Preaching To Move A Church: An Interview With H. Beecher Hicks
Preaching:
Tell me about your preaching style.
Hicks:
I would like to think that I am pretty eclectic — that if you come to hear
me preach Sunday after Sunday, you will encounter something different with each
experience.
My
sermons are always biblically grounded but nevertheless they also contain something
of social significance. The gospel as I understand it addresses people where
they are, at the point of their need, while at the same time teaching them something
of the old message, the old story and of the saving grace of Jesus Christ. One
week it may be thematic, another week it may be very textual. I am completely
open to preach in whatever way I believe the Spirit is leading me at that particular
moment.
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So
I am not an automaton that simply produces the same thing in the same way week
after week. I’m seeking at all times to be both meaningful and relevant
to the worshipping community.
Preaching:
Do you ever preach in series?
Hicks:
I do use series preaching. In fact, the book On Jordan’s Stormy Banks
is based upon a preaching series. It is a complete series of sermons on the
tabernacle. I have also done a series of sermons on Becoming the Kingdom. As
this theme has caught hold in our church, we have identified seven concepts
of the Kingdom and these have become the focal point of our ministry programmatically.
They set the priorities and goals for the church going forward.
While
I have completed the series of sermons on becoming the Kingdom, the sermons
continue as the congregation now picks up the themes and begins to use them
as devotional points of departure for their ministries. They use it as information
for their Sunday school classes, and there is always information on our website
about one of the principles at any point in time. Our minister of music has
even composed a song inspired by the series. We continue to use it as we go
along.
Preaching:
How long is a typical sermon for you?
Hicks:
(laughing) Depends on who you ask. I’m usually somewhere between 40 and
50 minutes. In the last two or three months I’m starting to cut them down
to 35.
Preaching:
Why is that?
Hicks:
Well, the older I get the less wind I’ve got, I suppose.
Preaching:
Do you find that a shortening attention span is a factor today?
Hicks:
I think that compared to twenty years ago, we have new ways of learning and
new ways of transmitting information. Our children learn not by sitting at a
table with back erect to read See Jack Run; they learn by what they see
on television and the multiple images that are flashed before them in a second’s
time. So those persons who now come to the church come with a mind that really
is energized by multimedia and by multiple images.