Societas Homiletica – day five

Frank was also leader
of our reflection group.

One of the highlights this day was definitely the sermon at the morning service. Rev Dr Frank Thomas is an Afro-American preacher, who really preaches in the tradition of call and response. I will not try to convey what he said. The theme was

What about the children?

Based on a reading from Exodus 1:15-22 where the two Hebrew midwifes, Shiphrah and Puah, saves children whom the king of Egypt wanted them to kill, he spoke about the situation that children in this world face. We were all moved.

Just as most of the other days, this one was filled with interesting addresses and presentations. I want to point to one of them. Rev Dr Ulla Morre Bidstrup presented thought on how to preach at weddings. It was clear that the Danish church emphasizes this and other similar sermons more than we do. Like sermons at baptisms and funerals. After the presentation we talked and as far as I understand they spend almost double the amount of teaching on those sermons compared with us.

The fact is that we probably preach to more people at these services than at Sunday services. After this presentation I need to go back home and give our syllabus a thought.

Ulla gave us much to think about.

Dr Bidstrup also gave good examples of how one can structure a sermon at a wedding service. This I will make us of in my teaching.

The day ended with a banquet with cultural sharing. From a number of countries that were represented different items were delivered. The Swedish group sang an old song known as

Away with all that causes anguish [Bort allt vad oro gör]

It fitted quite well to the theme of the conference, about fear.

After five interesting days we just have a few sessions tomorrow morning and thereafter we will go back home. With a lot of new thoughts and also new friends and colleagues. Grateful!