How Do We Teach to Preach? A Comparison of Homiletical Teaching Curricula for Lay Preachers and Ordinands in the Swiss Reformed Church and the German Protestant Church

Abstract

This paper will compare the homiletical training of lay preachers and ordinands in Switzerland and Germany. It asks what educators and churches consider a necessary basic training for members of the congregation to be able to adapt from pew to pulpit and preach with resonance. First it will offer background information about the evolving ministry of lay preachers in the Swiss Reformed Church (SRC), and then compare the programs. The comparison is initially on the formal level of curricula, then looks at some exemplary methods, and thereafter describes explicit learning outcomes, while deducing implicit one’s. The paper also seeks to enquire whether some core methods are recognisable in the process. It argues that the homiletical training programs that are analysed rely on what I call the mutuality effect, and in their core are resonance-oriented and strongly context-based.