Preaching Kerygmatic Sermons Workshop

ONE-DAY (6 hours)*

Over the past few decades a new tension has arisen for church leaders: preaching vs. teaching. Truth be told, our version of preaching is actually teaching with a bit more verve. Apostolic Era preaching hasn’t been regularly practiced by the Church in the West for centuries. The New Testament uses two different words to explain Christian speaking. One term used is Didache, from which we derive the understanding of teaching. The other term is Kerygma, from which we derive the understanding of preaching. Sadly, in our day we have been so far removed from the practice of Kerygma, that we don’t know what we don’t know. C.H Dodd states, “There is a careful distinction between preaching (kerygma) and teaching (didache) in the Early Church.” 

This simplicity of Jesus-Story preaching has been mostly lost on us in this modernist era, though many have fought for its recovery. Richard Neibuhr stated that preaching is the proclamation of the good news of the saving action in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Karl Barth also believed that preaching was to be based on the life of Christ. Harvey Cox noted that we have departed today from the preaching of the apostles; they followed a practice of presenting the hearer with something that had happened in the life of Jesus, and then something yet to happen - his coming again with power. The stories of Jesus always lead to something else - an empowered life for the hearer.. The early preachers of the gospel had one subject and one only. Jesus. This was their ‘word’ which they broadcast so assiduously. In our day we understand teaching quite well, but we are profoundly under-practiced in the use of Kerygmatic preaching. And this is a problem because secular peoples tend to only speak Kerygma. There is a  reason why the Church has lost its evangelistic voice.