Abstract
In this article, I commend a way forward in preaching pedagogy over the next ten years. I propose a turn toward improvisational teaching that is technologically innovative, intentionally collaborative, and strategically diverse. These commitments arise from ongoing pedagogical research, teaching and learning experiences in classrooms and conferences, dialogues with colleagues, and most importantly, from listening to students at various seminaries and divinity schools discuss how they learn, grow, and thrive as preachers.
Highlights
Why write an article on rethinking preaching pedagogy between and 2030? If the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it is that we do not know what will happen two months let alone ten years
From 2009 to 2018, among seminaries and divinity schools accredited by the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) in the United States of America and Canada, White student enrolment declined by 10 per cent, whereas enrolment rose 12 per cent for African Americans, 8 per cent for Asian Americans, 27 per cent for F-1 visa holders, and an astonishing 65 per cent for Latin students
I did not mean to imply that preaching professors should abandon other commitments that they hold dear such as biblical-exegetical competency, theological precision, communicative excellence, spiritual formation, and God-infused theologies of proclamation
Summary
Why write an article on rethinking preaching pedagogy between and 2030? If the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it is that we do not know what will happen two months let alone ten years . A homiletician who predicts realities in the year 2030 can be compared to a bungee jumper who dives off a bridge with a homemade bungee cord. Definitive predictions about the future border on presumption, the need for pedagogical revision remains vital, especially on a topic as important as training the generation of preachers. A way forward breaks us free from the tyranny of the immediate, by forcing us to ask non-immediate questions: How do we prepare our students theologically and practically for the shifts taking place in our culture and world, especially in light of the challenges we have seen in the year 2020? A way forward breaks us free from the tyranny of the immediate, by forcing us to ask non-immediate questions: How do we prepare our students theologically and practically for the shifts taking place in our culture and world, especially in light of the challenges we have seen in the year 2020? How do we pursue academic excellence while practising respect and responsibility toward a new generation of students? How do we teach with cultural humility in diverse classrooms? How do we pursue innovation in a way that is timely, while being faithful to the tradition? How do we respond to rampant technological changes that impact the manner in which institutions deliver courses and the mode whereby preachers deliver their sermons? Beneath these and other questions, is a deeper and more fundamental question for professors teaching homiletics: How do we teach preaching better than we do now? A short anecdote offers an entrée into the answer that will be proposed
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
