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.

The Emergent Church Part 6

Darrill L. Guder advocates that the western Church see itself as a peripheral movement, engaging its culture as a missional movement. If the Church is primarily a missional movement, is it still the Church? Some descriptions of what some emergent churches are doing seem more like a youth evangelism enterprise than a church. Marva J. Dawn describes this as “dumbing down” the Church. If emerging churches are primarily missional outreach vehicles, how and where will believing Christians be raised to maturity in Christian community? The regular exposition of the Scriptures through preaching has been a vital element in the formation of the Church and Christian people.

John Wallis is on the editorial team for www.next-wave.org, an Internet magazine that is engaging the emerging community. In an e-mail he writes about his emergent acquaintances, "I wonder if any of them even preach anymore.  Most of the people I know are involved or leading missional communities, and I am not sure preaching as you are describing in your survey happens anymore. The first question made me stop.  Most of the people I know are in communites (sic) that are less than 30. I still attend a large suburban church and (sic) not sure why at times, (sic) hear preaching every week from a gifted speaker but there is usually something missing. I sometimes wonder if preaching will slowly die out. I think it is starting to in missional communities maybe not, or maybe it has just taken another form."

It is because of the shortcomings of a primarily “missional” church that Stan Grenz argues that there is

An insufficient understanding of the role of doctrine in Christian life, or in formation of Christian identity…being Apostolic in doctrine is crucial to Christian identity, both as a community, as well as each of us as individual Christians. In His 'Preaching and Preachers', D. M. Lloyd-Jones wrote, “Is it not clear as you take a bird’s-eye view of Church history, that the decadent periods and eras in the history of the Church have always been those periods when preaching had declined? What is it that always heralds the dawn of a Reformation or of a Revival? It is renewed preaching.” 

In his book, The Preacher’s Portrait, John Stott uses five biblical words to expertly examine the cross-generational attributes and responsibilities of a Christian preacher. He is a steward, a herald, a witness, a father, and a servant. The steward is the metaphor that best helps in examining the function of preaching in every age. A steward cares for another’s goods in trust. He does not own the goods himself. He dispenses the other’s goods as the other demands. He also serves the other’s guests. The owner’s guests have not come to visit with the steward; they have come to visit the owner and to be served by the steward along with the owner. The Word of God is entrusted to Christians. It does not belong to anyone. It belongs to God. Preachers in every generation must care for it in trust and dispense it with reverence and awe to those who gather to listen to his Word. Christians desire to hear the Word of their Master. Christians would be most disobedient stewards to serve the Master’s guests our own measly goods or our Master’s goods pretending they are our own. 

In 'I Believe in Preaching', Stott writes, "Preaching is indispensable to Christianity. Without preaching a necessary part of its authenticity has been lost. For Christianity is, in its very essence, a religion of the Word of God. No attempt to understand Christianity can succeed which overlooks or denies the truth that the living God has taken the initiative to reveal himself savingly to fallen humanity; or that his self-revelation has been given by the most straightforward means of communication known to us, namely by word and words; or that he calls upon those who have heard his Word to speak it to others."

One popular compromise with postmodern culture is the rejection of expository preaching because it is seen as too methodological. It is true that when any spiritual exercise in the Church – including the exposition of Scripture – is reduced to techniques, it destroys the authenticity of the Church. James Houston writes, "What is destroying Christianity is the marketeering of Christianity…Disciple-making is not about replicable, transferable methods, but about the mystery of two walking together. Methods treat discipleship as a problem to be solved, but mentoring treats discipleship as a relationship to be lived."

Whether it is mentoring or preaching, the authentic work of Church leaders is to do what they have always been called to do. But they must do it by the Spirit in the context of their present culture. Leonard Sweet argues, “Christians should not embrace a postmodern worldview; we must not adapt to postmodernity…but we do need to incarnate the timeless in the timely.” What would this look like in a postmodern context?

The Emergent Church Part 5

Douglas J. Hall is pessimistic about any attempt to retain any cultural control or relevance if the Church remains tied to the modernist worldview. Meanwhile, he remains hopeful for new opportunities for the authentic Christian faith to engage the contemporary, post-Constantinian western culture. To do this he underlines “four worldly quests” through which “Christians may engage their society from the perspective of faith and hope.” These “quests” are the search for “moral authenticity,” “meaningful community,” “transcendence and mystery,” and “meaning.” Yet his primary argument is for Christian pastors to regain their prophetic ministry of being pastoral poets who concentrate on proclaiming God’s Word, saying, “Ministers are recalled to the teaching office.”

Writing from many years of teaching about the mission of the church, and from his own observation of the direction of the church today, Eddie Gibbs offers many excellent insights. He gives concrete suggestions for how the western Church cannot only grow, but can turn the tide of history from becoming a marginalized, ancient institution of religion, to becoming an instrument of vibrant change in our culture. He describes how the Church can move from living in the past to engaging the present; from being market driven to being mission oriented; from following celebrities to encountering saints; from holding dead orthodoxy to nurturing living faith; and from attracting a crowd to seeking the lost. However, his lack of vision for a Church led by the proclamation of the living Word of God is disappointing.

