January 2000, Bangor Campus

Glenn T. Miller

COURSE PURPOSE: This course is designed to give you the minimal knowledge and skills necessary to begin serving as a supply preacher for those congregations who seek assistance with worship leadership from the Seminary.

Designing the Sermon, James Earl Massey

The New Handbook of the Christian Year, Hickman, Saliers, Stookey, and White

a. Prepare an order of worship for a congregation with which you are familiar for Ash Wednesday or seasonally appropriate occasion, using the liturgical resources of your own tradition. Indicate the source(s) of the prayers you select and the general rationale for the theme of the liturgy.

b. Prepare a typescript of a sermon for Ash Wednesday or seasonally appropriate subject, using the lectionary texts for that day. Indicate the rationale for the type (i.e., narrative, story, textual/expository, doctrinal/topical, a la Massey,) you decide to use. Your exegetical notes should be included with the final text as well.

READ: Chapters 2 and 3 in The New Handbook of the Christian Year.

PREPARATION:

• Bring a copy of the standard liturgy for the Sunday worship in your tradition.
• Bring the lectionary used in your tradition, if any.
• Be prepared to discuss how you spiritually prepare yourself for worship.

TOPICS TO BE DISCUSSED:

a. The church’s work of worship: whose is it?

b. The lectionary: What is it and why use it?

c. The language of worship

d. Leading worship as a visitor

e. The parts of worship: what are they and why?

1. Time in the church year
2. Personal preparation for worship
3. Responding to community needs

Practice session in Chapel: Reading scripture

READ: Chapter 4 in The New Handbook of the Christian Year

Chapter 1 and 2 in Designing the Sermon

PREPARATION:

• Prepare and bring to class exegetical work on the lections for Ash Wednesday, or prepare materials from your tradition appropriate to the season of the year.
• Select a poem to be read in class. If you can find one that goes with your service great.

TOPICS TO BE DISCUSSED:

a. Time in the church or seasonal year

1. Developing a sermon from the lectionary
2. How to use exegetical work in preaching
3. Deciding sermon type
4. How to use your unique experience of the Gospel to shape your message.

Practice session in Commons: Reading poetry

READ: Chapters 3 and 4 in Designing the Sermon

PREPARATION:

• Write 1 or 2 paragraphs of initial insights for a sermon
• Experiment with poetic cadences
• Finding the various "beats" of words

TOPICS TO BE DISCUSSED:

a. The preaching process

b. Types of sermons

c. Writing for speaking

d. Preaching as a visitor

e. Public speaking

Practice session in Chapel: Reading paragraphs

READ: pp. 105-117 in The New Handbook of the Christian Year

PREPARATION:

• Write 1 or 2 pages of a sermon
• Bring worship resources from your tradition
• Prepare a worship service for Ash Wednesday/season of the year
• Prepare the main or pastoral prayer, if applicable in your tradition. Why are you including the various petitions

TOPICS TO BE DISCUSSED:

a. Ash Wednesday, Lent

b. Similarities and differences in worship services, reasons for differences.

1. Sermon writing process, differences in approaches, reason for choice of style.
2. Students from traditions that feature a main prayer by the minister (Baptist, Methodist, UCC, Continuing Congregationalists, etc or who would be willing to serve one a church in one of those traditions as stated supply should be prepared to give their pastoral prayer

Practice session in Chapel, with worship services and sermon texts

PREPARATION:

• Write and bring to class a rough draft of a sermon on the selected texts. Be prepared to explain the choice of sermon form, and to practice reading the sermon.
• You may invite friends, supervised ministry mentors, etc. to serve as a "jury" for your performance. (May means that you do not have to do so.) You should, however, plan to receive feedback from them at another time due to the need to hear everyone preach

TOPICS TO BE DISCUSSED:

a. Public prayer

b. Sermon writing process

c. Choice of sermon style

Practice preaching in Chapel

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS will be graded on a Pass/Fail basis. Pass will establish eligibility for leading worship and supply preaching through the Seminary. Fail will indicate further work is required.

FINAL NOTE: If you wish to be placed on the Seminary’s supply preaching list upon completion of this course, please send a note to the Director of Supervised Practice.

PERSONAL PREPARATION: Preaching the Gospel is an awesome task that calls for the best of one’s moral and spiritual abilities. Every person shapes their own spiritual discipline in preparation for that task, but, perhaps, some suggestions for spiritual preparation may be useful.

Good preaching comes from a personal encounter with God. Take sufficient time to listen to the Spirit before you tell a Congregation what God has to say to them.

Good preaching comes from a strong internal life. Prepare to preach by meditation, prayer, and reflection.

Learn to read the Scriptures religiously. The best historical exegesis of a passage is, of course, necessary, but good preaching is not the same as a seminar presentation. When you read an Old Testament passage, for instance, ask how those words relate to the present time. Use commentaries that highlight the text. Even if you don’t know the biblical languages, use sources to search for Hebrew words that tell us more about God than their English equivalents. What does it mean, for instance, that the word, chesed, is used for steadfast love. Search for similar word pictures in the New Testament. The Gospels, for instance, are filled with vivid detail.

Be sure that you are reading the text. Most of us tend to read various subtexts in the place of the Bible. Those subtexts may be our own theologies, our tradition, or our own psychology. Do enough work on the text so that you can see where the text might disagree with what you wanted it to say.

Read the text several weeks before you prepare the sermon and use it as one of your own devotional aids as you work towards a message.