Simplicity Is An Aesthetic Value

“Both with architecture and with liturgy, there are some who assume that if one’s good, two must be better. The liturgy gets cluttered up with bright colors and shiny objects, and the architecture of the church looks, at the end of this process, like a gingerbread architect on acid did the whole thing.”

Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 41

Either Way, It Should Be On Fire

“With regard to the vexed question of written or unwritten sermons I have not very much to say. I think it is a question whose importance has been very much exaggerated, and the attempt to settle which with some invariable rule has been unwise, and probably has made stumbling speakers out of some who might have been effective readers, and stupid readers out of men who might have spoken with force and fire. The different methods have their evident different advantages.”

Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 129