Another word on dialogical preaching

My postings on Doug Pagitt stirred much interest. As the Grace Community church continues to work through implications of his visit, many others have made contact.

My colleague, David Fitch, told me about Bob Hyatt who has practiced dialogical preaching in a different way in his church - Evergreen Community. His interview on Preaching Today Website commends dialogical preaching. He reckons recent dissatifaction with more traditional preaching owes much to congregations' higher levels of education, and the way current culture encourages greater interaction in communication. Questioned whether there are examples of dialogical preaching in the New Testament and church history he says "yes." Jesus engaged in dialogue as his teaching interacted with listeners, and Acts 17, 20 and 24 describe others sharing in speaking. Of course, 1 Cor. 14 does not support the idea of one person speaking either! Interestingly, he also sees evidence in church history among some early fathers, and notes that preachers such as Chrysostom were frequently interupted while preaching. He claims that only for the last 500 years in Christian history has preaching been mostly monologue.

You need to read his interview in full. I found the most interesting part describes the practical details of his typical dialogical sermon. Beginning the Monday before Sunday he posts the Scripture for the next Sunday in an on-line forum, inviting responses. Meanwhile he operates in the traditional homiletic. He still writes a manuscript of the sermon. "I know exactly what I'm going to to say during the worship gathering, but I've also chosen certain places to ask open-ended questions. I'm still going to share the things I feel God is saying to our comunity through the passage, but I also want to involve other people....if no one has spent time in prayer and preparation, that's not good stewardship of the teaching gifts of the church.

The "sermon time" on Sunday has three parts. First, he opens discussion of the passage with a series of questions that reflect the question the text will ultimately answer, and then leads into a verse-by-verse review of the text.

Second, he "leans" more on the audience. Sometimes there is a key issue in the text that he will leave entirely open to the community: " 'What do you think?' I am almost never disappointed - it's a unique opportunity for those who have studied the passage through the week to say, 'I thought about that, and here's what I've concluded in my study.' "

Third, he "gets on his horse and goes." He uses the final part to lay out the texts' implications for people to see. "Hopefully other people have already contributed to that sense of what the text is saying to us as a community, but it's my goal as the teaching pastor to frame the implications and challenge us as a community."

"There's still a critical role for the preacher and proclamation as we've known it; I just want the whole community to be involved in that procalamtion by speaking to one another, giving good examples of things, answering questions, and even bringing up points that I didn't think of in my time in the Word."

Bob Hyatt's practice helps answer some of my earlier concerns about the prophetic voice of proclamation. As I say above, his whole interview deserves attention.

More Reflections

Three more aspects of preaching: Prophetic, Transformational and Incarnational - how well does dialog reflect these?

Prophetic - a bible study dialog certainly allows participation with interesting insights, but is this the same as proclaming God's authoritative word? Such authority derives from Scripture, but also needs God's called preachers, who humbly submit the best of their knowledge, character and skills to deliver God's word with courage. It's confrontational stuff. As someone put it: "It's not us fitting God's story into our lives, but us fitting into God's story." Here is real tension. There's always danger of hearing the gospel in our terms, emphasizing parts we like of God's grace. It's wonderful to be affirmed. But what about God's words of judgement and correction - about sin and forgivness? About selflessness and community?

And does God actually meet our questions with answers? Doug mentioned several times that people come to church with questions yet the speacher avoids them. But in what ways does dialog deal with difficult questions? No one raised questions during the experience.....it seemed a pooling of insights with apparently no urgent questions.

I guess I was most concerned about Doug's role. Sure he needed immense leadership skills, but he seemed to be a "conductor" orchestrating other comments. Afterwards he said that he had shared everthing that he had prepared beforehand, but it was difficult hearing a clear message. Does dialog mute the prophetic voice?

Transformational - closely linked with prophetic - in what ways can dialog lead to individualis and communities being changed? I am sure there are many positive stories about how the Spirit worked on individuals as they participate. But how does such preaching actually break through people's own comfort zones, dealing with ethical issues of behavior, etc. as a group? I think Acts 2:42-47 remains incredibly difficult to respond to because of its high demands of community living before the watching world. Is there need for intentional leading, aided by the Holy Spirit, to help communities grow in responsibility towards each other and their neighbors?

