IDEAS THAT WORK
Kenneth B. Quick
October 1, 1987
TEACHING LAY PEOPLE TO PREACH
"I've simply got too much material," Phil told me. "There is no way I can preach it all in one Sunday. You'll have to give me at least two!" "You have the preaching bug," I laughed, "and you have it bad!" "This is great," he went on. "This must be just like Chuck Swindoll does it. I've always wanted to be able to present the Word of God that way." Phil is a maintenance man in a local hospital. Like the majority of people in my former church, he is a blue-collar worker. But he was preparing the sermon for a coming Sunday service. I suppose I was as surprised as anyone. Do-it-yourself study
Three years ago at my former church, Mt. Morris (Michigan) Community Church, some lay people urged me to start an early morning Bible study. Since some of them were autoworkers, early meant 4 A.M.! We began our study with Philippians, and I taught them the system of Bible study I use in my devotional time, which involves writing out the text and diagramming it. I also taught them how to use study tools such as Vine's Expository Dictionary and Thayer's Lexicon, which each one purchased. My goal in the study was to let them feel the power of gleaning insights from Scripture on their own. I did not want to share my insights, so I did not even do the study with them. I simply refereed. One of my rules was No commentaries allowed. If they came to a text they did not understand, I let them wrestle through it on their own. I wanted their conclusions to be their own, not just the party line or clich‚s. When they did come up with the standard interpretation, I challenged them to defend it. It did not take long for them to make sure what they were saying was truly coming from the text. After a few months, they were "dividing the ...
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