This book looked at the issues of topical preaching. Topical preaching is a little out of fashion in evangelical circles as generally, they seek to systematically preach through a book of the Bible and touch on the topics in their context as they arise. This does help the preacher not keep going back to their same hobby horses. However, this book argues that while your standard expositional sermon has its predominant place, there is also a place for topical preaching.
What I also appreciated in this book was its engagement with some preaching assumptions and ideas that some groups camp out on such as. It deals with the cultural blinders some have when they say expositional preaching is the only true and faithful way of preaching. It addresses the hot button issue of whether all Christian sermons should mention Jesus' death and resurrection (the Gospel) or if it can be a faithful Christian talk if it draws broadly from general Chrisitan wisdom. Do you even need a set Bible passage for a sermon or can you draw wisdom from the Bible from selected verses? (The other question could be, how many verses do you need for it to be expositional? - too many and you can't cover everything, too little and are you getting context?).
Generally, Sam Chan's chapters were quite helpful "how-tos" while Malcolm Gill was more pastoral and focused on the audience receiving the message. Both had a good grasp on our culture and how to deliver a message.
Some of Chan's stuff was repeated from his Evangelism in a Skeptical World. When approaching a topic it is good to not just understand the topic, but also how that intersects with your audience and the culture. You need to find out where is there resonance and dissonance between the culture and the Christian worldview and then how does the Gospel better fulfil the topic or deals with the cultural dissonance the topic brings up?
In doing this you have to research the topic and find what is good and beautiful about it and find how this topic may connect with the audience. You then need to show how this topic doesn't work or is sustainable or fulfilling and then answer this problem with Jesus and how He solves this tension. There is this "yes, but, but" flow. You want the audience to be hooked in and agree (yes), and then you raise an issue or problem from this topic that isn't great (but) and then you show how Jesus solves this (but).
This may sound abstract, but throughout the book there were many tangible examples of how to do this with concert topics. There was a useful appendix where Sam gives kinda an outline, kind of his reasoning for a few of his topic sermons, especially around Easter and Christmas. There were even examples of how some issues/problems you raise on a topic are actually a good thing for some people/cultures to embrace, so knowing who you are speaking to is essential. Are they seeking freedom by individual expression or freedom by conforming to cultural norms? Are they studying hard and overachieving putting lots of pressure on themselves to be good or dropping out and seeking experience and highs with no direction in life?
I also enjoyed the section where Sam remembers working for a theological college under the principal who insisted that every passage had a big idea, and then they would get annoyed when the students came up with a different idea to him. This goes to show that we shouldn't be so dogmatic in our own method on "how things should be done". Culture, even within the church, affected the speaker, along with how you choose to break up a passage and what type of preaching series it is in.
There were also lots of little tips, like speaking into cameras, use of humour, watching TED talks and the tension between writing out a full script or just speaking from notes. Malcolm writes the whole thing out to help him know how long the talk will go for and it helps in tightening the talk down and looking at the logical flow.
This book would be a useful read, especially for those who do want to preach more topically, which really could be seen as more evangelistically. I did like the conclusion of the book, which talked about how you can use basic cooking ingredients and get pancakes or a sponge cake, it kinda depends on the different proportions and methods used. A standard sermon generally moves from the passage to its cultural relevancy. With a topical sermon, it generally moves from the cultural relevant issue to what the Bible says. This was pretty basic, but by the end of the book, it made a lot of sense and seems like an achievable and profitable task.
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