Chapter 4-Novel Preaching
Voice,” says author Steven Schwartz, “means knowing why you wrote a story.”It’s worth repeating, too, that voice is a product of that to which we are attentive
My note: I wrote about Phillips Brooks because I was curious what my ancestor’s voice had to say. Obviously I didn’t use my voice.
Your voice as a preacher comes from that to which you are attentive— what you consider, in the interaction between inscape, landscape, and textscape, to be essential.If we are bored, if we fear that our sermons are boring, maybe we should try lifting our eyes from our trudging feet and tuning in with all five senses to what interests us in life.
The essence of boredom is noninvolvement. If my sermon is boring, it may be because I am not offering listeners opportunities to participate in it: I am telling them about truth, emotions, character transformations, and ideas, rather than inviting them into a plot that involves them in conflict and change, that engages all five of their senses, and that gives them something to figure out along the way.