought to be the most functional. Communication theory has brought increased understanding of the listener, and recently there has been an increased desire to relate the sermon more dynamically to other worship elements. Adherence to a lectionary limits the preacher’s subjectivism in choosing texts and themes. There has also recently been increased attention to the narrative mode; “story is hardly ever dry and dull”. Designing a sermon calls for a communicative design, an authoritative focus, structure (“the sap of the text should reach the farthest twig of the sermon” – Cuyler), and application to the hearer’s life. Write it out, so that we “see in fact what we want to say in faith”. Above all, we cannot afford, in Spurgeon’s words, to “utter pretty nothings”.

The Bible is filled with folk-level stories. Stories have contemporary appeal, too. They uniquely guide the hearers’ imagination, enabling them to identify with the meanings in the story. Jesus, of course, “did not speak ….without a parable” (Mark 4:34a). Choose a narrative for its meaning rather than its drama. Immerse yourself in the basic issue, so that the story becomes a word-event for the preacher. Locate the vertical point of divine action on the horizontal line of the story. And let the storyline make its point!

A useful point is made in chapter III: “The distinction between textual and expository preaching is artificial” (Dwight E. Stevenson). It all started with Origen (184-254). Some guidelines for expository preaching: Be mastered by the text (our sermons are less than the texts we use). Let the passage

determine your outline and tone of treatment. Summarize the textual message into a paragraph. Don’t slavishly restate the textual setting.

Chapter IV is a plea for doctrinal teaching. “Some preachers are only exhorters…. Happy is that congregation whose preacher is a teacher as well” Gangster). The doctrine should be vital to human experience and hope. Avoid proof-texting (advice which vitiates the use of a topical concordance, as Massey suggests). “Denominational understandings must be given their due”. (I frankly wonder about that in this ecumenical age). This chapter mainly concerns “doctrinal topics” and lacks mention of areas of preaching such as personal or social morality.

The chapter on Funeral Sermons is “long on description and short on analysis”. An evocative suggestion: “Plan the sermon on the level of the heroic”.

Massey offers three cautions before a brief study of some “master preachers”: (1) don’t feel inferior (2) don’t plagiarize and (3) don’t rank preachers in terms of the proverbial “best”.

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Pitt-Watson, Ian. Preaching: A Kind of Folly, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976

The contents of this book are based on the Warwick lectures delivered between 1972 and 1975 at the universities of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow.

The book takes its departure from a mistranslation of a word of Paul’s about the “foolishness of preaching” (1 Cor. 1:21). Preachers are landed with an authoritarian task, but lacking adequate authority. (Once it was the verbal authority of the Bible or the doctrinal authority of the church, so the preacher could be securely “six feet above contradiction”). The preacher’s real authority is “the Word of God vivified by the work of the Holy Spirit”. But this, too, is prone to subjectivism, and may lead to doubts. The end result: “We’ve lost our nerve and it is time we got it back” (p.5).

Preaching is the beginning and the end of theology (for Karl Barth). “The real Christ is the preached Christ” (Kahler). For Bultmann, revelation is to be found in the preaching of the Church and nowhere else. For Tillich, too, preaching ought to be central to the Church’s life. Christian preaching must be biblical and theological. “All preaching should be doctrinal preaching”. However, if preaching is to be truly incarnational, it must be involved with practical and secular concerns. Biblical words and images must be translated into the coinage of contemporary usage. This “preached Word” not only comes through the preacher but to him as well (so plagiarism is self-destructive). So “the Word we preach is more than the words we say” (p.21).

The thesis of the second chapter could be summarized: “Preaching is the heart and soul of theology. Theology is the conscience of preaching” (p.35). It is the theological teacher’s job to help each student find the “truth by which he himself can live”. The theologian is not only the mentor, but also the servant of the preacher, as theology and preaching are functionally related. “Theology is for the sake of preaching” (Ott). Preaching is aimed primarily at the will, rather than the intellect or emotions. We know the truth of God only by doing it. The preacher must search for the “point of contact” (Brunner) for the Gospel. “It is only through what we ought to do that we come to understand what God has done” (p.42). Christian preaching demands decision and a change of life-style. “God is made known to all men as moral demand” (Richardson). However, all that said, we must not be afraid of the emotions (even if we rightly eschew “emotionalism”). “What we feel and how we feel is far more important than what we think and how we think” (because, after all) “love (is) “an emotion, not an idea” (MacMurray). The kerygma speaks to the whole man, emotion and all. (Perhaps many of us are suspicious of emotion in preaching because we cannot trust our own).

Further, if the kerygma is to be truly heard, it must be “translated” into our culture’s meanings. (The language of Canaan becomes metamorphosed into the language of Babylon). And because what is heard is more than what is said, there ought to be a personal relationship between preacher and congregation (“Preaching divorced from pastoral concern is blind”, p.58). “Where there is caring there is knowledge of God, where there is not there is none” (p.61).

Chapter 3 is a little more “prescriptive”. First, every sermon must be a unity. Its subject-matter should be “summarizable” into a single sentence. (My comment, however, about the music of Haydn, with his concern for unity, would be to ask whether a symphony of, say, Beethoven might not also be a unity, within which each movement has a distinct, though contributory, melody?). True, a sermon is not an “exercise in free association”. However, here again I wonder whether there may not be a cultural component to this argument: might not a good sermon be “impressionistic”? Or perhaps (James) Joycean? Are all cultural modes of thinking linear? Many great orators throughout history, in diverse cultural settings, might have failed at this point, but yet have been most effective.