In class this quarter we have been looking at James W. Thompson's book: Preaching Like Paul in which he claims the apostle Paul sought to build community by repetitive evangelistic and pastoral preaching, always ensuring a doctrinal base. Does building community need more than dialog?

Incarnational - dialog obviously opens up the sharing of good news by many individuals. But how can we ensure we are not dominated by the spontaneous and superficial? I am reminded of a quote about preaching which compared the "scattered self" with the "gathered self." "There is a thoughtful, prayerful, cultivated you that lies deep. There is also a surface you that is immediately available. The latter your people can have any time. To preach well is to go in search of the former.....it is a mistake to think that the scattered self is authentic and the gathered self somehow less open and sincere.(Gerard Sloyan, Worshipful Preaching page 22.) Possibly dialog leads to more "scattered selves" sharing?

I think Doug's challenge to dead speaching must be heard loud and clear I see dialog as a vital way of involving others in the preaching task. My own practice involves others in dialog on the way to more traditional proclaming, by employing my blog to generate many postings. But this whole experience at Oak Lawn opened my eyes to new possibilities.

It will be very interesting to see how the congregations at Oak Lawn will be able to respond. As I hear things I'll try and post some details in the future.

Reflections on dialog

I look forward to debriefing with the churches' worship renewal group in a few days time. So many thoughts have gone through my mind. Where should I begin? Actually my first reaction was that we had experienced a lively, interactive bible study together. In fact, a couple of people said it seemed like a well-organized bible study helped by preparation the previous day.

So, if it seemed like a bible study - how different is that from preaching? Frankly, much speaching can seem like one person doing a bible study anyway! Is there any significant difference between bible study and preaching?

Perhaps it's wise to ask first what constitutes biblical preaching. When I wrote 360degree preaching I began by asking myself what preaching's main characteristics are. I ended up with four. (You may disagree with the ones I chose but they at least give some criteria).

PROPHETIC - means the "today-ness" of divine reality when Christian preachers respond to Scripture rather like Old Testament prophets did when they heard the word of the Lord and said: "Listen to the word of the Lord." Of course for contemporary preachers this means high responsibility for declaring God's revelation given in Christ and in the Scriptures. Preachers are therefore God's sent-persons whose sense of "call" involves total commitment to preach. Paul's apostleship was tested and authenticated through changed lives of his hearers (2 Cor 3:1-3). I understand preaching therefore involves a God empowered spiritual event.

TRANSFORMATIONAL - Read the New Testament and you see amazement or antagonism are outcomes of preaching. Never neutrality! Individuals are transformed as in Acts 2:37,41. But long-term effects are also seen in the building of communities. 1 Cor 14:3 see three outcomes: building up, encouragement and consolation. God uses preaching to change lives and form communities.

INCARNATIONAL - Preachers are themselves important because through their own words, experiences and flesh good news is told. Preachers must therefore stand under Scripture and the Lordsip of Christ and also in the contemporary world to embody God's Word in their words and persons.

DIVERSE - nearly 33 Greek words in the New Testament can be translated preaching. They include heralding, evangelising, teaching, arguing. Dialog (Acts 17:17; 18;4; 19:8; 20:9; 24:25) can mean converse and discuss with others. These express a rich variety of preaching practices and warn about making generalizations about what is right or not.

Doug's Progressional Implicatory Dialog immediately connects with the last point, doesn't it? Just because it is so different from our normal experience we must be very careful not to reject on those grounds. Increasingly preachers are using dialog in different ways to involve more worshipers in listening and interpreting God's word. One of the strongest aspects of Doug's visit was the fresh experience of working and listening together. It was wonderful.

But what about the other three descriptions of preaching? How did Progressional Implicatory Dialog relate to the prophetic, transformational and incarnational aspects of preaching? I'm still working on this. Any other insights?

Doug Pagitt (4)

I imagine that most readers want to know what happened on Sunday! How on earth did the "Progressional Implicatory Dialog" work out?

