Saturday Post -- 21/05/16

Last weekend, a group of pastors and church leaders (including myself, Craig) in the company of the eminent Eduardo Rojas, decamped to a remote location for a second spin of the Langham Preaching wheel.

Miguel

If, like me, you know your films, you’ll be aware that sequels very rarely tend to live up to their progenitors (with the notable exceptions of Toy Story 2, The Godfather Part Two, and, of course, The Empire Strikes Back). That was decidedly not the case with Langham: Level 2 (Revenge of the Bedbugs?), which both built, and improved, upon 2015’s gains. Not only that, but after a year of quite literally preaching at each other, by now the whole group was well used to the Langham modus operandi, and so, like any good follow-up, we were free to ditch any introductions and hit the ground running.

Nowhere was this more evident than in our final task: the inevitable preparation and preaching of a sermon. Last year, we were given a full two days’ notice; this time round, a mere two hours.

Eduardo in action.

After Level 1’s introduction to expository preaching in general, Level 2 centres on the New Testament, and Eduardo opted to look at the parables of Luke with us, with a particular focus on the Pharisee and the Publican, the Good Samaritan, and the Two Builders (on which we preached). If you know the gospels well, you’ll know that Luke is rich in parables, many of which are unique to the evangelist. We spent a good deal of time over the first couple of days thinking about what a parable is, seeing that there is so much more to them than simply being ‘illustrative’.

Mary

The focus on the parables also subtly reinforced some of the preaching principles introduced in Level 1. Langham Preaching programmes place great emphasis on both identifying cultural nuances in world of the passage, and communicating the force of these in terminology that people in the contemporary setting would appreciate. Most of the parables are set in and around Palestine of Jesus’ day – i.e., they’re chock-full of such cultural quirks – and demonstrate the power of communicating theological truths in a way that a contemporary audience would understand.

The study of the parables also gave Eduardo a platform from which to introduce a slightly different form of preaching. A narrative text lends itself to a narrative sermon style, and he preached twice in this way; for example, while teaching the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, he assumed the role of a listening Pharisee, i.e., one of those ‘who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else’ (Luke 18:9). The other sermon was delivered in the third-person, while maintaining the narrative tone. While this was something of a departure for most (including myself), there was at no point a sense that the truth of the passage was being somehow diluted. The group itself was not asked to deliver a narrative sermon over the weekend (I guess I’ll have to save my first-person Esther sermon series for another time), but we gave the notion plenty of thought in workshops, including a five-minute exercise in which we told each other the parable of the Good Samaritan from a first- and third-person perspective.

Occasional visitors were welcome.

The big constant from last year (aside from the bedbugs) was the preaching task at the end of the weekend, in which each of the three groups was required to prepare a sermon, to be delivered by one of its members. My group included a Langham rookie, 25-year-old seminary student Ignacio; generally, Langham HQ prefer the groups to not take on new members after the initial conference, but an exception was made for Ignacio given his experience to date. He preached his very first sermon (on the Two Builders), and literally knocked it out the park, as Jamie Redknapp might have put it. If you’ll excuse the pun, it’s fair to say he left the experience with solid foundations upon which to build.

Ignacio

Personally, Level 2 proved to be a timely encouragement. Around this time last year, it’s fair to say I was still riding the Cornhill wave when it came to my preaching, and my chief Langham joy was in seeing others get the expository preaching bug. Of late, however, I’ve felt a slight staleness, and particularly when it comes to getting the message across in terms that people can truly appreciate and apply in their day-to-day lives. I’ve often thought that, for all that we live in a very close-knit – and very Bolivian – community, Amanda and I are often at something of a disadvantage when it comes to truly understanding the lives of Bolivian families, due simply to our ethnicity and, if we’re honest, relative wealth.

For me, then, the most stimulating – and challenging – exercise, was one in which, as a group, we spent 30 minutes listing the various issues that individuals face in Trinidad, Bolivia, on personal, familial, church and societal scales. It was instructive to note how many of these were touched on by the parables (though that was sheer coincidence). I have taken a note of these lists, and hope to refer to them frequently in my future sermon preparation.

My good buddy (and fellow Trinidad coordinator), Cristian

As ever, Eduardo was keen to stress the dangers of becoming mere eventistas, and the hard work now begins as we resume our monthly meetings (in which one person preaches and the others give constructive feedback), starting in early June. We hope this is one follow-up that will not disappoint.

Langham Trinidad. Booyah.

Prayer

• Another great encouragement of Level 2 was simply spending time with each other. The majority of those in the group are the sort of people I’d only see at our meetings, yet they are great, godly people. We sometimes feel our lack of deep friendships here in Trinidad. Perhaps there is scope here; prayer appreciated.
• Wouldn’t you know it? Craig is due to give a sermon tomorrow on Psalm 62. Barely a week gone, and an opportunity to preach what he’s practised.
• Pray for Trinidad as a city. There is a pretty deplorable situation going on right now, with the government withholding salaries for municipal workers for several months (it has been speculated that this is due to Trinidad’s delivering a ‘no’ vote in February’s referendum; we can’t know for sure, but it would not be surprising). This is causing a great squeeze in all kinds of sectors; crime is on the increase; and it has touched one individual in our church, a sewage worker, directly. Pray that common sense would prevail. 

Praise

• For a great Langham weekend, and a great platform established for the year ahead.
• Give thanks for the work of Paul and Aaron, our Brass Tacks volunteers, who this weekend conclude their six-week building and maintenance work at Fundación Totaí. They have been a great help, not just with tools in hand, but also the Bible (Paul stepped in and preached last weekend while all the regular candidates were away at Langham). Their journey home to the UK begins on Tuesday, if you could remember that in your prayers. 

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda