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Preach the Word

The call and challenge of preaching today

Broadly speaking

PREACH THE WORD
The call and challenge of preaching today
Edited by Greg Haslam
Sovereign World. 624 pages. £24.99
ISBN 1 85240 443 4

This is a large and substantial volume consisting of 49 chapters, in which many different aspects of preaching are covered from a wide variety of perspectives and standpoints.

In his foreword, R.T. Kendall refers to its ‘wide variety of preaching styles as well as diverse theological opinions under an evangelical umbrella’. Contributors include David Pawson and John Stott, J. John and Terry Virgo, Mark Stibbe and Chris Wright. The thread common to all the contributions is that they are edited transcripts of teaching sessions given at Westminster Chapel, as part of a preaching school called ‘Preach the Word!’, which ran from autumn 2003, under Greg Haslam’s direction. This was designed to deal with ‘the decline of bold, authoritative and powerful popular preaching’, with its resulting ‘widespread leakage of spiritual power, declining numbers and stunted spiritual growth in many churches’. There can be little doubt about the need.

Across the spectrum

Inevitably in a wide-ranging collection of this sort, the material of each writer reflects both their theological and cultural pre-suppositions and the spectrum is as broad as contemporary evangelicalism. Its laudable stated aim is to ‘foster the healthy marriage of Word and Spirit in the wider Body of Christ’, the legacy that Westminster Chapel has long stood for. Some of the contributions focus primarily on the biblical text, so there are chapters on preaching through a book of the Bible, preaching the big story, preaching Old Testament law and preaching from narratives. These last two are excellent contributions from Chris Wright. Others concentrate on the work of the Spirit, with six chapters being given to ‘the anointing to preach’ and five others on different aspects of the making of a preacher. The major part of the rest of the book focuses on the activity of preaching, with six chapters on ‘rightly handling the Word of God’, eight on ‘the nuts and bolts’ of preaching and six more on ‘preaching into the culture’. Some of this focuses particularly on communication skills and contemporary techniques, which is where the material is at its least convincing, although there are plenty of timely warnings about substance being subordinated to style.

This is a book to dip into, over a period of time, with serious purpose. No one will agree with it all, since there are so many diverse and potentially divergent opinions put forward. The majority view seems to be towards the more conservative end of the charismatic spectrum, and accordingly the emphases are what one would expect. However, there is much here to stimulate, encourage and challenge all of us who preach, and all who hear and pray for preachers. It is good to see the cause of biblical preaching being revived and re-addressed in this area of evangelical life, as it is in others, and this compendium provides a very useful additional resource to the fast-growing literature on this theme.

David Jackman,
President, The Proclamation Trust