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.
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| 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.
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| 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’.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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
