Issue 11 Preaching and PrayerBlog | Preaching and imagination
Preaching and imagination
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 19.06.17
Imagination is a key part of human wellbeing and is essential for creativity, innovation and personal growth. Capacity for creative imagination is often all that differentiates success from failure. This is especially true of preaching. The preacher who captures and fires the imagination of her hearers is one whose message will not only be heard but also remembered, and perhaps even acted upon.
It is for this reason that we see Jesus engaging in teaching and action which fires the imagination. The word imagination is not unrelated to the word image, indeed the imagination is often engaged with mental images. Jesus’s use of parables, for example, creates verbal visual images. The kingdom of God is like a pearl of great price, like treasure in a field, like a mustard seed; it is like a lost coin, a lost son; it is like a sower going out to sow. Jesus issues the challenge to discipleship in verbal imagery: take up your cross, and follow me. Foxes have holes, birds have nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Consider the lilies of the field…
That Jesus’ teaching and preaching is infused with creative imagination needs no further argument. However, how might contemporary preachers fire the imaginations of their hearers?
