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Sermons, like people, can take a great variety of shapes. Evangelicals may have been a little slow to realize this, given our reticence to compromise on Scripture. We have tended to err toward a more conservative approach in offering our homiletic guidance, so as to minimize the risk that we might do the Scripture damage. More recently, we have discovered that just as the Bible itself varies in form, so might our preaching.
Dennis Cahill has helped us by detailing some of these potential shapes of the sermon. As one of the many protogées of Haddon Robinson currently influencing evangelical homiletics, Cahill brings a rock-solid commitment to the authority of Scripture and more than twenty years of real-life pulpit experience. In other words, evangelicals can trust that what he has to say will allow them to spread their wings without compromising their commitment either to the Scripture or to their calling as expositors.
This is a great introduction to the forms and functions of preaching as it is becoming and not as it used to be. The book describes what I have called “small case ‘e’ exposition.” That is to say that it describes ways of preaching that expose the Scripture without demanding the linear, deductive form. Not that Cahill has no place for traditional form. Rather, he sees it as one of several shapes that the sermon can take alongside inductive preaching, semi-deductive preaching, inductive/deductive preaching, and narrative preaching. Those familiar with my own book, Choosing to Preach will recognize some of these approaches by different names. I’m not sure that Cahill’s list is exhaustive or that it pursues all of the potential shapes a sermon could legitimately take. The book does lean a little bit toward the propositional in its tone if not in its prescriptions. Nevertheless Cahill does an effictive job helping us understand the shapes and how to put them into practice.
The book is divided into two sections, the first more theoretical and the second more practical. The theoretical sections are well-researched and carefully considered. Cahill knows the territory. The practical sections are useful though perhaps not overly innovative.
I, for one, am grateful to people like Cahill who are able to help us bring a greater sense of variety and creativity to the preaching process. It just might make for more interesting listening and perhaps even more inspiring sermons.