As a reader and would-be writer, one of my concerns is that I find very little in the way of published sermons by Baptists. It might be that I have not discovered the right places to look, but I just don’t find much written by Baptists, either of the past or currently. This shortage of materials puzzles me because Baptist preachers are, of a necessity, writers. We write sermons, many of them, every week of our lives. compiled over the years, this constitutes volumes of written material. It’s just not accessible to the public.
It seems to me that we have lost a treasure of Biblical discovery because we have not preserved and published the sermon works of the majority of Baptist preachers.
I propose an attempt to correct this.
Imagine the theological implications of having the sermon work of Baptist preachers at our disposal. Imagine the Biblical insights. Imagine the potential historical insights.
My proposal offers these steps to rectify and create a digital library of Baptist sermons:
- Urge current preachers to collect and publish their own sermon work
The sermons could be collected by year of delivery, book of the Bible or sermon topic, whichever tends to suit their own preaching style. The key to success is that the preacher not obsess over grammatical accuracy. Such will delay the work so long, it would be impossible to publish enough to make a lasting impact. Think of but like our practice of recording our messages. How many honestly take the time to have the recordings professionally edited?
- Locate collections of sermons by Baptist preachers - recent and distant past
These do not need to be the notable preachers. It may be that those preachers less notable may have as important things to say as those more well known.
- Preserve their messages digitally
I imagine the first step in this would be to make photographic scans of the pages. Whether these sermon collections are handwritten or typed, their preservation in a digital format is a priority to make them accessible for future steps.
- Recreate them in digital format
This would be painstaking work, attempting to read sometimes difficult handwriting and making digitally typed books of them.
- Editing the work
I envision this being a process that could go on in perpetuity. The letters of George Washington, for example, are continuously studied, edited and refined. The point is not to change what he wrote but to correct the reproductions of his writings for greater accuracy.
This proposal is overwhelming in my mind.
- I need to find others, preferably in the Baptist library world, periodical, Bible College, etc who might be interested.
- I need to enlist others who would be willing to do the tedious work of preserving in digital form, then typing out the first digital versions of these volumes, and then publishing them.
- I need to locate collections of sermons to begin the work with.
Marvin McKenzie
In the fields
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