The Decadence of Preaching : An Indictment, And a Remedy
The Decadence of Preaching : An Indictment, And a Remedy
Harold Ford
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* TF,' says Canon Henson, * it be the case ^ — and no doubt it is the case but too often — that sermons merit the scorn which they provoke, then I submit that the reason lies in that low conception of ministerial duty which makes preaching a trivial and despised thing.' Now, if we analyze the sermons of those who obviously possess the power to attract the multitude, the secret of that magnetic [«] To Arrest the Decadence of Preaching 23 influence will be found to lie not altogether in the perso...nality of the preacher — though this, doubtless, is the dominant factor in successful preaching — but largely in the character of the sermon. And the charac- ter of the sermon, as of its ultimate moral and spiritual value, is mainly dependent upon the preacher's conception of the true purpose of preaching. * The purpose of preaching/ as the late Bishop Phillips Brooks so justly observes, * must always be the first condition that decrees its character.' In the conception and preparation, there- fore, of every sermon carry in your mind the solemn conviction that it is a message from God of which yoUy and not your lips, are the herald — * you, your own very self, your spirit akin to the Spirit, your heart akin to your people, your mind possessed with the mind of Christ, and your lips touched, not with the golden harps of 24 The Decadence of Preaching heaven, but with a coal of absorbing fire' from its altar.'* Be possessed of the idea, that what you preach be not a collection of dull platitudes, conventional phrases, or ill-considered, bor- rowed thoughts, but a message direct from Heaven — the * truth as it is in Jesus,' which, passing through the alembic of your own personal religious experience and knowledge, is at once felt by your hearers to be a message pregnant with the living fire of the Holy Spirit.
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