My Homiletic Swimming Pool, Timothy Tow - Online Christian Library

year, there were less students and consequently less challenge. No
wonder there was little spirit in the presentation.
Besides, the professor of homiletics was the youngest member of
the faculty. He himself was no preacher, much less of a pastor with
preaching experience. He had graduated a mere few years from
Seminary. He had learned a little theoretical homiletics. How could
he impart to us richly how and what we should preach from his own
experience?
When I founded Far Eastern Bible College in 1962 I had to teach
many subjects and homiletics was one. Taking Homiletics to be the
most important subject, I determined to strike out on my own the best
I knew how. I decided homiletics could not be divided into classes,
but it was for the whole school. Although the class was meagre at
first, it began to grow, until today, we have 90 students, men and
women. Every student must come to the Wednesday morning
homiletics class, which also takes in a few interested auditors, to
what we call our homiletic swimming pool. How does one learn to
swim? By reading a book of instructions lying flat on a dunlopillo
bed and stretching out one arm and then the other in imitation? No,
just plunge in, sink or swim. That is the way to make one a
swimming champion.
The student now at the pulpit is given every challenge and
encouragement by the attention paid to him by the whole student
body. He is given the liberty of preaching on any subject he chooses
and finding his own text. This he must learn from the Lord Himself,
by meditation and prayer. When he has finished his sermon,
members of the class are called upon to say a kind word to him, —
gentle, constructive criticism. He must be handled with utmost care,
like a young plant in a nursery. There will be mistakes made, in
speech, in subject matter, in grammar, in voice, in gestures, etc.. But
these must be gingerly hinted in order not to shatter his confidence.
To be severe on the budding preacher is like pulling the young plant
up, but you sever the roots. Interestingly, there are plenty of good
things presented by the novice, good theology with applications. Due
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