Two kinds of exegesis are mandatory – that of the Biblical text, and also of contemporary life. The listener should experience a passage “from the obvious to the significant, from the natural to the numinous”. Jacob’s ladder is pitched between Heaven and Charing Cross. But because levels of understanding vary between persons, the preacher ought to communicate all the time on different levels. However, simplicities should not become over simplifications. If the pastor-preacher is constantly fertilizing the soil out of which the sermon grows both by pastoral work and by reading, he will have better insights into the profundities of human experience.

Chapter 3 concludes with some “hints and helps”. Among them: not everything said requires illustration; speaking without a script can become an excuse for speaking without thought; however words need to be written to be spoken; and the spoken words ought to be characterized by variety in pitch, pace, tone-colour and volume.

The final section begins with a useful summary, then proceeds to suggest the steps a hard-pressed preacher-pastor, in the middle of an average week, confronted by an open Bible and an empty page might take to prepare his sermon. It’s the sort of practical guide I wish I’d read twenty years ago (and which strangely is noticeably absent from most books on preaching). First, let the mind range free over the text until a theme (or themes)

emerge. Choose one, and again let the mind ramble over this. How does the theme relate both to our world and the world of the Bible? Arrange the material in the most effective order. Of course, early in the procedure the text is examined with the help of scholarly aids.

The author returns to the important question about the Bible and life. Where does the preacher start? If he starts with a problem of life he is tempted to use the Bible to justify his own views. However, with that warning in mind, a Sermon that starts where people are ought to be more highly motivating for listeners.(And, we might add, don’t the sermons in the Bible generally do this? Fosdick’s famous saying about the Jebusites is a salutary warning against the most obvious dangers in the opposite approach).

Part of the folly of the Gospel” is the foolishness of preaching”. But “that mistranslation must never be used as an excuse for our incompetence. I don’t understand preaching. But I believe in it as I believe in the church of which it is a function.”

The author is the most humbly self-effacing of all in the suggested reading list. That trait may be a function of his living mostly on the Eastern rather than Western side of the Atlantic! This small book presents a fine balance between theory and practice, theological scholarship and pastoral experience. He’s obviously “been there”!

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Stacey, David. Interpreting the Bible, N.Y.: Seabury,1979

This book is a brilliantly written, yet very simple, summary of the main issues in and approaches to a Christian understanding of the Bible. Its themes) are general rather than specific, and its major lack is the absence of a thorough example of biblical exegesis using a biblical text. Perhaps, too, Barth and Tillich could have rated more than passing mention, as examples of scholars who have had a profound influence on twentieth-century thinking about the Bible. There is also a failure to understand the dynamics of sectarian thinking: apocalypticists are ever with us, and although they are given more to “heat than light”, their influence on so many ordinary people is, cumulatively, quite immense. After all, people like Seventh-Day Adventists are always winning the Jerusalem Bible quizzes, so their approaches merit some analysis!

Stacey’s particular genius is his ability to present fairly many disparate – and conflicting – points of view. His approach to each is not merely dispassionate, but warm and understanding. Each rationale makes sense on its own, to some extent. In fact one has to wait until his suggested reading list at the back to gain the best insights into his own general stance. The over-all impression is that if there is “antinomy” within the biblical data, there are also unresolvable tensions and paradoxes in the general field of hermeneutics. Each school of interpretation, by espousing a relatively closed system of thinking, may in the end be seen to be attempting to be wiser than God. The impression that clearly emerges is that biblical scholarship has still a lot of work to do!

The Bible emanated from a culture to which we are strangers, so all translation of biblical texts involves some interpretation. Further, the Bible is not “the Word of God” in a vacuum: there are human subjects involved. And both author and reader will have his own “sitz im leben” and presuppositions. The languages of the Bible – mainly Hebrew and Greek – have their own peculiarities. Because the biblical writers were imprisoned within their own culture’s world-view, the task of interpretation involves some “transculturization” as well.

Understandings of the nature of “history” vary, too. History comprises a concrete event, the evidence, and judgment (the examination of the evidence). Biblical writers are not concerned about problems of evidence. Event and reflection meld into each other. They were only interested in re-living the events of “salvation history”, not at all arguing for their historicity. Hebrews, similarly, accepted the reality of miracles without question. They are simply God at work to save his own, displaying in particular situations what God intends universally. The biblical people had nowhere to go for verification of historical events or miracles: their sources were confined almost exclusively to oral traditions.

How can we say “the Bible is a unity” when there are manifest differences between the testaments, the biblical literature is so diverse, when it’s the work of many people, authors, compilers, redactors etc. – over about a thousand years, where different “streams” of interpretation exist within and between the books of the Bible as we now have them (e.g. priestly and prophetic approaches), and so on? This question was first faced by the Jews with their Torah. The disparate nature of the material there is unquestioned, “but the unity of the Torah has been lived out by devout Jews for many generations”. These books both are and are not a unity. Viewing the Bible as a whole, one can see a cultural unity: the Old Testament is Hebrew, and the New Testament is Greek in a Hebraic style. Then there is a unity of religious ideas – the product of a thousand years’ reflection. Third, one can argue for a unity based on God’s continuous purposes.

