Conversation #3: People of Re-creation Series: Preaching Reimagined

Mr. Vigoda, thanks for the comment . What I struggle with a bit is the fact that people are so needy. We don’t see church as somewhere we can come and add to the story by giving ourselves. We tend to see it as somewhere we come to consume all the goods and services that it offer us. If we dont like what they have in stock, we are not satisfied and we go somewhere else to consume. I am not arguing that people have different needs, because I realize that we do, I just think that this is our problem. And maybe the church has contributed to this problem and caused it to become worse by how we do things. I agree that many people (including me) like to sit and listen to someone who is brilliant give a speach. I enjoy good speachers. It is easy for me to sit and listen to someone dictate to me what they think the bible should mean for me. But, when this happens, I believe that I am cutting myself short. A speacher will always speak from their own understanding of the world because they have experienced life a certain way. When we move away from listening to one person, we get to hear how the Kingdom of God is moving in individual lives who have experienced life in a different way than we have. And to me this is beautiful because it calls us into a more holistic dialogue where we now listen to other people’s wrestlings and stories, and this will draw us closer as a community and bring us closer to living out the Kingdom of God.

The beautiful thing about progressional dialogue as well is that no one is forced to talk or share. We are still free to be spectators if we so desire. If there are people who are new to the faith and they wish not to share and just listen, then they can do so. But I find with people who are experiencing faith for the first time, that they really want to dialogue. They want to flesh stuff out. I think that because speaching is the way we have all experienced church for soooooo long, it is hard for us to move in another direction.

A.V. - Good thoughts.

There are those that like and need to be challenged and others - very new to the faith that need a non-threatening environment with cleary defined jumping on points. I think that the traditional method of spreaching should be part of Church 101. Once someone has gotten the basics down they can pursue a more a challenging, non-linear approach to advance their spiritual growth.

And Ryan, I agree with you about consumerism revealing a potentially fatal headwound to a truly life giving ecclesiology. Also you said:

…I find with people who are experiencing faith for the first time, that they really want to dialogue. They want to flesh stuff out.

A few thoughts that rumble within me at this moment: (Pardon the lack of articulation, and bear with me that I havn’t actually read the book but you guys have stimulated my thinking and I will selfishly help myself to the process of learning that will inevitable come by working out a few thoughts via the keypad, here goes:)

I believe that both comments here are trying to get at the core issue when it comes to preaching which might be summed up as: “What ought to be done to most effectively engage people where they are and help them move toward the place God would have them go?” am also wrestling with these thoughts in a more context specific thought process, ie. Aqueous and other places (like jr. high & and high school camp this last weeked) where I am charged with the activity of preaching.

Clearly the scriptures are not ambigious about our need to proclaim with clarity what God has said and to help people become disciples living fully in the ways of Jesus. I think that it is important to recognize that a straigtforward proclamation is called for often. That being said, I am wary of too much surrogacy. (For example, by teaching people that God wants them to tithe, can I miss the reality that God may be asking any number of us to recognize the larger princeples behind the idea of stewardship and that he may be requiring a much more generous response from us beyond this biblically recommended minimum? -Early believers considered non of their possession to be their own and gave or, rather, shared, accordingly.) I don’t want to over interpret the scripture for people and miss an opportunity to make them fight it out on their own and come to their own conclusions guided by the Holy Spirit. I also want to give the Holy Spirit a little credit. Even the youngest in the faith has access to this person of the Godhead who promises to “lead us into all truth.”

