“He opposes sermons that are little more than conventional wisdom: “Sermons on ‘Five Ways to Keep Your Marriage Alive’ or ‘Keys to a Successful Prayer Life’ or even ‘Standing Up for Peace in a Warring World’ may possess some ethical wisdom and some utilitarian helpfulness, but the often have the sickly sweet aroma of smoldering incense in a temple from which the deity has long since departed” (38). Whoa.”
Amen! And we wonder why our churches, and especially our younger generations, are so influenced by moralistic therapeutic deism.

Very good. This is where I’ve been trying to go with my preaching. Nice to know what I’m aiming for.

Rick…..Ha, really? “especially our younger generations”?
What?

Joey-
From “Summary Interpretation: Moralistic Therapeuitic Deism/Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers”:
“…it appears that only a minority of U.S. teenagers are naturally absorbing by osmosis the traditional substantive content and character of the religious traditions to which they claim to belong. For, it appears to us, another popular religious faith?Moralistic Therapeutic Deism?is colonizing many historical religious traditions and, almost without anyone noticing, converting believers in the old faiths to its alternative religious vision of divinely
underwritten personal happiness and interpersonal niceness….The language?and therefore experience?of Trinity, holiness, sin, grace, justification, sanctification, church, Eucharist,and heaven and hell appear, among most Christian teenagers in the United States at the very least, to be being supplanted by the language of happiness,niceness, and an earned heavenly reward. It is not so much that Christianity in the United States is being secularized. Rather more subtly, either Christianity is at least degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith.”
It also states, regarding MTD:
“…it seems that it is also a widespread,popular faith among very many U.S. adults. Our religiously conventional adolescents seem to be merely absorbing and reflecting religiously what the adult world is routinely modeling for and inculcating in its youth.”
http://www.ptsem.edu/iym/lectures/2005/Smith-Moralistic.pdf

Rick, I would posit that the second paragraph undermines your emphasis on the younger generations. If the youth are that way, it’s purely because of the adults offering the sugar- what teen is going to turn down Xbox if that’s what their church offers them?
I think Joey and I are both reacting to your use of the word “especially.” We don’t deny there are young people who adhere to MTD, but we strongly doubt it’s any greater tendency than the adults that raised them.
Amen Joey. In our congregation, it’s the boomers that tell me they didn’t come to church for a Bible study when we’ve explored the Grand narrative of Scripture- the 20s and 30s love it, as do the Builders. Same with the liturgy and the music.

Richard and Joey-
Now I understand your concerns.
Let me clarify. My use of “especially” was not to refer to “more than” the boomers; rather it was to emphasize the heavy impact such a mindset is having on younger generations.
No, I am not meaning to take blame off the boomers. In fact, I hold them primarily responsible. “Especially” was meant as a wake-up call to boomers, and especially church leaders, that are promoting these type sermon series, and are therefore not only negatively impacting themselves, but are also being very destructive to the next generation(s). The adults need to (can) snap out of it, but unfortunately the younger generations may not know the difference, thus may have a more difficult time snapping out of it.
Sorry I was not clear on that.

Rick, I wasn’t sure how to respond but I appreciate your clarification.

No problem Rick, thanks for clarifying. To be honest, I know I am very sensitive to it (possibly overly so) because I live in a community where the popular response is to wonder what’s wrong with the young people because they don’t want to go to church instead of asking what’s wrong with the church that they haven’t given a compelling vision for life/faith to the 1000s of youth that have gone through their youth ministries faithfully and walk out in college or just after.

OK, let me call us back to the post… which is about the need for the ongoing presence of God in our preaching.
What’s happened to the thunder?

Scot – What’s happened to the thunder? Answer: The Enlightenment happened…and instead of trembling at the power of the thunder as in the past, we now scientifically explain it away…

Scot,
So, where’s the thunder? And where are the “burning bushes”? This is going to be a hard nut to crack…to move from expositional, atomistic, verse-by-verse preaching to narrative, big Story, real Presence preaching. Some in the [cessationist] camp of evangelicalism get real jumpy about real Presence because it seems slippery and on the way to things not done “decently and in order.” Good exegetical study and homiletically astute sermons are much *safer* than praying about, preparing and preaching for real Presence of the LIVING God. Yet, as a pastor, I can see it in people’s eyes and hear it in their voices…they want to encounter the LIVING God, not hear another slick sermon. People remain objective and critical of “steps,” “secrets,” and “principles” because they’ve been tried so often and found wanting. A narrative sermon calls for participation and response and, if and when the LIVING God shows up in it, a deeply changed way of living. What do you think? BTW, I watched the video…it was good.

I have a question. Is it possible to have the “thunder” or the presence of God in a sermon that is simulcast on a life size screen?
Is the power in the content of preaching or is there something powerful about live preaching itself?
Thoughts?

Good question David. I wonder how much of our experience receiving sermons is affected by the context. I know I have been deeply fed because of podcasts or downloaded sermons but that may not be a universal phenomenon. Live sermons are always more engaging.
John W Frye, I would just point out that many good narrative preachers do verse by verse exegetical preaching. They just set the narrative of those verses in the larger narrative of what God is up to. They help us understand the arc of God’s story and where the specific scripture in question fits into to that arc.
I feel like this question about “thunder” is similar to the one that is asked by people who have tried to reimagine preaching or the sermon like Doug Pagitt. In what way is preaching formative and to a great extent, in what way can sermons be ground shaking, life altering, and disemboweling?

I’m preaching a narrative sermon tomorrow. Still writing it. Read books about preaching from narrative texts, but they’ve been minimally helpful. I know a good narrative sermon when I hear it, but doing it is another thing. My biggest obstacle to re-telling the stories of the Bible is, well, the Bible. It’s written in (a) particular way(s), very carefully… especially OT narrative. How do you maintain the integrity of the story while expanding and adding to it? It’s an art… and a very delicate, dangerous enterprise.

good topic … i would add one thing to what Jeremy said… not only the Enlightenment but also consumer capitalism … the religious free market.

I think Grant asks two very important questions.
Seriously. These are very, very important.
More and more of my seminary students, who write learning contracts in which they will practice the art of preaching ask if they can do so on video or webcam. I do not allow this. I require that they preach to a group of people….live.
I require this for a very particular reason.

Joey (#13),
I appreciate your push back, and I do agree with you. I know a gaggle of people who are spooked by the very idea of “story.” They have been weaned from “milk” to “principles,” “steps,” “secrets” and an infinite number of “how to’s.”