Preaching Workshop 3

The final 2 sessions of the preaching workshop dealt with specific preaching topics. First, John Tyson shared about 'preaching holiness.' I wrote down a lot of notes, but it really seemed more like an introductory course on what holiness is and didn't have much to do with how to preach holiness except at the very beginning and very end of the lecture. I wasn't surprised that there wasn't much participation from those of us listening, but I, at least, did agree with his view of holiness.

The second topic was 'preaching the trinity.' Richard Eckley seemed like the kind of guy I'd love to have as a teacher. He described the void of 'trinity' preaching in the past century and discussed the errors that preachers stumble into when they do comment about the triune God. The most interesting part of the discussion was in whether to teach the 'economic trinity' or the 'immanent trinity.' He suggested that we not be afraid of mystery. So many preachers want to give full answers to questions, but the Trinity is mysterious and cannot be fully explained. He recommended that we use narrative texts over proof texts and emphasize the practical consequences of the Trinity in our lives. Finally, he said we should embed the Trinity n all of church life, not just as a doctrinal sidebar. I found his presentation thought provoking.

After that we had a closing time of worship, lunch, and headed back to the church. After visiting the nursing home I led prayer meeting. We've changed our prayer meeting format a bit and I look forward to it more nowadays. We start with a 'story behind the hymn' devotional and then sing the hymn. Then we read a missionary newsletter/report before taking praise & prayer requests. Finally, after prayer, we do a Bible study. Right now we're going through the 6 post-exilic books of the Old Testament. I have really enjoyed this study (so far, Ezra 1-4, Haggai, Zechariah 1-4). After prayer meeting we played basketball for almost 2 hours. I am feeling much more energetic than a year ago.