What is the relationship between the Old and New Testaments? A pre-Christian understanding of the Old Testament would by no means include a Messiah exactly like Jesus. Some interpreters stress discontinuity between the Testaments. Others see a pattern of promise and fulfillment. Certainly, for New Testament Christians, their “new covenant” comprised a divine fulfillment of the former covenant.

“Inspiration” means “in-breathing”. God’s ruach blows breath into man’s lungs and communes with man’s spirit. But when the divine Spirit enters fallible man, is human fallibility overcome? If the final form of a book of the Bible has an army of contributors, over a long period of time, what is the difference between an ordinary and an inspired work? Some posit a single author for each book, making the resolution simpler. Some again suggest a notion of mechanical ~ inspiration (“to a large extent this view exists only in the imagination of those who attack it”). Are the effects of the Fall temporarily reversed? To some extent, yes, replies Stacey. Perhaps there is a circular argument here: belief in inspiration rests on what the Bible says and the Bible is trusted because it is inspired. (Perhaps the strongest evangelical argument avoiding this says “Christ is divine; His approach to Scripture must be ours; His teachings give an imprimatur to both Old and New Testaments; therefore our belief in the inspiration of the Bible is derivative from our faith in Christ. The author of the Book ought to know….”).

Which books are canonical? Probably for Jews this question was settled at Jamnia in AD 70. Christians have a list of New Testament books first appearing in Athanasius’ Festal Letter, AD 376. Actually synods and councils played a minor role: they “confirmed” what general usage confirmed.

The second part of the book – “Approaches” – deals with the divergent views of Scripture held through the centuries. The early Christian preachers began with Jesus. Faith was focused on a Person. However they had to contend with Jewish opposition. And so Jewish hermeneutical methods were taken over into the controversies, e.g. the_ plain and secret meanings of a passage in the Law; allegorizing (finding significance in every detail of a biblical narrative or text); typology. From Augustine onwards four senses were recognized in Scripture: the literal, moral, allegorical and anagogical realities. Aquinas held that everything for faith resided in the literal sense alone, and the Reformers generally rejected allegory altogether. However, allegory (ancient and modern!) rests on a profound respect for the text, although self-appointed allegorizers can be individualist and arbitrary.

Can the Bible stand by itself? If believing communities produced the Old and New Testaments then surely no consistent interpretation exists apart from them. The Roman Catholic Church has taken this view seriously: “the Bible needs the Church and the Church needs the Bible”. Further, Scripture and tradition go hand in hand(Vatican II required both to be accepted, “with equal sentiments and reverence”. However Vatican II saw an end to that Church’s insularity in which Catholic authorities viewed non-Catholic biblical learning with suspicion). The Reformation produced two general views: Luther’s and Calvin’s. Luther carefully distinguished between the Word of God in Christ (the living Word) and that in Scripture. The Bible is unique only inasmuch as it bears witness to Christ. The Word is infallible, but biblical words are fallible. Tradition is subservient to Scripture, which needs no other witness (“sola scripture”). Through the Holy Spirit the Bible was composed, and through the Holy Spirit the Bible is read. Although Luther accepted the whole Bible as Christian Scripture he also accepted the relativity of Scripture (his strictures on James and Revelation are well known). Modern fundamentalists and “conservative evangelicals “on the other hand trace their general view of Scripture back to Calvin. He was a lawyer, a logician, whereas Luther was a prophet. In a sense, the Calvinist approach posits a double authority, Christ and Scripture. Both the incarnation of Christ and the writing of Scripture in human language imply some restrictions. If God-man was without sin, why can’t the Bible be without error?

Liberal Christians reacted to such phrases as “The Bible says….”or “The Church teaches….” The Bible’s value lay not in its supposed supernatural origin, but in its being a treasury of human experience. Liberals have tended to question the historicity of the miracle stories, and have been more concerned with Jesus’ teaching than with dogma. The “quest of the historical Jesus” was (and is) an attempt to set on one side the Christ of the Church, and rediscover the real Jesus of Nazareth.

Finally, a more radical attack on the traditional Christian doctrines of Scripture has been mounted by the existentialists, the best known being Rudolf Bultmann. “Myth” he says is the literary consequence of ancient man’s endeavours to come to terms with his existence. The Old and new Testaments are full of such “mythology” – e.g. a three–tier universe, demons causing sickness etc. So the modern believer must demythologize the biblical texts. Can the gospel be seated in terms that do not involve mythology? Bultmann can’t answer. For existentialists, the important thing is not to devise doctrinal systems, but to encounter the living Christ now.

Conclusion: “There are virtues in every approach” (p115). “The Bible is only a medium. On one side stands the God who speaks, on the other the man of faith who hears and believes and acts. It is not given to any book, simple or profound, to furnish the full script of that dialogue”.

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Skudlarek, William. The Word in Worship (Preaching in a Liturgical Context), Abingdon Preacher’s Library, 1981.

“Preaching at its finest is . . . biblically centered.” Roman Catholics have experienced, for the most part, sacramental services without preaching; Protestants preaching services without the sacrament. Fortunately today “that regrettable maiming of our worship is being healed”. These are Skudlarek’s primary concerns.

