On Saturday I attended Towards a Kiwi Made Preaching (TKMP) an event organised by Paul Windsor in his new role as associate director of preaching for Langham Partnership. I came away from the event once again saddened and frustrated by the lack of creativity and imagination in the NZ Church. I was deeply upset by the lack of will among older people to really engage with generational issues and to shift from their modern mindset into something that will reach post-moderns.
Now before I go on I must offer the following things to take into consideration. Firstly the organisers recommended that I stay for the full day as they envisaged progression and flow throughout the day and I unfortunately had to leave at lunch time. Secondly I chose topics I was interested in, this meant that I had already done reading and thinking about the area and was several steps ahead of most of the participants. Thirdly engaging post-moderns is my passion, it’s what gets me out of bed in the morning and it’s the lens through which I view the world, the church and the world. I have to acknowledge that this is not everyone’s call and focus.
Paul Windsor started the day by bringing to our attention the many different words used for ‘to preach’ in the New Testament and the wide variety of methods of communication, and the variety of places that communication occurred. I found that encouraging and challenging. We then went into a wide variety of electives (so my experience will not be everyone’s experience). In contrast to Paul’s initial session, in the electives that I attended, the predominant preaching paradigm that seemed to be in people’s minds was a man, standing at the front, offering a monologue to a church filled with Christians. One of my disappointments (shared by some others I spoke to) was that TKMP was advertised as a forum, a place for ‘synergies to flow’ ‘to probe questions’ and ‘to explore’. However it was actually a regular seminar format, with a short time for questions at the end, and not a lot of encouragement to engage with each other. In fact all the rooms were set up in rows with the presenter at the front, which did not facilitate easy interaction between participants at all.
So if my experience was that frustrating why did I go at all? Well deep down I am committed to a Kiwi-made Biblical preaching, it is just that my idea of what that looks like is very different to what it looks like for the majority of those that attended. Going into analogies I long to see preaching like Lost, whereas what I am mostly seeing (and hearing discussed) is preaching like a 1960’s news broadcast.
Lost is a current TV series (that I don’t actually watch so feel free to jump in with corrections dear readers), it follows the lives of plane crash survivors who are struggling through life on an island. Both the current lives of the characters on the island are followed as well as storylines from their lives before the crash. It is one of those series that you don’t really know what is going on, little by little more of the plot is revealed. Watchers are drawn into the story, they are engaged in figuring out what is happening, they gather to watch the series in pubs. Watchers discuss the plot with friends in an attempt to figure out what is happening and they watch reruns in order to increase their ability to predict what will happen. There is a gradual unfolding over time (5 series), with drama and suspense, it makes you feel clever when you work out some of the mystery, and as a watcher you have a sense of ownership and involvement in the story.
Contrast that with an old-fashioned TV News (who watches the news anymore? Not post-moderns who prefer to get their news with the immediacy provided by the internet) broadcast. You have a single (male) anchor, in order to increase his trust and respectability he wears a suit. He presents the news as a series of statements or propositions. The anchor expresses very little of his personality and none of his life or opinion, there is no engagement with what he presents. The news is presented in one 60 minute slot, all there is to be told is said in that time frame. The preaching I see again and again and that was the predominant image in participants minds on saturday reminds me of this.
We need more lost preaching - Can you imagine, people engaged with the gradual revelation of God’ story? Discussing it with their friends (and in online forums)? Exploring the mystery with their friends? Caught by the suspense and drama? Presenters who are excited, involved and caught by God’ story and share the awareness that it is their story?
What would it take to uncover more Lost Preaching? What would it look like in our churches? what would it look like in out lives?
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10 comments:
Christina your vision is beautiful, so don't lose it or let it slip!!
george
Agree totally. The biggest issue is that the shift in practice/method will not be worked out until something drastic happens. Something like...all the younger people that are wanting to engage like this move out of the church. This leads to either a loss of practical faith or a huge amount of smaller disgruntaled churches. My hope is that churches will be more like a business in this sense...and in this sense only...that change is a thing to be grappled with. Everything will change and everything is changing. By having a controlling death grip on something may allow you to kepp it for a while buy will not allow it to grow and develop let alone survive.
I see the idea of changing the method of preaching as a necessity. Really engaging people with the story of redemption is the key. It is a new branch on the tree of preaching and it is a shame that some want to cut it off rather than pruning the branches that need to be cut.
Ben
Hey Christina. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I like your vision of preaching. As you know I was also at the 'forum' and found the day really stimulating...I think there must have been a wide range in elective styles and content as I found generally that in the ones I was in, the idea of understanding and reaching postmoderns came up regularly...there just weren't that many who could answer the questions raised. But I was encouraged that there is awareness out there by a number of those attending that the way preaching 'has always been' is not all there is. One I went to in particular was specifically talking about how preaching can be more than just giving people propositions, and she outlined a number of reasons why propositional preaching is not only problematic but also potentially theologically distorted in many ways, and that the answer was finding ways to engage the congregation and invite them to respond to God...She looked at how we can facilitate that process and it was clear that she was not all about being a talking head up the front. So yeah, thought you'd like to know there was some move in that direction at the forum...even if not everyone is there yet.
