Seminary Looking for Sermons
Rev. Scott Hoezee is looking for some good sermons that he can pass along to churches for use during Sunday services when a minister is not available to preach.
“The CRC for many years collected sermons, printed them in a book, and made it available to church elders,” said Hoezee, director of the Center for Excellence in Preaching (CEP) at Calvin Theological Seminary.
Those elders, often serving at churches in rural locations without a regular pastor for periods of time, would then have sermons they could read during Sunday worship services.
“But a year or two ago, synod decided to stop collecting and making available ‘Sermons for Reading Services’ as demand had fallen sharply with the availability of resources online,” said Hoezee.
Occasionally, however, requests still come in from churches for sermons to read. When that happens, Hoezee has to search to find something appropriate to send. To help meet that need, he wants to build a database of sermons.
“If your church posts sermons, please let me know, including if they are available as manuscript only, audio only, video only, audio and video, or other—and please specify the format they are in,” said Hoezee.
Email [email protected], and the center will tabulate and create a resource list.
“We want to make quality sermons available,” said Hoezee. “Today there are many sermons available online, but the Internet is a vast dumping ground for low-quality material.”
The new database can help assure churches that someone has reviewed and recommends a sermon to be used, said Hoezee.
Meanwhile, all of the usual features on the CEP website are still available, including four new sermon starters every Monday and an archive of hundreds of texts that you can search to find what you are looking for.
As October begins, the CEP is also highlighting some new features including sermon starters in Spanish.
Secondly, for the past 18 months the center has been building up an archive of Reading for Preaching quotes principally from former Calvin Seminary president Neal Plantinga's broad database of sermon illustration ideas offering literature-based quotes on many topics.
In addition, said Hoezee, CEP is now adding Movies for Preaching, compiled principally by Calvin College English professor and film expert Roy Anker. The list of movies details movie themes that can be helpful in crafting a sermon.
“The archive is modest now, but we will continue to add new ideas and hope this too will be useful,” said Hoezee.
