Saturday, June 17, 2006, 09:38 PM
The Effective Invitation: A Practical Guide for the Pastor. By R. Alan Streett. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2004, 0-8254-3799-7, 280 pp., $13.95, paper, (originally published Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, 1984).
Alan Streett is professor of evangelism/pastoral ministry at Criswell College, Dallas, Texas and editor of the Criswell Theological Review. This volume began as his Ph.D. dissertation at California Graduate School of Theology. He revised it for Revell twenty years before the present edition. Before he came to Criswell College, Dr. Streett served ten years as a pastor. There he preached verse by verse through Bible books. This may be an important clue to why he believes every sermon should have an appendix with a new text appropriate to a call to repentance and faith in Christ.
The first chapter defines New Testament terms such as proclaim and evangelize. The second specifies the content of “the invitation” in terms of repentance and faith. Chapters three and four answer in the affirmative the question of whether adding a call to public decision is biblical and historical. Streett believes that he has established that the practice is grounded in both scripture and church history. Most of the book is a defense of that tradition. He does not make the case.
One of his proof texts is Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost, which might just as well be used to support not calling for a public commitment until the people cry out “What shall we do?” (Acts 2.37). He suggests that Spurgeon supported the practice of adding an altar call to the end of every sermon. He did not, of course. Spurgeon opposed the new practice. Martin Luther likewise is cited as one who used the call-to-public-response appendix to his sermons. He did not. Reading transcriptions of Luther’s sermons makes it clear that he typically moved from explaining the text to a list of announcements -- not an appeal for public commitment.
This is the great weakness of the book; it strains scripture and church history to justify a tradition relatively recent in the history of preaching. He cites the preaching of John the Baptist and of Jesus (Luke 15:11-32) as proof of his thesis. First they preached; then they called to repentance. Many of Streett’s historical evidences indeed support sermons that call souls to the Savior, but he uses them as proof of the invitation appendix. He never seems to make the distinction between a sermon that is a call to Christ and one that adds a call to public response at the end.
After a chapter on Billy Graham’s use of the altar call and another answering D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s nine objections to the practice, Streett returns to reasons why the public invitation should prevail. He offers again scriptural and historical arguments and adds practical, logical, psychological, and other reasons. Chapters 8 and 9 give instruction on how to extend the invitation and some popular models. “You should select a motivating theme for each invitation . . . . Find scriptures that deal with [this new] topic . . . . Plan to intersperse these scriptures with fitting exhortations . . . . Next, you must plan an approach that will . . .move them to act.” (pp. 160-161). From a homiletical point of view, it sounds like a second sermon. Two final chapters turn to the questions of the place of music and the propriety of appeals to children. He favors both.
The following paragraph is rather typical of the logic prevailing in this work:
“What effect does music, during the worship or evangelistic service, have on drawing people to Christ at invitation time? Apparently the apostle Paul believed music to be an important instrument in soul winning. Although Scripture does not reveal what songs Paul and Silas sang during their imprisonment at Philippi (Acts 16:25), it does record the amazing results of their singing. The jailer cried out ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ (Acts 16:30)” (p. 187).
There are five appendixes. The first two list illustrations and scriptures dealing with repentance and with faith. The third is a list of acceptable motivating themes for invitations. There is no mention of inappropriate motives. The fourth appendix is an essay answering “thoroughgoing Calvinists” who critiqued an earlier edition of this work. Streett believes that he has studied the evidence carefully and cannot “improve on the New Testament method of calling people to Christ” (p. 244). The fifth is a list of thirty-seven selected invitational hymns.
In spite of the book’s flawed polemic, it is certainly worth reading. It represents a common tradition on an issue of vital concern to preachers and those who train them.
Austin B. Tucker -- Shreveport, LA
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Saturday, June 17, 2006, 07:33 PM - Homiletics
Preaching: The Art of Narrative Exposition. By Calvin Miller. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2006. 0-8010-1290-2, 285 pp. $21.99 hardback.
