"Narrative Celebrated Preaching Style" Dr. Frank Thomas

thank you again for participating in seminary on Sunday it's a unique concept and we're grateful and in this time of and I'm gonna pronounce it incorrectly on purpose in this time of the Panama demek we are taking advantage of it to grow and to develop the worst thing you can do in this time is lose your edge lose your focus and stop being a student and so we wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to bring together some of the greatest minds in the country as it relates to preaching and I think to me the dean of teaching preachers to preach is with us today I met this man years ago and his preaching style his message his therapeutic approach resonated with me because I saw in him what I was attempting to do and be in terms of messages and years ago I used to a preaching conference called preaching Institute and he came and he did a message that was so phenomenal until he literally made me rethink aspects of my life and made me rethink preaching in very real ways and so and so dr. Frank Thomas who leads the only the only program I think in the country and maybe the world as it relates to a PhD in African American preaching is here and he's going to take this next hour so to expand us and grow us and I'm excited to introduce to some and as all folks they present others the incomparable dr. a promise please everybody mute your phones and and mute your gadgets and open your hearts this is gonna be an amazing hour thank you well thank you dr. John guns for first of all the gracious invitation and then the quality of our relationship across the years and then thirdly your own preaching prowess it's a great honor for me to spend this time and to really discuss something that I'm tremendously passionate about as I would imagine that anybody that takes a Sunday afternoon at 3 o'clock and is watching this zoom call about preaching is also very passionate and so when you get people who are passionate about the same subject I've never seen anything but sparks happen when I for example interview people they love preaching and I love preaching and so let me mention that quickly on YouTube I have a series where our interview preachers you can watch it on my youtube channel I have one particular be more interested after you hear any this are you interested in hearing about but I think about preaching more in depth at the end I'm going to talk to you about reading resources but in the beginning there's an interview that dr. Gina Stewart did with me when I talked about great in depth and in detail I think that yes there it is I just put it in the chat so you can look at that let me begin by saying to you how I really became to fall in love with black preaching I was a junior in college and I was at the University of Northampton Urbana we had a friend of mine who was killed in a botched shoe store robbery and he had a part-time position was going to school during the day and working at night in Thom McAn and was shot and killed and so on a t30 and Damon in Chicago where the Ravenel Cakery was the pastor the family was a member of that congregation and so I sat with a roomful of young people distraught you know really really hopeless and pained absolutely upset and dr. LK curry got up and preached and I don't know quite what he did but when he got through I felt better when he got through I had hope so I began for the first time to pay tremendous attention to african-american preaching because I kept saying how do you do that how do you take a room full of people who are distraught at losing a friend a brother to a tragic death and the room has hope when the preacher finished now I know it's God I know it's the power of the word and the power of the Holy Spirit but there's also something about a particular vessel and a particular instrument through whom God moves and God uses so I had that question just sticking in me about this african-american preaching I went to a Lutheran Church then the United Methodist Church and I had some you know some samplings of african-american preaching but never like this mean I can't tell you what he preached because that's been 30-something years but I can tell you that he preached and that preaching little spark in me so to make a hole saw long story short I ended up in seminary I was in seminary this would be ancient of days to many of you I graduated seminary in 1981 and I began pastoring my first church in 1982 so in the seminary they did not have a preaching class an african-american preaching class and preaching was optional you didn't have to take it if you didn't want to so I really hadn't taken a preaching class and Here I am as a pastor preaching every Sunday and I might add you know to too many of us I may say that when I first started preaching my leg would shake and so I would take this right hand and hold my leg and being take this other hand and I'd only have one hand for expression because my legs were shaking so people say you know you know as I started preaching I'm shaking like a leaf what it's all of us you know don't look at the finished product don't look at me standing there like I'm confident and I'm smooth right now my beginnings are nervousness and still you know nervous about it so at any rate I tried to get better as a preacher I needed to get better so I picked up a book by Henry Mitchell Henry H Mitchell called the recovery of preaching I picked that book up and I read it and I adopted his preaching style is called the celebrated preaching style it just made sense to me and so I began to practice the celebrated preaching style so I've been preaching in this style for almost 36 years it has been tremendously rewarding in 1989 I did a d.min with dr. Henry Mitchell and I ended up writing my thesis on celebration and my thesis became published as my first book called they're like an eloquent phrase and God the role of celebration and preaching so for almost 36 years now I've been preaching and preaching and in this style I've been experimenting with it I've had some great victories I've had some stinging defeats but what I'm suggesting to that if you want to get better in preaching that we must practice the fundamentals so I have a saying I say that bad preaching is not a sickness unto death bad preaching can be fixed when I hear bad preaching what I perience is people are missing one or two they're missing the fundamentals what are the what are the fundamentals well let me give an example if anybody is a musician which I'm sure that we have some people who hear or musicians when you first start taking music lessons or learning to play an instrument the first thing they teach you is what scales you have to learn the scales and I don't care how proficient you get in music you can be the greatest pianist you can be playing you know with kirt car or you can be a classical pianist what is certainly still sure is that you're playing you're still playing the scales you still in your fingering you know there are some places you can't reach on the piano without the basic fundamentals what I tell people is that preaching has fundamentals and if you miss the fundamentals you're preaching suffers so to get better we have to keep practicing and practicing and practicing the fundamentals the fundamentals of my style I preach in a narrative form you know they're different styles different forms expository is real hot and real popular right now I preach in a narrative form and so preaching in a narrative form I have you know I have some fundamentals that I teach hence there's six of them I want to share with you to be very brief and they'll be very quick the first fundamental of preaching for me in my narrative celebrated preaching style is number one you must know what you believe what I call Corbin beef what is it that you most deeply believe about the character of God what is the essence of God's character some people will say God is love some people will say God is faithful some people will say God is present but to find out for yourself what for you is the essence of God's character I learned this in a very difficult time of trial and tribulation I wouldn't I didn't learn this sitting around reflecting and writing in a very quiet room I was in the middle of a major piece of church conflict and a conflict was public and people around the city based upon me being in the news and on television came to see what I was going to preach because basically several moons the church sued me sued me and the church leadership but you know what I don't worry about it I'm the preacher on Sunday so Oh what am I gonna preach well I went through a series of thoughts about it well number one I can call my my great friend John guns to come and preach for me on Sunday but that would be chickening out then I said well I can preach ye whitewashed tombs ye workers of iniquity I can preach about them and against them and then when they say you preaching about us you said well I'll just preaching the text well you know that's avoidance and that's mean-spirited plus it doesn't help people and then along about Thursday I think it was God said to me preach what you most deeply believe about my character when you're in trouble preach what you most deeply believe about the character of God you know what I believe about God that God is merciful and a compassionate God I preached that and they were waiting for a fight sermon yeah you know I mean it was crazy you know I got up and preached our God is so full of compassion and mercy I preached the gospel so but you only come to know that through trial and tribulation what is it that you must see if you believe about the character of God you have to preach what you most need to believe about the character of God give you one quick example and then I'll keep moving so you know free price doctor free price was very popular through the 80s and the 90s and whenever you turned on his broadcast you were gonna hear something about faith and the broadcast was ever-increasing faith because he believed that faith the God was faithful you demonstrated faith because that was its core belief let me get to number two I call it universal human experience I'm gonna give you a workbook where I've outlined all this in that you can you can get it if it's really interesting to you number two is a universal human experience when I say universal human experience what I mean is I don't targets sermons to boomers Xers Millennials you know and all of that what I do is preach universal human experience which is guilt I mean everybody has an experience of guilt so you got parents who sitting out there who made some mistakes raising their children they're guilty you've got young adults who are in conflicted relationships and some they messed up like everybody regardless of race nation place or you know it's gonna preach guilt dr. Susan Smith one of my friends from Columbia from Columbus Ohio did a sermon ages ago on guilt and because she's a reader she started the sermon with feet with Duffy s Keys Crime and Punishment where a person got completely away with the crime but the guilt ate at him the guilt ate him alive so he confessed the crime the text for the sermon was and Judas hung himself hmm that was the text and she preached talked about Judas talked about the guilt so she moved from from crime and punishment and Duffy SK she moved to talk about Judas the guilt this has been thirty years I remember it you know she talked about you know how can get in and how guilt can get you to think that God won't even forgive you so your life is worthless as you may you may as well hang yourself and this y'all is a tie letter sermon she called it cut down the news she said in your life there's guilt and if you let it it will ruin your life and run your life and you'll do what Judas did but cut down the grace of God is that you can be forgiven so I you know you you can be a PhD you can be an OD you can be you know a millionaire and you can be waiting for the cheque to come in the mailbox from a government guilt is human experience so what I try to preach is universal human experience so when I'm preaching I got to worry about when videos and Xers you know the boomers and I don't waste a lot of time with that I preach universal human experience let me get to number three because I don't want to go too long number three is sense appeal or exponential preaching and you want people to experience your preaching so when you stir senses so let's take the that everybody knows a twenty third song how many images the Lord is my shepherd shepherd is the first image I shall not want maketh me to lie down in green pastures prepare us a table before me you can see it you can experience it so the process works this is very quick because you can get it through the workbook is that when you stir images when you preach images it stirs the sense it creates identification when identification is is is created emotion is released when emotion is released the body registers it as interest and people are open to listen you can get more of that in the workbook but these are fundamentals these are fundamentals that I'm practicing I'm always working on core belief what is it that I most deeply believe about God I'm always working on universal human experience I'm always working on sense appeal number four and I call structure structure structure how do you structure a message when your structure is bad you're hard to listen to when you're all over the place people will exit minute to leave the message and wait till you get to your hoop to come back in because you're not making it easy for them to follow you so structure allows people to follow you in a very easy format so the structure that I use in situation there's some situation there's a complication of the situation there's a resolution in the gospel text the Word of God is the resolution and then we celebrate the resolution so that situation complication resolution I structure my end celebration I structure my messages I find that many messages that are unstructured they're all over the place so people are preaching two and three scriptures they're not preaching one scripture they're not focused so I believe that structure that people can leave only with one central idea now you might in your preaching turn a prism where a different angle of that one idea is visible but you had better for sure stay to one idea people get too many ideas and then I'll say this parenthetically one of the sins of preaching in the black church is over the illustration many illustrations it makes this Furman law and because there are so many demonstrations and we love them and the people are rockin and rollin and preachers rockin and rollin everybody's enjoying and having fun the danger is the danger of too many illustrations is people are left with your illustration and they miss the main central message the sermons can be too long and often it's I've seen it I've taught preaching a long time we have to illustrate we have to illustrate we have to illustrate two mini illustration that was just parenthetic then I do something called a preaching worksheet I have a worksheet that I go through I ask myself some fundamental questions about you know I do my research you know I do my homework I have my prayer you know I do a bunch of just getting ready and then I go to this worksheet and I answer these six questions I won't go through them that's it's in the workbook I go through the six questions I write out all the answers and after I read all the answers I know my structure and then my the last one I say is celebration so Henry Mitzvah and I develop some quote unquote rules of celebration for example you cannot celebrate what people do wrong you can only celebrate what people do right or getting ready to do right or the change in their lives celebration also is around a great theme to the Bible mercy justice love truth beauty healing grace forgiveness great sermons are about the great themes of the Bible I had an uncle once when he found out I was a Seminary graduate he had graduated from Bible College and since I was supposed to be his highfalutin Seminary graduate now that I acted that way but anyway he decided that he was going to give me a Bible question to see how much Bible knowledge I really knew so he asked me this he said how many jewels are in in milchester Dick's crown and then stepped back with the fierce grin like he never expected me to be able to answer that question how many jewels are in milchester Dick's crown well I didn't know that and why is that relevant with all the big questions about mercy and justice love and peace and forgiveness that you know we got to have a sermon that's big enough that the idea is worthy enough now how many I guess you could take the number of crowns and you know Chas in a number of Jews and measure his crown and do something creative but he just wanted to prove and I'm like you know is this a great theme at a Bible are we contending for the faith by knowing the number of Jews and Melchizedek's crown so you know my point being that you have to preach the Great Beings of the Bible and you know you there's more I won't go into all of them I just wanted to to say to you all that if you have a set of what are your fundamentals of preaching what's your preaching method what's your fundamentals do you practice your fundamentals that's just like scales I can tell you what my fundamentals are and I hope that you would like to pick those up I'd be happy about that those are the fundamentals that I think about some always you know so I'm always looking at okay what's my core beliefs I'm always looking at you know where's the universal human experience I'm always looking at where is the sense of feeling images I'm always looking at where is how's your structure and are we looking at get your preacher worksheet don't get up there and you have them prepared and planned and work through some stuff about what is this sermon really about and then what's my celebration all of that is planned though God does tend to change I just think God has more to work with when you file a flight plan and then change in midair versus leave an air with no plan trusting for God to help you to land so I think that everyone should have a method and I think that you should but the fundamentals of those methods are and there are a lot of different methods out here you know expository preaching is a method Samuel DeWitt Proctor has a method thesis antithesis relevant question and synthesis they have various Lisa Thompson in her book ingenuity for all the women preachers are not just with women preachers but you know everybody find a method that works for you what's what's what's your method if you get an opportunity to hear dr. Gina Stewart preach and you get a chance to to go go to lunch with her you know afterwards sometimes she meets with folks or you know have an opportunity then ask her what is your method how do you do what you do because there's a method behind what she's doing and that helps to you improve you know you know P you know I'm not I'm not suggesting that some of the questions are not worried that you might want to ask her but one thing I'm sure gonna ask anybody I get a chance tell me about your method tell me about how you prepare a sermon tell me some of the best times that you were preaching tell me when it didn't really go well and how did how did you feel about it and what happened these are the question of students of preaching I know our to be asking because the goal is to grow in your preaching that's to go so what's your method and maybe you hybrid method but this I can guarantee you if you define a method and it's a solid method with good fundamentals and you practice those fundamentals you will get better as a matter of fact some of the best preachers in the country they make it look easy they some up stand up there with a little Bible about this size and it looks like he's doing top of their head no they're not doing it at the top of their head there's some deep and profound work even maybe a manuscript in the back that they have committed to memory and let me give you another tip this is just I remember the first time I heard dr. Gardner Calvin Taylor preach I was a pastor in my first two years in the seminary in vitam he came and preached and I mean he rocked the place and then I compared my average Sunday morning sermon to what he was doing and I wanted to quit preaching because the gap was so wide but I didn't know is that wasn't his first time preaching that sermon he had preached that sermon many times and had been able to refine it to polish it to work on it to get it deeper and better and my average Sunday morning sermon as a pastor is a first run you know I write it during the week and I get up and preach it so I've learned that when you hear these polished sermons to ask the deeper questions sometimes doc tell me how long you've been working on that sermon because most preachers I preaching what we call Road dogs you know most folks ain't preaching new material not all the time but most folks are not preaching new material so anyway that's from the fundamentals of preaching what are your fundamentals of preaching that that's a central question that I would raise with you all if you're gonna get better in fundamentals last the test of time fundamentals work in the era of kovat and they work when there is no covert fundamentals work at a revival and they also work on Sunday morning fundamentals work of you to guest preacher fundamentals working for you to pastor fundamentals work if you're young if you're old if you're male if you're female if you're black you eye the fundamentals will stand every musician plays scales I don't care who they are and how hot a rise or humble their origins they still playing scales likewise but they don't tell us is preaching hands fundamentals now I want to make another point I want to suggest to you is that what I call that african-american preaching tradition there is a very sophisticated argument that is made in theological circles about the creation the argument is this the God create ex nihilo of nothing or did God create from matter was that matter in God shape matter so they go to the Genesis and the Spirit of the Lord moved over the face of the deep and as is huge that God created out of nothing but did God create the world out of matter I say to you that if you on this line you come out of a preaching tradition and that preaching tradition is the matter you do not create sermons ex nihilo now I'm going to use in particular an African American preacher African American preaching if you grew up hearing African American preaching and you started preaching that you got matter it's been passed on to you what bothers me is when people get up and start thinking they're saying something new so for example Romans 8:28 Romans 8:28 than preach for 2,000 years for you to get up and say if you're saying something new means that you're not in touch with the tradition it's probably been preached for 400 years in the african-american church so how can you get up and preach and you don't know the tradition or you don't know the matter you don't create sermons ex nihilo you create sermons out of matter that we have been passed on this tradition this is a great preaching tradition I mean we have had some preachers you know Zahra Neale Hurston for example she did she was a folklorist and she went down in the Florida and recorded some of the sermons of folk preachers you know down in Florida I think his ei you Gail eg I something like da Elliott you know I'm messing it up but she's from Florida so in one of her books Jonah's vine gourd she put the sermon in the book a New York Times a white book reviewer reviewed that that book and said about the sermon that it was not it was impossible that one preacher could demonstrate this level of genius in poetry that this had to be a mixture of preachers she wrote back and said is one preacher and I know hundreds of preachers who are reaching this level weekly with their sermons this is what we come from it bothers me that we don't know that we come from that Frank so let me give an example even another example I never heard of JM gage you need to google JM gates before Martin Luther King jr. JM gates was the biggest funeral in Atlanta JM gates in 1926 put sermons on 78 records he brought a little he brought his Vica and his climbing with him and they doing call in response and he preaches only like three minutes or something and he was the precursor to C L Franklin CEO Franklin we know so records and travel JM Yates C L Franklin listened to J in case this is part of our history this is part of our tradition and so to get up and be ignorant of the tradition so if you're interested there's a book called preaching with sacred fire is hard to find now it's out of print and it's expensive but it's worth it because Martha Simmons and I Chronicle 103 sermons from the black church and you'll find I mean powerful sermons of all styles you'll find who person on hoopers you'll find you know we span the gamut male/female of the preaching tradition so just know this has been passed on to you and it's our job to pass it on to allow it to live by passing it on the next generations all right so let me talk about some of the thoughts and feelings that I have I've been talking for sweet half-hour so I'll talk to more minutes and then we'll open up for some dialogue together one of the things that I'm really concerned about in preaching I call it intellectual sloppiness that you're intellectually sloppy people are sitting there with iPhones and iPads so when your facts aren't straight they they check you out so I think that we have when I say intellectual sloppiness I remember the first time that I was invited back to preach at my seminary from which I graduated I had these people who taught me my professors and Hebrew Bible I mean the New Testament professor my church history professor they all sitting there and I'm getting ready to preach because I'm not intellectually sloppy on a regular basis I didn't have to adjust much though I did a little bit to make sure my stuff was tight because you never know who's sitting in the audience I preached in the Duke Chapel and I was preaching from an Old Testament text and after I finished woman introduced me as the professor of Hebrew Bible at Duke Divinity School my first question was how did I do with the text she said she was silent so you can't be intellectually sloppy you've got to do the work and if you're intellectually sloppy it's gonna bite you because people are going to fact-check it they are going to fact-checker so let me give you the synopsis about on how do I say this some of the ways that I think about it one of the questions that I asked myself and by my preaching is can I preach this at my mother's funeral my dad's funeral you know I likelihood that the family would so choose I'd be I think I'd be willing to do it and get your miracle get your breakthrough get your blessing ain't gonna fly in my mother's funeral I got to have a word for myself and for the people so rather than preach sloppy or preach cliches or dazzle the people with cotton candy I want to give a substantive word so my muscle has already built that when it comes time that I'm truly profound and deep where it is need I've already built a muscle this is what I do every Sunday so it's not that you know I gotta shift gears cuz I can't preach get your miracle get your breakthrough get your blessing at the homegoing service of my mother I'm probably gonna have to preach the resurrection I'm gonna have to preach something a solid that sound that's based in something and what I worry about is I hear a lot of cotton candy I hear a lot of skimming the surface to get away and which you know brings me to reflect on something that I'm working on that I think that people have delivery gifts and people have content gifts and this will be the last thing and then we'll open up for questions people who have delivery gifts can preach the phone book and people get excited they just have delivery gifts they can deliver it I mean they excite people I mean things they got they got delivery gifts other people have content gifts so let me give an example of content gifts when I was growing up they used to have submarines we used to be way underneath the water if you watched in the Navy movies and all that kind of stuff the submarine is trying to be real quietly so that's a sonar then and pick it up upstairs where the ship is so what the ship would do once it picked up the signal from the submarine way down in water it would drop a depth charge which means that's a bomb that goes down down down down down down and when it just hits right above the ship it explodes people have will have content gifts they're dropping depth on people and they have to be willing to wait until the blowing happens and people get it so God tends to give some people delivery gifts some people word gifts or content gifts so I say what God is trying to do if God gives you a delivery gift God is trying to get you to the middle to develop your word gifts to match it because you can get by on charisma you can get by on show woman ship on showmanship you can get by on that but God is pushing you to deepen that word if God gives you a word give and say I don't want to be showy I don't want to show God is pushing you to the other side to release your delivery gift so you can be natural not that you have to be showy but at least being natural so what God wants is a content based delivery gift or delivery gift that's content based God wants both and most of us get one of the other so for myself I think I'm on the word and the content side and I had to learn to relax because I wasn't a Hooper and I had to learn to relax because I didn't sing I had to learn and relax because I didn't have a booming voice but I had content and so what I've tried to do across the years is develop my content and release my delivery gift rather than be uptight so if you're not uptight about it it's an asset set only way it becomes a liabilities if you uptight about I'm a woman I'm uptight about that and that's a liability if you're a woman and you get a opportunity to preach and that's not a liability it's an asset boom come on preach so not just you know gender but all of us have all kind of liabilities we you know we keep talking about dr. Gina stood against such a wonderful relationship she's just just great great great great friends and I call her a daughter of thunder and I said you know I would love to boom and thunder like you do I would love to preach like that card she just boom you Thunder you are a daughter of thunder and then she says to me stuff like my friend I wish I could just sit there and talk quiet and make people shot without raising my voice I like to do that so God hears each of us a gift and you see your gift as an asset you can work with it versus comparing yourself to preach like somebody else because you know Martha Simon said all of us would be Hooper's if we could because you know who Cooper's have a cannon they close at the end well that's true but also we can have no content you know so also it can erase the sermon you know also I don't think people left with is with the hoopin so I think that God gives everybody a gift my goal isn't stop talking to 340 or 339 I'm very close to stop talking is to give everybody a gift and if you don't think your gift is and that is a liability it's an asset so release your gift all right with that I will stop and if there are any questions that you would like to comment on or you can put them in the shed I think I'm looking at the chat we've got notes in the chat so maybe what I'll do while are we getting our questions too tight is let me share the screen and let me go to [Music] this is the workbook that I was talking about the fundamentals of preaching in right here you can order that on Amazon like I was talking about core belief universal human experience since appeal structure situation complication all that stuff as a part of this workbook they're digital files that go with it so which means my class lectures are in the back of the book you get a download digital code you download them you got all my lectures you worked in my lectures you worked in workbook it's kind of a I say it's a 2,500 I'll seminary course for 30 bucks what it is and you can get that on Amazon since I'm in books let me keep going why are we getting questions I have a book entitled how to preach a dangerous sermon and I didn't talk much about that today but it's available again on Amazon I so fascinating and a wonderful piece of work it was so so powerful that I think that you can't preach a dangerous sermon every Sunday but you every now and you had better preach something as dangerous no that's it's preaching it every Sundays like never preaching it you ought to preach something that challenges the people you know that raises critical issues that challenges the status quo you know I talked about that in that book it was so successful that we just released a sequel let me see can you all see that not yet it's called surviving the angel assuming this came out about three weeks ago you can see it there you know that people said pastor I want to preach a dangerous sermon how do I survive it so I lay out how in the world to say if I have a dangerous sermon and one more and then I'm going right to questions and if you're interested in my discussion about the african-american preaching tradition I talk here about the intro to the practice of african-american preaching and a lot of stuff I said about Zora Neale Hurston is in there in that book and this african-american preaching tree that we have received you know that's there okay those resource for you don't forget my youtube channel okay I posted to an interview for you and on my youtube channel as a whole bunch of stuff sermons interviews just tons and tons of stuff that you can view all right so let me get out of this and matter of fact one more thing