After reading A Legacy of Preaching, there were numerous preachers that I found
inspiring. I was also able to see several of McDill’s skills being used. For this
discussion post I choose to analyze the sermon’s of Harry Emerson Fosdick and
John Stott.
Harry Emerson Fosdick was a North American preacher who used several styles of
McDill’s 12 Essential Skills for Great Preaching. The first is drawing pictures, telling
stories. Telling stories is important during preaching because “No word pictures
and stories essential to good speech communication, but they are also inherent to
the revelation of God in Scripture.”1 Fosdick would combine illustrations (story
telling) with natural analogies (human experiences). “His use of illustrations have
been described as being psychological rather than theological, drawing extensively
from human experience.[149] Boyer contends that Fosdick used the Bible more for
its illustrations than for exegetical reasons.[150] He was a gifted storyteller and
often employed personal illustrations and human-interest stories from the past and
present.[151] He was an artist with words, each sermon adding to his gallery of
aptly drawn comparisons, personifications, allusions, and illustrations.”2 This is
demonstrated in his sermon The Church Must Go Beyond Modernism, when he said;
“We have already largely won the battle we started out to win; we have adjusted
the Christian faith to the best intelligence of our day and have won the strongest
minds and the best abilities of the churches to our side.”3 He also employed
Preaching for Faith skill. “He believed that the task of the preacher was to place
premium value on humanity, and to instill faith and hope in the lives of the
audience.”4
John Stott uses McDill’s skill of Aiming for a Faith Response. Stott was known to
be immersed in scripture and his theology was formed by reading scripture.5 In his
sermon excerpt, Good News of Reconciliation, Stott is always referring each point
back to God and how reconciliation is only possible through God. For example,
“God is the author of the reconciliation…. Christ is the agent of reconciliation…. as
we implore people to be reconciled to God, it is God himself who is making his
appeal through us.”6 McDill defines a faith response as “Since biblical faith is
objective, the focus of preaching must be the object of faith, the person of God.
The preacher enhances faith by pointing his hearers to God, his character, his
capabilities, his intentions, and his record.”7 By directing the reconciliation as only
being possible through God’s work, not ours, Stott is applying a faith response
from his hearers.
j Wayne McDill, 12 Essential Skills for Great Preaching (B & H Publishing
Group, 2015), 152.
Benjamin K Forrest, Kevin L. King and William J. Curtis , A Legacy of Preaching,
Volume Two: Enlightenment to the Present Day (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2019),
373.
3Ibid.
4Ibid., 371.
5Ibid., 342.
6Ibid., 351-352.
McDill, 12 Essential Skills, 189.
