Response to CM101   This was my first course ever on homiletics and I think this course laid a good foundation on which I can continue to build. This course is part of the Preaching Certificate and that’s the reason I am taking this course. I have been preaching for a couple of years now and normally I preach about 6-8 sermons a year in different churches. This doesn’t make me the most frequent preacher, but I still consider myself a preacher. Since I’ve had no formal training in preaching, I realized it might be a good thing to improve my preaching technique and listen to what other people have to say about preaching. I must be honest and say that my passion is biblical theology and not homiletics, but that’s also one reason why I thought I would benefit from a course like this. It doesn’t come naturally for me to work on my preaching technique, and that’s a good reason to actually put some effort into it and improve it. I believe I have learned a lot from this course. To start with, early on Dr. Carr talked about analyzing your sermon in four different ways: effect analysis, message-centered analysis, rhetorical analysis and mimetic analysis. I can’t remember the last time I analyzed my sermon in this comprehensive way. I naturally analyze my message through what Dr. Carr calls a “message-centered analysis”, but I now realize that I completely miss to analyze how my message affects the audience, how I can illustrate with picture or stories the truths I proclaim, and how well I succeed in reaching the audience with my message. One weakness I have is that I often forget to explain to the audience how eternal truths can be made practical. Normally I just love to talk about Jesus and biblical theology so much that I either don’t talk about how that affects our daily lives, or just talk about it very briefly. This is one analysis I’ve made during this course, so I’ve already begun implementing what I learned from this course. Dr. Carr gives many practical tips on how to improve the sermon preparation and the act of preaching, but one thing that I really liked is his many thoughts on the preacher himself. The most important preparation you make is to prepare yourself. You have to have an inner sense of being called to preach. As Dr. Carr said: “You’ve come to a place in your life where you say, ‘I must do this.’ This is something that just burns within [you] as a drive, as a passion—something that is not driven by any other compulsion except the true love of being with God, of learning from God’s Word, and speaking those truths that God reveals to you” Or with Paul’s words: “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16). This was liberating for me for I have somehow struggled a bit with the question whether or not I am called to preach. I now realize that the question is not so much if I’m called to preach or not, as if I can stay silent or not. I know that I can’t stay silent on the things God has shown me in his word, and I also know that I see how desperately God’s people need to hear it. Therefore, I don’t think the calling is so much about the very act of preaching as much as it is about having a passion to communicate God’s truth. Since I really have this passion to communicate God’s truth, I know that I am called to preach. Three other things the preacher needs to develop, and I think they all go hand in hand, is a prayerful attitude, to always listen to the Spirit, and a sense of talking with authority from God. Preaching and communicating God’s word is not something I can do myself. If God doesn’t give me what to say, and if God doesn’t open up the listener’s heart, then my preaching is in vain. To pray in all steps of the preparation of the sermon is necessary. To pray and be open to the direction of the Spirit when preaching is vital. It really isn’t about me giving a good speech, it is about God talking to the people through me. And this leads to the third thing. When I preach I have to be confident that I’m preaching with authority from God. I don’t have to excuse what I’m saying. If I believe the message is from God I can stand firm and bold, knowing that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Rom 10:17).   Kind regards, Henrik