let me show you I think I can this is the interview on YouTube this is a conversation where I'm not very hosted by dr. Jean M Stewart you can watch that if you're interested in me talking more about what I think about preaching all right let me stop Cher and I am back to you all with what's my definition of a dangerous sermon there there are sermons that upset the status quo that in America there is a hierarchy and the hierarchy is rich white males are at the top marginalized black to brown people same-sex people immigrants are at the bottom so when you speak on behalf of the bottom people to address the top people the sermon gets dangerous or every church has a hierarchy right for many churches the men at the top you know women at the bottom and you get a preacher sermon you upset the status quo it gets dangerous when you preach and speak for the bottom to the top it gets dangerous and that's what in essence the short version of what some of the present challenges facing today's preacher and preaching I think one of the biggest challenges I've been seeing is that people trying to get used to not having an audience that is one thing then you got people in the room and you know it's rocking and rolling and we doing call it response the choirs there here there but here now it's five or six people and sometimes just one person so how do I handle the call the response so I keep saying you have to bring your own fire that this is one of the biggest changes that you have to bring your own fire one of the biggest changes is that when you're not preaching to the masses and we don't quite know when even though these people are opening up some of these places we're not sure when we're gonna gather again so that's one I think if you're preaching online eventually we're gonna have to come to sermon talk talk back so people need to talk back to you you just it can't be one way so do you have a chat some people say hey I'll get a chat here and then somebody will watch the chat or I'll preach the sermon and then we'll have a talk back time where we can do dialogue I think they're I think we're going there I also suspect that sermons have to be shorter not a 50 minute 55 minute sermon though people are doing it is wonder if people get screened tired and they get the more the most screen time they get the shorter the sermon has to be I'm just wondering about that I'm also wondering about how in the world do we do fellowship so that the the internet streaming service is not just one way so I had an experience with Gary Vee Simpson at Concord this morning I watched him and for the fellowship hour then you know I had a fellowship moment in the service you know where people shake hands they put people in chat rooms and you could talk in the chat with people in the congregation Kida factors here by the online and I was a guest I was a visitor and they put me in a chat room so you know where normally I walk around and shake hands and hug and I'm stay you know how you doing my name is Frank Thomas I'm visiting this morning it's good to be with you all so we have a wonderful pastor do you like her pastor oh you have that do I know you passes very well I love them deeply but you know I think that you know they're like my comment is these challenges are and unique content people are not going for the fluff get your miracle get your breakthrough get your blessing I'm not sure people losing family members people are scared they're gonna get covet people are losing jobs in 2008 dr. Charles it would booth when Lehman Brothers clothes and night Lehman Brothers clothes which locked the credit markets all over the world and nobody was really sure about that next Monday morning Charles Edward booth called me up and said this Frank preaching is back in stock he had a saying and you can I've got an interview with him you can you can view it he used to always say I'm gonna keep preaching till preaching come back in style that night he called me I never get along as I live and we laughed he said Frank so I think preaching is back in style I think the surface the fluff the candy the cotton candy that content is no last so what am i thought about contemplative preaching that is what I define I don't know if you've ever listened to a Howard Thurman sermon I would recommend that to you I'll give you the name of my favorite Howard Thurman sermon is called charting the inward sea at Boston University they have a listening library of all the sermons of Howard Thurman so just if you were Google Boston University Howard Thurman listening Center they'll give it to you you go down and he has a series called the inner life the second sermon is called charting the inward seat it's the perfect example of a of a contemplative sermon where it's contemplation it's deep it's thought-provoking sometimes you don't get a chance to say Amen because you're listening and thinking about what's being said that's probably on the word gift side yes try out Amy and woodsy by dr. Howard Thurman I've heard about prescriptive preaching I can't elaborate well that's how a John Wesley's definition how John Wesley is in a ph.d program so I did an interview John Wesley that's on my YouTube channel you can watch that from him he'll be talking about prescriptive preaching that's how he defines his method because one of the things that I teach in the ph.d program is for each student to define a method so that when this is why I know that you can ask Gina Stewart about her method and she will respond because we have trained them so you can ask Allah General Wesley what's your method he's gonna say prescriptive preaching and he's gonna define it because that's part of what we do in the Peace program ph.d program what percentage should the minister read the Bible for preparation service I think their personal study and are both important I think my best sermons have all always come out of my devotional life the sermon that dr. John Gunn's reference to was a sermon that I wrote called have you ever been to God's face is in Genesis 33 and it's up on YouTube too by the way and it's Jacob wrestling and when he walks away with the left and he calls he turns and calls the plays God's face I've been to God's face names from you ever have you ever been to them to God's face that sermon got written because for two weeks ago at 3 o'clock in the morning God woke me up for my devotional life to work on that text and I worked on it and I worked on it it was speaking to me I worked on it I went and bought a Tanaka which is a Jewish version of the text I didn't research I did study for two whole weeks the best sermons seem to come not all the time but a lot of times out of the preacher's personal devotional life when you live that and live with it I live with that story for two weeks so when you hear that sermon just know it took