The Artizo Institute
THE ARTIZO INSTITUTE
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Teaching preaching
One of the key things Artizo strives to do is to help young men and women develop their ability to teach the Bible so they will grow as ministers of the Word of God. Training in teaching the Word happens in many contexts for interns; from teaching kids in Sunday school to working with a small group of youth, to reading the Bible with someone 1:1. In this issue we focus on teaching the Bible to larger groups of people, or what we usually call preaching.
One of the great pleasures I have had in the Artizo ministry is to see interns grow in their ability and confidence in preaching. I have also learned two other things about ‘teaching preaching’. First, everyone is an individual so there is no set ‘program’ we can push everybody through when it comes to preaching. The second is we need to be constantly thinking about how we can improve our training, as training in preaching is a challenging task. That being said, here is a quick list of a few things learned over the last few years that will give you an insight into how Artizo helps interns develop as preachers:
1. Get them to Preach – a lot!
Although studying preaching theory and listening to others is valuable, there is no substitute for doing it. In a two-year internship we hope interns will preach at least 4 times in their first year and 10 times in their second year. It is also good for them to do a sermon series, 3 or 4 talks at a weekend away and to preach in a number of different settings.
2. Help them before the ‘crunch’
A lot of times a critique on a sermon is given after the sermon has been preached in church, when suggestions for improvement are usually not applied. There is much more value in constructive feedback if it is given before the ‘crunch’ of fronting up in church to preach, so that a trainee will still be able (and usually more than willing) to make changes.
3. Break the sermon down to critique it
Feedback such as ‘that was good’ is of limited value. It is much more helpful to give separate feedback on two very different things that come together to make a sermon. First there is the exegesis of the sermon (what does the Bible passage mean?) then the homiletic of the sermon (how do you teach what the Bible passage means?).
4. Let them find their voice
The American preacher Phillips Brooks said preaching is ‘truth mediated through personality’. A training balance has to be struck between giving direction to help young preachers start out and to giving freedom to allow the intern’s own personalities to ‘mediate the truth’.
5. Give them a good model to ‘catch’
Preaching is both ‘taught’ and ‘caught’. Where interns ‘catch it’ matters. Trainees need to be exposed to solid teaching in church and also through sources such as conferences and on-line sermons on the internet.
6. Have them teach someone to preach
If you teach someone else you also learn yourself. As much as possible sermon critiques are done in a group, which is valuable for everyone involved. Some second year interns also work 1:1 with first years on their preaching.
7. Have them critique themselves
In the long run, preachers need to be self-critical to help them improve. One of the ways we help interns to develop this is to videotape them so they can watch the tape a few days after they have preached and start to learn to critique themselves.
8. Teach them that ‘the first 50 years are the hardest’
John Chapman, the Australian evangelist, is well known for this reflection on the challenges of preaching. Tim Keller, an American preacher, laments that his first 1,800 sermons were ‘nothing special’. Part of training interns for preaching is to get them excited and encouraged by it as well as humbled by the privilege!
An Artizo preacher's comment
Jim Salladin, a graduate Artizo intern, has just been ordained as priest during Canadian Thanksgiving Sunday this year. We asked Jim how his Artizo internship prepared him to preach:
“The first thing is that Artizo increased my confidence in the Word. I came from a charismatic background that tended to focus its preaching on experience and relied on the preacher’s ability to make something happen. Artizo gave me the liberty to see God at the center and confidence in His Word. I would not be able to continue to preach if I only knew the model I grew up in.”
The training made me a reader, a learner and an observer of the text. I got to watch. Watching David Short engage with the text was very helpful. Particularly, being able to watch him be a learner. I saw that being immersed in the Word is the engine room for ministry.”
Artizo gave me the opportunity to fail. In the beginning I was very conscious of what I was saying but as I learned to be more comfortable with the text I found freedom to be creative and more my self. It was remarkable to be able to preach and get legitimate feedback, which is something that I had never experienced before.”
Artizo interns' preaching: the view from the pew
An interview with Rowena Slack, St. John’s Shaughnessy’s 7:30 am service
“I have felt very blessed by having the Artizo students preaching to us at the 7:30 am service. I have been impressed with their willingness to put great effort into preparation for a congregation of around thirty members at this early hour on a Sunday morning. It is interesting to see how they change over a period of several months. Most of them start out by trying to tell us everything they know about a passage; they seem afraid to leave anything out because it is all important and they are preaching for themselves or their peers. But as the months move on, they become more able to listen to the Holy Spirit and preach God’s sermon. They learn to ‘talk’ to the congregation, rather than preach ‘at’ them. They become more comfortable in their own skin and are able to be more relaxed with their own style of presentation. They begin to bring ‘insight’ into the Word rather than ‘learning’. Each of the students has a different level of gift for preaching but they are all willing to accept comment at the end of the service and their attention to the comment is frequently evident in the next sermon they preach. I am grateful for the way in which they increasingly become better at presenting new ways of seeing, without losing the basic gospel.