First Sermon for an Academic Grade

 Let me do a deeper dive into my sermon and the Foundations for Preaching class where we gave our sermons.  For some of us, it was the first time giving a sermon, and for one exchange student, the first time giving a sermon in English.  I have given many sermons, but never for an academic grade.

When I've given sermons to my church, I've spent the same kind of time thinking about the upcoming sermon, but I've never written them out.  At most, I've come to Sunday with an outline.  It's partly out of laziness/lack of time, but also to give space for the Holy Spirit to move.

We did not talk about improv or giving space for the Holy Spirit to move in our Foundations for Preaching class.  We talked about how to do the exegetical work so that the sermon will have focus and meaning and not just a collection of loosely related points, or worse, points that aren't related.

The class before we gave our sermons, we had to do a presentation of what we planned to do.  I always say that I've been teaching for decades, so I rarely experience nervousness or outright stage fright.  I listened to other people's presentations and realized they were much further along with their sermons, so I tried to say some extemporaneous talking about what I planned to do.  I felt more nervous than I expected to feel.

We had to turn in our sermon manuscripts after the delivery of the sermon, and it had to be a manuscript, not an outline.  So I might have typed out my sermon anyway, but after my experience in the class before the sermon delivery, I was sure that I needed to type out the sermon.

I was glad that I got to give my sermon in the first round, while I was still feeling calm.  I was also glad that the teacher set up the structure of the class.  We heard 4 sermons, and at the end, the teacher called out each person's name individually, and we had a minute or two to give that one person positive feedback.  After we gave feedback to each one of the four people, we had another group of four, and then another round of positive feedback.

I liked that approach because it gave us a compelling reason to pay attention to each sermon.  I liked the focus on the positive knowing that we'll get more rounded feedback from the instructor.

What I liked most was the 5-7 minute format.  Most sermons are just too long.  I like a short sermon for the same reason that I like a shorter poem.  We have to focus on the most important part of what we want to say.  We need to distill the poem/sermon down to its essence.

In an ideal world, all the exegetical work makes that essence so much richer.  The risk with doing the work is the same risk that comes with doing a research paper or writing a historical novel:  we can't possibly include all the interesting nuggets we've found.

Our teacher finished the class by congratulating all of us on giving stronger sermons than she was expecting.  It's an interesting compliment, but I'll take it.  She also reminded us that attention spans are getting shorter, and so it's essential that we figure out how to say more in a shorter. time.

In an up and down week in terms of instructor response to my work, I'm phenomenally glad to have had this experience.