Being a chaplain for the Salvation Army myself, I was very interested in reading
about Catherine Booth. I had read some about her husband William but not much
on her. I believe that she had good, strong, and well written sermons. Catherine’s
sermons “began with a biblical text and a challenging title.”[1] This relates to
McDill’s fourth skill naming the text idea. I also believe that Catherine Booth did
an excellent job with McDill’s fifth skill, bridging from text to sermon. Catherine
took some difficult concepts from the Bible and made them understandable to her
listeners. She preached on sanctification, holiness, and restoration. These topics
are sometimes difficult to understand, yet as she put them into her sermon she
made them understandable to the public.
c c c c c c c c c c Robert M ’Cheyne also was able to bridge the text to the sermon as well
as diagram his text structure. Although it is not exactly like McDill’s he did write
his sermon out and had one central theme. M ‘Cheyne preached mainly on the
glory and greatness of Christ as Christ is the main thing in the gospel. He lived
only 29 years but his legacy lives on.
c c c c c c c c c c Philips Brooks stated that “Preaching is the communication of truth by
man to man. It has in two essential elements, truth, and personality. Neither of
those can it spare and still be preaching.”[2] Brooks wanted to take truths from
the Bible and personalize them so his listeners could understand the context and
content of the text. He wanted his listeners to know God on a personal level. One
of McDill’s stages he uses is naming the text, which asks the preacher to decide
on one topic and use that to build the sermon on. Brooks did this very well.
c c c c c c c c c c The last preacher I read was Billy Sunday. I enjoyed reading about him
and was amazed at the number of people who heard him speak and who were
influenced by him. Sunday was a professional baseball player turned preacher
who had never taken a course in theology. He spoke about Christ and believed
that faith in Christ was the answer to everything. I think that Billy Sunday was
masterful at bridging the text to the sermon by using direct biblical authority and
making his idea and his purpose the same. He delivered powerful sermons around
the country and supposedly was heard by millions without the use of television,
radio, or any other device we may use now.
[1] Benjamin K. Forrest, Kevin L. King, Bill Curtis, Dwayne Millioni, Ed. A Legacy of
Preaching : Enlightenment to the Present Day. [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan,
2018: 98]
[2] Ibid. 230
