As a young boy in Atlanta in the mid-’60s, Tom Long encountered a local Presbyterian minister “standing tall and courageous on the matter of civil rights,” a hot topic at the time. “The congregation responded with anger at his prophetic message but he returned no evil for evil,” Long recalls.
“He was loving and gracious.”
The exchanges had a profound effect on the young Thomas Long. “Watching him, I felt the stirrings of my own calling. I thought, ‘that’s a life worth living.’”
Despite those stirrings, Long pursued pre-med courses at Erskine College in South Carolina. He worked his way through college as a disc jockey at a local radio station. As the newest kid at the station, he got the shifts no one else wanted, including Sundays. It was there he first encountered the Lutheran series, The Protestant Hour and Edmund Steimle. “I had never heard anyone preach the gospel quite like he did and, because of that voice, the direction of my own ministry was … profoundly changed.”
Steimle was an advocate of narrative preaching and wrote the popular book Preaching the Story. Long followed that voice on the radio—what he calls his “second calling into ministry” after the first as a boy in Atlanta—and has since been professor of preaching at Princeton Theological College, editor of Theology Today and author of many books including The Witness of Preaching, one of the most widely used texts on preaching in seminaries around the world.
Canadians have a rare opportunity to hear Rev. Dr. Thomas Long deliver a public lecture and a preaching conference on his first visit to Alberta at Grace, Calgary, next month.
On May 27 at 7:30 p.m., Dr. Long’s public lecture “The Churches at the Four Corners” is a discussion about the similarities and differences in the four gospels: The Church of St. Mark, The Church of St. Matthew, The Church of St. Luke, and The Church of St. John.
This is followed by a day-long preaching workshop on May 28, designed to give preachers practical tools for more effective preaching.
Long was a pastor in an Atlanta church for many years, eventually completing his PhD in preaching at Princeton Seminary before he was called to the Columbia Seminary in Atlanta and then Princeton. He is currently Bandy Professor Emeritus of Preaching at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta.
Long’s public talk will examine the similarities and differences of how each of the four churches understand Jesus Christ amid the challenges of Christian life today.
“This will be an interesting learning experience,” says Long. “Many people are not aware of the really distinctive voices in each gospel. They really do see Jesus and the role of the church in distinct ways.”
Long adds that “the witness of the New Testament is not a soloist, it’s a choir” and “all voices are important if we are to understand the fullness of Jesus.”
The preaching workshop is aimed at seasoned preachers who will learn how to more effectively address the whirlwind of modern life with inspirational, relevant messages from the pulpit. In applied terms, “what do listeners need in a practical sense,” and “how does a preacher take biblical passages and find something exciting for the sermon,” he says.
“Anyone who stands up to preach in 2016 is in a different experience than 60 years ago,” Long explains. “The world has changed, and increasingly the church is a dispensable alternative. We hear more about people being spiritual but not religious. And a preacher has to stand up and speak into that.”
There are “great challenges” for preachers today, and Long says preachers can “easily be discouraged.” But he adds this is a cyclical process and there are many encouraging signs of hope that preaching is making a difference in people’s lives.
“There are moments every 40 or 50 years when it doesn’t go well in the pulpit and preaching is not esteemed in the culture,” he says. “I hope to encourage (preachers) about the importance of preaching and how it is having an effect beyond how we perceive it.”
The “Preaching Grace” event was made possible by an annual gift from the Margaret and Robert Montgomery Fund. The Montgomerys are longtime members and supporters of Grace, Calgary, and come from families where excellent preaching was respected and admired. Their commitment is to a program that encourages biblical preaching that is life-giving and transformational. Their vision for Preaching Grace was for an annual event that would eventually grow to a national scope with ecumenical participation.
Mrs. Montgomery said Preaching Grace is very dear to her heart. “We have an understanding of the power of preaching in the ministry of the church and the effect it has had in our families over generations,” she says.
Rev. Dr. Jean Morris is an associate minister at Grace and the driving force behind Preaching Grace. She was a student of Dr. Long at Princeton 30 years ago. To Morris, Long is a teacher who, decades later, still calls the best out of his students and a preacher who inspires the church to be its best in the world God loves.
“Dr. Long is inspirational and excellent at his craft but also faithful, generous and gracious. He loves life and has a joyful perspective that he inspires in preaching, which is rare,” says Morris.
Long will also preach from the pulpit on Sunday, May 29 at 10:30 a.m. His sermon is “The Open Window,” with scripture from Luke 16:19-31.
To learn more please visit: gracechurchcalgary.com/preaching-grace or contact office@gracecalgary.org.
Photo by Bill Longstaff via Flickr/CC
