Monday, January 09, 2006
What about preaching?
After considering the "listening" post, I am now going to listen to your thoughts on PREACHING. Does it seem backwards that if listening is so essential and vital to being ministers that preaching is what the Reformation Church is known for? I have some thoughts, but will reserve them until I have listened for a bit. I am anxious to hear from lots of different people on this one.
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16 comments:
I like to think that when I am "listening" and hearing what you are preaching, that I am hearing what God has laid on your heart, that God is using you as a vessel of His thoughts and teaching. As you have prayed to Him for guidance and "listened" we need to be open also to listen - no matter how difficult. ( I don't mean your preaching is difficult to hear :) - but sometimes the truth is and it's application to our lives. )
Yes, ministry is listening...
Good stuff, AW! Now I am bursting to share one thing about what I think about preaching, but will hold off for just a little longer.
I have observed, ap, that you are a very good listener...
Preaching and listening seem to go hand in hand. It is very important for me to know that people are listening to me and care about me (in fact, I think it may be a little too important sometimes). It is when I feel that I have attention or affirmation that I will listen the best. --when I listen, the most growing occurs! Right now I am talking in a family/friends sense, but I think it does relate to the church. When the congregation feels they have been accepted and cared for, they will listen even more intently to the preaching. It encourages the congregation in further spiritual growth.
I agree with anonymous, prayer before preaching for the congregation allows the Holy Spirit to move - opens hearts and minds to listen and receive. The congregation is cared for, accepted where they are at and affirmed that it is OK to come to church with needs and hurts. (This is what I observed at our church last Sunday)
The goal though may be that the congregation knows of their value and the truth always with intimacy (listening) with God. To come ready to worship.
I hope and pray for that time (for me as well.)
I like the comments made by AW, very good insight in the ripple effect to listening . . .
I wonder this though does the church really Listen? It's easy for us to stay in our box and in our cirlce, and take the message that is preached to us on Sunday and Apply it within our own lives. That is what God wants, yes. However where's the true intimacy of being in a
]relationship with God? Where's the true intimacy of being in relationship with others? Where does intimacy end and begin. I don't think we've truly heard unless we listened and applied. Also until we can be vunerable with one another and share. I agree with earlier comments on listening and the comment made by Keith Wales. Healing comes from being listened too. Not only for accountability, but because you are putting yourself out there. There's freedom for you in sharing and there's freedom for the people that heard you too. The hearing could be in the same struggle. I think as Christians we forget God's way isn't safe and it's not easy. I don't think we truly know "how to take up our cross." I believe as a family we struggle because we don't listen to others. It's upsetting because our lack of hearing blocks Jesus from finishing His mission. So the message from our Father is pearched on Sunday . . . Then what do we do with it . . . we save in our notebooks for a rainy day . . . Do we need to be available and open for those who need help with application? We are serving God, but are we really serving OTHERS?
I wouldn't have made the same comments 2 days ago, but I picked up a book suggested by ap and started reading it this week. Doug Pagitt has some revolutionary insights into preaching and listening in his book "Preaching Re-Imagined". He's not talking about the pastor preaching and the people listening. Pagitt explains that traditional "preaching" is actually "speaching" - one person selecting text, planning content, and drawing conclusions, leaving it to the listener to find the "application" to their own life.
Originally preaching - or proclaiming the gospel - was more like a "progressive dialogue" as evidenced in Pauls' letters. Pagitt makes the case that the Bible becomes a living member of a community of believers when the preacher proclaims "the word" and then listens to others thus developing a progressive dialogue until all receive insight understanding and the "implication" for their life. Colossians 3:16 says let the message of Christ dwell among us richly as we teach and admonish one another with all wisdom...
Pagitt, a pastor himself, states that if speaching was the most effective way to maturing believers and calling people to Christ, pastors would only have to replay the great historical sermons and watch their people grow. Instead, he postulates an alternative and effective means is by the listening and contributing of insights by all the participants in the community. This then allows the Bible ("message of Christ") to become a living member of that community.
"Progressive Dialogue" involves the intentional interplay of multiple viewpoints that leads to unexpected and unforseen ideas."
"Progressive dialogue doesn't mean groupthink, discussion, or even agreement. It means we listen to each other in such a way that what we think cannot be left unchanged."
