Introducing Post-Preaching Reflection and Assessing its Impact on Selected Members of the Richmond Hill Chinese Baptist Church, Ontario, Canada

Abstract

This study demonstrated how post-preaching reflection on Sunday sermons could develop the congregants' ability of Richmond Hill Chinese Baptist Church to learn and apply Scripture to their daily lives. The study was an action research using a qualitative phenomenological approach. A reflective program, named "Uncommon-8-weeks" was designed and introduced to the congregants as a tool to practice reflection on eight sermons preached for eight consecutive weeks. Qualitative data was collected from responses written by 20 participants who volunteered to share their lived experiences during this project. Based on the data collected, seven clustered aspects of reflection were put into practice: (1) remembering, (2) considering, (3) connecting, (4) self-examining, (5) desiring, (6) planning, and (7) acting. These were illustrated in an approach titled, "Post-Preaching Reflection-Action Approach." This approach represented the lived experiences of the participants as they moved into a deeper learning of Scripture and a desire and motivation to employ new knowledge in their lives. Results of this study were two-fold; first showing that the impact of post-preaching reflection on the participants was positive and second that reflection functions as a hyphen linking the preached sermon to the congregants as they desire to learn and apply Scripture