A “life-situation” approach to the selection of sermon-material can be due to laziness, making “the hearer the source rather than the recipient of preaching” (p.15). But the truth is, as von Allmen puts it, “we cannot ask the real existential questions until we have been brought face to face with the Word of God”. The idea of a lectionary had its roots in the Jewish synagogue service, but Christians waited until the fourth century to develop the Holy Week and Easter cycle, and later the Christmas-,Ephany cycle. The prominent characteristic in the development of the liturgical year was Christological. However, this produced a significant weakness, making it in fact a half-year (Advent to Pentecost). “Ordinary Time” is not marked by any special connection with events in the life of Christ. However, the solution proposed by Vatican II, to organize the whole year around a Gospel, “strikes (Skudlarek) as a solution of genius” (p.28).

The Roman Catholic lectionary became, as James White describes it, “Catholicism’s greatest gift to Protestant preaching, just as Protestant biblical scholarship has given so much impetus to Catholic preaching” (p.31). Chapter II begins with a very interesting (for this Protestant who had never been exposed to it before) history of the genesis of the Vatican II lectionary. Most of the negative criticisms directed at this lectionary involved the decisions to harmonize the Old Testament reading with the Gospel lesson, and to treat the Epistle as a “lectio semi-continua” without reference to the other two lessons. The Hebrew revelation, it is maintained by the critics, is reduced to a matter of little consequence apart from the fact of Jesus Christ. And the lack of unity between the second reading, on the one hand, and the first and third, on the other, “creates a real and insoluble problem when it comes to the homily”.

In chapter III – “The Pastoral Use of the Lectionary” – Skudlarek views the preacher as mediator, standing between congregation and scripture. The Bible provides an interpretation of the human situation, explains why we are the way we are, and what we can do about it – “or better, what God has done and is doing about it”. On rare occasions it may be necessary to choose scriptures other than those in the lectionary, for special occasions “but do not (repeat, do not) read the lessons from the lectionary and then ignore them completely in your preaching” (p.51). The problem of what to preach about next Sunday is partly solved if the lectionary is followed. “The preacher’s primary obligation is not to solve people’s problems or answer their questions, but to hear the scriptures as God’s living word…” Skudlarek then surveys some of the options in preparing the homily, including the possibility of a regular meeting with members of the congregation to prepare for and review the regular Sunday preaching.

Traditionally, for many Catholics, “the sermon was an interruption of the mass”. Likewise, for Protestants, “the sermon was central”, with “liturgy reduced to the level of introduction and wrap-up….preliminaries”. However, the sacrament cannot exist without preaching, “precisely because there is no sacrament without faith, and faith comes from what is heard”. But for Protestants, the urgent word is that worship, or liturgy, or sacrament, is something far more than the setting of the sermon. In fact liturgy is a form of proclamation, and preaching a form of worship. Preaching is “the interpretation of our concrete human situation by the word of God in such a way that people are led to turn to God in acts of praise and thanksgiving”(p.71). The Sunday eucharist ought to become normative for all Christians “not just as the reception of communion, or the offering of sacrifice, but as a covenant meal in which they are called to participate”.

There are three principal components in the eucharist: (1) The gathering of the people. When we come together, in spite of profound differences, we share a common conviction that Jesus is central to the meaning and goal of human existence. Greeting one another at the commencement of the service is important. There is a formal greeting. Perhaps the confession of sin and assurance of pardon should conclude rather than introduce the liturgy of the word. Normally a rite of gathering concludes with a collect and short prayer. Because the texts of the Bible originated as a spoken rather than an written word, the Bible should be read aloud, even in a literate society! One can speak just as much about the “real presence” of Christ in the reading of the scriptures in the same way as some Christian traditions speak of Christ’s real presence in holy communion. The psalm response following the Old Testament reading should be sung, the antiphon being taken by the congregation and the verses by a chanter or choir. The word “homily” is derived from the Greek “omou” (together) and “ile” (a crowd). In the New Testament it refers to a more conversational form of address than that employed by the classical Greek orator. It is dialogic in principle if not in method (write out the homily as if you were writing a letter to a friend). If the homily lasts 10-15minutes, the liturgy of the word and the liturgy of the eucharist can take about the same amount of time in a one hour service. (3) The third component: the renewal of the covenant. If intercessory prayers follow the word preached (providing a response to it),then preparation for the eucharist can begin. The great prayer of thanksgiving is the high point of the service (it can be improvised, or at least adapted). The rites surrounding the communion and dismissal follow.

A final chapter has some suggestions about preaching at baptisms, weddings and funerals. In the Roman Catholic Church there is a restoration of the rite for the Christian initiation of adults, with the emphasis especially to be found in the third, fourth and fifth Sundays of Lent. Preaching on such occasions can be “overheard” by the entire congregation and provide them with an opportunity to reflect on their own Christian calling. Conversations with the engaged couple can provide the germinal idea for a wedding homily. And weddings provide a good occasion for evangelization. It is customary for Roman Catholics (and, recently, some other churches) to include the celebration of the eucharist in the rite of Christian burial. The motive – praise and thanksgiving for victory over death. Increasingly, Roman Catholics have come to participate in communal celebrations of the sacrament of the sick (formerly known as extreme unction) and of the sacrament of reconciliation (also referred to as penance or confession).

The general emphases of this book – the centrality of preaching, the importance of a biblical orientation, the “balancing” of the sacraments of Word and Eucharist in worship, and the congregation gathering for these not as onlookers but as participants – makes one wonder what might have happened in the last four hundred years if Vatican II’s insights had been proposed at the Council of Trent!