Back to A.V’s comment that speeching should be a part of church 101, especially where newer believers are concerned. I hear you on this one. We regularly see throughout the book of acts what seems to be a mixture of speeching and progressional conversation. We see that the early believers devoted themselves to “the apostles teaching.” This clearly denotes a proclaimational reality and hints at a good deal of speeching at the beginning. Anticipating strong biblical insights that will bring benefit to others from people haven’t spent much time in the scriptures seems misguided. I am certain that there are wonderful exceptions to this, however, it seems that in the larger gathering of the community, those more aquinted with the scriptures and those who are actually committed to following Christ’s teachings ought to have the floor. (I recall Paul’s admonition to care for elders who labor at teaching etc.) This seems to have an early church precedent. Yet, we find that believers met at the temple courts (presumably where the speeching occured) as well as, “daily, from house to house” which seems to be a really conversational activity. Paul, Peter and others in the Story regularly entered the temple or Jewish meeting place in a respective city and speeched. When Paul was giving instruction to a new church or group of elders he speeched. We even have the Eutycus debacle where Paul speeched literally all night until dawn, ergo Eutycus falls asleep propped up inside a second story open window, falls to his death below and is subsequently raised from the dead by Paul. (Note to self- when speeching all night, either don’t let people sit by the window, or, perhaps, don’t let anyone speech all night that doesn’t have the smaltz to raise someone from the dead if need be.) Whatever. The point is that both occured all the time in the N.T. There was plenty of speeching going on as well as what we would perhaps characterize as PD.

What I don’t see happening in the N.T. is the kind of consumeristic “church as a show” type of reality that capitilism has created in our American churches. Here is where I agree with you Ryan. The purpose of preaching is not to meet people’s percieved needs, but their actual ones (the needs God sees). In churches, we tend to often ask about people’s “needs” and actually assume that people always know what these are. (Jesus spoke to the paralytic borne of four “your sins are forgiven” and later healed his body to make a statement to the pharisees.) The destruction caused by unforgiven sin (spiritual paralyis) was clearly a greater point of “need” then the fact that he was unable to walk. Jesus has the power to deal with both.

I agree with A.V. about cleary defined jumping on points for people who are discovering what it means to follow Christ, I do take issue with certain interpretations of the word “non-threatening” however, and the idea that somehow following Christ should start out easy and gradually become more challenging. During Jesus very first (and apparently, only) encounter with the rich young ruler, he was quite clear about the cost of professing allegiance to another King. (Which is what the call to discipleship cleary is. Jesus never offered his twelve, or anyone else for that matter an invitation to believe in him, only an invitation to follow him. The way the english launguage treats those words and concepts so differently creates a chasm between the two concepts unfortunatly and does violence to a biblical faith) Jesus was deeply moved with compassion for this man, knew his current allegiance, (to his wealth and his personal kingdom) and with great love flowing in his demeanor, called him to literally, not figueratively, abandon it to follow a new king. This again asks the question about what people actually need. If you professing allegiance to an evaporating temporal reality, what you need is a new King. Here is the question: Is this scenario non-threatening? It certainly wasn’t threatening in the sense of being vindictive or capricous. The story implies that tears fell from the eyes of the savior as he diagnosed this mans condition and called him to live a new reality. It can also be mentioned that the young man began the dialogue by asking “what must I do to be saved?” Jesus simply answered his question. But threatening in terms of requiring decisive action? Without question. Threatening in terms of implication? Absolutely. I think that one of the reasons that we keep pulling out our hair when it comes to our ineffectiveness in terms of making disciples is that we try to get people to believe first, follow second. That is backwards if you look at what Christ did. It seems that Peter gave up everything to follow Christ before he had the revelation of him being the Messiah.

I guess in all of this, I feel that the question of “how do we get there” is not as important as the question: “where are we going?” It seems to me that as elders, we must clearly speech, frequently, if need be, to those gathered in Christ’s name. Additionally, we have to empower each believer to ask uncomfortable questions about how we are implaceted in this Story. This is going to get personal. It has to. Once we have conviction about where we need to go, lets get there using every resource at our disposal.

4 Responses

Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.

A. Vigoda said

on February 24, 2006

Churches are composed of diversed personality types with varying life experiences and expectations. I agree that churches should never be places where the practices of faith are allowed to become stagnant and predictable. But I also realize that people have different needs. There are those that like and need to be challenged and others - very new to the faith that need a non-threatening environment with cleary defined jumping on points. I think that the traditional method of spreaching should be part of Church 101. Once someone has gotten the basics down they can pursue a more a challenging, non-linear approach to advance their spiritual growth. Of course, there are people that are ready for the a more interactive approach and frankly attending church every Sunday morning and hearing some dude with a bible preaching to them holds no appeal.
Ryan said

