Browsing by Author "Heo, Chan"
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- ItemPrayer and preaching : a critical homiletical study within the Korean context(Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2010-03) Heo, Chan; Cilliers, Johan; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Practical Theology and Missiology.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The aim of this thesis is to encourage the renewal of Korean preacher‘s piety and spirituality within the Reformed tradition. Although a large number of studies have been carried out on Christian prayer, little is known about the connection between prayer and preaching in Reformed theology. In the Korean context, most preachers have been trained in the Pentecostal tradition. Therefore, the Reformed churches Korea have requested that instructions on prayer from notable theologians in history be introduced to preachers to help restore spiritual balance to the biblical preaching of Korean Reformed ministers. Reformed preachers should not follow the secular mind and worldly academic style; therefore, the study is concerned with recovering the biblical spirituality of the preacher and the congregation in Korean Christianity. It is argued that the Korean church needs to strive to rediscover and recover the Reformed church‘s long tradition of communication and prayer. The revival in the Korean church was not a Reformed theological revival because it was characterized by the Pentecostal movement and for a long time the Korean church has had a concept of traditional religious spirituality. For true revival to take place in the Reformed Church in Korea, the church needs to forge a new agenda that is rooted in and that emphasizes biblical prayer. To accomplish the aforementioned goal, it is suggested that the prayers of Jesus and an exposition of the Lord‘s Prayer in the Reformed theological traditions be given greater attention. Jesus emphasized the importance of the Lord's Prayer to his disciples and it stands as the capstone of Jesus' prayer life, which he shared with us. Accordingly, a preacher must pray enthusiastically and communicate with God continually. The spirituality of both the preacher and the congregation is crucial in modern churches. Therefore, our spiritual foundation must be organized on biblical, historical, theological research in a way that would encourage not only the preachers but also the congregation members to be enthusiastic in prayer before God. Today‘s theological discourse should be able to engage with classical (Reformed theological) literature or instructions on prayer, and the present investigation is an attempt to look back to those classical instructions as a most meaningful starting point to overcome the spiritual difficulties in Korean churches.
- ItemPreaching with the congregation : appropriating John Mc Clure's homiletical theory for a Korean context(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015-03) Heo, Chan; Cilliers, Johan; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Practical Theology and Missiology.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation deals with the appropriation of John S. McClure’s homiletics in view of the Korean context today. This study is to rediscover the role of the congregation, inclusive of the Presbyters, in preaching. John S. McClure’s homiletics is however far removed from the traditional Korean style of preaching. One of the aims of the study was to elaborate on this tension between the two types of homiletics. Traditionally, congregations in the Korean context listen to the sermon from the pulpit in a manner that could be described as mostly passive. Today’s ministers, in the Korean Confucian culture, have misunderstood the congregation as a preacher-centered system. The Preacher's cognition of the audience is that the laity should obey the authority of the preacher, who is an authoritative conveyor of the Word of God. The contention of this thesis is that, if preachers want to have a more direct approach to their audiences, they should have to do research on their congregations as participants in homiletics. This is the reason for the need to have a “conversational homiletics”. Therefore, the preacher needs to know the congregation’s life and their situation. From this perspective, John S. McClure’s homiletics means that the preacher, together with the listeners, should work in collaboration with each other. McClure aims to include the congregation in the sermon; the preacher as well as the hearers participates in the quest for Scripture interpretation. McClure asserted that sermon preparation as a conversation between preacher and congregation should be practiced specifically in the church community. Preachers of the local churches must be hosts and partners of the congregation. In this study, the question is posed: how can McClure’s homiletics be practiced in the Korean Church? In an effort to answer this question, McClure’s theory of preaching is compared with the Reformed/Presbyterian ecclesiology. The point of departure is that historical traditions need to enter into conversation with new theological trends, born from contextual needs. In this light, the study researched the differences between John McClure’s homiletics and the Ecclesiology of the traditional Reformed/Presbyterian Church, by means of a comparative study. On the one hand, it is accepted that the congregation is formed by their cultural traditions, memories, emotions and unique circumstances, while the congregational narrative is furthermore based on the general understanding of sermons by the sermon audiences. On the other hand it is also accepted that the Reformed/Presbyterian tradition has an inherent dialogical nature, also reflected in its historical creeds and catechisms that needs to be re-appropriated. Finally, some guidelines, fences, and boundaries of the collaborative style of preaching are pointed out, with the knowledge that a collaborative sermon will also only be possible through the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the contention of the researcher that the Reformed Church in Korea should respond to the issues raised by McClure’s homiletics. Rapid changes in the Korean society, together with the still prevailing authoritarian and hierarchical structure of the church, and non-communicative preaching might result in a growing distance between the preacher and the contemporary congregation.