Well, not sure if this counts as intelligent or exciting but I think there are also some negative aspects to Lost that we can also learn from. For example the Lost plot line is now completely inaccessible unless you have followed ALL of the series. It is also in danger of collapsing under the weight of it's own convoluted story line which makes it off-putting to some (like I was about two series ago, the novelty wore off as I got more and more 'lost' as to what was going on).
We need to work hard to help people connect with and know the story we are telling, and avoid them becoming alienated due to their lack of familiarity with the story (I am still very keen on the five act play model that we talked about a while back). And Regardless of what some post-moderns might tell us about narrative structure, stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. So whilst being open to some ambiguity that keeps people talking and recognizes our own limitations, our preaching should also have some sense of closure/conclusion to it.
P.s. Just because I am pointing out some negatives does not mean I am down on the idea in principle
Thanks Ben for you comments, I wonder if as the need for change accelerates whether we are on the cusp of something drastic?
Thanks Andy for sharing your positive experiences of Saturday. Overall I found the presenters very willing to engage with different ideas about preaching and I'm enjoying going through the notes of those that I did not attend. It was more the (perhaps just the vocal ones!) participants who I found didn't seem to have engaged previously with many of the ideas. I also found them to be very narrowly focussed on preaching as something that happens in one 20(Anglicans)-40 (Baptist)minute slot on Sunday.
thanks for commenting guys
Hey James, thanks for your insight from a real Lost watcher. Yes we definitely don't want to leave people confused and exclude people from jumping in 'mid-season'. I'm not sure I'm convinced about the beginning middle and end though, I think that needs to also be up for discussion. We may find that it is perhaps an overly rigid way of presentation, that locks us out of creating suspense. In particular we need to examine whether we really need to cover all three in the 'sermon slot' on Sunday. Perhaps the conclusion is something that occurs via internet forum during the week? We also need to consider what role the Holy Spirit plays, perhaps we only need leave people with questions and leave the Holy Spirit to work. (One of the seminars got us thinking about the role of the Holy Spirit in application).
As you invited me to comment, I shall do so, Christina. Thanks for taking the time to engage with the day. That is always helpful! I'll just make a few stray comments...
People are used to wanting and giving answers rather than probing the questions. It is not easy to transition. On the whole I thought presenters did pretty well raising the questions and trying to provide a forum - but I am sure this was uneven. I had a number of people say that they finished the day with plenty of energy which suggests they were sparked and engaged in an interactive manner.
I may have a different view on postmodernism than you. Just like the 'modernism' which it loves to reject, it too is a cultural reality/mood that needs to be critiqued. If everything bends over to fit within postmodernism than there is a consequence. We fall in. That is not the answer. That is the false relevance which is far too common. Postmoderns need to learn from the mistakes of the previous generation and be as adept at critiquing their cultural world as they are embracing it. I rarely hear that kind of nuance. Far more subtlety is needed. The most encouraging thing about the day for me was that the average age was so young - a huge number of the postmodern generation and very few babyboomers were present. That is the enduring testimony to a new generation beginning to be engaged...
I understand what you are saying about Lost. I've used similar illustrations in my teaching over the years (the three Robin Hoods - the Romeo & Juliets) - and there was Stan Grenz' famous article on the Star Trek generations saying something similar. But I am nowhere near as positive as you about Lost as a model. There is a lot of space between Lost and News bulletins from the 1960s and I suspect that somewhere in that space - distant from both extremes - is close to where we need to be. If I was feeling mischievous I'd ask aloud whether Paul or Jesus or Amos would chose to model their presentations of gospel truth on Lost - but I daren't mention it. :)
The other encouraging thing for me in the day was the number of women present and the number who gave outstanding presentations. Sure - it isn't the 50:50 many would love to see, but the tide is turning. The future looks much brighter on this front.
enuf
Paul
I just discovered something else great about Lost, its a collaboration between writer producers Carlton Cuse (born 1959 -boomer) and Damon Lindelof (born 1973 - xer. Cross-generational collaboration!
I was thinking about your blog most of yesterday and would like to add my '2 cents worth'. 3 things that stood out to me from the Kiwi made preaching day...
1: Paul's talk at the beginning focusing on the different meanings of preaching ... yeah! It is not just the sunday morning slot. That was SO exciting and confirmed what I had been wondering.
2. The comment in the 'passing the baton' session ... have since watched Mrs Beamish on You Tube again. And then read some stuff from Laidlaw about loving your enemy etc. What would it look like if I could show LOVE to Mrs Beamish (is she my neighbour or my enemy?). What if I could sacrifice my needs and show love to her ....
3. Later in the day on Sat, a seminar attendee commented that he wanted to see the preacher with the answers up the front telling the congregation the said answers ... I disagree with this. I am happy for the 'preacher' to not have all the answers and to ask questions, lead discussions and journey with the congregation to getting the answers or getting closer to the answers or even to getting more questions!
I think the younger generations have moved out of the traditional churches to experience church differently and I would love to see this change and that the traditional churches once again become multi generational; we can only benefit from cross generational dialogue and community.
Thanks Christina. Again, it was so great to meet you on Saturday.
I've just come across this article by Walter Brueggemann on Preaching as Reimagination. I can't pretend to have understood everything in the article at first reading! But it does offer insight into this conversation about preaching and I'd like to know what you all think:
http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/search/display-page.asp?Path=/oct1995/v52-3-article1.htm
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