Activity in Preaching (Part 2)

Seeing faith put into action will take time. But regular exposure to the Word of God will bring the changes in people’s hearts and habits. The Desert Father, Abba Poemen, taught, “The nature of water is soft, that of stone is hard; but if a bottle is hung above a stone, allowing the water to fall drop by drop, it wears away the stone. So it is with the Word of God; it is soft and our heart is hard, but the man who hears the Word of God often, opens his heart to the fear of God.” Relevant, inquiring, textually based preaching of the Word of God will wear away at emergent people to motivate them to grow in worship and work in the Kingdom.

We are experimenting with this at our church. After we studied the book of Acts together, a group began to organize what has come to be called “Place Acts.” It is a database of people and their talents, interests, and resources. It has been communicated that everyone who is a part of our community ought to be on the list, and the list is updated through periodic surveys and an active website. Church leaders manage this database. When a need arises, people who have a connecting interest are contacted. From helping a member move, to commissioning ministry leaders, “Place Acts” has helped us put faith into action. The postmodern preacher must help his congregation put faith into action.

Activity in Preaching (Part 1)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "Leadership in the church community is unfaithful to the Spirit if this intimacy is not fostered in Word, sacrament, and action for justice.” Authentic Spiritual formation through preaching in the postmodern era will inspire the congregation towards active faith. Haddon Robinson writes, “The preacher that can use the imagination to paint a compelling and tangible picture of a preferred future for the listener, will lead the people toward a more meaningful experience.” Postmoderns are critical of anything that is merely theoretical. They want to see how it really works in practice. They are more concerned about how it works in practice than how, or even if, it works in theory.

The Christian leader must help his flock put their faith into practice. People of this generation can be enamored with heroes from any religion, race, moral creed, or political persuasion if they are perceived as “making a difference in the world.” They can be (rightly) passionate about ecology, human rights, or justice issues. Unfortunately, faith is so privatized; it is not popularly seen as being something that actively engages real life. Preaching must engage the congregation members’ passions and real lives, and make plain how faith must be practiced in the real world.

Irreverance in Preaching (Part 2)

When Paul called the pagan Athenians “very religious” (Acts 17:22 NIV) he was being irreligious. He was disregarding “the traditions of men” of his day and speaking their language. In the modernist age, one could assume that most people in western culture were churched. In this age, one must assume the opposite. In a modernist church, one can assume that the people want to be there, they respect the pastor because he is a pastor, and they understand the language and traditions of the church. At our church we try to assume that they do not necessarily want to be there, they don’t know anything, they have no reason to automatically like or respect us, and that they are not interested in what we have to say. Then we try to plan what we must do to win them over and introduce them to the God who reveals himself in Christ in the Scriptures. This may seem irreverent, but we call it “missional.”

Another aspect of irreverence is the language, culture, and history of this age. There is a new ethos of basic societal norms and mores that do not relate to some of the modernist “traditions of men.” Some things that are commonly considered properly “Christian” in one generation are not reverenced as good, or even “Christian,” in the next. It is ironic that a modernist will want the “truly Christian traditional hymns” properly sung in his church, while some of these same hymns were apparently forbidden in churches by Queen Elizabeth I, as she condemned them as vulgar “Geneva jigs.” This is also true of speech, dress, attitudes, and habits.

 Author Jacob Chanowski is quoted as saying, “It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot, irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.” Often faith is misplaced in what Christians assume to “know.” There is a need to question what is “known” to determine if it is actually what God reveals to be true for life and faith practice, or merely “the traditions of (the) men” of the last generation.

There is a postmodern casualness that is appropriate for the language, culture, and history of this age. This is reflected in casual speech, dress, attitudes, and habits. Again, these may shock some who are more accustomed to a modernist ethos, but what is important is to differentiate between what is truly of God, which must always be reverenced, and what is merely a “tradition of men,” which may be reverenced by one generation, but not another. The authentically Christian postmodern preacher will discern the difference and preach with appropriate irreverence.

Irreverence in Preaching (Part 1)

Mark Twain said, "Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense.”

