Learning from a Legend: What Gardner C. Taylor Can Teach Us about Preaching

Learning from a Legend

What Gardner C. Taylor Can Teach Us about Preaching

Jared E. Alcántara

foreword by Ralph Douglas West

Learning from a Legend

What Gardner C. Taylor Can Teach Us about Preaching

Copyright ©

2016

Jared E. Alcántara. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

199

W.

8

th Ave., Suite

3

, Eugene, OR

97401

.

Cascade Books

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199

W.

8

th Ave., Suite

3

Eugene, OR

97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-4982-2609-7

hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-2611-0

ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-2610-3

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Alcántara, Jared E. / Foreword by West, Ralph Douglas.

Title: Learning from a legend : what Gardner C. Taylor can teach us about preaching / Jared E. Alcántara.

Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books,

2016

. Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers:

isbn 978-1-4982-2609-7 (

paperback

) | isbn 978-1-4982-2611-0 (

hardcover

) | isbn 978-1-4982-2610-3 (

ebook

)

Subjects: LSCH:

1

. Taylor, Gardner C. |

2

. Preaching. |

3.

African American preaching. |

4.

Title.

Classification: BV

4222

A

74 2016

(

paperback

) |

BV

4222 (

ebook

)

Manufactured in the USA.

"Rare it is that while blood is still running warm in the human body that a preacher already belongs to the ages. Only a few names belong in that pantheon of pulpit royalty. Spurgeon, MacLaren, Chrysostom and a small coterie of Christian preachers belong to those stamped with pulpit immortality while yet living. Alongside those names firmly fixed forever is that of Rev. Dr. Gardner C. Taylor. Now he has joined that great cloud of witnesses up there somewhere. His name was already mentioned with their names. The man who loved to read MacLaren has now joined that Scot in heaven. Wouldn’t you like to hear that conversation?

Dr. Alcántara offers here not an encomium of praise only but also a way for us mere mortals to relate to this pulpit paragon. The mighty peal of the concerto that was Gardner C. Taylor’s life can set chords vibrating in our own lives. Alcántara has let us into the concert hall so that somewhere in the gallery we feel the floorboards rattling in our lives with the thunder of Taylor’s preaching."

—Joel C. Gregory, Professor of Preaching and Evangelism,

Truett Theological Seminary, Waco, TX

It is the elder’s voice that is little consulted by young preachers in our times; as a result, the signs of African American preaching’s sacred historical and cultural legacy are increasingly disappearing. But there’s hope for today’s journeying preacher. In his timely work, homiletician border crosser Jared Alcántara proves why the sagely life of Gardner C. Taylor—the unequaled pulpit sage of the modern age—still speaks from the grave. Not only is it evident that Alcántara sat at Taylor’s bedside, but this work also reveals that he has placed flowers at his grave. Taylor’s life and work epitomized faithful globe-trotting on the blessed but uneven homiletical road. For pastor and teacher alike, this boundary-crossing book offers readers an updated roadmap for preaching the timely and timeless gospel of Jesus Christ authentically, biblically, imaginatively, and contextually, in partnership with the community. How shall we preach? With the Holy Bible in one hand and this travel companion in the other.

—Kenyatta R. Gilbert, Associate Professor of Homiletics, Howard Divinity School; Author, A Pursued Justice: Black Preaching from the Great Migration to Civil Rights

"April 5, 2015 for me, like most preachers of the gospel; black or white, male or female, young or old was a difficult day as news began to spread throughout preaching circles and around the nation that on Resurrection Sunday Gardner C. Taylor had slipped into eternal life. It was hard then and it is hard now. For years, I have wondered what would become of the preaching methodologies of the great preaching giants whose pulpit habits and practices, preparation and delivery, should be replicated in every age.

In this companion piece to Crossover Preaching, Jared E. Alcántara has provided a most valuable resource on Gardner C. Taylor for those unfamiliar with him and for those who knew him well. For those unfamiliar, you now have a most practical, fitting, and insightful introduction to the man, his message, ministry, and method. For those who were blessed to know him well, we now have a treasure that soothes the ache his passing caused and infuses our preaching with fresh information, inspiration, and insight.