Calvin Miller is professor of divinity and pastoral ministry at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama. Preaching is a basic homiletical textbook with emphasis on narrative style. It is the most recent of over forty books from his pen. If a member of EHS can buy only one more book this year, let it be Miller’s Preaching. Miller is a wordsmith and an out-of-the box thinker. Taking a cue from Craddock, he shuns stuffing pages with long quotes. Endnotes give quotes, guidance for further study, and credit where it is due.
Miller gives us nine chapters in three groupings. Part 1 Analysis: The Exegesis of All Things, has four chapters. Chap. 1, “Who’s Talking,” exegetes the preacher who should be a person of faith, of information, a mystic and a shepherd. Chap. 2, “Who’s Out There?” deals with audience analysis. What do they believe, etc? Chap. 3, “Whadda Ya Hear Me Sayin’?” is about “substance analysis . . . relational analysis (and) spiritual formation analysis.” Chap. 4, “So What’s to Be Done Now?” addresses sermon application. Most people would rather listen to sermons than act on them. Each chapter includes worksheets designed to develop the skills discussed.
Part 2, Writing the Sermon. Three more chapters take us through the stages of sermon preparation. Chap. 5 deals with the text, title, theme, pacing and preparing. “The sermon must not speak for God, it must allow God to speak for himself” (pp.101-102). “A great thesis,” says Miller, “is kindergarten in its clarity and Harvard in its force” (107). Distinct from the thesis, Miller recommends the “motif” as a kind of rhetorical call that keeps the sermon on track (108-109). The motif for a sermon on Balaam becomes “Disobedience to God is a reckless path.”
“Pacing” is the matter of sermon intensity, balancing passion and relief in sermon content and in delivery. “Preparing” readies the preacher’s own mind and soul as well as the message. The chapter also gives guidance on the use of supporting scriptures and a brief treatment of preaching in series.
Chap. 6, “Digging for Treasure,” is all about the art of exegeting scripture. The sermon may begin in the Bible or in the congregation. “Long ago I learned that more than half of any pastor’s congregation come to church broken and in the grip of some life issue that is eating at their well-being”(127). Preachers are advised to preach the text confessionally. Live in openness with the flock, but never betray or embarrass anyone. The preacher’s own testimony about the text should be transferable to the hearers.
Stories are the stuff of persuasion. One of the most creative features of the volume is Miller’s guidance on how to give narrative presentation to a biblical precept. He knows that the congregation holds both left-brained and right-brained listeners. In chap. 7, “Imagining the Argument,” Miller calls for the text to control all sermon narratives. How can that happen? Metaphor and narrative spring from word study. A word from the original language of the text or from the definition and history of English words may suggest narratives. Building story characters is also an important part of narrative. Some homiliticians want hearers to be free to draw their own moral from a story; Miller insists that the point be crystal clear.
Part 3, Preaching the Sermon, is two chapters on delivery. This is about one-sixth of the whole work. Both chapters sparkle with humor and practical guidance. In “Delivering the Sermon,”(chap. 8), Miller encourages a natural style with passion but without imitating our heroes. Passion is not volume but intensity of feeling. Mary Magdalene’s Easter morning visit to the empty tomb remarkably illustrates “six purveyors of passion”(pp. 184-85). “Seven axioms of delivery” include nitty-gritty details such as illumination of the pulpit and working with sound technicians who like to play with the volume control.
Chap. 9 continues the delivery theme. In stressing the altar call as a place of encounter with God, Miller admits, “I realize that the word altar used by a Baptist homilitician scares Episcopalians to within an inch of their Edwardian confession” (p. 202). He delivers a trainload of practical advice on everything from body language to creating community.
An appendix on “Mentoring from the Contemporary Masters” selects one indispensable element of sermon form or style identified with each of ten homiliticians: Robinson, Pitt-Watson, Chapell, Taylor, Long, Stott, Lowry, Buttrick, Coggan, and one more. Miller is brass enough to put himself on the list at the end, because he does not find anyone else stressing the altar call as an essential element of form in sermons.
Austin B. Tucker - Shreveport, LA
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