Authentic Spiritual formation through preaching to postmoderns will necessarily involve irreverence towards anything that is merely modern or institutional. In practice, this may shock some who confuse merely institutional or modern things with sacred things. Mark Twain also apparently said, “Sacred cows make the best hamburger.” In rejecting the religions of modernism, postmoderns may seem irreligious. This is certainly how Jesus was viewed as he challenged what he called “the traditions of men” (Mark 7:8 NIV), which were the “sacred cows” of his day.

With the death of European Christendom, and as the age of modernism disappears, preaching can no longer assume a common belief in or language of “the traditions of men.” When John McLeod Campbell preached his excellent sermon, “What Does It Mean to Be a Christian?” he could say, “...if the end of our being be to know and enjoy God...” rightly assuming that his audience had a familiarity with the “Westminster Catechism.” This cannot be assumed today. People must be made familiar with the wonderful theology of the Westminster Catechism, but it cannot be assumed that they have even ever heard of it, let alone that they are familiar with its excellent contents. This generation is more familiar with “The Simpsons,” “Survivor,” “Charlie’s Angels,” and the content of a Beatles’ song.

Text in Preaching (Part 2)

Jesus argued in his great “Sermon on the Mount” that until heaven and earth disappear, not even an iota or a keraia will vanish from the Scriptures. And those who luse (loosen or destroy) any bit of it “will be least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches (it) will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19 NIV). Unfortunately, in some churches, the Word of God is not only adhered to loosely, it is twisted to mean whatever people want it to mean. One could argue that contemporary Christianity is a combination of legalism and spiritualism wrapped up in Christian clichés.

Greater emphasis must be placed on the postmodern preacher’s job of doing careful exegesis, faithful practice, and proper instruction of biblical texts. This is what Paul was commending Timothy to do when he said, “What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you – guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us” (2 Tim. 1:13-14 NIV). Training in the study, practice, and teaching of the Word is crucial for Christian leadership in every age, but especially in this postmodern era when texts and rational communication is deconstructed and dismissed as relative.

There is another enemy of proper Christian attention to the study, practice, and teaching of texts today; a uniquely postmodern erroneous belief in an antithesis between “head knowledge” and “spiritual knowledge.” This myth assumes that “spiritual” wisdom is something that drops out of the clear blue sky directly from God, rather than being something revealed by God to human minds and hearts. This is a great contributing evil to some of the chaos in our contemporary scene. Sincere, well-meaning men and women, chiefly because of an ignorance of basic biblical truths, teach heresy in the name of Christ. If proper exegesis of biblical texts is ignored, ignorance will be studied, practiced, and taught.

At our church, we are endeavoring to study, practice, and teach the Word of God together. The teachers are committed to faithfully exegeting the actual texts of the Scriptures. As previously mentioned, we teach through whole books of the Bible. We invite our congregation to test everything that is taught against their own understanding of the texts through personal study. The members of the team of teachers also hold one another accountable to be faithful representatives of the Word. We help one another, ask one another, commend one another, and forgive one another when we fail. The authentically Christian, postmodern preacher must be committed to be a serious student of the Word first, and then to be one who exposes the actual texts of God’s revelation to his/her congregation.

Text in Preaching (Part 1)

Daryl Johnson wrote, “That’s biblical preaching. That’s what we’re trying to do; taking a text, living in that text, inviting other people into that text, and allowing the text to speak its Word to us as unencumbered as possible by our distortions.”

The content of authentic Spiritual formation through preaching in the postmodern setting must continue to be the properly exegeted true text of the Christian Holy Scriptures. John Stott wrote, "Here, then, is the preacher’s authority. It depends on the closeness of his adherence to the text he is handling, that is, on the accuracy with which he has understood it and on the forcefulness with which it has spoken to his own soul. In the ideal sermon it is the Word itself which speaks, or rather God in and through His Word. The less the preacher comes between the Word and its hearers, the better. What really feeds the household is the food which the householder supplies, not the steward who dispenses it. The Christian preacher is best satisfied when his person is eclipsed by the light which shines from the Scripture and when his voice is drowned by the Voice of God." 

