Societas Homiletica – day six

Incoming President Alexander Deeg receiving wishes of good luck from
outgoing President Dawn Ottoni-Wilhelm

Last day of the conference. Already on our way back to Sweden. Today we only had two sessions. First business meeting, which for instance means electing a new President and new board members. But also tabling applications from us who want to become members of the association.

There were 21 new applications and I was one of them. All 21 were accepted (they usually are), so I can gladly announce that I now am a full member of Societas Homiletica. A good network for inspiration and sharing of ideas and research.

The conference ended with a Worship Service. The closing hymn is also my prayer:

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart

Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art

Thou my best Thought, by day or by night

Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light

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!

Societas Homiletica – day three!

Duke Chapel. Or Cathedral?

Sunday meant late morning. The Church Service started only at 11 am. Some of the participants went to a Southern Baptist church for worship. Others to the chapel on campus, Duke Chapel. (With the size of a cathedral.) I decided to take part in the latter.

The Church was almost full. There was a choir singing and a well prepared sermon by the dean of the chapel. The congregation is interdenominational. Mainline. One thing happened, which I have never experienced. After the service, that took approximately one hour a short communion service started in a small side chapel. We were around fifty persons gathering there. Starting with the Eucharistic prayer with a liturgy similar to the one we have in Church of Sweden we shared the body and blood of Jesus Christ and all was done in fifteen minutes. I saw that many of us Swedish participants took part in the communion. I guess we are used to weekly Eucharist. It was a precious moment although I prefer to have the Eucharist included in the main service.

The side chapel where we celebrated Holy Communion.

The rest of the day was filled with a key note address, workshops and paper presentation. The terminology is interesting. Even if the presenter don’t have a physical paper in her or his hand, it is still named a paper presentation. This happened for instance when Lis Valle shared a video with the heading

Queering Preaching

It was a moving recording of a service where she, as a sermon, had danced a burlesque dance. Rather provocative but also touching. Why is it that some artistic expressions are welcomed in church but others are not? Food for thought!

In the same session Anuparthi John Prabhakar spoke about the Dalit community in India and how worship in this context looks like. A group that traditionally have been prohibited to worship in the temple, because they were untouchable. They had their own religion, using the shade under the trees as their temples. The Deity could possess any person and use this person as a priest – not like in a Hindu temple, where only the Brahmins could talk. So, the religion became very corporate and democratic. When Protestant mission came they built churches and ordained pastors, which meant they were copying the Hindu style, which made the Dalit community uncomfortable. John’s suggestion was that the Church must reconnect to the Dalit roots.

Both the Queer and the Dalit example is about exclusion or inclusion. How do we preach in a way that not only welcome people but also affirms?

The day ended with group reflections. So helpful to reflect together with homileticians from all over the world. The conference and the conversations give me much material to bring back to my own teaching at the Institute.

Societas Homiletica – day two!

The second day of the conference has now ended. Vi started with morning meditation. Anne Gidion claimed that you cannot argue with fear. The only thing one can do is to tell counterstories. She told us about a project in the German Church where you tell hopestories as counterstories to hatestories. The hashtag is

From #hateSpeech to #hopeSpeech

After that the President, Dawn Ottoni-Wilhelm, whit Swedish origin on her maternal side, gave her Address. This speech was followed by group reflections.

After lunch and an international panel with participants from South Africa, India and Venezuela it was time for presentations. I presented a paper on prophetic preaching. I got a lot of valuable feedback and was also encouraged to continue working and maybe publish a book on the topic.

My colleague, Gunilla Renöfält, who teaches in Lund, also presented her paper in a panel. She did very well and got many positive comments.

The day ended with Jazz Vespers. John Brown “little” Big band played and at the end of the service we were all on our feet dancing and rejoicing.

I am going to sleep well tonight!

Societas Homiletica – a society of love

The first evening at this homiletical conference is over. We meet at Duke Divinity School, in Durham, North Carolina. Around 70 participants from different parts of the world. I count between 15 and 20 countries on the list of participants. After registration and dinner we gathered for a Service of Worship in Goodson Chapel.

Listen to this prayer of confession, inspired by Proverbs 1:20-23:

God of rushing wind and silver moon,Wisdom cries in the street, and we have not heard.
She raises her voice, and we hurry past.
With distracted eyes and divided hearts, we have ignored her counsel.
We have ignored You.
Forgive us, we pray.
We are weary of our false assurance and would hear truth.

After that we hear the words of assurance.

Meslissa Gamble performs a Liturgical Dance.

We sing together. There is a Liturgical Dance performed by Melissa Gamble a 3^rd year Master of Divinity student. It is powerful.

Powerful is also the sermon of one of the founding members of the Society, Rev Dr Richard Lischer. It is he who describes Societas Homiletica as a society of love. An alternative to all societies of fear, that exist in this world.

The theme of this years conference is:

Fearing God in a Fear-Filled World?

He underscores this possibility: instead of fearing everything else – fear God. It gives me something to think about. The idea of fearing God as a help to get rid of much other fear. His final example is amazing. Obviously the President of the US had said, some time ago, that he wanted to protect the Christians in the US. The preacher ended the sermon with something like this:

Mr President, we don’t need your protection. The only one we fear is God. (I mean, how could anyone protect us from God?)

In the sermon and in the prayers I understood that the separation of migrants’ children from the parents is something that really troubles people here.

I look forward to Saturday. At 15.15 I will present my paper. I feel happy about this opportunity.