on February 24, 2006

Mr. Vigoda, thanks for the comment . What I struggle with a bit is the fact that people are so needy. We don’t see church as somewhere we can come and add to the story by giving ourselves. We tend to see it as somewhere we come to consume all the goods and services that it offer us. If we dont like what they have in stock, we are not satisfied and we go somewhere else to consume. I am not arguing that people have different needs, because I realize that we do, I just think that this is our problem. And maybe the church has contributed to this problem and caused it to become worse by how we do things. I agree that many people (including me) like to sit and listen to someone who is brilliant give a speach. I enjoy good speachers. It is easy for me to sit and listen to someone dictate to me what they think the bible should mean for me. But, when this happens, I believe that I am cutting myself short. A speacher will always speak from their own understanding of the world because they have experienced life a certain way. When we move away from listening to one person, we get to hear how the Kingdom of God is moving in individual lives who have experienced life in a different way than we have. And to me this is beautiful because it calls us into a more holistic dialogue where we now listen to other people’s wrestlings and stories, and this will draw us closer as a community and bring us closer to living out the Kingdom of God.

The beautiful thing about progressional dialogue as well is that no one is forced to talk or share. We are still free to be spectators if we so desire. If there are people who are new to the faith and they wish not to share and just listen, then they can do so. But I find with people who are experiencing faith for the first time, that they really want to dialogue. They want to flesh stuff out. I think that because speaching is the way we have all experienced church for soooooo long, it is hard for us to move in another direction.
billy said

on February 27, 2006

A.V. - Good thoughts.

There are those that like and need to be challenged and others - very new to the faith that need a non-threatening environment with cleary defined jumping on points. I think that the traditional method of spreaching should be part of Church 101. Once someone has gotten the basics down they can pursue a more a challenging, non-linear approach to advance their spiritual growth.

And Ryan, I agree with you about consumerism revealing a potentially fatal headwound to a truly life giving ecclesiology. Also you said:

…I find with people who are experiencing faith for the first time, that they really want to dialogue. They want to flesh stuff out.

A few thoughts that rumble within me at this moment: (Pardon the lack of articulation, and bear with me that I havn’t actually read the book but you guys have stimulated my thinking and I will selfishly help myself to the process of learning that will inevitable come by working out a few thoughts via the keypad, here goes:)

I believe that both comments here are trying to get at the core issue when it comes to preaching which might be summed up as: “What ought to be done to most effectively engage people where they are and help them move toward the place God would have them go?” am also wrestling with these thoughts in a more context specific thought process, ie. Aqueous and other places (like jr. high & and high school camp this last weeked) where I am charged with the activity of preaching.

Clearly the scriptures are not ambigious about our need to proclaim with clarity what God has said and to help people become disciples living fully in the ways of Jesus. I think that it is important to recognize that a straigtforward proclamation is called for often. That being said, I am wary of too much surrogacy. (For example, by teaching people that God wants them to tithe, can I miss the reality that God may be asking any number of us to recognize the larger princeples behind the idea of stewardship and that he may be requiring a much more generous response from us beyond this biblically recommended minimum? -Early believers considered non of their possession to be their own and gave or, rather, shared, accordingly.) I don’t want to over interpret the scripture for people and miss an opportunity to make them fight it out on their own and come to their own conclusions guided by the Holy Spirit. I also want to give the Holy Spirit a little credit. Even the youngest in the faith has access to this person of the Godhead who promises to “lead us into all truth.”

Back to A.V’s comment that speeching should be a part of church 101, especially where newer believers are concerned. I hear you on this one. We regularly see throughout the book of acts what seems to be a mixture of speeching and progressional conversation. We see that the early believers devoted themselves to “the apostles teaching.” This clearly denotes a proclaimational reality and hints at a good deal of speeching at the beginning. Anticipating strong biblical insights that will bring benefit to others from people haven’t spent much time in the scriptures seems misguided. I am certain that there are wonderful exceptions to this, however, it seems that in the larger gathering of the community, those more aquinted with the scriptures and those who are actually committed to following Christ’s teachings ought to have the floor. (I recall Paul’s admonition to care for elders who labor at teaching etc.) This seems to have an early church precedent. Yet, we find that believers met at the temple courts (presumably where the speeching occured) as well as, “daily, from house to house” which seems to be a really conversational activity. Paul, Peter and others in the Story regularly entered the temple or Jewish meeting place in a respective city and speeched. When Paul was giving instruction to a new church or group of elders he speeched. We even have the Eutycus debacle where Paul speeched literally all night until dawn, ergo Eutycus falls asleep propped up inside a second story open window, falls to his death below and is subsequently raised from the dead by Paul. (Note to self- when speeching all night, either don’t let people sit by the window, or, perhaps, don’t let anyone speech all night that doesn’t have the smaltz to raise someone from the dead if need be.) Whatever. The point is that both occured all the time in the N.T. There was plenty of speeching going on as well as what we would perhaps characterize as PD.

