Ouch. I think you’ve tapped the pulse of the American people, and the way that it is moving. I only wish I knew what to do now- sit around and wait? No one wants to listen anymore, they’re all too full of their own noise…

Well written, though, Jason.

Great to have you here Sarah, and I hope things are well with you guys. The pics of the family on your blog look great!

I do have hope for the role of preachers, I just think we’ve put them in the wrong job (hopefully the sarcasm makes that clear). Moreover, think we have to learn to gain a hearing with our culture and engage in the public dialogue with intelligence and grace without expecting to be handed the moral high ground by default. As a (former) preacher I can tell you that strikes me as a fairly daunting task.

“Worse still, the latest demographic information tells us that emerging generations aren’t drawn by preaching,”

Sorry, but that actually reflects my feelings as well. Maybe I just have the wrong understanding about preaching vs. teaching but the way *I* see it is that:

Preaching – sharing the facts and truth about the gospel and salvation.

Teaching – digging deeper into the preaching. Uncovering layer after layer. Getting down to the “nitty gritty” so to speak.

Both are needed badly BUT as far as my understanding goes, I personally think teaching is absolutely necessary and (dare I say) perhaps more important many times. Simply for the reason that you can share the Biblical facts (through preaching) as long as you want – for hours upon end BUT if one doesn’t show the congregation the origin, meaning, and understanding of the preaching THROUGH teaching then really there’s not much education being passed along.

Oh, and for the record. You may think of yourself as a (former) *preacher* (and you DID preach) but you are a very good TEACHER. Which is one of the reasons I’ve always enjoyed you and pastor Tom (whose sermons I STILL download)….I’ve always felt I can dig my hands into something and actually LEARN from it. (Now, if only I could find more time in my crazy life to digest everything! LOL)

Thanks Julie : )

I agree with you that preaching and teaching are distinct, and that both are needed. But I find it odd that in the current critiques of modern preaching almost nobody is talking about where preaching actually belongs. That’s pretty much why I wrote this.

Funny thing, and I suspect this is semantics, but what I’ve been thinking is that we need more preaching. I’ve delivered messages where I tried very hard to “deliver” against the expectations of a church-culture we created that demands a lot of polish, etc… I might call that “speeching.” Fortunately, I’ve also (sometimes) wrestled deep and hard and come up with something that I was almost always a little afraid to share…that has felt like God speaking and my trying oh so hard to get out of the way. These times, when a broken pastor hears the voice of his shepherd and echoes that voice to sheep that he or she dearly loves… Well, that is an awesome and humbling thing, and seems more like preaching, prophetic, strengthen/encourage/comfort stuff that I and the people with whom I live in community seem to need. Jason, I love your heart and mind and think this post is right on; I just find myself wanting more of the real thing, rather than the impostors that seem so often to be in the way.

I think we need more of that too Dan. Thanks for sharing.

I’m a big fan of the kind of preaching you describe. I would almost say it’s not so much “preaching” and more prophetic encouragement and/or exhortation. Still, I just think the critics on both sides of the preaching debate have missed the point, making it about being more or less expository, or more or less relevant. Preaching – by definition – belongs in the streets. I don’t really see anybody doing that (except nutcases) and I don’t hear anyone in the current debates about preaching making a case for truly missional preaching as proclamation in the public sphere.

Glad to have you here man!

Ok, you got me…your next job is to describe your thoughts on “truly missional preaching” in the public sphere…i am intrigued.

i thought of a missional preaching in the public sphere, although it’s old-school, so i still wonder what creative missional preaching in the public sphere can look like.

while i was visiting friends in the UK, they took me to a pub, and over in one corner they had a small step-stool with a plaque on it. the plaque read something to the effect that John Wesley had preached from here in this pub – that was a public community gathering place. this, then is what i think of when i think of truly missional preaching in the public sphere…

Great post! I think there are lots of reasons why preaching has become irrelevant in to the “public.” I get the feeling these days that people have figured out that much preaching and teaching is really a smoke screen for something else. I just blogged about what it means to have integrity in ministry and I think that – either intentionally or not – a lot of preaching is incredibly manipulative and, therefore, lacking in integrity.

