I am an active learner - I learn from both concepts and practical application. But the key question for me is one of integration. Does what I am learning connect with what I already know; and if so in what ways? On this level this intensive has provided the grounds to integrate key aspects of learning that are relevant to me, because I already had a framework to understand some of what was imparted; which in turn provided the means to connect the new ideas into my web of understanding.
I was a little surprised at first to find how broad Steve’s approach to Biblical interpretation was (for a “southern” Baptist). His approach was much more “post-modern” than I have been operating in, at least in the last 5 years in Nowra. I found this very refreshing, but also challenging and stimulating. Challenging because although I have had some of these types of inputs in the past, I have been reshaped by the stressed and controls of the church which I pastor and their expectations regarding how we approach the biblical text, run a church and what constitutes a “real worship” experience.
A key insight for me this week has been the understanding of how modernity and post-modernity frame a person’s thinking. It has become painstakingly clear that many older people are locked into a pattern that says there is only one way to do or experience certain things, and struggle to see other perspectives let alone compromise or change. It is also obvious that young people operate on a different plain, more questioning, fast paced and relational. However, communicating in our post-modern age needs not to lack in scholarship, and in many ways there needs to be better scholarship because the message has to be communicated more clearly in quicker bites to connect with the way in which our younger generations operate.
This challenges the classic “meta-narrative” approach, and the more overarching narratives we accommodate the less the overarching story has authority to communicate a defining truth. This is the problem of the my Uniting Church that in on one level embraces post-modernism, but whose regulations are based on conventions schooled in modernity. Add to this the large number of senior citizens who fill the pews and you have a church that struggles to deal with change and variety.
However, for my church to connect with young people today we need more than programs and patterns borrowed from “successful” churches, but principles that can be applied into any context regardless of the circumstances. To do this I need a model that is biblical, practical and flexible enough to convince my traditionalists that there are other ways of approaching the biblical text and the worship “experience” and will inspire new creativity from both me and those around me, and in many ways this is what I received.
Steve had many good ideas from his context(s) at Opawa and Grace Baptist. However, in passing on the ideas it is clear that each mission context is different and unique and although it is tempting to believe that all the good ideas are translatable, it is clear to me that they are not. In an endeavour to not be seen as sceptical, I note that rather than compare the resources of Opawa with Nowra, I need to find the place to start. When circumstances look unchangeable, then the start needs to happen inside of me; with my attitude, my expectations, and my priorities. This is harder than it seems, but the only way I know to break cycles that appear to be locked in.
It is so easy to be locked into a pattern of thinking; even one that you don’t necessarily believe or support; but which is driven by the context in which you are “the pastor”. At those times ministry is like a treadmill and it is hard to find the creative spaces to be refreshed and empowered. But there comes a time to think outside the box, to nudge people to move beyond the “provider-client” relationship, to become producers around the biblical text as an act of corporate worship no longer just a consumer of what I, “the expert” produce.
The role of the community has come more into focus for me as a result of this intensive, bringing their experiences into contact with the biblical text and each other in a way that is meaningful, multi-sensory and stimulates questions. Asking questions of the text engages people into the theological task of “faith seeking understanding” and the more I allow people to be disturbed by the Holy Spirit, to be pushed beyond their comfort zones, the more chance there is that they will engage their own experiences with the Bible.
How I do this is open to a variety of means. I really enjoyed receiving a biblical framework for communicating in a multi-sensory way that was not reliant on trends in educational fields, but stemmed from understanding the “word” communicated in relationship, images, the community and dialogue. This has given me a renewed confidence to push beyond the ‘box’ with narrative style, inductive and abductive sermons, pictures, stories, sculpture, questions, technology, role plays and dialogue; all valid ways of engaging the community with the text (but not all at once!).
