Preaching Re-Imagined

I picked up this book because I feel like I need to start re-evaluating the "method" of teaching that I use week in and week out as I teach our high school ministry. This book is the first of many I am reading to evaluate and redefine myself in my role as the primary Bible teacher to the students who attend our church.

The cover cracks me up. I seriously wonder how many of my students feel that way?

While there is much in here that didn't spur me on, there was one thought that caught my addition. Pagitt suggests that the role of the sermon in communities of faith should be a "progressional dialogue" (allowing the community to interact during the sermon), rather than what he calls "speaching" (a sermon that is like a speech - a one way form of communicating).

What struck me about the differentiation between "progressional dialogue" and "speaching" was not how I can become a more progressional speaker, but is my "speaching" really making a difference in the lives of the students I am serving?

At times, I truly do feel like I am the Bullhorn youth pastor and my fear is that my students don't walk away transformed, but impressed with my ability to communicate. For example, I expositionally taught the Word and brought it all to an emotional high-point, where I then laid some homelitical napalm (thank you Scott Wenig) with a great illustration that leaves the students wanting to hear more of me next week! Ugh!

It reminds me of a quote I read today in an article, written by Tom Peters, posted by my friend Charlie Dean on his blog,

"In classical times, when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, 'How well he spoke,' but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, they said, 'Let us March.'" -- Adlai Stevenson. "In my own small way, I want to be Demosthenes." - Tom Peters.

In a small way, I want to be like Demosthenes too, but in a big way, I want to be like Jesus! I want our students to hear this message out of Mark 8:34-37,

"Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?"