What I don’t see happening in the N.T. is the kind of consumeristic “church as a show” type of reality that capitilism has created in our American churches. Here is where I agree with you Ryan. The purpose of preaching is not to meet people’s percieved needs, but their actual ones (the needs God sees). In churches, we tend to often ask about people’s “needs” and actually assume that people always know what these are. (Jesus spoke to the paralytic borne of four “your sins are forgiven” and later healed his body to make a statement to the pharisees.) The destruction caused by unforgiven sin (spiritual paralyis) was clearly a greater point of “need” then the fact that he was unable to walk. Jesus has the power to deal with both.

I agree with A.V. about cleary defined jumping on points for people who are discovering what it means to follow Christ, I do take issue with certain interpretations of the word “non-threatening” however, and the idea that somehow following Christ should start out easy and gradually become more challenging. During Jesus very first (and apparently, only) encounter with the rich young ruler, he was quite clear about the cost of professing allegiance to another King. (Which is what the call to discipleship cleary is. Jesus never offered his twelve, or anyone else for that matter an invitation to believe in him, only an invitation to follow him. The way the english launguage treats those words and concepts so differently creates a chasm between the two concepts unfortunatly and does violence to a biblical faith) Jesus was deeply moved with compassion for this man, knew his current allegiance, (to his wealth and his personal kingdom) and with great love flowing in his demeanor, called him to literally, not figueratively, abandon it to follow a new king. This again asks the question about what people actually need. If you professing allegiance to an evaporating temporal reality, what you need is a new King. Here is the question: Is this scenario non-threatening? It certainly wasn’t threatening in the sense of being vindictive or capricous. The story implies that tears fell from the eyes of the savior as he diagnosed this mans condition and called him to live a new reality. It can also be mentioned that the young man began the dialogue by asking “what must I do to be saved?” Jesus simply answered his question. But threatening in terms of requiring decisive action? Without question. Threatening in terms of implication? Absolutely. I think that one of the reasons that we keep pulling out our hair when it comes to our ineffectiveness in terms of making disciples is that we try to get people to believe first, follow second. That is backwards if you look at what Christ did. It seems that Peter gave up everything to follow Christ before he had the revelation of him being the Messiah.

I guess in all of this, I feel that the question of “how do we get there” is not as important as the question: “where are we going?” It seems to me that as elders, we must clearly speech, frequently, if need be, to those gathered in Christ’s name. Additionally, we have to empower each believer to ask uncomfortable questions about how we are implaceted in this Story. This is going to get personal. It has to. Once we have conviction about where we need to go, lets get there using every resource at our disposal.

Continuing the Discussion

Swimming in the Divine Chaos… » Blog Archive » Preaching Reimagined Conversation at The Transformed linked to this post on February 28, 2006
[...] My cocomment workaround doesn’t seem to be funtioning at the moment so I thought I would just post this here. Ry guy at the transformed has initiated some conversation that I have been jumping into based on Doug Pagitt’s book Preaching Reimagined. Original conversation at: Conversation #3: People of Re-creation Series: Preaching Reimagined at the transformed See also: Conversation #2 and Conversation #1 based on the same book. [...]

Conversation #3: People of Re-creation
Series: Preaching Reimagined

4 Responses

Continuing the Discussion

Archives

Tags

Conversation #3: People of Re-creation Series: Preaching Reimagined

4 Responses

Continuing the Discussion

Subscribe

Archives

Tags

Conversation #3: People of Re-creation
Series: Preaching Reimagined