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Sweazey, George E. Preaching the Good News, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1976.

This comprehensive volume was written by a most Princetonian Protestant, for Protestants! I couldn’t find one Catholic understanding anywhere, a sad omission in our ecumenical age. Any reference to Roman Catholicism is generally a 1950-ish condemnation of certain medieval church practices. And in most other respects it is a book untouched by the ecumenical insights of our time, although as a compendium of good pastoral sense it is, on the whole, quite excellent.

Sweazey is stronger in areas of practical wisdom than theological rationale. However, some of this wisdom (about group prayer, to give one example) is only marginally related to preaching.

He is one of the few writers about preaching who seems to be at home in the social sciences: the chapter on communication is an excellent summary of that field.

Linguistically, he is sensitive to a possible charge of sexism, but settles for the masculine terms for both sexes. Although he regards it as impossible to do otherwise, other authors have done so creatively (James B. White for example – with the exception of his use of the gauche “Godself”). There is one theological-cum-linguistic anomaly here, however, as in most theologians and writers: the use of “minister” for “pastor”, even where a “ministry of all believers” is affirmed (as, for example, on pages 272,308).

The distinction between an essay and a sermon (p.23) is an important one. Perhaps the two differ in content as well as purpose: an essay relying primarily on the person’s insights, a sermon on God’s (in Scripture).

Sweazey would find it difficult to plead innocent to the charge of being “all things to all shades of thinking”. He is what might generally be described as a “middle-of-the-road” Protestant in matters of biblical interpretation. In the relevant chapter (V),however, he neatly avoids coming down firmly anywhere!

The author’s lack of deep ecumenical insights is nowhere more apparent than in his treatment (non-treatment?) of the lectionary. He admits he’s not used one, and so is tongue-in-cheek when appraising its possibilities.

The chapter “What to Preach About”, particularly the section dealing with “Choosing the Sermon Subject” might have benefited from a discussion of the most obvious source of subject-material: systematic expository preaching of larger sections and books of the Bible. A discussion of this method is left until he writes about examples of sermon structure (p.86).

Twice there is a laboured distinction made between “topic” and “purpose”. The distinction seems a little pedantic – or else the sort of thing a homiletics tutor lectures about arid expects his students to regurgitate in an examination!

I remember hearing Dr. William Jones, the well-known black preacher from New York, saying, that the beginning of a sermon should be something like an aeroplane taking off: first a gentle, slow acceleration, then the roar of a take-off, before the more sustained portion of the flight. Sweazey makes a similar point (p.97) when he suggests that the majority opinion favours a “calm, deliberate, low-keyed” start.

Again, with regard to Introductions, I wonder about the assertion “Heading straight into the Bible is often the best way”. Surely a better motivational understanding (particularly with congregations whose biblical insights are mixed) would be to start with a life situation, then turn to the Bible as a repository of truth about remedies (See p.96).

Chapter XII “The Time for Sermon Preparation” is a masterly chapter, so obviously written by someone who’s “been there”. Probably, again, much of the “labour of thinking” in sermon-writing has to do with Sweazey’s non-espousal of expository preaching, or preaching from a lectionary, as the most desirable forms. Surely much of this sort of anxiety is removed if the passage is already determined: the preacher’s task is then a straightforward one, explaining the truth of God vis-a-vis the needs of the hearers.

I found the chapter on Controversial Preaching “very close to the bone”. The dangers of scolding, being unnecessarily controversial- or even confrontational – are very clearly described. Heat is so often the enemy of light! And yet it’s a pity he didn’t develop a little further the idea that conflict can be creative(p.222). If we preachers are not to be “the bland leading the bland” we will need a greater insight into the maturing effects of the prophetic word.

The emphasis throughout on the preacher’s spirituality is salutary. “In all prayer there is something wonderful and something missing”. “Christians at all levels of their maturity need help in praying”. How true!

More confusing were Sweazey’s two pages on Sabbath observance(pp. 274-276). Where is the authority (other than that of the Puritans) for the assertion “Sunday is ordained as a day of rest”? Granted, our Creator made His creatures to do more and better work in six days than in seven, and again, “if you have no rules you have no Sabbath”. We need here to avoid two confusions: that of equating the Jewish Sabbath with the Christian “Lord’s Day”(re-creation could more properly happen, especially for preachers, on Monday); and the implication that good habits necessarily need law to provide their greatest compulsion (rather than freedom emanating from love).

The bible Communion Sermon (p.292) is almost worth the price of the whole book!

The book concludes with an excellent Bibliography. Perhaps today Dr. John Claypool (who delivered the 1979 Lyman Beecher lectures at Yale) could be included in the lists of recommended preachers.

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White, James F. Introduction to Christian Worship, Nashville: Abingdon, 1980

Two of the most exciting features of this book are its recognition of the value of worship styles and ideas from many Christian sources- primarily Roman Catholic and Protestant; and its thesis that “much of Christianity today is in a “stage of recovery of early practices and concepts” (p.12). “His were times of happiness”(so says the tomb of Pope Martin V). “This is an apt description of the ecumenical situation in worship in our times”.

