Brett Campbell and Doug Benn attended the Langham Preaching Course in June and decided to take up the challenge to run it back home at Church on Ingestre.
They had nine participants and ran it over two afternoons (21– 22 September), teaching the material and having a practice run through a short Bible passage. They gave them a week with another short Bible passage to observe the details and consider its context. They came back together the following Saturday morning to share their findings and assemble the bones of a sermon from the passage.
Doug preached on the Sunday morning and invited critique/comment from the course participants on the Sunday afternoon session. One participant said it was helpful for their learning to see things in the sermon that reflected what they had been learning the day before.
From left to right: Pati Leiataua, Joseph Corrigan, Doug Benn, Joseph Correa, Quynh McLeay, Simon Brown, Brett Campbell, Joel McLeay, Chris Moffat. (Absent: Zane Holloway, Coralie Harvey).
Doug comments,
“I personally felt more confident having some good exegetical tools to both prepare and present the sermon and received considerable positive feedback on both the clarity and applicability of the sermon.
“Along with my fellow elders, we have been talking over recent months and years about the need to invest in our people and the next generation (discipleship) and we saw this as one way to not only benefit those who are preaching—but also those who are hearing the messages.” Doug mentioned other preachers couldn't attend this course, so they will look to run another one sometime early in the new year.
Doug encourages other churches “to also invest in your people through training, equipping, and discipling so that they grow in their God-given roles of service for his kingdom.”
Something that stood out to me was seeing Pati Leiataua (pictured above first from left) grow in faith during this last year. He got baptised a year ago, preached his first sermon as part of a sermon share in June this year, and attended the preaching training. I feel so encouraged by this!
By Mark Grace, CCCNZ Ambassador
