Alive to the Word. Stephen I. Wright

Roman Catholic orders took the gospel into the open in various parts of the world.[30] In the eighteenth century, when the spiritual life of the established church was at a low ebb, John Wesley took to his horse and drew vast crowds to his open-air preaching. In the nineteenth century Charles Haddon Spurgeon would also preach to great crowds in out-of-church venues. In an offshoot of the Wesleyan tradition, William Booth and his ‘Salvation Army’ took the good news on to the streets of the great industrial cities and gathered the poor and damaged into the fold through a ministry that combined (as it still does) proclamation and care in a powerful way. The ‘seeker service’ movement pioneered by Willow Creek Church in the late twentieth century deliberately set up meetings that were shaped upon the expectations and comfort-zones of those outside the church.

Nor is this model confined to those identified as ‘evangelicals’. Hyde Park in London provided the platform for the great Methodist preacher Donald Soper, while the streets of industrial Glasgow offered a pulpit to George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community.[31] And today, preachers of various backgrounds are exploring again the potential for an out-of-church proclamation that attracts by its holy folly.[32]

A trend from the early nineteenth century onwards particularly exemplifies this model of taking the ‘word beyond the walls’. It has been dubbed ‘frontier religion’, and dates back to the time when the colonizers of America and their descendants were spreading west into new territory.[33] When there were few church buildings, Christians saw the potential for camps and outdoor gatherings where the gospel could be proclaimed. There was an advantage in the lack of traditional ‘baggage’ a church building represents, and preachers such as Charles Grandison Finney and later Dwight Moody would make full use of it, proclaiming the gospel in an earnest, often emotional manner that addressed the heart and won many adherents. This movement came also to encompass gatherings for the encouragement of the already converted (such as the Keswick Convention in Britain), and could espouse at various times a range of spiritualities and doctrinal positions (as the history of Keswick again shows). It influenced many evangelistic groupings, such as the Children’s Special Service Mission (later Scripture Union), Pathfinders, Crusaders, Youth for Christ, and most prominently in the twentieth century, Billy Graham and his evangelistic association.

      It is natural that such movements should arise when the ‘mainstream’ churches of Christendom either do not exist or are on the wane. A gospel for the world demands to be taken ‘beyond the walls’, and it will go out perhaps especially when those within the walls are less than hospitable to it. But it is interesting that in all these instances, the preacher appears not simply as a lone pioneer, but as one who remains dependent on a community of faith, indeed often bringing that community and even its worship into the arena with him or her. The friars were rooted in a community of their order. The Methodists had their connexion and their classes which both supported and were increased through their travelling preaching ministry. ‘Frontier religion’ regularly comprises not just preaching but worship, as any who have attended a Billy Graham crusade will know. It seems to be a pattern that though preaching from time to time needs to take place ‘outside the walls’, it is unnatural for it to be a solitary exercise. It is always bound up, in some way, with a worshipping community.

      Questions for the local church

       What streams of tradition have influenced the preaching in your church?

       Which of the three settings for preaching outlined in this chapter corresponds most closely to the preaching in your church?

       How does your church’s understanding of its role in society affect its preaching?

      Areas for research

      The influence of various preaching movements on others across history would provide a fascinating area of study. So would a comparison between two or more such movements, even if no actual influence was being investigated or assumed. The way in which the social setting and self-understanding of a church affect its preaching would be an important topic for some careful empirical study.

      Further reading

      O. C. Edwards Jr, 2004, A History of Preaching, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

      Hughes Oliphant Old, 1998–2007, The Reading and Preaching of Scripture in the Worship of the Christian Church, 6 vols, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

      Paul Scott Wilson, 1992, A Concise History of Preaching, Nashville: Abingdon.

[1] For a recent account of older approaches to preaching style, see Jonathan Hustler, 2009, Making the Words Acceptable: the Shape of the Sermon in Christian History, London: Epworth. See also the classic account of Charles Smyth, 1940, The Art of Preaching: Preaching in the Church of England 747–1939, London: SPCK. Smyth’s account is of relevance to the Church much wider than Anglicanism, especially in that nearly the first half of the book is devoted to the pre-Reformation period. My main historiographical reference-point in this chapter is O. C. Edwards Jr, 2004, A History of Preaching, Nashville: Abingdon. References below are to vol. 1. Vol. 2 consists of extracts from sermons and writings on homiletics, and is contained on a CD ROM within vol. 1.

[2] Edwards, History, pp. 17–21.

[3] Edwards, History, pp. 32–46.

[4] Edwards, History, pp. 147–8.

[5] I am indebted to Tim Grass for his comments on this point: private communication, 5 January 2010. See also Edwards, History, pp. 191–2.

[6] Tim Grass, private communication, 5 January 2010.

[7] Stuart Murray, 2000, Biblical Interpretation in the Anabaptist Tradition, Kitchener, Ontario: Pandora Press, pp. 157–85. Edwards writes: ‘Anabaptist gatherings probably consisted of informal teaching, prayer, and mutual exhortation in which many participated. Holy Communion was also held frequently. The centrality of preaching in Reformation worship grows out of an assumption that many church members were unconverted, an assumption the Anabaptists did not make.’ Edwards, History, p. 323 n. 15.

[8] Murray, Biblical Hermeneutics, pp. 157–9.

[9] Murray, Biblical Hermeneutics, p. 172.

[10] See for instance the material on the website http://www.anabaptistnetwork.com

[11]My thanks to Tim Grass, private communication, 5 January 2010, for this distinction.

[12] See Christopher J. Ellis, 2004, Gathering: A Theology and Spirituality of Worship in Free Church Tradition, London: SCM.

[13] On this latter point, I am indebted to Tim Grass, private communication, 5 January 2010. See ‘Ultramontanism’, in F. L. Cross (ed.), 1958, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, London: Oxford University Press, p.