When I was a student in Bible college, I once invited two friends to my home church for an evening revival service. The friends were members of an evangelical high church assembly, and my church was in the Afro-Baptist tradition. The speaker was an extremely gifted expositor and the pastor of a local congregation. I had heard him on many occasions. Our entire church was excited about him coming.

As the preaching began, those assembled were enjoying our usual call-and-response event. We were hearing a faithful explanation of the Scriptures that challenged us to trust the Lord through all circumstances. The minister was giving the message with passion and an exaltation of the death and resurrection of Christ.

The opening and closing of the sermon were so well-tied together that I remember them to this day. The preacher opened with an illustration from the old American Express Card commercial and its famous moniker: “American Express: Don’t leave home without it.” At the end of the message—after he had traversed Golgotha and the Savior’s bloody death and raced forward to Easter Sunday—he concluded on the faithfulness of God in all things by saying, “Jesus Christ: Don’t leave home without him!” My heart and mind were full and the congregation’s shouting went on for a long time after the evangelist was done.

In the midst of the celebration, my two non-African American friends looked bewildered, maybe even a little uncomfortable. They sat quietly through the excitement around them.

Afterward, I asked my friends how they enjoyed the service. They quickly replied, “What was that?” Not understanding the question, I asked, “What do you mean?” They replied kindly and almost apologetically, “We didn’t understand anything. Can you explain it to us?”

My friends were kind to ask me for a clarification rather than make an overt criticism of what they had just heard and experienced. In other forums, I and other African American believers have heard many ill words directed toward the preaching that is common in the African American tradition. Rather than assuming a sermon is clear and that the hearer’s understanding is lacking, some who are unfamiliar with the workings of the African American preaching tradition find weakness with the speaker or the delivery form. However, what one is witnessing is a very strong set of skills that is rich with orthodox theology that offers two workings beneficial to all who are tasked with feeding people the Word of God.

Making Sense of Life in a Depraved World Full of Injustices and Despair

Preaching in the African American tradition cannot be accused of ignoring the misery-filled present for the hope of heaven. Sermons in the tradition are replete with the realities of sin, calls for justice, and a focus on the promise of the Resurrection. A graphic picture of this life and a glorious portrait of the life to come colors such sermons.

Each week, the vast majority of African American churchgoers enter a world in which African Americans are immersed in the majority culture—living under its rule and rules—often being looked down upon as less important people in society and disenfranchised from much of the American Dream held by the majority. Sunday morning’s preaching tradition is what prepares African Americans to endure their sufferings in the power of Almighty God.

Following a cryptic reference to the evils of a plantation owner in a slavery-era sermon was the emphasis on the return of King Jesus. With a pronouncement about crossing “Jordan’s chilly waters”—an idiom for dying in the preaching tradition—comes an image of the precious Lord taking the wayfarer’s hand to help that one get to “the other side” (e.g., heaven).

With every pointed condemnation of racial or economic injustice by local, state, or national authorities also comes the promise of reckoning because God “don’t like ugly,” as an older generation of African Americans would say. The tradition will preach that this God will reward the mistreated with “a new name over in glory.”[1]

Magnifying Language as a Gift Given by the Creator

The African American tradition reflects the brilliant creativity of our Maker in a sermon’s tone, musical adaptation, appeal to African American contemporary life, history, culture, and literature, and in stretching metaphor to its boundaries. It speaks in coded words for the community, while speaking truth straightforwardly and forcefully to structures of power.

It is not limited to a form of “three-points-and-a-poem-sermon,” or even outline points at all! Yet a lack of stated summary points does not necessarily indicate a lack of structure in sermons of the tradition. Instead, it demonstrates the fluidity with which the tradition speaks in order to communicate its ideas. Eventually this magnanimous fusing of gracefully flowing rhetorical currents builds into swelling waves of celebration that bring forth affirming shouts of joy: “Say it, preacher! Hallelujah! Yeah, yeah, yeah!”

The African American preaching tradition creates an atmosphere that keeps us from boredom or inattentiveness in the sermonic moment. We are so enamored by the meal of linguistic delights that he or she does not want to miss one nuance of the imagination of the preacher! We are hanging on every word from the preacher as he or she paints the colors of Mt. Sinai’s fiery theophany and makes life flow through the veins of our great God and Savior as he gets up from the dead. In all this we marvel at the grace of language the Word has granted to we who bear his image.

If I could be back in that revival service with my two friends, I would know what to say to them before they experienced all those glorious word pictures: Initially, this experience might be like eating fancy cuisine at a restaurant foreign to us—different yet pleasurable. In the same way, listen in humility to a message that will be new to you in content and delivery, you will hear Jesus preached. Prepare for a feast!

Editor's Note: To learn more about the African American preaching tradition, we would highly recommend Eric's new book Say It!: Celebrating Expository Preaching in the African American Tradition (Moody, 2020).

Eric C. Redmond is Associate Professor of Bible at Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, IL, and Associate Pastor of Preaching, Teaching, and Care at Calvary Memorial Church, Oak Park, IL.

[1]. Lyric taken from Robert J. Fryson, “New Name in Glory,” African American Heritage Hymnal. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2001, #593.