Sermon of the week: Haddon Robinson

This isn't a first person narrative sermon. Haddon wrote the book on those, but I can't find an example online of him doing it. He is an excellent narrative preacher, though. He didn't start out that way, but through the years his preaching has shifted in that direction. This is a marvelous biographical sermon on the person of Philemon. I love how he is able to make the ancient world come alive. What would you say is the secret to making that happen?

The introduction is about 3 minutes if you want to skip past that.

CPC Special - "Put That on Master Charge" Philemon, by Haddon Robinson from Steve Toler on Vimeo.

Trying something new: Preaching a First-Person expository message

This past Sunday I did something I had never done before. I preached a first person narrative sermon. I came across the idea from a little book by Haddon Robinson entitled, It's All in How you Tell It: Preaching First-Person Expository Messages. Preaching in character (say as Zaccheus, or as a bystander during the feeding of the 5000) was not something I wanted to do. I don't have any experience with drama. Yet, when I began preparing my Lenten sermon series which would be focusing upon conversations different people had with Jesus throughout the course of John's gospel, I was struggling to figure out how to preach on Nicodemus' conversation with Jesus. I've preached on Nicodemus before, and I struggled to think of a way to preach it again. I pulled out Robinson's book and reread it (it's a quick read). And after testing the waters with some trusted people (basically by asking them, "Do you think this would be stupid?") I decided to give it a go.

My decision process involved evaluating the advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

• Variety - it would definitely be different. People's attention would be grabbed (at least until I fell on my face).


• A new hearing - Not only have I preached on Nicodemus several times, the people in my congregation had probably heard even more lessons/sermons on Nicodemus than I have preached. This might help us all hear the text anew.


• The power of a good story - By it's very nature this kind of sermon is a narrative. If done well it could be very powerful.

Disadvantages:

• I might look stupid. My youth minister and I both agree that we spend an ungodly amount of time in life just trying not to look stupid.


• No notes. This sermon would absolutely not work with notes. It would have to come from a combination of good memory (I do write manuscripts) and the ability to speak somewhat extemporanously (once I obviously forgot something and needed to course correct).


• Application. Being Nicodemus would limit my knowledge of modern life. How would I make any application in my sermon?

Result: Once I decided to do this, I went for it. I had the manuscript done by Tuesday and spent an extra amount of time learning it. Whereas I usually go over my sermon verbally 2-3 times before a Sunday morning, I lost count on how many times I went over this one. It's been a while since I was truly nervous about a sermon. I was incredibly nervous about this. All in all, it went well, I thought. The response from the congregation was positive. In general, I think people appreciated the attempt to bring some variety into the service. Several said they thought I should do that more often. At least a handful seemed to connect to the message, "We must be born again" in a renewed way. I don't think that this is a style of sermon I'll do often, but it is something I'll do again.

If you want to listen to my attempt at this style of sermon - check here - it's the sermon on 3/13/11, entitled The Teacher Gets Taught

Have any of you every preached as a biblical character? What was your experience?