Another key learning was the intentional use of “takeaways”, that creatively engage the audience with the text. I have used various types of take aways before, but never given as much thought and exegetical reflection to the question of what, why and how as I did in this course. I have already begun to dream of ways that I can raise the bar in this way for future events. Speaking of raising the bar, I have been dreaming of engaging some of my creative friends to help me make a “Nooma” style video based on Luke 1:39-45 that I intend to post on the web and use as a sound bite in various contexts over Christmas. However for this or any type of contextual tool to be effective it needs to flow from the practical theology model.
I really connected with the model of practical theology that examines the context, engages it with the biblical text that leads to a mission response, which in turn re-engages with the context....creating an upwards spiral that leads people into a closer relationship with God. This concept of practical theology is the rationale for doing mission in any context and is not linked to specific method, but can inspire a wide variety of creative approaches. I have already begun to use some Steve’s techniques from the intensive in my church. On Sunday I had people turn and share a something of their story with another and then engaged their story with the biblical narrative.
How do I view the biblical text now, in comparison to last week? I believe I have permission to do more than just listen to it. I want to empower others to be free to explore, to play, to taste, to see, to question, to discuss, to live; to wrestle with the text so that they will understanding the joy of discovering that the good news is God’s story that is not locked into time and space, but goes on and engages with all who accepts such a wonderful gift.
I was a little surprised at first to find how broad Steve’s approach to Biblical interpretation was (for a “southern” Baptist). His approach was much more “post-modern” than I have been operating in, at least in the last 5 years in Nowra. I found this very refreshing, but also challenging and stimulating. Challenging because although I have had some of these types of inputs in the past, I have been reshaped by the stressed and controls of the church which I pastor and their expectations regarding how we approach the biblical text, run a church and what constitutes a “real worship” experience.
A key insight for me this week has been the understanding of how modernity and post-modernity frame a person’s thinking. It has become painstakingly clear that many older people are locked into a pattern that says there is only one way to do or experience certain things, and struggle to see other perspectives let alone compromise or change. It is also obvious that young people operate on a different plain, more questioning, fast paced and relational. However, communicating in our post-modern age needs not to lack in scholarship, and in many ways there needs to be better scholarship because the message has to be communicated more clearly in quicker bites to connect with the way in which our younger generations operate.
This challenges the classic “meta-narrative” approach, and the more overarching narratives we accommodate the less the overarching story has authority to communicate a defining truth. This is the problem of the my Uniting Church that in on one level embraces post-modernism, but whose regulations are based on conventions schooled in modernity. Add to this the large number of senior citizens who fill the pews and you have a church that struggles to deal with change and variety.
However, for my church to connect with young people today we need more than programs and patterns borrowed from “successful” churches, but principles that can be applied into any context regardless of the circumstances. To do this I need a model that is biblical, practical and flexible enough to convince my traditionalists that there are other ways of approaching the biblical text and the worship “experience” and will inspire new creativity from both me and those around me, and in many ways this is what I received.
Steve had many good ideas from his context(s) at Opawa and Grace Baptist. However, in passing on the ideas it is clear that each mission context is different and unique and although it is tempting to believe that all the good ideas are translatable, it is clear to me that they are not. In an endeavour to not be seen as sceptical, I note that rather than compare the resources of Opawa with Nowra, I need to find the place to start. When circumstances look unchangeable, then the start needs to happen inside of me; with my attitude, my expectations, and my priorities. This is harder than it seems, but the only way I know to break cycles that appear to be locked in.
It is so easy to be locked into a pattern of thinking; even one that you don’t necessarily believe or support; but which is driven by the context in which you are “the pastor”. At those times ministry is like a treadmill and it is hard to find the creative spaces to be refreshed and empowered. But there comes a time to think outside the box, to nudge people to move beyond the “provider-client” relationship, to become producers around the biblical text as an act of corporate worship no longer just a consumer of what I, “the expert” produce.