Moreover, I’m not sure that most preachers are really “gifted, trained, and compelled to be a herald for the gospel.” I can’t tell you how many pastors I’ve met for whom the ministry is just another career choice. There was one particular fellow I met at divinity school who told me he applied to medical school, law school and divinity school. The med. school didn’t accept him, the law school didn’t give him enough money, the divinity school (unfortunately) gave him a full scholarship and a living stipend. Guess where he ended up?

Then again, maybe the problem isn’t that there aren’t enough truly “gifted” pastors but that there are too many “professional” pastors and not enough people exercising the gifts they’ve been given (everybody is gifted by God for service to the Kingdom, right?).

Again, great post!

A.T.

Hey Jason, very proud of you, Your Mom sent me this and I enjoyed it! We are very busy right now in the Inland Empire bringing the denominations together to resourse eachother and pull our strengths to really make a difference for God’s Kingdom
check out our Conference we are putting on this Oct 9&10
http://www.kingdomglobal.com/first Love to have you attend if your in the area, bring the Old Guy ” Dave” and your lovely mother

In my ancestry we have what was called “traveling preachers”, men with sometimes their wives traveling around the country and preaching. These preachers were both on my fathers side and also on my Father’s mothers side. I was told growing up that my father’s mothers parents were killed in an accident while traveling around the country preaching the gospel. They left behind 4 kids, one of which was my grandmother. Do “Traveling Preachers” even exist any more?

Traveling preachers. I remember hearing about them in school. The thing was though, back then (as you know), not every town had a regular pastor for their church. I know that was true of my own grandmother who grew up in a West Virginia holler. Not to mention, in the 19th century, some towns didn’t have a church at all. A meeting place, with a “make shift” pastor yes, but not always some building deemed as a church. Especially out there in Cali. with the gold rush going on out there. I’m thinking there weren’t any churches close by to the miners camp.:-) (of course, with there minds on finding gold, gold, gold all the time, I wonder how many miners would have cared about going to church).

Since there are so many churches around today. How much of a need do we even HAVE for traveling preachers these days? I don’t see a need for them in this country (missionaries – yes. But that’s another point) but who knows – maybe they still exist somewhere out there.

Steve – It’s funny that you mention John Wesley, because his life and ministry has been the catalyst for my thinking on this subject (and my thinking on a postmodern ecclesiology as well). I think his example somehow represents both the best of public “preaching” AND the worst of that caricature we tend to mentally conjure up when we think of street preachers.

Mom & Julie – There are still lots of traveling preachers today…some go from church to church as special speakers (particularly in pentecostal traditions, wherein they’re typically “revivalists”)or they do the Christian conference circuit.

Andrew – You make some excellent points Andrew. My little mock letter definitely assumes the best of intentions on the part of the preacher, but I agree there may be many preachers who are laboring under a task for which they’re not gifted, and a few (hopefully) who may be tolerating a task for which they’re not passionate. Thanks for pitching in!

Gary – Hey, great to have you here! I’ll definitely check out the site. Hope things are going well for you in your ministry. Blessings and peace!

Jason, Yet another great post. I have really enjoyed reading your stuff since I stumbled onto your site a couple months ago. Really enjoyed the satire in this post. For me, this post begs a question I have been mulling over for some time…what does a Biblical proclamation look like in America in 2010? How much of what is normal today comes from history and cultural norms formed over the last 150+ years in the West? Perhaps a future post for you could be the job description, interview process, or annual evaluation of a position and function of “preacher” that is consistent with Scripture? Maybe you won’t choose to take this on, but I am hopeful.
-almost

Hi M,

Thanks for the very kind words. Your question, “What does a Biblical proclamation look like in America in 2010?” is partly what prompted this post. I’m not at all happy with what much of preaching has become, either campy, therapeutic, controlling, or entertaining, but, at the same time, I’m deeply uncomfortable with the tendency in Emerging circles to do away with it. Frankly, I don’t know the answer (although, I like what David Fitch has to say about it) – it’s something I struggle with quite a bit because my gift mix is heavily tilted toward preaching and hopefully that tension is evident in the post. But I will say this: it’s an important topic for me and one I will certainly be exploring on here again in the future.

Thanks again for the comment!