I am so pleased to dedicate this book to the members and friends of the Congregational Church of Union, Connecticut, United Church of Christ. It was in this congregation, which I served from early 2001 to the middle of 2012, that I preached the sermon series around which this book is centered. I dedicate this book to these wonderful people in gratitude for their openness to God’s Word and for the many ways in which they proclaimed that Word to me.
Acknowledgments
Along with my former congregation, the Congregational Church of Union, Connecticut, UCC, to whom this book is dedicated, there are several other individuals I wish to acknowledge. First and foremost is my wife, Patricia Coppinger LaRochelle. She has not only sat through many of my sermons in church sanctuaries, but she has also witnessed patiently as many of their ideas have unfolded at home. Likewise, our three children, Brian, Kathleen and Stephen, have quite often shared in their mom’s situation. Quite seriously – For all of their insights and feedback, I am most grateful and I acknowledge these four special people in my life with my undying and ever abiding love!
I also wish to thank my new congregation, the Second Congregational Church, Manchester, Connecticut, UCC, for their willingness to call me to serve them as their pastor. I am deeply grateful for the relationships we are forming together and eagerly anticipate the many opportunities that lie ahead where we can share in our common ‘priesthood of believers.’ For the ways in which this church has dedicated itself to living out the message of Jesus both within and beyond our walls, I am greatly inspired.
Finally, I am most thankful for the ministry of Henry and Jody Neufeld, whose commitment to Christian publishing and to seeking common ground among believers is truly exemplary. In particular, I thank Henry for his outstanding support as I have written both this book and my previous one, Crossing the Street. It is my hope that through these published words, you and I, writer and reader, may grow in a far more important task—to be hearers and doers of the Word of God, the very Word made manifest in Jesus!
South Windsor, Connecticut
October 31, 2012
Reformation Day
Introduction
Each and every Sunday in churches throughout the world, members of local congregations sit in their seats and listen to a message that has traditionally gone by the name ‘sermon.’1 Suffice it to say that this message is such a vital part of worship that many people evaluate the attractiveness of a particular church by the quality of the preaching one experiences within it. Throughout the course of my career as an ordained minister in both Protestant and Catholic churches,2 I have preached hundreds of times. On certain occasions and for particular reasons, I have moved away from the traditional approach wherein the preacher speaks and the congregation listens. Instead, I have delivered a message on that particular morning and provided time right after it for members of the congregation to respond with questions or comments if they decided to do so. It is from an extended period of time wherein I took such an approach that the idea behind this book was born.
Within the pages of what you are now reading, you will find eight sermons. That’s not all you will find here but they will form the centerpiece for each of the chapters you will read. These sermons were preached as part of a series in the summer of 2012 in the Congregational Church of Union, Connecticut, United Church of Christ, where I had served for over eleven years by the time this series started.
What is unique about this particular series is that each of my messages was a bit shorter than that which you might hear on most Sundays at my church. The reason for my relative brevity (and it is relative indeed!) is that at the end of each message, I ‘open up the floor’ and encourage members of the congregation to react back to the sermon-to, as mentioned above, ask questions, make comments, offer feedback, and possibly even critique something I either said or didn’t say!
It is important to know that I preach in the ‘traditional’ style over ninety percent of the time. Yet, over the course of my pastorate in that church, I sought to develop opportunities such as the one described here for two basic reasons, one highly theological, the other what we might call pastoral.
Let’s start with the theological: As Christian believers, we contend that the Word of God as contained within the Scriptures is ‘living and active’3 and that it has the power to touch the heart and to inspire each of us who read and hear it. In the long standing tradition of homiletics4 within the Christian church, we have also contended that it is the task of the preacher to ‘break open’ the Word of God so as to facilitate this process. In simpler terms, I like to think of preaching as structuring a message in such a way that in effect the preacher actually gets out of God’s way as both God and the hearer interact with one another during this time in the service in which the Word is so explicitly proclaimed.
As believers, we also affirm the reality of our shared ‘priesthood.’5 We recognize that God works in and through each of us and that we all have a message to share. In some traditions, such as my own, this recognition forms the basis for preaching by those who are not ordained on days such as designated Laity Sundays as well as other occasions.
Each time a preacher preaches, things are happening inside of the minds and the spirits of each person who is listening. Here is where what we might call a pastoral understanding enters into our discussion. What you and I hear in a sermon may be highly contingent upon where we happen to be in our life situations at the very moment this sermon is preached. As I write these words, I am preparing next Sunday’s message which centers on Jesus’ discussion with the Pharisees about marriage and divorce. How His words and mine are heard this coming Sunday morning and what they trigger in each hearer are greatly dependent upon the experiences with this topic each is reflecting upon at the particular time the sermon will be preached. One hearer may be worried about the possibility of divorce, another experiencing a custody battle, still another on the brink of committing to a new relationship, someone else coming off the high of one’s honeymoon and not even prepared to imagine how so blissful a relationship could ever actually rupture.
All of which brings us back to the underlying theological assumptions I make. If we contend that each Christian believer has a message to share, why should we not provide opportunity for him/her to share it within the context of the local church’s weekly gathering event, the service of worship? In using this approach over a period of several years, I have been deeply touched by what people have said when given the opportunity, by the questions my words led them to ponder and how the sharing of those questions made major contributions to the spiritual lives of THEIR hearers, including me!
This book is the result of something new for me. It is the first time I have used this preaching format in an extended sermon series. The sermons you read here were delivered over an eight week period during the months of July and August. In fact, this series itself is also the result of more than one new thing! In selecting the TOPICS for each of these shared messages, I opted to look at the kinds of QUESTIONS I have been asked in my life as a pastor and I tried to hone in on some of the recurring themes found therein. In this way, I felt I was preaching within the context of real life issues that had emerged within the lives of many of my listeners, several of whom articulated their questions to me.
Having done my doctoral work in the field of preaching, I was excited about this opportunity to put these beliefs I have expressed into practice over the period of several weeks. I also concluded early on that the process would be worth even more developed systematic reflection on my part. I was likewise hopeful that the result of this reflection would be of some value to others who are interested in both preaching and in the varied dynamics inherent in spiritual life wherever two, three or more are gathered. Hence, this book!
In each of the eight chapters that follow, you will find a similar format. I will begin by introducing some background to the question(s) about which