The role of the community has come more into focus for me as a result of this intensive, bringing their experiences into contact with the biblical text and each other in a way that is meaningful, multi-sensory and stimulates questions. Asking questions of the text engages people into the theological task of “faith seeking understanding” and the more I allow people to be disturbed by the Holy Spirit, to be pushed beyond their comfort zones, the more chance there is that they will engage their own experiences with the Bible.
How I do this is open to a variety of means. I really enjoyed receiving a biblical framework for communicating in a multi-sensory way that was not reliant on trends in educational fields, but stemmed from understanding the “word” communicated in relationship, images, the community and dialogue. This has given me a renewed confidence to push beyond the ‘box’ with narrative style, inductive and abductive sermons, pictures, stories, sculpture, questions, technology, role plays and dialogue; all valid ways of engaging the community with the text (but not all at once!).
Another key learning was the intentional use of “takeaways”, that creatively engage the audience with the text. I have used various types of take aways before, but never given as much thought and exegetical reflection to the question of what, why and how as I did in this course. I have already begun to dream of ways that I can raise the bar in this way for future events. Speaking of raising the bar, I have been dreaming of engaging some of my creative friends to help me make a “Nooma” style video based on Luke 1:39-45 that I intend to post on the web and use as a sound bite in various contexts over Christmas. However for this or any type of contextual tool to be effective it needs to flow from the practical theology model.
I really connected with the model of practical theology that examines the context, engages it with the biblical text that leads to a mission response, which in turn re-engages with the context....creating an upwards spiral that leads people into a closer relationship with God. This concept of practical theology is the rationale for doing mission in any context and is not linked to specific method, but can inspire a wide variety of creative approaches. I have already begun to use some Steve’s techniques from the intensive in my church. On Sunday I had people turn and share a something of their story with another and then engaged their story with the biblical narrative.
How do I view the biblical text now, in comparison to last week? I believe I have permission to do more than just listen to it. I want to empower others to be free to explore, to play, to taste, to see, to question, to discuss, to live; to wrestle with the text so that they will understanding the joy of discovering that the good news is God’s story that is not locked into time and space, but goes on and engages with all who accepts such a wonderful gift.
7 comments:
Thanks Tim for your thoughtful reflection. Like you I want to see how new material connects with old. What I hear in your reflection is a desire to widen the church’s understanding of a “real worship” experience and to have them engage the text as a community. To do this does not mean abandoning the old but building on it. As you have stated it is not less scholarship but better scholarship that we need. We don’t forget the skills already acquired but learn how to use them in the new contexts we face.
Rose discusses conversational preaching in which we engage the congregation. Preaching which uses listening skills just as much or even more than oratory skills. This form of preaching helps build community, she says ‘conversational preaching seeks to acknowledge a diversity of experiences, interpretations, and wagers, especially those on the margins without power, status or voice.’
A real worship experience though is much more than the preaching or even learning together, I want worship that builds community not a gathering of individuals. In his book the Emerging Churches, Kimball includes a chapter on creating experiential, multisensory worship gatherings so as to move people from spectator to participant. He says ‘people prefer to learn through interactive and participatory experiences.’ While this is good by itself it does not go far enough. We need to have worship that binds people together as Christ’s community. It is possible for us to fully participate, learn and share an experience as individuals but not grow as a community. We need worship experiences that bring us closer to one another as well as to God.
Try this video interview for some ideas. http://www.allelon.org/articles/article.cfm?id=534
Don George
For some reason the footnotes didn't go with the cut and paste so here they are.
The suggested video interview is on the Allelon site.
Rose LA, Sharing the Word, p128
Kimball D, p155, 2003, the Emerging Churches: Vintage Christianity for New Generations, Zondervan
Thanks Tim for your reflection it was great reading!