Three congregations joined together to fill the sanctuary, with music led by the contemporary service leaders (- so some songs were new to the traditional crowd!) After gathering with praise, an extended time allowed people excitedly to greet each other. My wife and I happily joined in. Both pastors spoke in the first part of the service and helped set the scene. But I could sense apprehension. After a time of confession, more singing and offering prayers of the people, we reached the moment for the "sermon."

Winsomely Doug introduced himself - imagining us asking questions about him like - will he yell at us and when this will end? He walked right up the center aisle in the middle of the congregation. He explained we were going to share a "sermon pot-luck." That the 70 who had met the previous day were helping him preach, with five people especially ready to join in, but that anyone would be able to share. I was interested about what Scripture text he would use. In the bulletin Acts 2:42-47 and 1 Pet. 2:4-10 were the set readings - would he use just these verses (because of time limitations!)?

NO. He divided the church into two, and asked people on one side to read through the whole of Acts 2, and on the other side - 1 Pet:2. So much happened! Each of us will remember different moments. One stand-out memory is when Doug explained he first heard the Acts 2 story in 1983. He asked (in sequence) how many first heard it in the 80's, 70's, 60's 50's, 40's, 30's....hands kept going up. Then he asked about the 90's and the 2000's. A baby caught his attention - 2010! he said. And then, a man stood up and said he had only been a Christian a short time and heard it very recently. "I'm a baby Christian" he said. "Just look at the continuing hearing of this story" Doug exclaimed. "And it's being told today!"

Each time a set of verses from Acts 2 came on the screen a different person would read. It was open to anyone...it's a long chapter and many voices were heard (including my wife's!) After each section Doug invited insights about those few verses. Some similar points were raised from the previous day. One of the five was invited to stand and shared his comment. He wondered at Peter - such an ordinary man in contrast to the clever people thronging Jerusalem, yet empowered by the Holy Spirit to claim that Joel's OT prophecy was now being fulfilled. One after another identified key points as the chapter unfolded - the abnormal nature of the Pentecost event, the birthing of a new community by the Holy Spirit , and the qualities of new life together were all emphasized.

After 30 plus minutes on Acts 2, Doug suggested that maybe time was up and we should close without considering 1 Peter 2. Objections were made and so, for another half hour, the same process followed through this chapter. The other four speakers all shared. I was amazed at the number of people who had not been present on Saturday who participated throughout.

The hour plus passed rapidly, with Doug continuing to draw connections between the two chapters, and gently shepherding responses.

I am sure everyone had views about what happened! Let me share some of my surprises

1. The amount of sheer Scripture text we read out together, and then worked through. Personally, I felt to have dealt with one chapter would have been enough....yet there seemed real desire to work through the whole two chapters.
2. The degree of participation - yes some were more used to sharing out loud, but there was desire from so many. As someone said later: "You couldn't doze off...something was happening all the time. I have never been so involved in a sermon!"
3. The skilful leadership - Doug allowed every single person who volunteered to speak, without any sense of hurry. He guided the flow, interjecting from time-to-time, reinforcing points made. And at the end he kept asking: "Does anyone else want to share?"

Afterwards over lunch we shared overall responses - positive lessons and questions that we had. I joined with Doug in trying to answer questions raised. Among the positive lessons I heard many echoed my own surprises. A list included -
It was an opportunity to weave Scripture into my life
The Word was made alive and real
Different voices gave different view-points
Freedom to talk and bring questions
Wider personal experience (rather than just the pastor)
Trust in the Spirit
Like Pentecost we heard many voices.

But were there also some worries and concerns? I'm still reflecting! I'll post some more shortly.

Doug Pagitt (3)

Having enthusiastically set out some reasons for "Progressional Implicatory Dialog," Doug then moved us into our third session to put it into practice. The 70 of us present were going to model what happens in his own church (every week for the past 10 years). Our dialog would prepare the "sermon" for the whole church. In Doug's church this happens on Tuesday night prior to the following Sunday.

Church leaders had given him two passages of Scripture: Acts 2:42-47 and 1 Pet. 2:4-10. I guess they may have expected him to choose one or the other!

