Why Johnny Can't Preach

David Gordon answers the question by stating "the media have shaped the messengers."
This book was well written, and frankly it shook me up. Gordon's analysis of culture and its affect on preaching/preachers is penetrating, and perceptive. This is a book that I would recommend to anyone who is looking to go to seminary. I would recommend this to someone who is a student of the word as well.

The book itself is divided into 5 chapters. Gordon says the preaching today is particularly bad and writes three chapters to describe why it's bad and one chapter that summarizes and offers suggestions to cure the problem. Gordon says Johnny can't preach, because Johnny can't read literature, Johnny can't write, and Johnny has forgotten the purpose of the pulpit. Gordon suggests that seminary students, preachers and the like read poetry and ancient literature, write hand written letters and prayers, and remember to keep Christ and the message of the cross central in preaching. Developing these sensibilities, Gordon says, will only help Johnny's preaching.

But more than anything, I think I found one of Gordon's last paragraphs most interesting.
"Before (or during, or after) seminary, the ministerial candidate can and should make efforts to cultivate the sensibilities requisite to preaching well. Perhaps the most straightforward way to do this is to follow the late James Montgomery Boice's example. When Boice left Stony Brook, Frank Gaebelein directed him to harvard university to pursue a degree in English literature. It is no surprise, therefore, that one of the late twentieth century's most natural an dcompetent expository preachers was Jim Boice. His pre-divinity training cultivated careful attentiveness to texts; he was a close, careful reader of texts long before he began his study of Greek, Hebrew, homiletics, or systematic theology."

Now this quote may not seem like anything too exciting, but as soon as I give you a little background information, it might. When God saved me over two years ago, I knew that everything would be different and everything in my life must change. I wanted to go into ministry, and had this idea that's where I'd end up. Since then, I've been told by several people that one of my spiritual gifts is teaching. As soon as I was saved, I changed my degree from business to english. I didn't necessarily know why at the time, only except, I had this idea that I might as well learn how to speak properly if I'm going into a ministry where communication is central. Ever since that time I've approached my major with this attitude: "The only reason I'm in school is to get my bachelor's degree so that I might go to seminary." God's providential workings are profoundly mysterious. I'm not positive I'll be going to seminary. I'm not positive what God's plans are for me. But from all I've been told, and what I have placed on my heart, it seems seminary is highly probable. It seems to me that my english major isn't worthless after all. It seems to me that God is behind it.

Time will tell.