I was interested in your comment about the challenge related to using the classic “meta-narrative” approach. Certainly Steve Taylor (2005) describes this postmodern era as one in which ‘pluralism celebrates the breaking apart of the metanarrative’ (p23) and instead of one story providing ‘the’ answer, ‘we now have competing answers – a mosaic of perspectives and ideas and beliefs’ (p24). Interestingly, John Drane (2000) provides a different point of view and suggests that as we take a look at popular culture we see that rejection of the meta-narrative is not uniform. He claims that ‘story is central to the contemporary quest for meaning, in much the same way as abstract analysis was central to the outlook of modernity’ (p. p133). New Age material is popular, not because it does not provide a meta-narrative but a new one. It speaks of ‘universalism, pluralism, tolerance, individual choice, mystery and ambiguity in preference to the exclusivity, hierarchy and rationality that dominated the metanarrative of modernity’ (Drane 2000, p134).
I guess our challenge then is not to put away our story but to discover new connection points and ways of communication that will speak to the contexts in which God has placed us. Blessings.
References:
Drane, J 2000, The McDonaldization of the Church - Spirituality, Creativity, and the Future of the Church, Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd, London.
Taylor, S 2005, The Out of Bounds Church? Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a Culture of Change, Zondervan, Michigan.
Hi Tim.
I felt for you as I read something of your struggles in your ministry in Nowra (the feeling of a treadmill; the conservative denomination and intransigent congregation; the stifling of creativity; circumstances that look unchangeable, etc.). I acknowledge that ‘struggle’ does not define all that you are doing in Nowra, but it is the effort against resistance and apathy and the wrestling with making new ideas and practices acceptable to your people that I wish to comment on.
Thomas Troeger has a wonderfully encouraging chapter at the end of Ten Strategies. In this chapter he writes of the Holy Spirit set free in the world, powerfully “working to capture the human imagination for the purposes of God”. He denies that imaginative preaching is a shallow gimmick, but rather a link between the congregation and the logos of God. “The imagination,” he says, “of a faithful preacher is an imagination with theological depth.” This task of presenting the Gospel of Jesus Christ in new and imaginative ways (and in ways that engage the imaginations of the congregation) is no small calling, but neither is it meaningless. For, he says, “if we fail to do this, we leave imagination in the hands of the media.” Further, Troeger encourages us not to simply adopt strategies from himself or any other source, but rather to work on our own.
I thought it was a terrific chapter and very encouraging to church leaders and ministers. I hope you experience the same lift it gave me when I read it!
Blessings,
Ian
Reference:
Thomas Troeger, Ten strategies for preaching in a multi-media culture, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996, pp. 117-121.
I’m interested, Tim, in what you wrote about the role of the community in interpreting the Bible and giving it meaningful application in their lives, and just as it came into sharper focus for you as a result of this course, it has been highlighted to me. Lucy Atkinson Rose’s metaphor of the ‘roundtable’ church resonates with my dreams for a church in which every member takes responsibility for their own deep faith formation. When she writes of a “round table without head or foot, where labels like clergy and laity disappear and where believing or wanting to believe is all that matters”, I hear an echo of my own yearning for a more egalitarian church. Such a church is beneficial for the people and the minister. Whilst Rose writes from a perspective that the laity have been spoken down to from the pulpit, I have noted the stress that ministers experience when they are elevated by the people to a position of being expected to provide answers to every spiritual question, and carry out all the spiritual growth on behalf of the people. Connectedness and mutuality within the Christian community sets clergy free to be human beings (albeit with special education and particular giftedness), sharing equally with the whole people of God in receiving the Word of God into their lives.