me two weeks that an intense prayer Bible reading preparation thought and reflection to to get that sermon in the shape that it was in because in some ways how is Jacob wrestling wrestling with the God and I walked away from a limp with the left but my name got changed and I look back at the place of my deepest pain in agony and called it God's face so yes the third cohort will probably be 2023 we admit every three years we admitted in January 2020 so I'm just facing is we will admit in January 2023 that's my anticipation which means applications from sometime in 2022 I guess we haven't pinned down dates but that's that any other questions of thoughts or you know reflections I mean you see I've enjoyed my time I've talked you know the 50 minutes the next mixed-method conference we're planning for September 2021 we did a conference last year we're showing we highlighted expository preaching Roman is preaching and narrative preaching we show people three different methods of preaching and then we allow them to preach a sermon and so we're going to do that it's not to pull it together advice for preachers who preach in less than five years work on the fundamentals you know get a get a get a method what's your method you know whose method connects with you that you can use as a as a basics from which to proceed because you've got to be grounded somewhere you know you improve by preaching the fundamentals and if you get a method somebody will what am I currently reading I'm reading an article on Christian nationalism about Donald Trump and how the Christian Right it looks like to us that they sold out their birthright to what you know they were the moral majority and they would cut all this stuff and then truck comes along and he back I'm like crazy and what we're discovering is did they're doing something called Christian national that's open wide enough that a lot of far rights and far-right groups and Trump and Christians and evangelical can all get into the tenant and move in one direction because they are afraid they see America as this mythic Christian nation and so they're voting together to return America back so Trump taps into that and they vote for and regardless is morals because they see not so that that's the kind of stuff I'm reading just kind of I'm working on an article that I'm just gonna reading that tips for reaching preaching to youth and young adults resources preaching universal human experience if you preach guilt to young people you feel to old people what's the experience of those young people in a room I don't know that it we're a lot more alike than we are different I mean young adults wrestle with fear wrestle with you know I wouldn't get a revival when once time in a retirement village I was the only thing on this seventy in the room and I was the only thing black in the room I did three nights and I was worried that my content was too edgy you know I'm doing you know a real life stuff so nobody said much until we got back to the fellowship hall and then they told me about that we have been planning retirement for 35 years and we finally retired and moved down here a beautiful place on the lake and two months after we movie he got cancer and he died and here we are living alone well somebody said I got kids on drugs I don't know what to do with my inheritance you know they're gonna smoke it it's the what I mean so in other words working you down where can you download a copy I don't want to go into my system and pull it up and I can't remember the name of it it's called making America Christian again and it's three or four authors it's a sociological study and they lay out Christian nationalism and why they say even as we are saying that white Christian America is declining the narrative that they built will outlast them so that's the time when he had the best I can know when does a new preacher begin to feel I don't know that the nervousness ever subsides it's a good thing but you manage it so I was preaching a a installation for one of my daughter's in ministry and I was born out with a message and I would happy to be tweeting now as we were coming closer to the sermon another couple days and I said you know what I looked at that sermon this is crap I mean this is not going anywhere I mean this didn't it don't make sense but I've learned to trust in preparation it's why I went with it so all of us get nervous it's like you know is they sing and they sing a song right before you preach you know you're looking at the man I look at the minister this is crap okay but I learned to trust the preparation I trust my preparation there it is somebody posted it thank you so much for that Kimberly's ask them thank you so much that's one of my daughters she has a two teachers at TSU and has a PhD she's an ordained minister yes that's the article right there making America Christian again Christian nationalism and voting for Donald Trump there it is what is a non religious book that will challenge us spiritually hmm let your life speak about Parker Palmer its but let your life speak Parker Palmer I'm gonna take a sip of water dr. Thomas let me let me first of all thank you for today amazing you you're probably one of the most thoughtful people I've ever heard I've ever met in ministry and I I appreciate you you're actually one of my personal mentors and models believe it or not in terms of and of course I'm Howard Thurman fanatic in fact I try to try to model and mimic his thought process I'm probably very far from it but so I get it what over over the last I don't know 30 years you've been preaching 36 over the last 36 years um from from the moment you begun to now what is probably the greatest lesson you've learned in in your preaching journey what when what is the one thing that you have learned over the years that is that is a staple of who you are and no matter how you how good you get you never get there hmm that if I if I did have a sermon and say to you the kind of humility to understand and if you get it right it's more God than you if you get it wrong God offers you more grace and what you think because if you ever think it's you you're getting ready for a crash so I keep working on my method I keep getting better and trying to get better I'm just trying to get better that's what I'm just trying to get better so for example I gave it down give me this you know you've done Hampton so you know they haven't announced this conference is a huge it's the Superbowl of black preaching it's a tremendous amount of pressure to preach at Hampton I was invited to be the morning preacher in Jesus and when they ask you and you accept pressure comes on your shoulder because this is eight and nine thousand preachers and if you crash and burn the whole country knows you crash and burn I mean it goes out instantly it ain't like