Ralph and Gregg Lewis wrote a helpful volume called Inductive Preaching, which emphasizes the need for good storytelling in postmodern preaching. They make an excellent case for the fact that this is the essential means of faithful biblical preaching. They stress the fact that the Scriptures come to us primarily as narrative and are, therefore, story. The Bible is basically one long story; God’s story. This is his revelation of himself through his own story about himself and his personal revelation through the lives and histories of his people. The art of good storytelling is an essential skill one must master to strike authentic pathos as a proclaimer of God’s Word. Jesus primarily asked questions and told stories. The Church today tends to give answers and lectures. In this postmodern culture, there is especially a vital need for the skills of good storytelling.
One of the sensitive issues in this contemporary climate is the popular rebellion against any kind of institutional authority. If one is perceived to be a paternalistic, archaic, hierarchical, bigoted Church spokesperson, spouting dead, theoretical rhetoric, one will have a small audience of postmodern listeners. But, if one tells a story with real contemporary pathos, one will be perceived as being captivating, real, and relevant. Then one will find a waiting audience who will listen, be fed, and come to hear the truth of God’s Word.
There are some ways that one must resist a compromise with a kind of pathos that is not biblical. Marva Dawn brings her witty and insightful mind to bear on the controversial issue of worship in today’s churches in her book, A Royal “Waste” of Time. She makes a very good case for the value and necessity of historic, traditional liturgy in Christian Spiritual formation. In this postmodern setting, there is a growing interest in tradition, mystery, and sacred space. There has been a growing distrust and distaste for the sometimes antiseptic, rationalistic, deductive, and linear approach to church life that some Evangelicals have taken during the modern era. It can be argued that, after swallowing modernism completely, the evangelical Church lost a crucial sense of sacredness.
Dawn argues for a renewed sense of being the Church in its most basic purpose: worshipping God. This worship will have no other value or purpose other than to glorify the Triune God. Though there is constant temptation and pressure to make the Church’s worship do something or be something for some sake other than purely worshipping, Christians must resist this Satanic magnetic pull and refrain from using worldly trained skills to make the worship accomplish something other than “wasting” time with God.
There is a strange yet popular idea today of making worship into an evangelistic endeavor. The theory is: invite the unconverted person into a worship service, and, as he experiences the “presence of God,” he will be converted. Dawn addresses this misguided, experientially based, gnostic-like program in her other book, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down. Another troubling trend is to see worship as a means to the end of “bringing people into the presence of God.” This of course misses the biblical point that one is always in God’s presence, and again uses worship as a device to create a self-centered, subjective experience.
One more strange development in worship today is the emergence of the non-leading leader. In many postmodern churches, the musician at the front may be having his own little personal worship experience, which the congregation is invited to join in on if it knows the tune. There is very little “leadership” in this. It fits the postmodern, individualistic, private religious desires of those who want the common church experience that is a popular replacement today for authentic Christian worship. But it is not authentic pathos.
One more strange development in worship today is the emergence of the non-leading leader. In many postmodern churches, the musician at the front may be having his own little personal worship experience, which the congregation is invited to join in on if it knows the tune. There is very little “leadership” in this. It fits the postmodern, individualistic, private religious desires of those who want the common church experience that is a popular replacement today for authentic Christian worship. But it is not authentic pathos.
