Perform (vb.)--to enact, accomplish; to bring to completion; to carry out (a command or promise).

One of the hot topics in homiletics the last twenty years, perhaps the hottest topic, has been narrative preaching. We've been told that Jesus told stories, and so should we; we've been told that over half of the Bible is narrative, so we better sit up and take not- ice that this form of communication is powerful; and we've been told that anyone who wants to reach our TV-conditioned audience had better traffic in images and plots, not ideas and arguments. I believe all of this. Many of us do, but I wonder how many of us actually preach narrative sermons.

The exhortations of the last twenty years toward narrative preaching may not have done much more than make us feel guilty for not trying it. We are better at arguing for narrative sermons than we are in preaching them.

This article is a modest attempt to equip the already (or partially) convinced. It takes a practical approach to a particular type of narrative preaching, the first person sermon -- sometimes called the "dramatic monologue."

What Is A First Person Narrative Sermon?

A first person narrative sermon is a form of preaching which expounds and applies a biblical text by retelling the story through the perspective of a character in the story. The personality of the preacher is subordinated to the personality of the narrator who is an observer or participant in the story. The first person narrative sermon uses first person pronouns (for example, "I said to her... Then I went to the Temple...I tried to hide, but he saw me.") Sometimes this kind of sermon is called the "dramatic monologue" because (surprise!) it is dramatic and it is a monologue. This term makes some preachers uneasy because it blurs the lines between acting and preaching. True, but I believe that it's possible faithfully to exposit a text and capitalize on the power of a story well told. Drama and preaching are not necessarily at odds.

Can You Preach This Kind Of Sermon From A Non-Narrative Text?

You can, but I don't recommend it. Preachers who would radically alter the form of the text by the form of the sermon need good reasons to do so. The next section of the article implies why this is so -- because form is significant -- but here it is enough to point out that over half of the Bible is narrative, so during the course of a typical year, we should have plenty of opportunities to preach first person sermons from narrative passages. No one should be inconvenienced if they stick to narrative passages for narrative sermons.

Aren't First Person Sermons A Lot Of Trouble to Prepare? Why Bother?

Yes, this kind of sermon takes longer to prepare than "three points and a poem," but the advantages make it worthwhile. If preachers mix in only one or two monologues a year they'll add some zing to their homiletical stew. Why bother? For two reasons: To adapt to our culture, and faithfully to exposit the text.

Cultural critics such as McLuhan, Ong, Muggeridge, Postman, Ellul, and Guinness have argued persuasively that a shift in communication media has taken place in modern western culture: a shift from print culture to electronic culture, (a mixture of orality, typography, and pictures).1 With the shift in the way we communicate came a shift in the way we think. We now derive knowledge and judge truth based more on image and story than on propositional argument. As Postman explains, "A new major medium [television] changes the structure of discourse; it does so by encouraging certain uses of the intellect, by favoring certain definitions of intelligence and wisdom, and by demanding a certain kind of content -- in a phrase by creating new forms of truth-telling."2 Postman claims that we have created new forms, but in reality we are merely returning to old forms, or at least one old form -- story.