The great Old Testament preacher, Ezra, “devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel” (Ezra 7:10 NIV). He found himself leading the people of God during a time of transition into a new orientation. Yet he relied on what the leaders of the faith community had always done; leading the people in listening to the texts of God’s Word in their contemporary setting. He exegeted the Word to understand its logos content. He conveyed the Word in the pathos of living practice. He taught the Word in the context of his contemporary ethos.

There is a description of Ezra’s method in Nehemiah 8. He stood before the assembled people, opened the Word, and he (and other Levites) read it and interpreted it so that the people could understand it. The people responded in prayer, praise, weeping, and worship. They started with the text, applied it to their lives, and responded to it with faith. They did not begin with some topics that they thought their people needed to learn about and then find some proof texts to teach mere “traditions of men.” Rather, they let God speak through his revealing Word. Ezra simply read the text “from daybreak till noon” (Nehemiah 8:3 NIV) before he and the other priests instructed. Many evangelical churches today do not have even a short reading of the text as a part of their service outside of the sermon. This is utterly shameful!

Sensuality in Preaching (Part 2)

In 'Revelation', John re-imagines this kind of sensual experience when he describes worship in the heavenly realms. There are trumpets and voices, rainbows and lightning, blood and incense, rumblings and tears, and sweet and sour scrolls. In the premodern, western Church, there was a greater sensual experience than what grew out of the modernist enlightenment. European cathedrals were designed to enhance the appreciation of God through all five senses. These attentions to the sensual experience in worship must be regained in the postmodern Church to help this emerging generation attend to God.

At our church, we are attempting to experiment with sights, sounds, touches, tastes, and smells. We use “PowerPoint,” not only to project song lyrics, but also to show beautiful images throughout the worship experience. We listen to songs, speeches, and silences. We are highly touch-oriented (relational). We feel and smell the bodies around us in worship, and we feel and taste the bread and wine in communion, and the coffee and desserts afterwards. The Christian life is a five-sense, corporeal experience. It is rooted in the humus of our bodies in time and space. It is realized through our physical beings. And the authentically Christian, postmodern preacher will engage her congregants' fully sensual lives.

Sensuality in Preaching (Part 1)

Dan Kimball wrote, “God created us as multisensory creatures and chose to reveal himself to us through all of our senses. Therefore, it’s only natural that we worship him using all of our senses.”

Spiritual formation through preaching to postmoderns must be given in a context that engages one’s full sensual experience. With the rejection of modernist rationalism, a greater awareness of the sensorial experience of life and worship is emerging. This is seen in the importance of music, mystery, and beauty in emergent churches. Postmoderns are not interested in anything that is perceived as merely intellectual. The appropriately irreverent, relevantly real, grounded, Christ-centered faith community will engage the whole person in worship.

This is not a new thing for the faith community. The aberration was the modernist practice of intellectualizing and sanitizing the worship experience. The Old Testament experience of worship, at the Sinai Tabernacle or the Jerusalem Temple, was a fully sensorial experience. Imagine a gathering of the masses bringing their daily sacrifices. There were the sounds of the prayers of thousands of human voices mixed with the chants of hundreds of priests, and the cries of thousands of animals mixed with the blasting of worship instruments. There were the sights of the throngs, the blood, the candles, the altar, the smoke, the dazzling gold, and the colorful priestly garments; the smells of the incense, the burnt grain and meat, and the blood, feces, and sweat. There were the feelings of the crowd on one’s body, the washing water on one’s face and hands, the altar fire on one’s skin, the smoke in one’s lungs, the blood-soaked ground between one’s toes, and the animal, vibrantly alive and then limply dead in one’s hands. There were the tastes of the dryness of the mouth in prayer, the tears of joy and repentance, the flavors of the sacrifices, and the feasting on food before and after. This was an intensely sensual experience.

Inquiry in Preaching

Bishop Daniel Wilson wrote, “It is the mark of our true and holy religion that it courts inquiry and denies no species of fair investigation.” Spiritual formation through preaching to postmoderns will need to engage congregation through inquiring questions. Someone once pointed out that Jesus asked questions and told stories, while many in churches today gives answers and tells lectures. The mantra of 60s western rebels was to “question all authority.” They are now the grandparents of the emergent Church generation. It is simply a part of the fabric of life and faith that one challenges all authority and questions every proposition. On average, this generation is also highly educated and well informed of local and global events, and trends and ideas.