Gibbs’ suggestion that the Church needs to move from “dead orthodoxy” to “living faith” is suspect. Can orthodoxy be dead? This is the crucial question as one is constantly tempted to alter the truth, or right-thinking (ortho-doxios), to suit a postmodern palette. It is unpopular to adhere to the regular obedience and instruction of God’s Word. One would rather listen to the latest instruction on marriage enrichment or stock tips or self-improvement plans. Gibbs’ definition of “church” seems to focus too much on the Sunday morning service, and his definition of “worship” on the singing during that service. He does offer some helpful suggestions for proactive strategies for western churches. But he lacks an emphasis on the ministry of preaching as the prophetic leading of the people of God and the communication tool for outreach to the lost.

            

Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch offer what is fast becoming a benchmark for how the Church can authentically represent the Christian message to a postmodern context. They argue for a contextualization of the Christian message, and for the Church to be a missional body. Yet they offer no clear explanation or demonstration for how that message is authentically proclaimed in the regular practice of the Church.

Christian futurist Leonard Sweet calls for many new and innovative ways of expressing the Christian faith in this postmodern context. He argues for the western Church to rediscover its meaning, mission, and purpose by forming new methods for doing church by using some old methods. This “ancient future faith” is “a faith that is both ancient and future, both historical and contemporary…and attempt(s) to show the church how to camp in the future in the light of the past.”

In his many popular books, Sweet expresses a commitment to the Bible as authoritative and important to authentic Christian spirituality. Yet he offers very little to describe how authentic biblical exposition can actually be practiced in postmodern churches. His many books merely offer critiques of modernist approaches to Bible teaching. Likewise, Pete Ward argues, “The theology and values of the Church are not up for grabs.” Yet he gives us little clarity for a theology or value of biblical exposition that transcends the age. George Cladis offers a list of nine characteristics of postmodernity. Yet he gives us no explanation for how this new social paradigm calls for a new kind of proclamation in our churches.

David Hilborn declared that a modernist style of “expository preaching” is a prisoner of modernity; being “rationalistic, elitist, authoritarian, and unbiblical,” but an emergent compromise with postmodern culture can be a prisoner to our youth-oriented postmodern culture. Duffy Robbins writes: "I’m concerned that our youth ministry culture has the same kind of adolescent arrogance that thirty years ago led to the maxim, “Never trust anyone over thirty,” except that now it’s “Never trust anyone who doesn’t define himself as postmodern.” Unfortunately, that kind of narrow chronological and ideological landscape leaves us vulnerable to momentary fads and fashions.”

The Emergent Church Part 4

Does preaching have a vital place in the future of the western, postmodern Church? Is expository preaching the authentic approach to public proclamation? Hadden Robinson says, “When you talk about expository preaching, you’re not primarily talking about the form of the sermon. You are really talking about a philosophy.” What is the authentically biblical philosophy that undergirds the public practice of preaching in the life of the Church? Is expository preaching a prisoner of modernity, being “rationalistic, elitist, authoritarian and unbiblical”? What should authentic Christian preaching look like in the postmodern context?

There is a need to understand what is happening in the broad emerging church scene in the West, especially in the area of the weekly practice of public proclamation. There is much that can be learned from a postmodern awareness and reaction to modernism that may lead western churches towards a more authentic practice of faith expression. What will be the place of biblical proclamation in that authentic practice? Is there a postmodern style of preaching that is authentically Christian, which authentically preaches the formative logos of God in the contemporary ethos of western culture? If so, what will authentic Christian preaching look like in the postmodern context? Is there a biblical model of the ministry of preaching? How are emerging church leaders responding to the challenge of engaging a contemporary culture that disdains preaching?

In the book Mastering Contemporary Preaching, Bill Hybels, Stuart Briscoe, and Haddon Robinson have attempted to investigate the issue of preaching in this postmodern context. But they fail to penetrate beyond a discussion of mere preaching styles and miss the opportunity to discuss what the essential nature and purpose of preaching ought to be in this and every age, the proclamation of God’s formative Word. This can also be said of David Henderson’s book Culture Shift. Though the book provides excellent ways to address important, contemporary topics, it does not answer the underlying questions of why preach at all, or what role preaching plays in Spiritual formation.

Likewise, Richard Esling’s book, A New Hearing, alleges to be a serious investigation into five “effective” contemporary preachers. However, Esling does not give any kind of theological or theoretical criteria for comparing these five preachers, or for answering the question of why these five preachers should be considered “effective” at all. The reader is left wondering what the essence of preaching (the proverbial “baby”) fundamentally is, how one can objectively evaluate what is “good” preaching as opposed to what is “bad”, or what authentic preaching ought to look like in this new postmodern western context, as opposed to what it should not be (the proverbial “bathwater”).

Writers have articulated the reality of the monumental shift in our western church context from a modernist worldview to a new postmodern one. The western Church has been so associated with the modernist paradigm of culture and belief that it is no longer seen as relevant. History shows that this is a struggle the Church has faced during each epochal change in its social context. Walter Truett Anderson writes, 

This situation continues to lead the Church further away from her missional purpose. Alan Roxburgh writes, “Unless…leaders recognize and understand the extent to which they and their congregations have been marginalized in modernity, they will not meaningfully shape the direction of congregational life for missionary engagement.”