you know you can crash in front of the corner nobody know about you Crescent underground so it's pressure so to to deflate the pressure this is what I said my goal at Hampton I'm gonna preach at home on Sunday to be a better preacher on Tuesday morning Hampton than I was on Sunday to be a better preacher at Lindsey on morning Wednesday morning I was on Tuesday to be a better preacher on Thursday and then when I come back home to be a better preacher on Sunday then I was on Thursday at him that I was not going to allow Hampton to define me or to intimidate me because my real goal is to get better though I'll never really get where I want to get continuous improvement get better you work on this for 35 years a long time you keep working you keep working if you just and the reason that you want to get better is to help people you don't wanna get better so you can increase your speaking engagements that's all right so you can be reliable and make a name for yourself you want in that Bible for somebody to come down an hour saying what must I do to be saved tears flowing down their face you want somebody to give it a lot that's why you get better to help the people it's not that you can exalt your own name and make a name for yourself and be known as a great preacher nothing wrong with that you know God can take care of that but John for me I just wanted to get better to know that I remember I never really was gonna get there but I just keep getting better by the grace of God and if I'm good God was gracious if I'm terrible thank God is I don't have to beat myself up at night got it there's more gracious and merciful maybe God did some stuff that I'm even know let me say it I um I can I can sit and listen you just talk so I am I am incredibly appreciative to you for those of you who are on this zone we have been doing this now I don't know Kim what four or five weeks now and it's just been an amazing amazing journey we we are always encouraging everyone to to cash out our speakers our presenters dr. Thomas does not have a cash app and so this way you gotta trust me if you want to give him something that you want to so man we encourage everybody to do so you can send the cash out to me and then I will send it through Zelly to him today so whatever you sent to me I will make sure he knows exactly that he can verify it and then and and then and and then I will send it directly to him and yes buy his books that's the other thing this this is this to me and I'm gonna I'm you know I'm gonna have 30 seconds oh wow this to me has been one of the most groundbreaking things that's happened through this pandemic is black creatures getting on zoom' at 3 o'clock on a Sunday and talking about preaching and hearing presentations on preaching and being stretched in the crap it started with just my ministry sons and daughters at our church and to fellowship Kingdom fellowship and we started with like 3040 people and then it just kind of expanded cuz the next week I asked dr. Emily credit and she came on and was absolutely amazing and absolutely incredible and didn't just kind of limp from their doctor Jerry Carter and and we've just kind of gone dr. gray piloted now and I thought Frank Thomas next week is bisher we're not focusing the following week is dr. Gina Stewart so thank you for the commercial or thank you for the amazing commercial doctor James Stewart and then following her would be dr. William Curtis and then the plan is to conclude with my brother dr. Jeffery guns who will talk about maintaining preaching excellence over 40 years and so you you you just hang in yes it is Mother's Day so go ahead and eat earlier eat late but don't be on beyond and others and you're already sending cash at so please send it to me and I absolutely promise you that I will be sending it directly to him as soon as we are finished so I thank you tune everyone of you for getting on please doctor where can we find your book set where Amazon Amazon okay all right okay so please go to Amazon and and look for a doctor books I'm going myself and look and I have a lot of mystery sons and daughters I'm gonna encourage them now to go look for his stuff thank you all for taking time this is a good hour and ten minutes to spend in getting better and getting better and I say this the one thing that has happened for those of us who have to treat every week and I had to preach today for those of us who had to preach every week here's the thing we're discovering if you need an aid men to preach you're not called to this you must be called to impacting and empowering and transforming people for the greater good people are in need of the gospel like never before but they're also in need of the compassion of the preacher and so if the purity the preachers heart meets the message then what will happen will be the empowerment of the air and and in a sense of I can face this and I can I can I can live in and through this so so so thank you so much dr. Thomas you have the last word and then we will and then we will go from here I just think you one of the missions of the ph.d program John is to to archive celebrate right about the the genius of African American preaching the generative preaching Renaissance to revive American Christianity and so you'll work here and helping people to get better who don't just work with PhDs and seminary students but everybody because I don't have a preaching Renaissance is if everybody I want to thank you for your seminary on Sundays you're contributing helping people to get better I think for black preaching can generate our preaching Renaissance in this nation and so but it doesn't you can't just teach one segment you got teaching everybody so I come in Jew before you work effort and putting together and I enjoy being a part well you wanted the best there is and we're honored and thank you all of you who are sending your cash apps and we are receiving them and it and the moment that we kind of see that you know that it's kind of level off we will we will send it to him and so again please everyone take a moment and and sense something if it's nothing but five dollars since something to say thank you to him it's amazing and so again as Bishop Bishop je g and and you can send it to me and I will get it to him before the day is out and I promise you every dollar you send to me will go directly to him so again thank you guys so much you're amazing you're incredible and dr. Frank Thomas is undergoing you and we're grateful that you're black and that you'll reach it we love you so much everybody be blessed and we'll see you guys next week for Bishop who dr. Kissinger we bless everybody thank you

Channel: Life Center

Views: 2,617

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Id: gxALTk6JkHI

Length: 69min 23sec (4163 seconds)

Published: Sun May 03 2020