During the Protestant Reformation in England, the first official, nation-wide strike at the old Roman Catholic doctrines came through the pulpits. Although we often think of the Book of Common Prayer as bringing the reformed faith to the people, by the time of its first edition in 1549, the first book of Homilies had already been authorised for two years. Cranmer understood the power of the pulpit. He knew that it was here that he needed to win the hearts of the population if reform was ever going to take root. Just changing the structures and rules of the national church would only ever affect superficial spiritual change at a grassroots level.
Over the past generation in Melbourne, we've seen the fruit of similar thinking. Most of the local churches that God has grown substantially in this time have had a very strong emphasis on preaching. It's not at all uncommon to go to one of these churches and hear a detailed 40 minute sermon that carefully exposits a passage of the Scripture and applies it to the lives of the congregation and the world around it. It seems that many parishioners - and even visitors - want this and that it has a very significant effect in the life and mission of the local church. Good liturgy will always have its place and it's well worth investing energy in continual institutional renewal, but if the people are not being fed a substantial and healthy diet from the pulpit, it's unlikely that anything else that the church is working on will have a major impact. Putting Scripture first is not just an ideal to speak dogmatically about, it's a practice that has a positive and measurable impact.
A while ago I was part of a conversation with a minister from London. He said that his day started before anyone else in the house was awake with a solid period of personal Bible reading and prayer. Then he broke for breakfast and getting the kids off to school. Then, he spent from 9am to 12noon every day in focussed sermon preparation, working hard to understand the Scriptures and prepare solid talks for his congregations. It was only after lunch that he turned to the other business of running of the church. I was humbled and impressed by his incredible commitment to the ministry of the Word. I am unsurprised that the church this guy leads is one of the largest Anglican Churches in England. This focus of Anglican ministers from the birth of the Church of England until today is a real encouragement and a real challenge to me.
Thoughts on Theology-in-Practice for Anglicans and Episcopalians - plus some other stuff.
Another experience that backs this up is that TEC still uses a reasonably orthodox liturgy, in terms of its regular Communion service. However, their teaching and lives reflect a different gospel.
ReplyDeleteWe had the interesting experience the past few years of being in an Anglican parish in the Middle East with a TEC minister. The teaching and ministry priorities were liberal leaning (not extreme), but we continued to attend because you still heard the gospel each week through the liturgy. It was just interesting to us that someone could lead a service with orthodox liturgy, and then teach and practice a different understanding of the gospel.