Totally jazzed (3)

Earlier I mentioned that preparing on the subject I was given - Preaching as Disciplemaking - pushed me into fresh areas of thinking. It pushed me into expressing the preaching task in a new way. In a sentence:  Preachers are lead-disciples proclaiming to other disciples in community.

Bearing in mind the whole LICC thrust of encouraging Christian disciples' daily mission I saw the whole of Col. 1:28 as significant: It is Christ whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone so that we might present everyone mature in Christ.  Jesus Christ is central to proclamation and living for him means discipleship.  Yet everyone is involved in learning as disciples...the repeated everyone involves preachers just as much as hearers.  Because preachers have the primary task of proclaiming they are lead-disciples.  They are not the only lead-disciples but they should see that preaching as lead-disciples to a community of disciples requires ALL learning together from God's word.  All are on the learning curve towards developing maturity.   Lead disciples preaching to other disciples.  What a difference that makes!  Critically it means that preaching involves the task of disciplemaking.

I quoted John Stott (no surprise in LICC!) who urged preachers to 'enter other people's world's of thinking and feeling' not content with translating Bible words for today but incarnating them, fleshing them out.  And fleshing God's word out in their own lives as fellow disciples. I spent much of the half hour talking about how this means immersing in the lives of our hearers in order to immerse into God's big story for his people. It was a fresh way of expressing the preaching task .There are always new things to learn...I know I am only a little way on road to maturity!