More on the previous topic

Robert commented on the previous post:-

It would be interesting to ask around about this one (I'm not sure how I'd phrase it - I wouldn't have the nerve to go asking 'Why didn't you preach on the Bible?'), but I can see a potential problem. The traditional paths for a preacher are well trodden; if you've spent a couple of decades listening to sermons, you've probably got an outline in your head for many of the well-known passages, at least.
But what if you're not comfortable with the traditional reading of the passage? Either you dream up an original exegesis - not always easy - or you talk about something else.

21 June 2011 00:14

I agree it would be interesting to pose the question and that of course it would need to be done carefully but I think there is more to this topic than just asking the questions.

I think that Robert makes a good point about the well known passages and there is a degree here of familiarity breeding contempt. I suspect  that some of the problem is the almost slavish use in some places of the lectionary in one form or another. I am not sure the use of the lectionary is the good thing some people would have us believe, especially as it only covers a small amount of the Bible in total.

I would like most people expect preachers to speak on certain topics on certain Sundays – Easter on Easter Sunday, Pentecost on Pentecost Sunday, Trinity on Trinity Sunday and so on but I do think we could be a little more imaginative and less bound by the lectionary during the rest of the year. At one church we attended I did a series on the first line of a hymn taking one word each week and expounding on that word (The line was ‘Come,let us all unite and Sing’).

One of the things I do occasionally is try to look at a passage rom a totally different perspective and an example of this is that on Palm Sunday I looked at the events from the perspective of the donkey. During the weeks following Easter Sunday I took the theme ‘That was the week that was’ and looked at the week from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday through the eyes of the characters involved – I examined how it must have felt for them and the roller coaster of emotions that they went through.

I received some very  positive comments on these services and people said they had never thought about the stories very much outside the traditional approach. At Christmas I may look at the story and again take a view from the stable – how did the animals feel, what might they have thought about it all? Perhaps we could take it from the shepherds viewpoint – imagine how they must have felt – how impressed they had been to go off and leave their sheep, after all it was not something they would do and yet we often write them off to some extent.

I believe it is possible to take a different approach and still get the gospel message across and the grounding and knowledge of exegesis can be helpful in ensuring that we stay of track.

More on Exegesis.

Thanks to Methodist Preacher for the following comment:

I am interested in your reference to the failures around exegesis. I keep hearing older Methodists complain that many of today's preachers just don't focus on scripture as the basis of their message. Is this because there is a failure to comprehend and respect the Bible as a key source for the understanding of our faith?

I am not sure that I can give a comprehensive answer to this but there are some observations that I can make based on four years of assessing and some of the comments that colleagues made on Saturday.

I think it is important to set the context of exegesis for those who may not know how students are expected to tackle the job. Essentially the task is divided into three parts with a total of 30 marks being awarded as follows.

1. Context and background = 8 marks

2. Original meaning = 10

3. Meaning for today = 12 marks

As with all other sections there is a requirement to achieve 40% to pass and it could be argued that a student who did really well on the first two and not well on the last part could still achieve the pass rate.

The guidelines in Faith and Worship and in the tutor’s handbook suggest that exegesis should be set out using the above plan and I think headed up but occasionally what could be called an essay could be submitted with no obvious divisions and it then becomes difficult to see where one part finishes and another starts, especially as the context and background stuff will spill into the original meaning.

The context and background is without doubt the easiest section as any decent commentary or even many Bibles will give a fair amount of information to complete this – i.e. who wrote it, when it was written, main themes etc. I have observed that occasionally there will be some disparity between students where the authorship is not entirely sure and one may take a particular stance while another will take the opposite view – in reality the students would do better to say that there are two views (or more) about the authorship of the book and maybe put forward which they feel more comfortable. 

The original meaning section often causes some difficulties because as we all realise things were very different to now and it does require a little thought to weigh up what the passage meant to the people involved in the situation. Again use of a number of sources such as commentaries or the internet can be useful in provoking thoughts and giving ideas of what scholars and theologians believe to be the case. Again I don’t think there is anything wrong with students putting forward a different thought or siding with one train of thought but I do think recognition of other trains lets assessors know that the thing has been given some consideration.

The meaning for today section is in my experience often and area where students seem to struggle but again commentaries and the like may be a good starting point as well as the internet and students may have some ideas of their own which they may wish to put forward. I think it should go without saying that the meaning for today should not be in any way contrary to our doctrinal view point. We heard of a student who had said that the flooding in a particular area was punishment because they had sinned – not what we believe I think!

It is acceptable to put forward their own ideas but obviously they need to expand on the how and why of  their thinking in an endeavour to convince the assessor of the validity of the train of thought.

 

I am not sure how it works on other panels but the chair of the panel I belong to sends us a marking guide and I will always be looking to match points in students exegesis to that. We are also encouraged to acknowledge original thinking where the  case is put effectively.