What happened was extraordinary! He not only took both passages but insisted that we engage with Acts chapters 1-3 and the whole letter of 1 Peter. He read 2 Tim 3:16 describing how Scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, and said: "We must let the Bible speak for itself." He emphasized the responsibility of being hospitable so that what others say is received for the benefit of all.

The room was divided in halves. Sitting at tables of 5-7, we were told to read out loud around our tables (all tables reading at the same time) the whole of these chapters - some 8 in all. Each person read as much as was comfortable, and then someone else followed on.

Having read right through these chapters, Doug then engaged us with those issues that emerged as important. First, with Acts 1-3 many people spoke about aspects that struck them - from describing it as Luke's second book, with explanation about the significance of Pentecost, to personal responses about, for example, how the many different languages in Acts 2 resonated with many voices reading out loud. Many large/smaller points were made. Second, with 1 Peter 1-5, many people shared what was important for them.

All the time, Doug was moving between the two sides of the room and connecting these two passages - particularly in the person of Peter (so prominent in both) and in the contrast between the birth of the church and 1 Peter's context of suffering.

I didn't count how many people spoke. Of course, everyone spoke around the tables. But I estimated between one fifth and one fourth had interacted out loud, and all of us were heavily involved. Over 2 hours just sped by.

I was not alone in wondering just how this would translate into the following morning's sermon. At the end of the session Doug asked for 5 volunteers who would be willing to share in the preaching next day. At the conclusion he met with them. However, he said it would be open to ANYONE to share in the preaching the next day!

I said it was extraordinary. Why?
1) Such huge chunks of Scripture were involved. Never had I been in a situation where 8 chapters were being considered at once.
2) Participants were so willingly involved. Fortunately, the church has already undertaken bible work like this so some were prepared. But the quality of sharing - its seriousness and openness was startling.
3) The promise that the whole preaching event the next day would be open to anyone? Just how could this work?

I have a busy teaching day today, but I'll post on the Sunday service shortly!

Doug Pagitt (2)

After introduction to his big critique of speaching, Session 2 began movingly with Doug's own faith story, when a friend took him to see a Passion play, and he realized this story of Christ was to do with his own story. He emphasized how important it is for us to relate our own stories to God's narrative. Indeed, at one point he described preaching as the "narration of communal experience." Several times he also highlighted how church should be the place for questions and openness to others' stories. All the time we were nudging closer to the third session when we would be involved in progressional implicatory dialog ourselves!

He identified four necessary qualifications for undertaking this dialog.
1) Priesthood of all believers - realy means that through Christ we can all approach God with confidence. He warned about how easily we exclude others.
2) Trust people - he challenged why there is a lack of trust among ourselves, when God trusts himself to thousands of people using their first names throughout Scripture. Sure, being open to thers runs risks, but believers (of all people) should be willing to trust others out of conviction that all can contribute.
3) Role of pastor - he questioned the "expert" view that sets pastors apart. Telling us how Calvin wrote the Institutes aged 19-24, he asked how many churches would have even allowed him to serve in any capacity until he was much older.
4) Prophetic - he retold Nathan's confrontation with David as a classic confrontation which worked by implication. David got the point!

Again, some immediate reflections:

1. Does the priesthood of all believers displace the need for some to be called and gifted in specific leadership positions? (Eph 4:7-13). While not dimishing responsibilities of every member to take their part as members of Christ's body, are some - like preachers/ prophets/teachers - not identified for leadership?

2. Trust - perhaps this is missing in many congregations. I guess power struggles often mean people are wary of losing control and are unprepared to risk trusting others. The more I think about it, the more I recognize how much genuine trust among people demonstrates love and maturity. It is very significant evidence of spiritual formation (grown by the Holy Spirit) and it doesn't happen naturally. It really doesn't. So, people being willing to listen to God's word with openess together requires commitment to Scripture's authority and spiritual sensitivity to others.

3. The role of pastor always needs examination. No pastors should assert themselves over others, increasing passivityof the priesthood of all believers and smothering possibilities of body growth.

