Morling College’s Dr Tim MacBride has been announced as one of the keynote speakers at PreachFest 2023.
Dr MacBride is the author of several books, including Catching the Wave and To Aliens and Exiles (2020).
He told Insights the event would explore why preaching remained essential to the life of the church.
“I think it’s important every so often to go back to the fundamental question: why do we preach?” he said.
“In our fast-paced, interactive, social-media driven world the idea of sitting and listening to one person speak for half an hour – without live-tweeting our reaction – is increasingly a cultural oddity.”
“Some have suggested we ought to move away from the traditional monologue sermon, toward more dialogical alternatives. I think they have a point! But before we throw away the monologue sermon format I think it’s worth looking at its strengths – what we’d lose if we did move away from it – as well as how we might change how we preach in order to counter some of its weaknesses. It ends up being at least a partial defence of the monologue sermon.”
As someone who loves teaching and writing about preaching, Dr MacBride brings a good deal of experience with the subject matter. His doctoral research explored how understanding the New Testament epistles as speeches might help when preaching from them, “that is, how we can harness the rhetoric of the biblical text in our sermons.” This topic was explored in his book Catching The Wave.
“More recently I’ve looked at social-scientific approaches to preaching: how approaching the New Testament as minority group rhetoric can show how relevant it is in our post-Christendom context),” he said.
“A unifying theme of most of my research is a passion for sermons to not only say what the biblical text says, but to do what the biblical text does.”
“That’s what the keynote is about! In short, it’s a chance to press pause on the endless flow of dialogue and opinions that makes up most of our day to day experience, and listen to what our creator might have to say to us. It’s an oasis of depth, rather than the shallow, bubbling stream we’re forced to swim in for the rest of the week. It’s counter-cultural and necessary.”
For more information on Tim MacBride, and to view his books, blog, and Bible study notes visit his website here. Preachfest takes place from 1 to 3 October. For more information, visit the official website here
