Igniting the Heart : Preaching and Imagination

Kate Bruce argues that imagination can help to engage the hearer in a sermon which seeks to evoke rather than to inform. Imagination frames how we see the world and ourselves in it. As such it has a vital role in how preachers see the preaching task itself, which in turn affects how we go about the task.

It has been said that the day of the sermon is over. Kate Bruce argues that the day of the poorly conceived, ill prepared, dull, disconnected, boring, irrelevant, authoritarian, yawn-inducing, patronizing, pontificating, pointless and badly delivered sermon, is indeed over. Imagination can help to engage the hearer in a sermon which seeks to evoke rather than to inform. Imagination frames how we see the world and ourselves in it. As such it has a vital role in how preachers see the preaching task itself, which in turn affects how we go about the task. A theology of imagination is presented to demonstrate the central importance of imagination in the life of faith. Allied to this is an analysis of the sacramental nature of preaching and the role of imagination in enabling the ‘aha, now I get it’ moment of sacramental ‘seeing-as’. Connected to enabling new seeing, preaching in the lyrical voice is defined and discussed along with the importance of preachers shaping sermons for the ear.