Introduction

At the same time, I confess to being - for reasons which will emerge in the following chapters - an impenitent believer in the indispensable necessity of preaching both for evangelism and for the healthy growth of the Church. The contemporary situation makes preaching more difficult; it does not make it any less necessary.

A countless number of books have been written on preaching. I myself have read nearly a hundred books on homiletics, communication and related themes. How then can yet another be justified? If anything is distinctive about Between Two Worlds, I think it is that I have tried to bring together several complementary aspects of the topic, which have often been kept apart. Thus, in the opening historical survey I hope readers will feel, as I do, that there is a certain ‘glory’ in the preaching ministry, which prepares us to face with integrity in the second chapter the problems which beset it today. Although in Chapters Five and Six I seek to give practical advice both on study and on sermon preparation, I say little about such matters as delivery, elocution and gesture. This is partly because these matters are best learned by being ‘apprenticed’ to an experienced preacher, by trial and error, and by friendly critics. It is more because I want to put first things first, and because I believe that by far the most important secrets of preaching are not technical but theological and personal. Hence Chapter Three on ‘Theological Foundations for Preaching’ and Chapters Seven and Eight on such personal characteristics of the preacher as sincerity, earnestness, courage and humility. Another particular emphasis I have made, born of growing experience and conviction, is on ‘Preaching as Bridge-building’ (Chapter Four). A true sermon bridges the gulf between the biblical and the modern worlds, and must be equally earthed in both.

All preachers are aware of the painful tension between ideals and reality. Some readers will feel not only that I have included a plethora of quotations, but that too many of these come from authors who belong to a bygone age remote from our situation. As for quotations in general, I have simply wanted to share with others the fruits of my reading. Although I have also written with freedom and frankness out of my own experience, it would have been arrogant to confine myself to this. Preaching has an unbroken tradition in the Church of nearly twenty centuries. We have very much to learn from the great preachers of the past whose ministry God has so signally blessed. The fact that our reality differs from theirs seems to me no reason why we should not share their ideals.

Other readers will find me too idealistic in a different sense, namely that I do not take sufficient account of the problems under which many clergy labour today. They are overworked and underpaid. They are exposed to unrelenting intellectual, social, moral and spiritual pressures, of which our forefathers knew nothing. Their morale is low. Many suffer from loneliness, discouragement and depression. Some have several village congregations to care for (I think of a presbyter of the Church of South India who has thirty, with only a bicycle on which to visit them). Others are struggling in a decayed and neglected inner city area, with a handful of members and as yet no leaders. Do I not set impossibly high standards of study and preparation, which may be appropriate for a long-established urban or suburban church but not for a pioneer, church-planting situation ? Yes, it is true both that my own experience has been largely limited to All Souls Church in London and to similar churches elsewhere, and that I have had such churches mostly in mind while writing. Nevertheless, I have done my best to remember other situations.

The ideals I have unfolded I believe to be universally true, although of course they need to be adapted to each particular reality. Whether the preacher is addressing a large congregation in a modern town church, or occupies an ancient pulpit in an ancient European village church, or is huddled with a tiny remnant in the draughty corner of a dilapidated old edifice which has long since outgrown its usefulness, or is talking to a crowd of peasants in a hut in Latin America or under some trees in Africa, or is sitting informally in a western home with a small group gathered round him - yet, with all these diversities, very much remains the same. We have the same Word of God, and the same human beings, and the same fallible preacher called by the same living God to study both the Word and the world in order to relate the one to the other with honesty, conviction, courage and meekness.

The privilege of preaching is given to an increasing number of different people today. Although I have written with full-time stipendiary pastors mainly in view, I believe strongly in the rightness and helpfulness of a team ministry, and I have remembered both the auxiliary pastors and the lay preachers who may belong to it. Also, although I address myself to preachers, I have not forgotten their listeners. In nearly every church closer and more cordial relations between pastors and people, preachers and listeners, would be beneficial. There is need for more cooperation between them in the preparing of sermons, and more candour in evaluating them. The average congregation can have a far greater influence than it realizes on the standard of preaching it receives, by asking for more biblical and contemporary sermons, by setting their pastors free from administration so that they may have more time to study and prepare, and by their expressions of appreciation and encouragement when their pastors take their preaching responsibility seriously.

Finally, I want to thank some of the many people who have helped in the writing of this book. I begin with the Rev. E. J. H. Nash, who showed me the way to Christ when I was almost seventeen, nurtured me and prayed for me with astonishing faithfulness, developed my appetite for the Word of God, and gave me my first taste of the joys of expounding it.

Next, I thank the long-suffering congregation of All Souls Church, who have been the anvil on which I have forged whatever preaching skills I have, and the church family who have surrounded me with their love, encouragement and prayers. With them I thank Michael Baughen, who came to All Souls as Vicar in 1970 and succeeded me as Rector in 1975, and who has given me the privilege of being a member of his pastoral team and of continuing to preach.

I express my special gratitude to Frances Whitehead who this month has completed twenty-five years as my secretary, whose industry and efficiency are proverbial, and who has laboriously deciphered the scribble into which my handwriting degenerates when the heavenly muse descends upon me. She has now typed - or shared in the typing of - about twenty books.

I thank Ted Schroder, who was born in New Zealand and now ministers in the United States, and who during his four-year curacy at All Souls kept challenging me to relate the gospel to the modern world. I also thank innumerable pastors at conferences, seminars and workshops on preaching in all six continents; and the students of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Gordon-Conwell seminary, Fuller Theological Seminary and the Theological Students’ Fellowship, who have listened to me lecturing on this topic. These pastors and students have stimulated me by their questions.

I am grateful to Roy McCloughry, Tom Cooper and Mark Labberton, who one after the other have helped me as part-time study assistants, especially to Mark who in addition read the manuscript of this book three times and made helpful suggestions, not least from the perspective of seminarians. I thank my friends Dick and Rosemary Bird who for many years have accompanied me to my Welsh cottage, the Hookses, and unselfishly created the conditions in which I could write in peace and without distraction. I also thank numerous people who have answered questions put to them in writing, especially Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, Professor James Stewart, Malcolm Muggeridge, Iain Murray, Leith Samuel, Oliver Barclay, Bishop John Reid and Bishop Timothy Dudley-Smith.

Special thanks are due to Os Guinness, Andrew Kirk, Michael Baughen and Rob Warner for making time to read the MS and to send me their comments. Michael Green also read it, in spite of an attack of bronchitis, and to him I am additionally indebted for the generous terms in which he has written his Preface.