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I appreciate good preaching. As a student of scripture I find myself drawn, especially, to good expository preaching. That being said, I find my personal preaching/teaching style to be one of exposition and explanation rather than topical sermons dealing exclusively with contemporary subjects.
Recently I received a letter from the administration at NCCF stating that there would be some significant changes within the institution. Because of these changes, all of the current population would be moved w/in the next 6 months and replaced with an entirely new population. My current ministry approach has been one of teaching 'raw' scripture w/o fluff and sugar. I began on August 14 teaching through the parables of Jesus sequentially and I am currently on track to conclude this teaching on August 22, 2009. However, between now and then my entire congregation will be replaced with a new one. What should I do?
Rather, the question I am really asking is this...how important is sequential exposition in a prison ministry? Would the congregation be better served if I were to relax my approach and take a more topical approach addressing issues as they presented themselves? Should I take more time in researching the felt needs of the congregation? Should I give Biblical-based motivational speeches on topics such as acceptance, forgiveness, victory over sin and good Christian living instead of such methodical teaching from the text?
I've always taken the approach that a prison congregation is no less a congregation and whether I'm free or incarcerated the Word of God is alive and powerful.
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1 comment:
well it depends on what it takes to be a congregation.
i know many who read your blog may disagree with me, but i think there is a fundamental difference between a time of corporate worship by the Body of Christ and believers being together.
i love great biblical conferences, but i don't consider the attendance to be a congregation...we are an audience.
i think you can make a biblical case that what sets a congregation apart from an audience includes things like: elder leadership, ordinances practiced, church discipline, singing songs, hymns and spiritual songs to one another, the administration of the Word of God.
of course, many groups may have one or another of these, but i'm old school enough to think they actually need all of them. if we are the Body, then He obviously is to be the Head. and if He is the Head, we ought to do it the way He desires.
that's not to knock our brothers in prison. it may be very difficult for them to accomplish elder leadership and such within the confines of the jail. that said, i probably would not consider them to be a church (they are part of THE church, but i wouldn't consider their gatherings to be a congregations). i know you and i may differ on that one.
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now how to preach to this audience?
this certainly is a unique environment. one one side, you are limited in your ability to day by day disciple the brothers. but on the other hand, you get an opportunity to build upon the teaching you are giving.
i think you keep preaching through texts. my reasons would be:
1) how can you possibly know what every single one of those men actually needs to hear? you can't get in their heart and know the exact button to push.
2) preaching doesn't work that way anyway. it's not up to you to push the button, it's up to you to dispense the Word of God and allow the Holy Spirit to use His Word in the men's lives.
3) because of point 1 & 2, i am confident that you have been approached by inmates and have surprised by the way the Lord has used something you said to speak to specific circumstances in their life that you knew nothing about.
4) you are to be growing through the Word preached as well. a concern i have with choosing the topic and then going to a passage, or even with preaching a passage a lot that we really enjoy is that we begin to read into the passage what we want, rather than truly seeing what the text says. for your sake, encountering new texts to chew on and then preach is a healthy practice for you!
that said...
1) preach the gospel every week. not just alluding to it and not just speaking of its benefits. but take your men to the cross of Christ every week. it serves for evangelism purposes (both before and after this transition) and also serves for sanctification purposes to the men who know Christ.
2) preach texts in such a way that men are also learning secondarily how to study their Bible. it's not the theme of your message you are giving, but as men see you walk through the text (asking the questions the text does, answering with the text), you are modeling Bible study methods to them. you're not just giving them fish, you're teaching them to fish.
3) i wouldn't preach in a way that builds TOO much off the previous weeks. you'll want to construct your messages in such a way that you can remind (or inform, depending on the person and their arrival) of a previous week(s) message so they can gain context in a 5 minute recap or so. this helps build context but it also means you'll have to build your case each week and not leave it hanging.
(for example: a series that lays out your eschatological position is probably too complex to try to do with a revolving audience. but a series like cj mahaney has done before...where he walked through all the people God had executed!...would be easy to recap/review at the beginning but then move forward. as i think about it, the Proverbs and the apocalyptic literature is probably the only ones that are difficult to follow in this grid.
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