I will never forget the melody in that voice, the attention to ‘lofty’ pulpit language, the reverence for the sacred space of the pulpit whenever Dr. Taylor preached. As I read Dr. Alcántara's important work, I smiled and nodded my head and said to myself ‘I remember’ as I heard Dr. Taylor’s voice on every page. I am sure you will as well. This volume will serve as an indispensable resource to the ongoing necessity to preserve the legacy of this preacher without peer: Gardner Calvin Taylor."

—Carolyn Ann Knight, Evangelist; Founder and President,

Can Do! Ministries

Like an archaeologist unearthing historical treasure, Jared Alcántara unveils to a wider audience one of the world’s most hidden preaching gems: Gardner C. Taylor. His practical yet substantive excavations into Dr. Taylor’s life will help all of us enlarge our gospel reach, enabling us to preach a multiethnic gospel, one big enough for the Presbyterians and the AME’s. This is such a prophetic and timely book, I’m making it required reading for every preacher I train.

—Bryan Loritts, Pastor, Abundant Life Christian Fellowship, Mountain View, CA; Author, Saving the Saved

The scales by which we measure preaching are imbalanced. We consider width over depth, size over weight. This book has come just in time. It gives a new generation access to the mind, ministry, and heart of Dr. Taylor. It is a compass for those at risk of losing their way. In these pages are principles that never go out of style, matters that elevate preaching from that which moves men’s ears to that which moves their hearts.

—Charlie Dates, Pastor, Progressive Baptist Church, Chicago, IL

Gardner C. Taylor was the epitome of great preaching! This book is an instant classic that should be mandatory reading for all preachers. You will be inspired, challenged, and equipped in a fresh way as a preacher of the gospel. Dr. Alcántara not only introduces us to how Taylor models vital preaching habits, but he also gives us tools for incorporating them in our sermons. The preaching community is truly enriched by this seminal work.

—Bryan Carter, Pastor, Concord Church, Dallas, TX

To My Parents, José and Susan,

Your Generous and Sacrificial Love Ripples Out.

God Is Already Honoring It.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Last Pulpit Prince

Chapter 1: Pain: Preaching with a Limp

Chapter 2: Redemption: We Would See Jesus

Chapter 3: Eloquence: Your Words Should Sing

Chapter 4: Apprenticeship: Passing the Torch

Chapter 5: Context: I Sat Where They Sat

Chapter 6: Holiness: The Currency of Integrity

Conclusion: P.R.E.A.C.H.!

Bibliography

Foreword

The icon of the American pulpit, the dean of all English language preachers, the poet laureate of the pulpit—such accolades as these adorn the now sainted memory of Rev. Dr. Gardner C. Taylor. He is among only a handful of twentieth-century preachers who will belong alongside the principal names in the history of Christian preaching. He stands worthily alongside the luminaries of the world pulpit. The abiding interest in his life and ministry will not wane in any foreseeable future. Why is this so?

The foundation of Taylor’s greatness is the love of God and the love of people. For him God is a living presence that causes everything else to make sense. To paraphrase the thought of C.S. Lewis, Taylor believed in God in the same way he believed the sun rises in the East, not because he looked at the sun but because he saw everything more clearly in the light of the sun. Taylor inhabited a world aglow with the presence of God. Alongside that was his humble love for all people. I recall the honor of being the guest speaker at the North Carolina Baptist State Convention and observing Dr. Taylor’s attentiveness towards common people. No one in the party showed the intense personal interest in the wait staff, the parking attendant, or the greeter that Taylor demonstrated. He radiated a deep personal interest in every one of them.

On that foundation Taylor built his sacred craft, the sweet torture of Sunday morning. The sermon for him was no shallow pursuit, no glib gathering of half-baked nostrums, no banal collection of shopworn stories or hackneyed anecdotes. Every sermon marched across the listening congregation with banners waving, swords unsheathed, and the blood-stained banner of the cross waving in triumph. The trivial, the secondary, and the peripheral never oozed over the Concord pulpit like some gelatinous amoeba. Who could ever forget such sermons as A Wide View Through a Narrow Window or There is a Balm in Gilead? Wherever preachers gather who love their craft these and many others like them surface at late-night discussions of preaching and will do so for generations.

