Types of Sermons
If we were even to try to name some of the
types of sermons heard on occasion, let alone trying to
classify them, our task would be difficult. There might be
the BUTTERFLY sermon in which
the preacher flits from book to book not lighting too long
at any spot lest someone should catch him. There is what
Jeff D. Ray called the OLD MOTHER
HUBBARD sermon. In this, the preacher uses each word
as a jumping-off place into extended elaborations of
disjointed items. There is the BAG OF
BEADS message which consists of a number of good
ideas without a string to tie them together. There is the
PERSECUTION sermon structure in
which the preacher stays with a verse until persecuted and
then flees to the next. There is also the
MAJORING ON THE MINUTIA method.
This emphasizes the items picked up by an exegetical
microscope so that as Thomas Hobbs once said, "the preacher
casts atoms of Scripture as dust before men's eyes, thereby
making everything more obscure than it is." There is also
the SKYSCRAPER sermon in which
the preacher tells one story upon another.
Lloyd M. Perry, "Biblical Preaching"