4. Prophetic - one of the most interesting aspects because prophetic preaching has authority only when grounded in biblical understanding of how God speaks through his messengers. Its transformational power (Isa 66:11) is often characterized by content and style, as it confronts people with social justice issues. It's rarely comfortable to hear, as it probes, disturbs and energizes people to be different. I like a quote from Walter Brueggemann - it is "the evoking of an alternative community that knows it is about different things in different ways...prophetic ministry seeks to penetrate despair so that new futures can be believed in and embraced by us" (The Prophetic Imagination page 111).

Giving empowerment to everyone to speak must never endanger the primary voice of God's word addressing humankind. Personal stories and individual's devotional responses have legitimacy, but should never be at the expense of God's word challenging and transforming his people in often difficult ways, should they?

Over 70 of us had gathered to hear Doug...after supper we prepared to put his ideas into action. More in my next posting!

Doug Pagitt (1)

I promised I'd share more about the bold weekend with Doug Pagitt. There's so much I could say about him and his presentation. Tall, big, dynamic, full of humor, personally disclosing, highly approachable, continually interactive, and technically assured, he led three memorable sessions yesterday.

I expected his presentations to be attractive and polished but I was surprised by how much he wove together. On screen we met his family -with the adoption of two of his children acting as a powerful metaphor for his vision for the church. Of course, we saw his church family too and, throughout the sessions, were introduced to different members and their stories. And to keep things moving we encountered video Desperate Housewives, Bruce Springsteen and a surprise encounter with a gorilla.

Let me briefly review his first session. His main focus was on the kind of church communities we are seeking to become, and the role that preaching takes in the creation of such communities. So, community building was primary and preaching was examined in light of whether it was working to build community or not. While emphasizing how crucially important preaching, he warned that it's not working! It needs to be released from the bondage of the speech-making act.

He lamented that much preaching is SPEACHING = speech-preaching that, bluntly, doesn't build communities. Many think that preaching's problems could be fixed if only there were better hearers, methods, preachers and content. However, Pagitt says that speaching doesn't work because it has a relationship problem. Speaching expects preachers to have all the content and then to TELL the hearers whom, it is assumed, have heard nothing themselves from Scripture, and have no insights to contribute. Speaching therefore means stand-alone preachers, with minimal relationship with hearers totally failing to listen to Scripture together!

To counter this, Pagitt proposes a "Progressional Implicatory Dialog" by which preachers engage in a process with hearers that listens to God's word together. Rather than one person applying the Bible to life in a generic way, dialog enables preacher and listeners together to draw out implications for their living together. He made it plain that he wanted us to spend much time in the Bible together in the next sessions.

Of course, he gives much more detail about these ideas in his book Preaching Re-Imagined.

At the end of this first session I had several reflections:
1. Is building church community the number one issue for today's church? I want to say yes. Because in today's individualistic and selfish culture, the vision of people belonging together in Christ as brothers and sisters to glorify God and serve their neighbors is almost lost. However, community formation involves much more than just preaching - it involves how we worship together as gathered communities (which involves preaching of course) and then live that out as missionaries during the week. It calls us to mature together in our character and mission.
2. Does the church suffer from speaching? Sadly, I have to agree that too much current preaching fails to engage people actively in hearing God's word.
3. Is speaching's main problem a relationship problem? I think other problems also afllict current preaching. I have written elsewhere about the lack of holistic engagement with Scripture, poverty of Holy Spirit power, and poor pastoring. But Pagitt is right that failure to engage with others in listening to Scripture does endanger its power.
4. Is it fair to lump all solo preaching as speaching? The more I reflect on preaching the more excited I become about its range. Just recently I have written about how community formation requires preaching that is: evangelistic, doctrinal, celebrative, liturgical, narrative, pastoral, leadership, prophetic and missional. Each kind of preaching has a significant role at different points of building community, and we must be careful not to squeeze them all into one box.
5. Just how much does the preacher/leader's personality count? From the start I realized we were in for a treat because of the winsome and skilful way that Doug dealt with us all. Without a doubt his modeling was of a high order. But, what about the rest of us called to preach?

I will move onto Session 2, shortly. As you can tell, I was really stimulated. Some of you reading this may well have been there. What were your reflections on this session? And any others reading along - please chip in with your views!