With a degree of guilt-ridden confidence, I must confess that I no longer believe in expository sermons. I believe in expository preparation, for it is a tool that helps me to understand the message in deeper measure. But it is not to be held as the hermeneutical arbiter.

The hermeneutical arbiter of the story (including scripture, which is the documented part of the story) is the entire community of saints, both past and present. And future. Hence, I do not believe in expository preaching, but I believe in expository preparation as one of the many creative methods of rediscovering the story.

I see expository preparation as the easy part of any sermon preparation. It is the presentation of this preparation in a form understood even by an illiterate child that is trying for a preacher who sincerely seeks to communicate the story of God.

It is far too easy to present a systematically constructed sermon and to dramatise it at certain points. The challenge lies in moving several steps beyond that by constructing day-to-day stories which speak into the fragile hearts of one’s listeners. When they remember the story, they do not forget it. At critical situations of their lives, they do not remember three-point sermons or anything the pastor said when he “expounded the word of God.” But they remember stories.