The Bible undergirded every sermon, the Bible not in some proof-texting cleverness or decontextualized attempt at mere novelty, but the Bible in its robust wholeness echoed in each message. Taylor became the mouthpiece not only for the text but for the Book. To borrow a phrase from Spurgeon, his blood was bibline. In this generation some preach what Dr. Cleophus J. LaRue calls diving board sermons in which the sophomoric preacher takes one jump on the text and never touches it again. Dr. Taylor lived under the power of the text and became the mouthpiece for the text. He never waded in the shallow waters of mere curiosities or novelties. He always went to the depths of the great themes of the Bible: guilt and forgiveness, justice and equity, suffering and meaning, time and eternity. The preaching moment was never trivialized.

At the same time, Taylor never divorced warm personal devotion from biting contemporary social commentary. In decades when evangelicals knew more about the geography of the Holy Land than the ghettoes in their own cities, Taylor brought the two together. In years when mainline liberal Protestants saved whales but not souls Taylor wanted to save both. This may be his towering achievement. In every sermon I heard him preach he combined a quest for personal piety with Amos-like thundering against the inequities of an America that refused to live up to its own creed. He recognized that sermons have both transcendence and immanence; they are both vertical and horizontal. He knew that religion that begins and ends with the individual is not Christianity, but he also knew you cannot sustain social justice without vibrant individual faith.

What can we say of his voice and personal presence? His matchless voice could whisper in pity and shake the congregation with seismic force. You could sometimes hear the echoes of the ages in his voice. I thought I could hear the groans of our people under the lash of oppression as if the centuries were concentrated in the pathos of his great voice. He could capture indignation, irony, humor, and frustration with the merest inflection of that mighty vocal instrument. The crescendos of his great conclusions enraptured congregations. Who could ever forget his God wrought it, Christ bought it, the Spirit wrought and, thank God, my soul caught it? That sticks in the memory with a divine adhesive.

Now that voice lays silent in the sod until the day he fully anticipated. Then he shall stand again shoulder to shoulder with his close friend Mike King, as he called MLK, with Sandy Ray from down the street, and with a host of others who will all live in that land where there is no more night, no more pain, no more tears, never crying again. They will live in the light of Risen Lamb.

Rev. Dr. Ralph Douglas West

Senior Pastor, The Church without Walls

Houston, TX

Acknowledgments

Most of the wisdom contained in this book can be traced to its subject rather than its author. The more I study the life and ministry of the Rev. Dr. Gardner C. Taylor, the more I am humbled and even awestruck by the depth of his preaching wisdom, pastoral insight, and personal integrity. Studying Dr. Taylor’s life and ministry has not only made me want to be a better pastor and preacher; it has made me want to be a better person.

First and foremost, special thanks are due to the family of Dr. Taylor. To his wife, Mrs. Phillis Taylor, and to his daughter, Mrs. Martha Taylor LaCroix, thank you for sharing him with so many of us. The church is stronger and the world is better because of his ministry.

I would like to thank some friends and colleagues in ministry who knew Dr. Taylor long before I did, and who either introduced me to him or who knew the answers to my questions on account of their close relationship with him. To Rev. Dr. Edward L. Taylor, Rev. Dr. Reginald High, Rev. Dr. Gary Simpson, and Rev. Dr. Cleophus J. LaRue, thank you for all of your guidance and support. Without your investment, partnership, and collaboration, this book would not have been possible.

I would also like to express my gratitude to those who read versions of this book and provided much-needed feedback: Dr. Greg Scharf, Dr. Jeffrey D. Arthurs, Dr. Reed Mueller, Pastor Lee Eclov, Pastor Greg Mozel, Pastor Richard Gay, along with my graduate assistant, Eric Price. As this book is written for pastors, I owe a special debt of gratitude to Pastor Greg Mozel, Dr. Reed Mueller, and Pastor Richard Gay. Each of these dear servants of Christ supervised and mentored me in past churches where I served. You’ve blessed me and blessed my ministry in more ways than you realize.

Thanks as well to Rodney Clapp, my editor at Cascade Books, for taking a special interest in this project and for helping to bring it to its completion. It takes an editor with a keen eye, a sharp mind, and a clear vision to see why a book on Gardner C. Taylor matters so much to the life of the local church.

Finally, I want to thank my family. To my parents, siblings, in-laws, extended family, and children, thank you for your constant encouragement, playful spirit, steadfast love, and sacrificial generosity. I have so much for which to thank God.

Most of all, thank you to my wife Jen. Your love strengthens me, your faith challenges me, your counsel guides me, your sacrifice honors me, and your courage inspires me. You hold me fast, and you set me free. Soli Deo Gloria!

Introduction: The Last