The Diamond Pattern: An idea about preaching

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post called ‘On Preaching,’ where I wrote pretty disparagingly about the state of preaching in the American evangelical church today. I stand by what I said, negative and critical as it was. But I’m trying to be a person who offers solutions, not just criticisms. A person who sees the opportunity in every obstacle. That’s not my nature. It’s really, really tough for me.

So I havr given it two weeks of careful thought, and, I’ve come up empty. I don’t know how to fix preaching. I’m not, myself, a preacher, though, as a preacher’s son I have sat under a heck of a lot of really, really great ones. And yeah, I’ve preached several messages, myself. There was a time when I thought that that was going to be what I did with my life. It didn’t pan out. I’m ok with that.

Some people who criticize preachers put them into categories like ‘exegesis’ and ‘eisegesis,’ but that’s uninteresting to me. Others still have offered their methods of crafting a sermon. I’ve read about Andy Stanley’s ‘Me, we, God, you, we’ outline, or whatever, and how Louie Giglio only offers one point, and, I’ve read into where all those Baptist preachers got their triple-alliterating outlines from. I’ve read hundreds of Spurgeon’s sermons and have a feel for how he crafted each one.

I don’t know what’s best, but here’s an idea I thought of in the shower this morning: Diamond-pattern preaching. Think of the way a diamond is shaped: “♢.”

In diamond-pattern preaching, Christ is the point, and the center of all scripture. But below that, there is a wider context to each passage of scripture that needs to be discussed. Without that wider context, meaning about Christ is lost. And then, the bottom-line is this: What’s this mean for us? The bottom-line of the diamond points back at you.

Where’s the Christ in this? What’s the context of this? and What’s the crux of the matter?

When reading scripture, we can ask: What's this say about Christ, the point of all things? What's this say, in its wider context (the diamond’s widest point, where little cultural nuances and historical notes are furthest out from center). And what's this say, bottom-line, for us in our community? How then should we respond?

Preaching, then, serves to offer your audience diamonds. Preaching exists to give people diamonds of thought. Preaching is meant to uncover diamonds in the rough, the ultimate of which is a Christ with no stately appearance or majesty that we should admire him, and a gospel hidden in earthen pots! There’s a great many diamonds we miss when we ignore the rougher parts of scripture.

Does this make sense? No one asked me to fix preaching, and I’m sure this is not something that your preacher would be receptive to, if you just sprung it on him. Don’t be that annoying know-it-all in the church, who has an opinion on everything. At the same time, we’re told to pattern ourselves after those who searched the scriptures, not just taking one man’s word for it, and who tested the spirits. Just some things to think about.