Therefore, preaching to postmoderns can never simply be dogmatic assertions of propositional statements about biblical content or a preacher’s pet topics. Rather, the postmodern Christian preacher must engage people with his own real questions, and listen to and incorporate his audience’s own questions into any interaction with Christian texts and ideas. One must encourage the kind of habit the Bereans were commended for in Acts, as they “examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11b NIV). The preacher must be the humble representative of God’s Word who invites the community into a relevant dialogue, asking questions about what God says and wants, and representing the quandaries of his people.

It is a part of the very essence of the record of God’s Word that it holds up to fierce inquiry. The Bible record gives names, dates, and locations for its “salvation history” events. Christianity is not a faith based on people’s personal experiences or opinions, but the record of a communicative God who has revealed his character and will through real events. These events are attested to as historical facts. This is not human fantasy, but divine revelation, and he expects his people to know, love, and serve him correctly.

Of course, there are essential doctrines of the faith that must be believed for one to be a Christian “believer.” There is specific content to the Christian faith. But one’s understanding of these essential beliefs, as well as one’s ongoing reception of God’s continuing revelation through his written Word, must be personally appropriated. Faith is not a matter of people blindly agreeing to rote information. Our questioning, searching, doubting, and inquiring are all vital to the authentic Christian life and faith development, especially in this postmodern context.

            

At our church, we attempt to encourage inquiry through many avenues. Sermons often begin with a query. The congregation is invited to dialogue about a question related to the theme of that week’s pericope. Also, people are invited to meet the preacher after the service at our own café, for questions, arguments, or concerns about the message. Small groups are encouraged, to allow for diversity in opinions or practices. Our website provides space for people to share their questions and ideas. Doug Pagitt invites his congregation to participate in a sermon development discussion on Tuesday nights, and then even encourages what he calls “progressional dialogue” wherein anyone can interject a comment, question or challenge as a vital part of the Sunday sermon.

We are interested in everyone’s opinion on anything. However, the question that must guide all discussions is always: What does God say about it? The dictum, “In essentials unity; in nonessentials disunity and charity over all” is a good one. Certainly there is disagreement about what is “essential.” But we agree that the essentials are revealed in God’s Word, and it is there that we must debate, question, study, and examine to see if what anyone teaches or believes is true.

Relevance in Preaching (Part 3)

While teaching a youth Sunday school class, one leader wanted to ask the youth to suggest which topics they wanted to cover during the school year. I suggested that we ought to simply read through the Gospel of Mark, letting these topics surface out of the text. This was attempted and all were surprised that all the subjects were covered, but in context of God’s greater story, rather than using the Scriptures as proof text for our topical list. This is what Dick Lucas and John Stott and the other founders of “Proclamation Trust” urge preachers to do. We ought to faithfully and relevantly teach God’s message in the Bible texts. Once, at a Dick Lucas preaching seminar, an Anglican priest exclaimed, “But that makes it so easy! I don’t have to come up with snazzy new topics to preach on all the time! I can just teach the text!”

            

Jason Van Bemmel asks, "So, who wants to be relevant? Well, I do. I want to speak the truth of God in a way that my generation will understand. But I don’t think we’ll do that by capturing the White House or the music charts. I think we’ll only do that by loving one another and the world around us radically and sacrificially – just like Jesus."

Finally, to be real and relevant in this generation is to be relational. Faith Worship Center in Greensville, SC uses this statement on their website: “real, relevant, relational…that’s faith!” Someone once said, “This generation doesn’t care if it’s true. They want to know if it’s real.” To be real means it works relationally, in everyday, lived-out relationships. The postmodern preacher must be a relational communicator, building community. And, speaking humbly, he must also proclaim the relational message of the Scriptures.

Relevance in Preaching (Part 2)

When the people of God were in exile, they wondered, “How can we sing the songs of the Lord while we are in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137:4 NIV). The emergent Church finds itself in a foreign land today. Alan Roxburgh argues that the Church is in “exile” and must recover its soul, a passion in mission. One might ask, what does this look like? It will essentially look the same as in every era: the people of God gathering together to listen to the Word of God read, sung, prayed, and preached, in the relevant context of their day and place.

