Issue 16 Preaching and Mental HealthBlog | What’s the point of preaching?
What’s the point of preaching?
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 26.09.18
Do we still need preaching? Isn’t preaching a relic of a bygone age? Surely, gone are the days of Billy Graham rallies when thousands flocked to hear the great man preach in places like Wembley Stadium. Gone are the days of the great British preachers such as CH Spurgeon of the nineteenth century or George Whitfield and John Wesley of the eighteenth century. Surely preaching has had its day.
We can see this sentiment in some churches. The sermon is rebadged ‘the talk’ or is relegated to a secondary position after great music and cool smoke machines and stage lighting. I’m convinced that excellent music can enhance our worship, indeed we offer programmes in Theology Music and Worship, and I confess a partiality to smoke machines. They are merely a contemporary version of what our forebears attempted to do using incense, which can be traced back to Old Testament practice.