 

I have had some exegesis that I have failed and in all cases I will write quite comprehensive notes to assist the student in getting it right for re-submission. I did have one student who I failed and wrote two pages of notes to assist them and when they re-submitted there was almost no improvement and it looked as if they had either not read the notes or had chosen to ignore them.

 

Another student had not written anything for the meaning for today and I really do fail to say how anyone can expect to pass if they miss out a third of the task and the area that attracts the biggest number of marks. It might be worth saying that anything that I fail has to be cross marked by the chair of the panel to ensure I am applying the marking criteria correctly.

In respect of preachers of today not focussing on scripture there may be some difficulty here because as a whole we do not connect with the Bible in the way I did in my younger days and if the only time our folk read or hear the Bible read is on Sundays in church there will be limitations because the lectionary does not cover whole areas of the Bible.

The exegesis process is in my opinion a vital tool in sermon preparation and should be considered as such rather than just a task to be completed – good exegesis = good sermons and to some extent like many things the old maxim of practice makes perfect comes to mind.

 

I am not sure if I have rambled a bit here but I do feel Local Preachers in training and those who are fully accredited would benefit from being competent at doing exegesis – perhaps those who know a connexional assessor for a particular section might like to try doing one of the exegeses for that section and asking the assessor to have a look at it – we could be very surprised at the outcome.

Off to HQ

Tomorrow I am off to London to Church House for a connexional assessors meeting which I think should be quite interesting. I have often wondered what other assessors are like and this will give me an opportunity to meet some of them.
We have been sent some suggestions of things we might cover during the day and I think I may return with a headache as some of them look a little on the heavy side.
May say more after the trip so watch this space.

It's over!

As the late great Roy Orbison said it is indeed over for another six months - all the work is marked, the feedback sheets have gone back to church house and all but two of the students will be very pleased in the next couple of weeks.

I really do not like having to fail anyone as I am still near enough to to the Faith and Worship Course (having only finished in 1990) to appreciate how much hard work goes into the assignments and the study.

It seems to me both from marking and from what I read on the Facebook group for local preachers in training that the biggest difficulty for most students are the exegesis passages. On each occasion I have had to fail anyone it has been on their exegesis passage, and while I realise they are not the easiest thing to complete there is plenty of help available in the tutors handbook on the way to complete them successfully.

I suppose the really important thing is that the exegesis process is a really useful tool for preachers and some of the work I have seen in the exegesis that have been submitted would certainly form the basis of very good sermons.

I am greatly encouraged by the work that I have seen and believe it bodes well for the future of Local Preaching.

Marking nearly over

I have almost completed my marking so will hopefully be back to some sort of normal service very soon. I can say without giving anything away that all of the ones I have marked have passed so well done to all ten of them. I look forward to reading that they have been fully accredited.

Still at still waiting!

The wonders of the Royal Mail never cease to surprise me. My parcel of marking was posted in London on Friday and has still not arrived - it is recorded delivery too so you would have thought it should be here within two working days as per the Royal mail website. When I checked it on their track and trace facility having been given the parcel number by the Local Preachers Office it said this...'Item...' is being
progressed through our network for delivery'.Whatever that is supposed to mean!
Hopefully it will arrive today.
Good news on the book front as it is now ready to go except for a comment on the back cover and my son has said he will write this as I will be far too modest and not 'sell' the book to the reader. I wait with baited breath!!

Whatever happened to preaching?

I was greatly interested in two letters in this weeks Methodist Recorder discussing the lack of preaching and a range of thoughts about this topic. I have to say I found myself saying Amen a lot as I read them.
There were some extremely valid points raised and one or two of my own thoughts on this matter were echoed in these letters. What good is a sermon if no one can hear it? Why do we not instruct/teach our trainee local preachers about things like voice projection and the need for the person who can't hear but always sits on the very back row to be able to hear. Why do we not ask people to indicate if they can't hear us - a friend of mine always used to say if you can't hear me put your hand to your ear and I will see this, I never heard anyone complain they couldn't hear him. In part I think there is too much reliance on public address systems in our church. It was quite funny recently when at the end of a farewell service for one of our ministers where there was lots of noise over the cup of tea someone came to me and said could I shout and ask for a car to be moved as I was the person with the loudest voice (not sure if this was a compliment)(it turned out to be the ministers car.
There were also comments made about the use of the lectionary and the almost zealous application of this in some places - I do use it but not all the time because some weeks the combinations of readings leave me feeling like Ezekiel in the valley of the dry bones. There is I believe a place for the lectionary and it can be extremely helpful but again it should be a tool for use by preachers that can be picked up or put down.
One of the writers felt the use of numerous people in a service was not always helpful and that if they go to a concert they do not expect members of the audience to get up part way through and go and play an instrument with the band - I can see the point here and do think we need to use other people in a balanced way.
There was concern expressed about the use of aids in services and again I think these need to be used in a balanced way and perhaps only with some of our congregations. There are some churches in our circuit where I would no more use a power point presentation than fly a kite and there are others where I would do all sorts of things - in fact on Sunday Evening gone we sat and made prayer beads in the service and this was very well received but it was balanced out by a fairly traditional hymn sandwich with the a short talk about how difficult prayer can be to lead into the making of the beads( see the Methodist Church website and search for the Venerable bead if you might like to try it).
I think it is important that we know our congregations and one of the things I have been doing with the on note local preacher I am working with is telling them the things about the different churches that are not on the circuit plan - the likes and dislikes of churches, the differences in the way the offering is received and what the congregations do at that point in the service (sit or stand) and about the various providers of music from a full organ to a CD player and a number of things in between.
There is probably much more I could write but this will have to do for now as I do have a day job and time to get ready is fast approaching.