The Hebrew faith community adjusted to its new Babylonian context. They were without land, a temple, or a king. They listened to God’s Word in small groups, in new settings at synagogues, and responded with the new language of apocalyptic poetry. Through each stage in God’s salvation history, the people of God have begun with the WORD, and then they have applied what has been revealed to their existential experience, in a garden, in a new promised land, in a kingdom with a temple, and in captivity without a temple. The people of God have experienced many settings, yet have always been the people of the WORD, relating its revealed message to their ever-changing contemporary cultural reality.

At our church, we read, sing, pray, and preach through whole books of the Bible over weeks or months. We listened to the whole of God’s story in Genesis over eight months. We engaged God’s message, but related it to the contemporary lives of our community as the Word was reflected on and applied. In December, we recognized the season of advent, but did not stop listening to Genesis. Genesis was our anchor to God’s world. Advent bridged us into our world. Some of the leaders thought we should stop our study in Genesis for the Advent time, especially for our Christmas service. “It’s got nothing to do with Christmas!” someone argued. But it was counter argued that it has everything to do with Christmas. The whole of the Scriptures are the story of Christmas. We stayed with the text throughout the season, and a rich juxtaposition provided some deeper insights relevant to both God’s Word and our world. Jesus is on every page, as is God’s Word for our contemporary experience.

Relevance in Preaching (Part 1)

Kary Oberbrunner said, “Being a relevant Christian is about four words: Love God. Love people”. Spiritual formation through preaching must address relevant issues of people’s real lives. David Buttrick said of preachers, “We must engage in a kind of rediscovery of actual lived experience so that homiletic images are in touch with how God may impinge upon inter-human awareness.” Relevant does not mean relative. The message of Christian preaching is not relative to the whims of contemporary culture. And, preachers do not make it relevant. It is intrinsically relevant to this or any culture whether individuals recognize it or not. Relevant, means “prophetic” in the sense that God’s Word must be addressed to the relevant issues of this contemporary age and in the relevant language, culture, and history of this age. One must prophetically relate God’s revealed truth to one’s contemporary existential reality.

Recently, a friend complained that on the Sunday following the September 11th terrorist attacks in the United States, his pastor preached a sermon without once mentioning those events. It was probably the thing that most occupied people’s minds that morning, yet his sermon did not relate to it at all. To be relevant is to be aware of and involved with what our community is aware of and involved with. Like the men of Issachar, all preachers need to be men who “understood the times and knew what (God’s community) should do” (1 Chr. 12:32 NIV).

This is not about merely using scenes from “The Simpsons” to demonstrate that  one is “hip” to today’s trends. One may use “The Simpsons,” current events, or other items from popular culture to relate the eternal WORD to this present cultural experience. The distinction is that one will use anything from popular imagination to help one understand the logos of the Scriptures. One does not start with the message of “The Simpsons” and look for a Bible verse to illustrate one’s point. One begins with the Word of God and looks for any way to relate its message to the real lives of one’s congregation.

            

Christian preachers must know the language, culture, and history of their communities to help people listen to the Word of God in their context. Christian leaders live in two worlds: God’s revealed reality and their own existential realities. It is the former that must define the Church and be the measure of the latter. This has always been the case for the biblical community. Eugene Peterson writes, “God does not put us in charge of forming our personal spiritualities; we grow in accordance with the revealed Word planted in us by the Spirit.”

Humility in Preaching (Part 2)

The Scriptures, which the Church preaches, are themselves full of the humus of life. The encounters between God and humanity are often humorous stories, simply because, like a good joke, they are full of juxtaposition and shock. To truly understand the message of Jesus’ parables, one must encounter the funny shock of the story: a camel going through the eye of a needle, a man building his house on sand, a rich man running to meet his wayward son. Jesus, what a joke! But then the punch line, and wham! The story of God’s grace, understood for the ridiculous shock that it is.