This is a fascinating line of thought and reason. No way can I do justice to it in this blog. I couldn't imagine why ap would suggest a book on preaching to me - but having read all that I have so far, I would highly recommend it to anyone who is curious or interested in "going higher up and deeper in" (per C.S. Lewis). And I would encourage us to be praying about how God is going to use this new revelation of an old truth in the maturing of our Calvary Community.
wow, that was long! :)
Yes, I will be praying. Dialogue requires listening. It is not debating. Maturity requires listening. I will be praying. :)
hi Beth. thanks for sharing those thoughts. i wonder if i could ask for some clarification. what exactly does pagitt mean by "another member of the community"?
also, i have a possible critique (although i will need to read him directly.) in your opinion, does his suggestion that pastors could replay historical sermons if speaching were effective miss the theological implications of the Incarnation? in other words, does his critique really hold much water if the *Word made flesh* means that the written word should be made flesh through the preacher each Sunday? just thinking out loud...
For clarification: Pagitt didn't say "another member of the community" - his quote is "a living member of the community". I can't say with certainty what he means as I have not finished reading all he wrote - and he doesn't give a specific definition to that statement. But my understanding from what I've read so far is that through progressional dialogue the Bible is given life via the shared dialogue of the community about God's Word revealed to individuals leading to a revealed collective and yet personal implication. It is no longer just a "reference book" in which verses are used to substantiate a speacher's (pastor or lay person's) previously drawn conclusions. It is the interdependent dialogue of ideas, inspired by the Holy Spirit, by all members that makes the Word "flesh" - or a living member of the community.
To your "possible critique" of Pagitt: I'm really not sure what you mean by "miss the theological implications of the Incarnation". But his perspective holds a great deal of water if we measure the spiritual outcome of the vast majority of sermons (hundreds of thousands already preached or speached in my life time).
If in fact, per your suggestion "the *Word made flesh* means that the written word should be made flesh through the preacher each Sunday" (I'd be interested in the scriptural basis for that - this is a new thought for me) then I would say that many a Sunday the Word is DOA - based on the lack of evidence supporting any significant fruit in the listeners' lives.
Does that give you clarification?
I think that one of the best examples of listening is in the Book of Job. Job's three friends came to sympathize with him and comfort him. They wept with him and sat with him for seven days without saying a word and listened to Job's lamentations (Job 2:11-13). After that they began preaching to him (Job, chapters 4-37. God was angry at Job's three friends and reprimended them because they had not spoken about what is right about God (Job 42:7-9)
Hey Beth,
I should have been more careful with quoting. Putting it in opposition to "a reference book" of the pastor's conclusions makes the "a living member" statement quite helpful.
Let me flesh out the Incarnation argument (and tell me if I get Pagitt wrong). You wrote of Pagitt making the point that "if speaching was the most effective way to maturing believers and calling people to Christ, pastors would only have to replay the great historical sermons and watch their people grow." my question is this: does the living Word of God becoming flesh in Jesus make essential that the written word take on flesh through the preacher each Sunday? if yes, then there are lots of reasons not to replay the great historical sermons. (by "replay" i have in mind something like a tape-recorder, CD, etc.) the issue would not be effectiveness, but faithfulness to how God has revealed himself. so, if pagitt is asking the question, "what is effective?" i think it better to ask the question, "what implications does the Incarnation give us?" we may arrive at the same conclusion, but via different questions.
on the one hand i have no specific *Scriptural* evidence for this position. rather, it's a theological argument. if God reveals himself as a human being, then God's word should be revealed through human beings, as well (not bodiless voices like with a tape-recorder). a face to face on this point might be helpful--for theological and practical reasons! :D
Hey Opticalwaveguy. I would like to push back on one thing. You wrote: "Consider the interpretation of Word made Flesh to be the Character of God made Action." My issue here is that God was active prior to the Incarnation and always acts from his Character--not to mention his Character is always three Persons! :)
Hi Anonymous: Excellent post. I had not considered listening and preaching in terms of Job, but will now have to. Makes Beth's comments all the more important (while already being true!) about pastor's using the Bible as a reference book and finding therein their own conclusions.
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