Looking for just the right gift for a preacher? I suggest Warren Lathem and Dan Dunn’s book, Preaching for a Response: Leading New Believers into Spiritual Maturity, released earlier this year by Bristol House.
The authors (Lathem has served as a pastor, district superintendent, and seminary president; Dunn has been a pastor, associate pastor, and missionary) know how to declare biblical truths in ways that elicit a clear response from listeners — a skill neither learned in seminary.
These authors have a collective 17 years of formal theological education. Yet never in those years did anyone attempt to instruct either of us in how to preach for a response, how to give the invitation for a response, or even why we ought to find a way to invite and encourage a response….
[Yet r]esponse is inherent in the gospel and the gospel preacher who does night invite response is not being completely faithful to the gospel.
Other excerpts:
How many sermons are preached, how many worship services are conducted in church all across America without any thought being given to a response by the hearer? How often do preachers and worship leaders prepare a great banquet, set it before the people, entice them to this gospel feast with beautiful words and music, yet never say, “Come and get it”?…
We may delude ourselves into thinking that just because the listener recognizes the need to respond, that he or she will know how to make a proper response to the gospel. More likely, without direction, guidance and invitation from the preacher, most will simply make no overt, conscious, intentional response, and by failing to do so will in fact reject the message they just heard….
Why do most mainline preachers fail to issue an invitation or give an opportunity for response? There are several possible reasons….
- We do not really believe people are lost…
- We do not believe the power of the gospel…
- We do not know how to invite a response…
- We would not know what do if they did respond…
- Our order of worship does not accommodate a response…
- We are fearful of the opinion of others…
- We do not take preaching seriously enough….
This book takes the task of preaching quite seriously, and includes practical advice not only about “what to say” but “how to say it.” For example, the chapter, “Twelve Keys to Effective Preaching,” emphasizes the basic building blocks of effective speaking — such as maintaining strong eye contact, using varied pacing, employing short sentences, and ending strong.
Preaching for a Response also includes detailed information on how to plan worship services, week after week, aimed at bringing forth responses that move people toward maturity in Christ.
You can order the book here (Amazon) or here (Bristol House).
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Related: Beginning next semester, Prof. Robert Tuttle, the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Asbury Seminary (Florida), will be using Preaching for a Response as one of several texts in his “Ministry of Evangelism” course.
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