There will always be a surprise because one is always dealing with a strange being (the God of the Universe) encountering strangers (real, humorous people). The divine comedy is about a stranger who is completely other (Holy), courting his unholy creatures. It is the juxtaposition and shock of the unexpected that catches one off guard. It grabs one’s attention and has one reacting with laughter and awe. Shocked into laughter and then silenced into awe, one recognizes one’s true self and the true God himself. This humble realization is a true appropriation of revelation. God initiates with his revelation, and his creatures respond with realization or ignorance.

            

The postmodern revolution can teach the Church to communicate the humility of the proper approach to listening to God’s Word, as well as the humble content of that Word. The authentic postmodern, Christian preacher will utilize the pathos of humble, humus, human, humor in her proclamation of the Scriptures.

Humility in Preaching (Part 1)

F.B. Meyer wrote, “I used to think, that God’s gifts were on shelves one above another and the taller we grew, the easier we can reach them. Now I find, that God’s gifts are on shelves one beneath the other and the lower we stoop, the more we get.” For Spiritual formation through preaching to be both authentically Christian and authentically postmodern, it will need to display honest humility. The shame of the human race is that people take themselves far too seriously, while not taking God seriously enough. The greatest expression of humility in postmodern preaching is humor. Humor does not necessarily mean funny, but the Latin base of that word, humus, meaning “earth” or “soil.” The most basic meaning of being human is that people are from the earth. Humans are humble, “earthy” creatures. And one of the most basic human experiences is to laugh (and cry), especially at one’s self.

One of the greatest tragedies in Church life is preachers who take themselves far to seriously while not taking God's Word seriously enough. The authentic postmodern Christian preacher will use humor, not to entertain, but to engage his audience. Self-deprecating humor is one of the surest ways to connect to the pathos of the postmodern congregation. The common experiences of life are earthy and humorous. As one humbly shares one’s life and faith journey, one earns a hearing from a generation that is looking for authenticity and integrity. Modernist preachers found a hearing through formality and seriousness. Postmoderns are looking for commonality, humility, and humus.

This is the humble, joyful, life-affirming engagement of humor. C. S. Lewis understood this when he had his demonic character, Screwtape, divide humor into four categories: “Joy, Fun, the Joke Proper, and Flippancy.” The first two are of no use to the demons, Screwtape says, because joy and fun, like music, are actually the stuff of heaven and unintelligible to demons. Lewis also quotes Martin Luther, saying, “The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.” Chesterton said, “Satan fell through force of gravity. We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.”

Community in Preaching (Part 3)

Entertainment is an addiction for contemporary culture; many churches compromise their integrity to keep their people amused. Some churches are like Broadway, while others are more like Barnum and Bailey. With ever more elaborate and expensive technology and techniques, Western churches attempt to compete with the dazzle of popular, celebrity entertainment. Jacque Ellul has pointed out that "technology is like a Trojan horse in the city of God".

Whether it is a show or a circus, it is not a community. The shift to postmodernism has shown us that the real work of Christian pastoring is to be a real, known person who leads a real, known community in life and faith. The weekly gathering of representatives of the real, known community combats the “cult of celebrity.” It anchors the journey of faith to reality. An authentic, postmodern pastor is able to publicly say to his community, “Cut me some slack,” because he is a member of the community, not an expert or a celebrity. The ministry of a pastor is not a performance, but a sharing in the journey of life and faith. His task is to help create Christ-centered community.

           
Another modernist cult that a communal approach to listening to the Word of God combats is the “cult of individualism.” Individualism and all its consequences are in direct opposition to the interest of God’s Holy Spirit in building the united body of Christ. The rugged, self-reliant individual of American lore and the polite, private individual of Canadian society are modernist enemies to the Christ-centered community. The postmodern preacher must model the kind of relationally interdependent, life-on-life communal enmeshment that will help the Word of God be attended to in this new era.

           
The actual public presentation of the Bible teaching must also model the communal aspect of authentic postmodern Christianity. The message cannot be a lecture. There can be no invisible wall between the speaker and the congregation. It must be a conversation. Sometimes there must literally be interaction between speaker and listener. It must me done in a natural, friendly, relational way.