There are some serious defects: formal worship settings are treated most thoroughly, but only three or four passing references are made to more informal worship styles (small group worship, family worship, and particularly the burgeoning Pentecostal and charismatic movements). Worship in “third world” churches hardly rate a mention(except for the Church of South India), and yet these churches in Africa, South America and parts of Asia are among the fastest-growing in the world, whereas the “historic” denominations are, numerically, struggling to hold their own. With the all sophistication of our contemporary ecumenical insights, it would seem that there is a serious “communication gap” somewhere, if the drift of people is away to more “spontaneous” worship settings.

Perhaps more serious is the omission of the “numinous”. White treats the subject somewhat mechanically, rather than being awed by worship. Being “lost in wonder, love and praise” is surely what Christian worship is all about, but you’d never guess so from this book.

That said, there are some important thrusts: the concern for a theologically sound biblical base for all we do in worship; involvement of the whole Christian community in all aspects of corporate worship(and, concomitantly, an eschewing of “privatising” many sacramental occasions). “Word and eucharist belong together” is his recurring theme. And a challenging one – for Catholics and Protestants alike (but obviously for opposite reasons).

What is Worship? It is two things, primarily: “revelation and response”, “God giving Godself to us . . . and prompting our response to God’s gifts.” Worship is a recapitulation of what God has already done (von Allmen), “the epiphany of the Church”. For von All men worship has three key dimensions:

recapitulation, epiphany, and judgment. “Worship is the response of the creature to the Eternal”(Evelyn Underhill). Recent Roman Catholic understandings describe worship as “the glorification of God and the sanctification of humanity”. What Christ has done in the past is again given to the worshipper to experience (Case!). White’s own definition of worship has his own koinonia concern: “Worship is speaking and touching in God’s name”. White continues, in his first chapter, to describe the “esse” of worship by an examination of Christendom’s key words

associated with worship, and a cursory overview of some “outward and visible forms” of worship. He admits to saying very little about spontaneity in worship, “not because it is unimportant but simply because it is so exasperatingly difficult to chronicle since the evidence of it is so ephemeral”. And yet social psychologists have developed some sophisticated tools for examining such phenomena in recent times.

Christianity takes time seriously. History is where God is made known. The church week and the church year have always been important for Christian worshippers. Now for the first time in four hundred years an ecumenical calendar in basic outlines is being followed by Protestants and Roman Catholics around the world. White deplores our “de facto calendar” stressing human agency, whereas that of the early church cantered upon what God had done and continues to do through the Holy Spirit. The church year is both proclamation and thanksgiving, not a vehicle for promotional causes. (And Reformation Sunday – the last on October – ought to be dropped as an ecumenical gesture). “Never should Mothers’ Day take precedence over the Day of Pentecost” (p.69).

If the calendar is the foundation of Christian worship, the first floor is the lectionary. The ecumenical lectionary, begun after Vatican II, went into effect in 1970. In 1974 the Consultation on Church Union prepared an alternative version. The new lectionary has a three-year cycle (year C is divisible by the number 3, e.g. 1983). For each Sunday three lessons are appointed: first (usually O.T.), second (usually an Epistle) and Gospel. During the Easter season the first lesson is from Acts. The Gospels reflect the church year but such a Christological approach to the O.T., says White, sometimes presents the O.T. lessons in a foreign context. The second lessons are usually lectio continua. There are many advantages in preaching from the lectionary. Plans can be made(especially in music) months or even years in advance. Lists of Psalms have been chosen to relate to the lessons. Top quality aids to biblical study are being produced, based on the lectionary readings. Many preachers are being forced to preach on a wider selection of Scripture, and probe deeper into Christology. Visual objects (banners etc.) can be produced in advance.

Christians, whose fundamental doctrine is the incarnation, also take space seriously. “Architecture” is the organization of space. Buildings help define the meaning of worship. God-to-human relationships are represented by vertical phenomena, human-to-human by horizontal. We ought to be close enough to other worshippers to touch them. Christian worship requires five liturgical spaces: congregational, movement, baptismal, sanctuary, and choir; and three or four liturgical centers: a baptismal font or tank, pulpit, altar-table, and president’s chair. White then traces the history of church buildings through the centuries and lists contemporary constraints: economic necessity, new construction methods, flexible seating, intimacy, utility, simplicity. Acoustics are important: speakers want no echo, but an organist relishes a bit of reverberation. For singing, acoustics are now (hopefully) more geared to congregational singing, than listening. (Choirs are for much more than entertainment). Liturgical dance is becoming more common, says White. (He doesn’t mention that non-liturgical dance is burgeoning too, in Pentecostal settings). Visual arts are an important adjunct to worship-architecture. Today, with electronic media, “a wall can be anything we want to project on it”.

Christian worship relies heavily on two other forms of communication: the spoken word and the acted sign. The history of the liturgy of the hours, says White is a mixed one. The church has experienced continual difficulty in balancing it with Eucharistic worship. “In most of Western Christendom the average worshipper is forced to choose between sacramental or non sacramental public worship” (though the union of Word and sacrament may have occurred very early – our first evidence of it appears in Justin Martyr’s “First Apology”). For better or worse, the Reformers in the sixteenth century were shaped by the liturgical strata they inherited, “with its heavy dose of penitential elements and loss of Old Testament and intercessory prayer”. However the Reformers did make a contribution in three areas – preaching, congregational song, and vernacular rites. (White gives no space to the pre-Reformation movements (Hussites, Lollards etc), the Anabaptists get a passing mention, and the later Free Church tradition gets seven lines. Again, his bias is showing! Although Pentecostal worship (and, he might have added, the various Plymouth Brethren groups) insist on freedom from set forms, in any of these assemblies, over time, there develops a predictable pattern of worship). The main function of Scripture readings, according to White, is to give the church a sense of self-identity (p.137). Through the reading and exposition of Scripture the Christian recovers and appropriates for his or her life the experiences of Israel and the early church. (That’s one way of putting it. Perhaps the “vertical” dimension is more important than this linear approach: Scriptures convey a “word from the Lord” to His (hopefully) obedient people). Similarly, for White, prayer is basically “the articulating of deeply felt human needs” (p.139). But surely prayer is more: it is obedient listening and response.

