In my day to day blog about what it's like to be a new Methodist minister, I've moaned about preaching and how I am seriously questioning its value. I even wrote an assignment on it for my MA. I came across this today from Jonny Baker which resonates with my own thinking.
What I want to do is to take this theme but take it further; to make theological reflections on a daily basis and to throw ideas around for each of us to consider then and ask where is God in my life today? I'm hoping that one of the things we do is to look at who we are - you know, answer those important questions...'who am I?' 'why am I here?' 'what's the meaning of life?'.
Somehow, I want to give us the opportunity of breaking out from a closed mindset of who God is because of what church is. I want to stop equating God with the worst aspects of church and rediscover him again in a new light.
I am also very anxious. 'Two degrees either side of the cross is a heretic' and I don't want anybody to fall away from God because of what I do but I do want to look afresh at the God of creation, the Holy spirit of new birth and the Son of life. So we will try to do what I pleaded for in my preaching assignment and that is church which is based on theological reflection. It's a tall order, but we all know it's an experiment, so let's give it a go!
What I want to do is to take this theme but take it further; to make theological reflections on a daily basis and to throw ideas around for each of us to consider then and ask where is God in my life today? I'm hoping that one of the things we do is to look at who we are - you know, answer those important questions...'who am I?' 'why am I here?' 'what's the meaning of life?'.
Somehow, I want to give us the opportunity of breaking out from a closed mindset of who God is because of what church is. I want to stop equating God with the worst aspects of church and rediscover him again in a new light.
I am also very anxious. 'Two degrees either side of the cross is a heretic' and I don't want anybody to fall away from God because of what I do but I do want to look afresh at the God of creation, the Holy spirit of new birth and the Son of life. So we will try to do what I pleaded for in my preaching assignment and that is church which is based on theological reflection. It's a tall order, but we all know it's an experiment, so let's give it a go!
2 comments:
Hi Tim, I've read Jonny's article several times over the past year or so. I agree with a lot of what he says, we differ on conclusions. My conclusion is that how we preach/communicate must change. I agree with Jonny in that we need to do away with boring, predictable messages that wouldn't inspire me to cross the room. I think that we have to stop thinking of a message as the dispensation of information. It isn't a cognitive event, nor is it purely an affective event. I think it is an imaginative, even vicarious, event where we live in the text. Peace. Ron
Ron,
I agree about living in the text and I even preached on this two weeks ago (strange, I know). Taking it further though, I'm not sure how to live in the text and to be a credible witness in 21st Century Huddersfield. My view at the moment is that preaching is not just about imparting knowledge or making people feel comfortable, but opening up a door into another world. I'm still thinking about the practical implications and experimenting with the people from Trees Walking...
Tim
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