The Theology of Sermon Design...Continued from page 3

Dennis M. Cahill

 

THE IMPLICATIONS OF THEOLOGY FOR SERMON FORM

What, then, are the implications of theology for the design of Sunday’s sermon? What conclusions do we come to? Though the results are at times obscure, some broad issues emerge.

The concern for form is unavoidable. Sermons must be designed, and preachers must ask questions about the forms their sermons take. Although the content of the sermon must be given priority, the preacher will not be unconcerned with structure. It will not do to say, “This is the form I learned in seminary.” The preacher must ask, “Which form most faithfully communicates the theology of this text?”

Second, form is not theologically neutral. The message is not just what is said but also how it is said. An essential interrelationship exists between content and structure, message and medium. Sermon form is a theological issue.

Some forms may be judged inappropri­ate on theological grounds. Sermon forms that are overly ambiguous and open? ended may not be compatible with the belief that God has spoken to us with clarity And a consistent diet of purely discursive sermons may not do justice to the intent of the Scripture.  

 

 

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Dennis M. Cahill is Senior Pastor of Christ Community Church in Piscatawy, N.J.|

From The Shape of Preaching by Dennis M. Cahill. Copyright © 2007 by Dennis M. Cahill. Baker Books.

 

 

^Foornotes:
1Long, “Form,” 144.

 

 

²Karl Barth, Homiletics, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley and Donald E. Daniels (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1991), 121.

 

 

³Long, “Form,” 145.

 

 

⁴Richard Lischer, “Preaching as the Church’s Language” in Listening to the Word, ed. Gail R. O’Day and Thomas G. Long (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), 122.

 

 

⁵Long, “Form” 145.

 

 

⁶Ibid.

 

 

⁷Davis, Design for Preaching, 3.

 

 

⁸Thomas G. Long, interview by author, August 6, 1996, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey.

 

 

⁹Lischer, “Preaching as the Church’s Language,”128.

 

 

¹⁰Craddock, As One without Authority, 3.

 

 

¹¹Lischer, “Preaching and the Rhetoric of Promise,” 69.

 

 

¹²McClure, “Theories of Language,” 292.

 

 

¹³Ibid., 293.

 

 

¹⁴Ibid.

 

 

¹⁵Ibid., 294.

 

 

¹⁶Buttrick, Homiletic, 184.

 

 

¹⁷Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching, 136.

 

 

¹⁸George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), 16.

 

 

¹⁹Ibid.

 

 

²⁰David James Randolph, The Renewal of Preaching (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969), 1 (emphasis added).

 

 

²¹Long, The Witness of Preaching, 84.

 

 

²²Robinson, Biblical Preaching, 107.