• Missional Preaching Part 1: Preaching as a Communal Activity

    February 9, 2010

    Not too long ago I offered a post on, “Preaching in the Missional Church.”  Basically it was an excuse to pimp this awesome paper by Ervin Stutzman.  Apparently that wasn’t enough for my good friend Wess, who asked what missional preaching looks like ;)

    To try and do justice to Wess’ question, the importance of the topic and to make space for better discussion, I’ve decided to divy this up into three posts.  I’ve got in mind to describe three unique attributes of preaching in missional churches and then illustrating them by way of examples from Life on the Vine, the missional community Amy and I are a part of. (Dave Fitch, one of the co-pastors of LOV, offers some reflections on this same topic here.)

    In missional communities, preaching is a communal activity which seeks to proclaim biblical truth that calls for and invites a real response.

    In most churches, the task of preaching is the responsibility of one individual – 9 times out of 10, a man.  Not only does the task of preaching often remain unshared, but the scope of preaching does as well.  This reality conflicts with the communal nature of missional theology and ecclesiology.

    In missional communities, one of the central aims would be for a team of teachers, whose giftedness is affirmed by the congregation, to share responsibility not only for preaching and teaching, but for giving their time and attention to identifying and equipping other gifted teachers in the body.

    Life on the Vine is shepherded by a 3-person team of bi-vocational pastors.  Not only do they share teaching and preaching responsibilities, but they also facilitate what we call a “College of Preachers,” every summer.  This gives those who have (or at least want to discover if they have) the gift of teaching, the opportunity to use and explore this gift in a guided way.

    In addition, we follow the church calendar.  This means that we are all aware, well ahead of time, of those texts which will be preached each Sunday.  Whoever is responsible for the preaching portion of our liturgical service also facilitates a time of teaching and dialogue for an hour or so before the worship service.  This time gives the entire body the opportunity to speak to the text for the morning and it gives the preacher the opportunity to (re)shape their sermon in light of the insights, questions, and concerns of the body.

    I’ll speak to the issue of missional preaching proclaiming biblical truth next time.  For now, what are your thoughts on preaching as a communal activity?  Is this important to you?  Why or why not?  What might be other ways to achieve the same goal in different ways?

    Related Posts

    1. Missional Preaching Part 2: Preaching as the Proclamation of Biblical Truth
    2. Missional Preaching Part 3: Preaching as a Call for Response
    3. Preaching in the Missional Church

    Posted in: church, community, corporate worship, liturgy, LOV, missional, post-christendom, preaching/teaching, theology, truth

Recent Comments

  • JoshGarrington said...

    1

    Do you use a specific lectionary, or do you just generally follow the church calendar?

    02/10/10 6:43 PM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    2

    I believe the are a few different ones we use. The more important issue for us is trying to follow the church calendar.

    02/10/10 6:48 PM | Comment Link

  • JoshGarrington said...

    3

    Yeah, that was a bit off topic, I was just curious.

    Is there ever a decision made to deviate from the church calendar for a week or a series? For some extenuating circumstances or to address a specific topic or issue that has come up in the community?

    02/10/10 6:51 PM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    4

    That's the beautiful thing – if the people doing the teaching actually know the people of the community, you never have to deviate because all fo Scripture speaks into the issues, challenges, and questions we all have.

    One of the reasons for following the church calendar is that there is always some tangent or trail you could be running off on to try and stay relevant, but the only real solution, to borrow a phrase from Eugene Peterson, is "a long obedience in the same direction" – not demanding instant answers and solutions to that which we fancy important.

    When there are community issues that the pastors or others feel need addressed, this happens outside of our liturgical services in alternative venues.

    02/10/10 7:01 PM | Comment Link

  • JoshGarrington said...

    5

    Makes sense. I've long been an advocate of preaching from the lectionary, although in a traditional church setting I can see deviating (for example, our new Corps Officers kicked off their appointment with a series on the Sermon on the Mount which I think is a fairly good idea for a first sermon series at a new church).
    If I had my way sunday service would be lectionary preaching combined with a rather traditional liturgy. I think, if done correctly, a good liturgy amounts to continuous teaching and preaching in every aspect of the meeting, not just the sermon. Actually, it sounds to me (from what you've briefly described above) that what you do amounts to a very similar effect in a non-liturgical setting.

    02/10/10 9:59 PM | Comment Link

  • @cwdaniels said...

    6

    I use http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/ which is based on the revised common lectionary and the NRSV. It's very clean-cut and simple to use. The other site I use and I know a lot of other pastors use is http://www.textweek.com/.

    02/11/10 4:56 PM | Comment Link

  • @cwdaniels said...

    7

    Nice work on this first post JR. Thanks for sharing from your experience at Life on the Vine. I appreciate the insight that preaching comes from a) the lectionary (so that it's grounded in something and b) a community of conversation and discernment. As the only person on staff at Camas Friends I have been wrestling with how to bring others into this conversation and share the discernment around the texts more. We have a lot of people already on committees, etc. and getting people together for another week night "to help the pastor plan his sermon" (although it's not simply that) seems tenuous. But of course, that's not a reason to not try it.

    We've had some groups of people come together and help worship plan, but I just haven't figured out how to lead that efficiently yet. This would be a good group of people to host a conversation around the biblical text.

    I'm also interested in this conversation you all do before the service. And how does this go into reshaping the sermon? Since I typically work off a manuscript re-shaping isn't easy, though I have done it on the fly in one way or another almost every week. Is that how it happens there?

    02/11/10 5:02 PM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    8

    On the fly, you got it – the preacher pausing to comment on the relevance of insights gleaned during the study time for what he/she was already planning on saying.

    02/11/10 8:53 PM | Comment Link

  • Michael Rudzena said...

    9

    has there been any thought on another time/space for community conversation about the text and its bearing on the community other than right before the sunday gathering? i just wonder if there would be more fruitful convergence if whoever was responsible for teaching/preaching had more time to process the insights of the community? is an extra meeting like this redundant or cumbersome given the pace and rhythm of your church?curious.

    02/17/10 3:24 PM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    10

    Great question. The quick answer is no, if you mean in a community-wide sense and yes, in a more focused sense. Anytime anyone preaches, they are in consultation with other pastors and leaders about the focus and content of the message, but the only opportunity for the entire community to participate in this process is on Sunday morning.

    Personally, I think more community involvement would be beneficial, but the logistics of helping that happen w/o it becoming overly consuming are tough to figure out.

    02/17/10 9:54 PM | Comment Link

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