Reframing the Preaching Task
One of the last solo activities in pastoral ministry is preaching. Pastors are expected, by themselves and by congregations, to spend a significant amount of time in the study to do the necessary exegesis, to hear what God wants to say. Some suggest that pastors spend about 20-25 hours per week in the study.
But if we are a part of the Body of Christ, should preaching in its preparation and its execution be a communal activity, rather than the solitary activity we have made it out to be. Now we all know that the best preaching preparation cannot just happen in the solitude of the study -- a pastor who prepares and preaches well must be actively and intentionally pastorally engaged in the life of the community-- otherwise their preaching is devoid of incarnational relevance.
However, I am suggesting there is another kind of reframing that needs to take place in the preaching event for pastors at the beginning of the 21st century. It is somewhat arrogant of us as pastors, even with all our training in biblical and theological scholarship, that we think that we can hear what God wants to say to the congregations we serve by ourselves. We know we cannot do all the ministry alone, so why do we think we can discern, hear what God wants to communicate through his Word to us alone.
I think as pastors we need to explore doing our sermon preparation with Sermon Preparation Groups (SPG). These groups would be made up of key representative people within our churches who come together weekly, to reflect together on the passage of Scripture to be preached, in order for there to be a communal, rather than a solitary, discerning of what God is saying to the community of faith. Afterall, theologically we are the body of Christ, and it takes the whole body to hear the breadth, heighth, depth, and expanse of what God is saying to us. As pastors we are only one set of ears, but an SPG brings a more comprehensive set of ears to hear what God is saying to the community which we are serving as pastors.
Now, this takes time. It takes a very different rhythm for sermon preparation. Sermons will need to be worked on 3-4 weeks out, rather than the same week in which we are going to preach. It requires a humility to recognize that God speaks through the entire congregation and not just through one or a few persons. The role of the preaching pastor in all this is to hear what God is saying as the SPG attends together to Scripture, and then gives shape to it and articulates to the congregation -- "this is what we are hearing God saying to us this morning."
By having mutlitple ears to hear what Jesus is saying to us as a community, preaching moves away from a performance of God's Word, to a word which is spoken into the hearts of a congregation that has the power to transform -- because it will be a word which is already connecting with what is going on in the life of the congregation -- even if it is a prophetic word.
This kind of preaching has already been digging around in the soil of the congregation and so speaks much more directly, pastorally, and incarnationally into the life of the community.
There is much more to unpack regarding this, and it would be good to hear from all of you reading this post. In some other post I will explore how preaching might be proclaimed communally, in more than one voice.
But if we are a part of the Body of Christ, should preaching in its preparation and its execution be a communal activity, rather than the solitary activity we have made it out to be. Now we all know that the best preaching preparation cannot just happen in the solitude of the study -- a pastor who prepares and preaches well must be actively and intentionally pastorally engaged in the life of the community-- otherwise their preaching is devoid of incarnational relevance.
However, I am suggesting there is another kind of reframing that needs to take place in the preaching event for pastors at the beginning of the 21st century. It is somewhat arrogant of us as pastors, even with all our training in biblical and theological scholarship, that we think that we can hear what God wants to say to the congregations we serve by ourselves. We know we cannot do all the ministry alone, so why do we think we can discern, hear what God wants to communicate through his Word to us alone.
I think as pastors we need to explore doing our sermon preparation with Sermon Preparation Groups (SPG). These groups would be made up of key representative people within our churches who come together weekly, to reflect together on the passage of Scripture to be preached, in order for there to be a communal, rather than a solitary, discerning of what God is saying to the community of faith. Afterall, theologically we are the body of Christ, and it takes the whole body to hear the breadth, heighth, depth, and expanse of what God is saying to us. As pastors we are only one set of ears, but an SPG brings a more comprehensive set of ears to hear what God is saying to the community which we are serving as pastors.
Now, this takes time. It takes a very different rhythm for sermon preparation. Sermons will need to be worked on 3-4 weeks out, rather than the same week in which we are going to preach. It requires a humility to recognize that God speaks through the entire congregation and not just through one or a few persons. The role of the preaching pastor in all this is to hear what God is saying as the SPG attends together to Scripture, and then gives shape to it and articulates to the congregation -- "this is what we are hearing God saying to us this morning."
By having mutlitple ears to hear what Jesus is saying to us as a community, preaching moves away from a performance of God's Word, to a word which is spoken into the hearts of a congregation that has the power to transform -- because it will be a word which is already connecting with what is going on in the life of the congregation -- even if it is a prophetic word.
This kind of preaching has already been digging around in the soil of the congregation and so speaks much more directly, pastorally, and incarnationally into the life of the community.
There is much more to unpack regarding this, and it would be good to hear from all of you reading this post. In some other post I will explore how preaching might be proclaimed communally, in more than one voice.
posted by Roland G. Kuhl at 9:12 AM
3 Comments:
Awesome idea! ...that I might challenge just a bit. Including dynamic relational realities in sermon preparation seems like a fantastic, necessary, & often overlooked strategy! HOWEVER... because communal interaction is an inherently organic, non-institutional reality, it seems to me that savvy teachers would seed various conversations & interactions with ideas & questions related to their coming sermons without necessarily hosting something so institutionally centralized that it get's its own abbreviation (yes... I'm teasing a little bit, but still loving & deeply respecting ya). Maybe the goal can be accomplished without adding one more meeting to the schedule???
I jive with this idea ... at Life on the Vine we have tried to use the B&B time (Bible and Brew) before the service to hear what the congregation is discerning and working thru ... It literally changes my sermon for that coming hour ... Doug Pagit has written a whole book on this approach to preaching ... But you're so right Roland ... preaching requires so much time and every pastor is so strung out with multiple tasks .. especially church planters ... that the most difficult thing about this proposal is "time" to do it ...
Blessinghs on your work here ...
Good feedback. In relation to mm's comments, what I am advocating is a discerning process, not a pc process. The intent of such an approach is to discern the voice of the Spirit among us -- and not just find a weakened consensus which "tickles our ears." It is presumptuous to think that one person (i.e., the pastor) can hear all that there is to hear in God speaking to us. Therefore, a prayerful, intentional discerning of what God is saying to us can deepen our hearing and therefore our obedience.
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