White deplores the low ebb of the use of Psalmody today. “They are deeply and intimately personal a recapitulation of salvation history”. (Possibly the main reasons for their failing to appeal to contemporary worshippers lies in their martial – and “imprecatory”- characteristics. Our culture has become very sensitive about “Christian soldiering”).

Two important observations are made at the end of chapter IV: “Every major church in Christendom is rediscovering the importance of a richer diet of God’s Word in worship” (p.141), and “All other affirmations of faith (than the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, and maybe the Athanasian) are denominational or local and more or less divisive.”

Chapter V – “The Acted Sign” has an excellent discussion of the history of the sacraments. In the early church the number was indeterminate – there seemed to be considerable imprecision. But by the thirteenth century, “the sacraments had become a system”. Major Protestant groups followed Luther in reducing their number to two. However when the sacrament of penance was abolished, the eucharist became penitential, an impossible obligation on a sacrament whose essence is thanksgiving! Confirmation was changed into “a didactic experience” expressed as “a graduation exercise”. Protestants have also paid a heavy penalty for the loss of healing as a sacrament.

Today, however, biblical studies have greatly illuminated our understanding of the richness and complexity of the biblical witness to the sacraments. Ecumenism has helped bury many old controversies, on the basis of our better understanding of the common heritage of the New Testament and the early chinch. The number of sacraments, says White, is surely indeterminate: the number seven is just as arbitrary as two. Some form of the “ex opere operato” doctrine ought to be retained: only God “can make the sacraments happen”. The sacraments are “a third testament of God’s self-giving” (p.167). Through them God gives Godself to us as love made visible. “God uses the word of a preacher to make God’s word audible, so God uses the sacraments to make God’s love visible” (p.170).

White’s discussion of “Initiation and Reconciliation” is wanting for its omission of a kerygmatic and penitential approach. In his aversion to medieval excesses White has perhaps over-reacted in these areas, and his witness is not as biblical as it could otherwise have been. He underlines the value of the early church’s rites of initiation and reconciliation being public, involving the whole community. All in all, the Reformers saw more subtraction than addition in these rites, and recent years have seen a reversal of this retrenchment. There is a common move among Roman Catholics and Protestants, for example, towards a unity of initiatory rites. The most striking instance of this occurs in the new Roman Catholic” Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults”.

White identifies five New Testament metaphors of initiation: union with Jesus Christ, incorporation into the church, new birth, forgiveness of sin, and reception of the Holy Spirit. Confirmation, throughout the whole of church history, “has been a practice looking for a theology” (p.193). Unfortunately, by the time of the Reformation, baptism, confirmation, and first communion had become completely detached entities. Most of the recent debate about baptism, according to White, avoids more basic questions: “If a sacrament is a self-giving act of God, then surely infants or anyone else can receive its benefits” (p.197). Initiation, however, must cease to be “promiscuous”. This means that for unbelieving parents, the church has to say no. “Hippolytus’ three-year catechumenate was a bit rigorous, but those who had been through it were willing to die (and frequently did) for their faith” (p.199). Baptizing and teaching belong together. In fact, baptism, the laying on of hands, and first communion ought to come together. “Anything that implies a halfway or preparatory membership is a contradiction in terms” (p.201).

Nowhere else are the Jewish roots of Christian worship so important as in regard to the eucharist. Sacrificial imagery, sung psalms, synagogue blessings, family meals, the Passover “Seder” are all in one way or another incorporated into the New Testament understandings. Were there two types of eucharist in the N. T. – joyful, and sombre? What was the relationship between the agape feast and the eucharist in the early church? Varying answers to these -and many other – questions produced the so-called post-Nicene liturgical families. Brilioth defined five N.T. Eucharistic themes: Eucharist or thanksgiving, commemoration (“think-thank”), sacrifice, communion or fellowship, and mystery and presence. Ideas about sacrifice and presence were highly – developed by the late medieval period, and the Reformers’ reactions to “transubstantiation” and other Eucharistic ideas were mixed (cf. the contrasting views of Luther and Zwingli). Some recent Eucharistic trends have included a more common (towards weekly)

celebration in many Protestant communions, an acceptance of pluralism in the variety of Eucharistic prayers, the recent Roman Catholic concept of “trans-signification”, a greater element of thanksgiving in Western churches, a wide spread regaining of the kiss of peace, and a more accessible table.