I found Jonny Baker’s proto-definition of the purpose of preaching (unleashing the power of scripture in ways that lead to encounter with God; transformation; education) to give helpful clarity to this aspect of Christian community life. Unleashing the power of scripture, personal or congregational transformation, and education do not require a monologue for them to occur. It seems to be more beneficial for dialogue to occur. I include in this dialogue the multiple voices of the congregation, the minister (and the multiplicity of voices they can bring to the conversation from the theological community they were invited into as part of their theological education) and the Holy Spirit. Questions and half-formed thoughts can be as valuable as conclusions and doctrine in these conversations. Christine McSpadden’s vision of the sermon as a “hospitable environment for wondering, rumination, and imagination” comes to life when people are invited into dialogue. Such a sermon would allow people to experiment with belief and theological understandings in a non-judgemental atmosphere where they could change their mind if they subsequently discover a better way. Steve Taylor evokes the concept of a safety net for believers when he suggests that “rather than suggest[ing] we don’t interpret, we can create space for people to check their interpretation in the body of Christ.” Such a safety net can encourage people out onto the ‘high wire’ of allowing the Holy Spirit to disturbingly push them out of their comfort zones, engaging with the Bible.
Blessings,
Ian
Lucy Atkinson Rose, Sharing the Word: preaching in the roundtable church, 1st Ed. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997, p. 4.
Jonny Baker, “Preaching – Throwing a Hand Grenade in the Fruit Bowl. Something has to Change,” http//jonnybaker.blogs.com/jonnybaker/text/Preaching.pdf
Christine McSpadden, “Preaching Faithfully in a Postmodern Age” in Ellen F Davis and Richard B Hays (ed.s) The art of reading scripture, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2003, pp. 131, 115.
Steve Taylor, The out of bounds church, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 2005, p. 70.
Tim, I really identified with your statement being a pastor (priest) in a traditional church as well: where some also insist on calling me Father no less! I’m reminded of Eugene Peterson’s statement that many pastors have become shopkeepers and their Churches shops concerned with religious goods and commodities1).
There were in your statement, I thought, a number of issues around authority. Especifically whose text is the Bible, just the pastor’s, or does it belong to the whole community? Further, who takes responsibility for ‘living the text’? It seems to me that as Pastors we are caught in, as you recognise, a ‘provider-client relationship’. I recognise, certainly within my own tradition, that many pastors are happy to continue and promote their role as experts’, but that hardly encourages people become ‘producers around the biblical text’. Atkinson –Rose highlights the need to re-think preaching so as to be ‘non-hierarchal, heuristic, and communal…rooted in relationships of connectedness and mutuality between preacher and worshippers…’ 2). This will be an important step forward in the sharing of authority and the breaking down of the provider/client dichotomy.
1) Peterson, E (1987), Working the angles, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI. P.2
2) Atkinson Rose, L. ( 1997) Sharing the Word, Louisville, KY; Westminster. P. 3
Keep up the good work!
Chris McLeod
Hi Tim.
I have been thinking a lot about community, worship and what has become a dirty word today, commitment. As we develop the multi-sensory worship services and encourage people to be involved in exploring the word I believe we also need to be fostering a commitment to God, his word and his people, the church. Baker talks about involving the community in all aspects of the worship service, even the planning. Kimball has a chapter on creating experiential, multi-sensory worship gatherings. However if all we are doing is offering experience then an important ingredient is missing.
People can go to rock concerts and have a spiritual experience together then go their various ways. Our time in worship, in the word and in fellowship needs to strengthen community. Steve mentions individuals coming together to find meaning in their lives but what I find disturbing is the next phrase ‘the community has become a tool for the individual’. Are our services simply to educate, enrich, fulfil and transform the individual? Or do we go deeper and build the kind of communities that celebrate the uniqueness of each individual while at the same time rejoice in the communion of each other and identify ourselves as one with each other and with God?
To do so will require an understanding of the meta-narrative of God calling out for himself a people, as well as our individual stories of God at work in a unique way in each one of us. We need to use creative ways of presenting the word, living the word and being transformed by the word as individuals and as communities.
Don
Baker, Preaching – Throwing a Hand Grenade in the Fruit Bowl, http:’’jonnybaker.blogs.com/jonnybaker/text/Preaching.pdf
Kimball, 2003, Zondervan, The Emerging Church, p164
Taylor, 2005, The Out of Bounds Church, Zondervan, p28
Taylor p51
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