Transforming the Language of Preaching: Effectivity of Preaching as Poetry in a Conservative Korean Church

“May today’s worship give you the strength to live through this week!”

This greeting is one of the most common expressions used in Korean churches, including Korean immigrant churches in the U.S., to encourage attendance and help people stay engaged in Sunday worship. However, based on my experience in Korean Presbyterian churches, it’s hard to find worship services where this expression truly comes to life with vibrancy. At times, it even seems like people are merely enduring worship, not enjoying it. There may be many reasons for this, but I believe one key reason is that the sermon, which takes up 25 to 40 minutes of the typical one-hour service, often fails to empower the congregation.

Ineffectiveness of Traditional Deductive Three-Point Preaching

In the early 1970s, some North American preachers in mainline Protestant denominations began to raise concerns that the traditional deductive, three-point sermon was not effectively empowering the congregation. They criticized this style, full of explanatory and didactic language, as reducing the sermon to an intellectual exercise, shrinking the gospel into a formula or principle, and making it difficult for listeners to experience the reality of the gospel. These sermons depended heavily on the preacher’s interpretation and authority, placing the audience in a passive role. As a result, these sermons were seen as merely reinforcing religious sentiment rather than truly transforming lives. In response, new efforts emerged to explore different structures, forms, and languages for preaching—ones that would stimulate not only reason but also emotion and imagination and allow people to experience the vast and mysterious world of the gospel for themselves.

Ministerial Context

Hope Presbyterian Church (HPC) where I serve as an associate pastor at is a Korean immigrant church located in Des Moines, Washington. Except for a few second-generation Korean Americans and non-Koreans in the English Ministry, 90% of the congregation is Korean. The church is small, with about 140 registered members and around 120 regular attendees. Only about 30% of them are in their 20s or 30s.

HPC was established by members who left the PCUSA after they could not accept the denomination’s decision to allow same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ pastors. As a result, the church is theologically very conservative. It strongly emphasizes the authority and inerrancy of Scripture, strict observance of Sunday worship, moral and devout religious living, and a rigid, Calvinist approach to interpreting the Bible. These features result in a strong sense of conservatism, exclusiveness, rigidity, and uniformity.

About 90% of HPC’s ministry is focused on worship and preaching. The service follows a calm, structured Presbyterian liturgy. The sermon typically uses a traditional deductive, three-point format: the first part interprets several biblical texts to explain Reformed theology or a doctrinal principle, and the second part presents practical applications. The congregation expresses high satisfaction with this preaching style, appreciating their strong biblical foundation, doctrinal clarity, and authoritative tone correcting false beliefs. This traditional style certainly has strengths—teaching and strengthening faith—but we must also acknowledge the limitations that the New Homiletics movement pointed out.

I assumed that some of the community issues at HPC—such as exclusiveness, lack of intimacy beyond familiar groups, limited engagement with younger generations, and the low energy of worship—are related to the absence of a new language for preaching. Sermons that stop at intellectual agreement are not enough. What we need are sermons that engage emotion and imagination, open up the vastness of the gospel, and allow people to respond to and articulate truth for themselves. If the language of preaching—which accounts for 90% of our ministry—changes, then the language of the community and its members will change too. I wanted to explore whether a new language of preaching could be effective and accepted in a conservative and exclusive church like HPC.

From Lecture to Poetry: A Shift in Preaching

Several homiletics theologians in North America and South Korea have emphasized the idea of preaching as poetry, arguing that poetic language is especially suited for empowering people by helping them encounter and experience the world of the gospel. The language of poetry does not reduce truth to a doctrinal statement or formula. Instead, it sings of the reality of truth itself, inviting people to explore its freshness and strangeness. Most importantly, the language of poetry is the language of “a needle for acupuncture”—one that awakens distracted and weary souls, leaving a lasting impression.

From a to-do list for humans → To a song about God: Traditional deductive preaching assumes the audience still carries a vivid sense of their encounter with God and then lists what we must do. Preaching as poetry, on the other hand, treats God as a mystery who comes to us in fresh and unfamiliar ways, and seeks to sing about that mystery through the beauty of language.