The final chapter – “Passages” – discusses the relationship between the (whole) Christian community and the crisis points of life: marriage (for most), ordination (for some), serious sickness (for many), and death (for all). Some endorsements of recent trends include: Vatican It’s use of “covenant” rather than “contract” for marriages; the importance of the community in upholding married couples; “ordination is something done for the church and not just to individuals”; the suggestion of developing rites to commemorate entrance into non-ecclesiastical vocations; involvement of whole congregation in ordination and healing services; a greater theological consideration to be given to funerals (and, White would add, psychological, e.g. he considers it better, if possible, to have the body present at a funeral. “The reality of death is not denied by a religion with a crucifixion at its heart”); concepts of purgatory are very unlikely for Protestants (and probably for many Roman Catholics, today); the Christian funeral as worship and preaching, rather than a grief therapy session.

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Willimon, William H. & Wilson, Robert L. Preaching and Worship in the Small Church, Nashville: Abingdon, 1980.

These two writers are brave people. In an era which measures effectiveness by response and growth, and “big is (still) beautiful “they have attempted, not only to specify the advantages of small churches over large ones, but almost come to the point of eulogizing them.

A church is small for some reason. If the community is small, or diminishing in population, then some comfort may be gained from “holding one’s own”. But if mission is to be effective as well as “faithful”, then one would expect such effectiveness to be measured in some way – usually by people-response. And if people are responding to preaching, and the fellowship in the church is accepting, they will stay. If the “back door is open too far” the church won’t grow. It could be argued that right through history concerned evangelistic preachers have looked for such response, and have been disappointed – probably both for “spiritual” as well as psychological reasons – if it hasn’t been forthcoming. It is part of human nature to want to be useful rather than decorative! The major weakness of this book is its de-emphasis on mission, and its corollary, growth. “It’s O.K. not to grow” is dangerous, biologically and ecclesiastically! There is very little evidence of acquaintance with many of the sociological insights which have been learned in the last twenty years, about church-size. And there is very little, if any, incentive given to the small church to be other than small. There are some advantages to largeness – in fact when large congregations are broken down into small groups, fellowship can be richer than in small churches.

However, all that said, a spin-off from the church growth movement of the last fifteen years has been a host of discouraged pastors. If at least one-half of all North American congregations are small (i.e. with fewer than 200 members), then a book like this has merit if it encourages the best in such church fellowships.

Some of the “advantages” of larger churches cited (a larger income, more dates for teenagers) sound a little cynical (see p.21).And yet a low income, and a paucity of peers are certainly problems for a small church. So are the expectations of denominational headquarters (pressures mentioned several times throughout the book). The obvious strength of a smaller congregation – the sense of identity, community, “belonging”, “being needed” is stressed in almost every chapter, and some helpful suggestions are given to help promote such koinonia.

Chapter Four stresses the importance and centrality of the Service of Worship in the life of the small church. The key message: “This is something you can do well, without aping larger churches”. For example, a printed order of service in the bulletin may be a status symbol, but may not enhance worship. Again, this chapter has a cynical point to make here and there (“bombastic hundred-voice choirs” etc.). A good suggestion (being made more frequently these days): have the scripture reading closer to the sermon.

Another suggestion, again one that is being heard often today: never eliminate the sermon from the Eucharist. “The preached Word has an integral relationship to the fable (p.71). Further, “funeral Communions are not consistent with the gospel” (p.72). And “churches that eat together have a way of staying together”. Regarding baptism, the authors make the valid point that “early church writings about baptism as being ‘death’, the ‘waters of the womb’, and ‘a cleansing bath’, make no sense when the water of baptism is reduced to a mere sprinkle.” (p.82). Baptism should occur sometime after the sermon, but before the Lord’s Supper- underscoring baptism as a response to the Word and as an admission to the Table. And of course, baptism should never be a private rite.

The chapter on preaching is quite excellent, but again is marred by a deprecation of “crowds” (p.105). Whilst it may be encouraging to tell a small-church preacher not to measure his sermons by “the size nor the attributes of the audience”, there is a hidden danger here – one of complacency, and avoidance of such procedures as ensuring feedback. People will come – and come back again- if their felt needs are being met. (It’s interesting how often” preacher’s preachers” have relatively small congregations, whilst some of the most criticized preachers have very large ones!). Two other “jarring” notes: “showmanship and mass pep-rally approach on television” (p.107) and “preachers on television and immense city churches . . . will never be great servants of the Word because they lack the pastoral, day-to-day encounters with the total life of God’s people”(p.108). Again – a somewhat cynical approach. Having pastored one of the smallest, and later the largest Baptist churches in Australia, I can state

quite categorically that there was never a time when my pastoral load wasn’t over-full. Sometimes the larger variety of human needs encountered in a larger setting gives more, not less, exposure to a wide spectrum of pastoral concerns.

Another statement one would want to question is found on p.108:”Outside the gathered family, the Word doesn’t make much sense”. The point being made is that the preached Word is not an abstract thing, but is enlivened and given concreteness in the family’s meetings. True enough, but in some missionary situations the Word has a powerful effect where there is not yet a church

family.

Again, on page 118, the authors talk about “a large, detached congregation”. It is a fact that some large congregations are not detached. One of the warmest church services I have attended saw fifteen thousand present!

The final chapter re-affirms that there are some things a small church can do well, provided they don’t attempt to carry out the full program of a larger congregation. Small churches can do the main things well i.e. worship and preaching. The final word (p.123): “If you measure the success of your ministry by the size of the crowd, the prestige of the church you serve, or the praise of the denominational authorities, you are in deep trouble in the small church”….” The final validation of your ministry come from the faithful service and celebration of the Word….”

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Rowland Croucher