{"id":6184,"date":"2016-05-24T00:06:09","date_gmt":"2016-05-24T05:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=6184"},"modified":"2016-05-17T13:07:35","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T18:07:35","slug":"my-correspondence-with-tim-keller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=6184","title":{"rendered":"MY CORRESPONDENCE WITH TIM KELLER"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Tim,<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have read several of your books and benefited greatly from each one.\u00a0 I am also grateful for your willingness to do the Patheos\/Jesus Creed interview with me. \u00a0Hyperbole and lack of nuance (not two things many associate with you) can be taken literally when the person communicating is well regarded.\u00a0 I\u2019m afraid that may be the case with the following. \u00a0In several places I have seen various iterations of your remarks when it comes to young preachers.\u00a0 Here is one such example:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe you should spend a lot of time preparing your sermon, when you\u2019re a younger minister. I think because we are so desperately want our sermon to be good, that when you\u2019re younger you spend way too much time preparing. And, you know, its scary to say this to the younger ministers\u2026 you\u2019re not going to be much better by putting in twenty hours on that sermon\u2013the only way you\u2019re going to be a better preacher is if you preach often. For the first 200 sermons, no matter what you do, your first 200 sermons are going to be terrible. (laughter from the crowd). And, if you put in\u2026fifteen or twenty hours in the sermon you probably won\u2019t preach that many sermons because you won\u2019t last in ministry, because your people will feel neglected.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Similar to Gladwell\u2019s now contested \u201c10,000 hours of practice,\u201d many seem to take the 200 sermons in the most wooden of ways.\u00a0 I get the point that it may take some<\/em> five years of preaching to \u201cfind one\u2019s voice,\u201d but surely there is a wide variation of gifts and maturity that make the number 200 arbitrary, aren\u2019t there?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Personally, I have heard young preachers whose maturity coupled with a genuine unction of the Spirit made it evident that \u201cthey found their voice.\u201d\u00a0 Conversely, I sadly report hearing some minsters who long ago crossed 200 sermons and still seem in search of their voice.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sincerely in Christ,<\/strong>
\n Dave<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hi Dave\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

Certainly we can\u2019t take 200 in a wooden way. Of course there are variations. By the way, I doubt I\u2019ve used the number\u00a0\u201c200\u2033 more than once or twice in off hand remarks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You are right in drawing out the broader principle. If you preach regularly, say 40-50 times a year, including Sunday preaching and other speaking at weddings, funerals, and conferences, then, yes, I\u2019d say it takes at least three years of full-time preaching before you get even close to being as mature and\u00a0skillful\u00a0a preacher as you are capable of becoming.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are basically three things that go into the\u00a0\u201cmaturing\u201d process: a) the actual preparation of the message, b) life experience\u2014of your own heart, of pastoral work, of prayer, c) practice.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019d say that younger preachers a) don\u2019t have enough life experience, and b) don\u2019t preach often enough to be growing in preaching as they should. They tend to put all the emphasis on long hours of academic prep.\u00a0 It would be better if instead of 20 hrs of prep they did 5-6 hrs of prep and spent the rest of the time out involved in people\u2019s lives, and then simply preached and spoke more often.\u00a0 That is the balance that is needed. And then give it 3-5 years to come up to whatever level God has gifted you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And, yes, I have heard some young preachers with pretty good spiritual maturity for their age and God\u2019s anointing\u2013be quite good.\u00a0 Yet compare the sermons of the young Spurgeon (who was a teenage preaching phenom) with the old Spurgeon. The older Spurgeon sermons are far richer, wiser, better.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tim<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Tim, I have read several of your books and benefited greatly from each one.\u00a0 I am also grateful for your willingness to do the Patheos\/Jesus Creed interview with me. \u00a0Hyperbole and lack of nuance (not two things many associate with you) can be taken literally when the person communicating is well regarded.\u00a0 I\u2019m afraid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pastor","category-preaching"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6184"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6186,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6184\/revisions\/6186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}