From logical argument → To wonder and awe: Traditional preaching is strong in presenting logical arguments to persuade listeners of theological principles. In contrast, preaching as poetry seeks to convey the preacher’s sense of awe and reverence from encountering the gospel.

From explanation → To poetic language: Whereas traditional preaching uses language that explains and teaches the gospel and specific doctrines, poetic preaching uses the language of poetry. Poetic language is imagery language that  evokes sight, sound, and smell. Poetic language is imaginative language that brings dead things to life and opens entirely new worlds using metaphors. Poetic language is compressed language like “a needle for acupuncture” that helps listeners discover the essence of life and sparks wonder in a compressed way. It subverts systems of control and reflects the context of the times in which it is spoken.

Focus Group Survey Research

To explore the effects of poetic preaching, I conducted a project where I preached sermons using poetic rather than explanatory language and surveyed how this shift was received by the congregation. Since my opportunities to preach to the entire HPC congregation were limited and tracking the long-term effects of language changes takes time, I chose to run a focus group research. I gathered 15 members who represented the broader church (selection criteria noted separately), preached six poetic sermons to them, and then gathered feedback, both qualitative and quantitative, based on five main areas:

• Did the sermon help you visualize images?
• Did it activate your senses—sight, sound, smell, etc.?
• Did it comfort or strengthen your soul?
• Did it leave a lingering impression?
• Was it a boring sermon?

Research Findings

Preference for explanatory sermons: Focus group participants gave positive feedback on poetic preaching but also expressed a desire for more clear interpretation of the text, logical development, and practical applications. They were still more familiar and comfortable with traditional, didactic sermons and experienced them as more impactful.

Importance of the preacher’s poetic skills: Some participants felt that certain poetic sermons were not very different from traditional explanatory ones. This suggests that the preacher’s skill in using poetic language plays a decisive role in transforming a sermon into poetry.

Positive effects of poetic language: Despite my limited ability to use poetic language, simply attempting to use poetic elements in preaching produced many of the hoped-for effects—visualization, sensory engagement, emotional empowerment, lasting impressions, and reduced boredom.

Areas for improvement: Focus group participants pointed out some weaknesses of poetic preaching: it could be too abstract, unclear, or delayed in presenting its theme. Also, when metaphors were not well-shared or relatable, the poetic language became confusing or ineffective. In addition, poetic preaching needs to find ways to include clear biblical interpretation and practical guidance to meet the expectations of the congregation.

Future Implications

This project only confirmed in part—through a limited survey—that preaching as poetry can have a positive impact even on conservative, traditional congregations like HPC. But more thorough, long-term observation is needed to truly measure how poetic language empowers individuals and affects a community’s rigidity or exclusiveness.

Ultimately, what’s most important in preaching as poetry is that the preacher becomes a poet. My personal plan for further development is to read and write more poetry. Through this, I hope to train my imagination and language. I must continue to observe Scripture and the world, listen to the lives of my congregation, reflect on my own story and inner voice, and above all, listen for the voice of the Spirit. That’s how poetic language will come to the preacher. When it does, poetic preaching may bring a fresh breeze even into the most tradition-bound and conservative communities.

 

 

RESOURCES

• Questions Preachers Ask: Essays in Honor of Thomas G. Long, ed. Scott Black Johnston, Ted A. Smith, and Leonora Tubbs Tisdale (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016)
• Robert P. Waznak, 1986. “The Preacher and the Poet.” Worship 60 (1): 46–55. https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy.library.emory.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lsdar&AN=ATLA0000959914&site=ehost-live&scope=site
• Walter Brueggemann, Finally Comes the Poet: Daring Speech for Proclamation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989)
• Moon-Gyun Lee, “Poem and Preaching,” Korean Journal of Christian Studies 74 (2011): 159-183, https://www.dbpia.co.kr/journal/articleDetail?nodeId=NODE06288544
• Hong Moon-Pyo, Literary Homiletics: Theoretical and Practical Approaches to New Homiletics (Seoul: Changjo Munhaksa, 2011).