Rev. James' emerging spirit blog

The Problem with Preaching Posted October 10th, 2007 by James Lepard Wednesday morning I sit again at my desk and begin to think about the words I'll speak on Sunday morning. There's always a certain amount of fear and anxiety about speaking to and for the community of faith. A year ago I was on a search committee with a church looking to hire a new minister. The committee was made up of young and old, new and used church members. When we talked about what they hoped for in their new ministry person, the number one criteria people wanted in their minister was...a "good preacher." The "good preacher." I cringed. I know what that meant. It means a witty, relevant, creative, orthodox, progressive, informed, biblical, scholarly, humorous, serious, light hearted, current, intimate, strong, and by all means an inspirational speaker. At least a good after-dinner speaker with a touch of the heavenly. At most a motivational speaker that will rally the troops and "get all the young people back." There's an assumption that "if only we had a good preacher, we would save the church!" Which, by the way, means fill our pews and our coffers so we can continue to do the same old thing. With this as the common criteria it's rightly so that anyone who dares to preach would do so with a certain amount of trepidation. Lately I've begun to wonder if the whole traditional "preaching" model is flawed. Does an emerging church continue to look to one person who transmits spiritual truth, from a vaulted platform, removed from the masses or minuscule crowds as the case may be? The diminishing size of our churches, especially in the 30-45 year old range, would seem to indicate that "preaching" good or otherwise does not support people or encourage discipleship. In the TerraNova discovery group that looked at attitudes of those 30-45 towards religion and all things church, one person commented about preaching. "You're way up there and we're way down here." In an emerging church and in a post-modern world that separation seems to work against the kind of conversation we are looking to have. Can traditional preaching take seriously your questions? About faith, doubt, life, justice, Bible, world, life, death, hopes, dreams, struggles, celebrations. How can it if only one person does all the talking and no one else gets to say anything? It seems to me that "preaching" is going to have to change to take seriously the emerging communities that chose to gather. As another emerging church member said, "I'm an adult I've got my own views." Or as another not so emerging church (an 80-year-old member of the congregation) said, "sometimes when you are preaching I want to stand up and say something!" And yet the convention and the tradition of preaching have not welcomed this open conversation. I confess I love preaching and I get a lot of strokes from my congregation for doing it. I love being creative and playing with words and images and weaving music and liturgy into sermons, I love getting dirty with the complications of life and coming out the other side knowing and celebrating that it's all goodness and grace. I love playing with God week in and week out. But the process is so much richer and meaningful when others are invited to play along, offer their wisdom, their insight, their questions.... Lately I've changed my preaching. Early in the week I send out what I call an e-lectionary. I email the biblical readings for the upcoming Sunday along with some opening comments and questions. I invite all those who receive the email to respond, argue, add, agree, disagree, and then hit the "reply to all" button. This is a way I'm hoping that a larger community gets to participate in the sermon p Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada Advanced Search Search home our newsletter wiki Best Practices contact us FAQ Home › Blogs › James Lepard's b

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e-lectionary

This discussion board is an opportunity for people to share their thoughts, musings, puzzelment, or profound insights about the text for this week. The thoughts will often be used by the preacher to aid in the sermon time. Let your voice be heard! “Waiting Patiently” e-lectionary readings for November 4 07 Now on to the Text! Psalm 40 1I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry. 2He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. 3He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD. 4Happy are those who make the LORD their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods. 5You have multiplied, O LORD my God, your wondrous deeds and your thought towards us; none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be counted. 6Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt-offering and sin-offering you have not required. 7Then I said, ‘Here I am; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. 8I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.’ 9I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; see, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O LORD. 10I have not hidden your saving help within my heart, I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation. 11Do not, O LORD, withhold your mercy from me; let your steadfast love and your faithfulness keep me safe for ever. 12For evils have encompassed me without number; my iniquities have overtaken me, until I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails me. 13Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me; O LORD, make haste to help me. 14Let all those be put to shame and confusion who seek to snatch away my life; let those be turned back and brought to dishonour who desire my hurt. 15Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, ‘Aha, Aha!’ 16But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation say continually, ‘Great is the LORD!’ 17As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God. First thoughts… Thanks for the great conversation over the past number of weeks. Preaching is so much richer for your thoughts and reflections! This week we have only one text to ponder and reflect on. In some ways this makes the task simpler with only one text to concentrate on. And certainly this is a good text to ponder and dare I say meditate on. Some of you have commented that the psalms are not scripture that you readily go to nor are they easily understood. Sometimes the psalms are violent, vengeful; often they don’t lift up a God we know as loving and all compassionate. These are all great observations, however, one of the things about the psalms is that they express the real struggle of the poet to make sense of God and their life...the authors are not always in our terms politically correct, they don’t always speak in a language we easily can understand. But the emotional place they write from is often a shared human experience. i.e. who has felt they have been in “a desolate pit, in a miry bog?” In the group that meets with me prior to the taped sermon, people had lots to say about the psalms. One comment was they “just didn’t get it!” They glanced at the psalm but there was not one clear, concise, sound byte, summation to the psalm. In a world where we try to simplify because we are in such a rush to move on to the next thing the psalms can be frustrating, primarily because we can’t read the psalms like we read the morning paper; these are not those kind of texts. The psalms are poetry. no room