Celebration & Experience in Preaching

Henry Mitchell provides 2 very important sermonic structural components that we must keep in mind when discussing Black preaching. First, he argues that celebration is the pervasive distinctive that Black preaching brings to the homiletic universe. Black preaching appeals to the emotive and seeks to reach the intuitive the place where we really live by celebrating the Gospel. The second component of the book is the genres of preaching. Mitchell gives us a way to look at how culture and Bible perspectives are brought together in a sermon. Many of these sermon types are simply variations on a narrative theme. The first genre is Narrative. Like any story there is protagonist, setting, plot, conflict, and resolution. Then there is a celebration of the resolution. The character sketch is basically looking at one character and the group study is a narrative study that looks at a group. The dialogue type is to bring a real conversation from the scriptures into the pulpit. The Monologue and Testimony is a first person story. Then there are metaphors similes and analogues. Finally there is stream of consciousness where the preacher gets into the mindset of the scripture and follows it. To create a sermon, according to Mitchell, you must internalize and really live in the text to get the details out of it that you will need so the people will identify. Then you need a behavioral purpose. Then we kind of allow the scripture to make a body fall out. Then we close with a celebration of the Gospel. It is a good book that I would suggest all students of preaching purchase.

This is a good primer for learning one specific style of preaching. My personal feeling is that no one style is best suited for every different message. However, the book has good ideas and is very readable.