           
At our church, we may begin with a question related to the theme of the passage of Scripture we are listening to that week. The question gets the congregation interacting relationally. The speaker may then engage in answering the question himself. This bridges the preacher into the dialogue. Likewise, throughout the message there may be interaction through questions, invitations to reflect on a subject, the sharing of a humorous anecdote, an interview with someone, or even just a conversational tone.

The tone of the message it set by the attitude of the speaker. If one believes that this is a lecture or performance, one will project that kind of formal, divisive atmosphere. If one assumes that these are a group of friends who have gathered to listen to the Word of God together, one will project a casual atmosphere of friendly, warm, mutual respect and familiarity that invites others into the faith community on a journey in communal conversation. For preaching to be both authentically Christian and authentically postmodern, it will need to cultivate that kind of a sense of community.

Community in Preaching (Part 2)

At our church, we have a team of bible teachers, rather than just one main preacher. This team must work together to present unified teaching. At the same time, there is an inherent diversity in the group. Diversity is highly valued among postmoderns. The team model can communicate and demonstrate the unity and diversity of the Christian body. During the week, the congregation is encouraged to study and reflect on the passage, in small groups or individually. This is a communal approach to the whole process of listening to God’s Word, from the early stages of exegesis to the delivery of a Sunday sermon.

One of the things this approach to communal exegesis does is combat certain modernist cults. The contemporary Christian leader battles several modernist cults. There is the “cult of the expert.” If someone has written a book or is on television, wears a lab coat, or is even merely from out-of-town, he is considered an expert. With the rejection of modernist rationalism, postmoderns have not rejected the modernist awe of experts, but have merely adopted a pattern of believing their own choice of experts, habitually failing to examine their claims for falsehoods. With the community gathering around the texts of Scripture together, the group can challenge preconceived or misplaced trust in the teaching of experts, which on careful examination of actual texts may prove to be erroneous.

Another modernist cult is the “cult of celebrity.” The local pastor can never compete with the popular entertainment icons or the Christian celebrities who dominate the public media and private imagination. Like in the “cult of the expert,” people will simply give attention and allegiance to celebrities. Every public servant is compared to the most popular celebrity. The preacher is compared to Chuck Swindoll. The worship band is compared to U2. But the real hero ought to be the local guy who works hard, every week, to serve his congregation by helping them pay attention to real texts and real lives. It is easy to entertain, especially from a distance or in short bursts. 

Community in Preaching (Part 1)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “In Christian a community, everything depends on whether each individual is an indispensable link in a chain.” For Spiritual formation through preaching to be both authentically Christian and authentically postmodern, it will need to involve the whole community in its expression, from the early stages of exegesis to its final public, verbal presentation. It cannot be a solo act by a professional expert who closets himself away with books until the moment he ascends the pulpit platform. The postmodern preacher must engage his community. He must exegete his community. He must truly know, love, and serve his community by inviting them along on a journey of listening to the revealed Word of God together.

There are many ways to involve one’s community in the early stages of exegesis. At our church, this is attempted by inviting the community to join in on a weekly meeting around the identified text for that week. This is a planning meeting for the upcoming Sunday service. Usually present are the preacher, the music worship leader, the administrator, a visual artist, the prayer leader, and any other interested members. This often includes ministry leaders such as youth leaders, children’s workers, small-group leaders, and church elders.

            

The preacher comes with his homework done. The hard work of textual exegesis has been done on his own. He has examined the text in all its contexts (original language, culture, history, genre, text, and theme). He has consulted commentaries. He brings all of his homework to the group and they wrestle with the text together. Often the music worship leader has also done some homework, and examined the themes of the text for responsive engagement with the Word in song. The prayer leader or visual artist may also have been engaging the text during the week, and have each brought their own interpretations.

            

The group, representing the larger community, listens to the text together and asks, “What does this mean? What did it mean to the original hearers, and what does that mean for us?” There may be disagreements. There will be different points of view. What surfaces is a rich tapestry of living believers listening to God’s Word together. Their combined insights inform the continued development of what will take place at the Sunday service. There is seriousness to the actual exegesis of the text. The group does not equally weigh careful exegesis with personal opinion. This group is not about pooling ignorance. However, the preacher is not the only one listening to the text and preparing his message in private. The group helps each another engage the Word and discern its message.