Should preaching be pastoral or prophetic? Should preaching comfort the afflicted or afflict the comfortable? How do preachers decide what kind of balance to maintain between grace-filled sermons and messages that call for action or transformation?
Mike Breen and Steve Cockram (Building a Discipling Culture) provide a matrix which helps answer these questions. Though the matrix is used in their broad discussion of disciple-making, it has obvious implications for preaching.
Breen and Cockram argue that ministry (and thus preaching) takes place within the tension between invitation and challenge. Applied to preaching, we could say the following:
Sermons low on challenge and low on invitation (grace) are basically useless (boring quadrant). They are neither hot nor cold.
Sermons low on challenge and high on invitation result in a kind of “cozy culture” in which listeners are comforted and feel good but are never called to action or change.
Sermons high on challenge but low on invitation result in a “discouraged culture” in which listeners are constantly challenged but never comforted.
Sermons high on challenge and high on invitation result in an “empowered culture” where true discipleship happens.
They write, “A gifted discipler is someone who invites people into a covenantal relationship with him or her, but challenges that person to live into his or her true identity in very direct yet graceful ways.” We might say a gifted preacher is someone who invites people into covenental relationship with Jesus and challenges that person to live into his/her true identity in very direct yet graceful ways. The best preaching will be high invitation/ high challenge.
How do you make these types of decisions in your preaching? Do you lean toward one naturally–challenge or invitation? What does challenge look like/ sound like for you when you preach? How about invitation?