I'm Back!!!

Perhaps you hadn't noticed but I haven't posted for a few days well almost two weeks I think, but I haven't! I am now back and would have to say although I haven't been posting I have been keeping a watch on what has been going on with those blogs I read regularly and I have made the odd comment here and there - although after commenting on Connexions about the Methodist Church Website I was then not able to comment any further so not sure if someone had got to me! (only joking - I'm not really paranoid)

Anyway I was interested to read that Pam BG was encouraging us to be a bit more positive so here is a little something I want to share with readers that I think is encouraging.

I have spent the last few doing all the normal things that many of us do with home, family, work and church (not noted in order of importance by the way) and as well as all the normal stuff it has been both my pleasure and privilege to be assessing Local Preachers study material.

I am really encouraged by what I have seen again in this round of connexional assessment with some really good work, some very good sermons and excellent prayers that I would feel very comfortable using myself. I have as is normally the case found some thought provoking and interesting stuff among the submissions and there were some very good Mediations written by our Local Preachers in Training (on trial for the initiated).

I sensed there was a great deal of potential among the students whose work I have assessed and believe this augurs well for the future of Local Preaching in those circuits represented by the work I have seen.

I would just say to any On Trial Local Preachers to keep up the good work and I look forward to reading in the Methodist Recorder that all those I have assessed this last week or so have been accepted as fully accredited Local Preachers

Local Preachers Continuing Development

Following on from my previous post, more from the district meeting I attended the other evening.
During the course of the meeting we were talking about Positive Promotion of Ministry (PPM)and that marvellous topic that makes many preachers eyes glaze over came up - those readers who know about these things will know immediately (and may have glazed over) that I am referring to CLPD (Continuing Local Preacher Development). It did seem that five of the people present who were either ministers or local preachers were broadly of the same opinion that this was an area where very little happened. One of the local preachers present said that he felt that for many of our longer serving local preachers they felt there was no need for this type of thing and that they were doing things well. I am fairly certain that if we were to do a straw poll in any circuit the result might be different to what any of us believe.Perhaps the name itself is part of the problem.
I said that I firmly believe that every one of our local preachers should be assessed once a year in the same way that our preachers in training are assessed and given that ADR (Annual Development Review) may well become the norm for ministers there may be a bigger case for introducing this type of process.
We had during the meeting discussed back to church Sunday which is in September and one of the people said perhaps we should have regular back to church Sunday's but only on 'special' Sunday's when there was a good chance that anyone coming for the first time might be in with a reasonable chance of attending a good service.
We also discussed briefly the 'retirement' of local preachers and this is another area where I suspect we find it quite difficult to suggest to a preacher it might be time they 'retired' and it may be an annual assessment could make that process a little easier. From a personal point of view I have someone who will tell me very clearly to stop if she thinks I have lost it.
I have to say I liked the idea that was floated a few years ago of having a 'Preacher Emeritus' status for those preachers who were no longer able to take services and had effectively retired but unfortunately it did not prove to be a popular idea with preachers themselves.
There was some mention of how preachers meetings have changed over the years and some talk of how you would often get two well respected preachers who would often be almost up to fighting in the preachers meeting where they disagreed on a point or on the development of a fellow preacher in training. Perhaps we were more passionate in the past or perhaps this is a reflection of how society in general often is - no commitment or passion for anything.
Maybe readers have some thoughts or opinions or then again maybe not!!

Long service awards

We have a double celebration in Walsall this Sunday Evening (27th) when we will be recognising the long service of two of our Local Preachers. The service will take place at the Central Hall at 6-30p.m. and we will celebrate 60 years on plan of Fran Harper and 50 years of Gilbert Rowley. The service will also have items by the Shelfield Male Voice Choir and will be followed by tea and coffee. If you are doing nothing Sunday evening please feel free to come and join us.