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.