Good preaching?
Further to my post on good Bible teaching.? It has been pointed out to me that good Bible teaching consists of more than preaching. It includes all of the access points to the Bible that occur in a local church setting, including Bible study groups, off-site camps (house parties for those in Eastern Australia and the UK), and conferences etc.? While I adhere to the need for this “cross-referencing”, the question still remains: Does all of that equate to qualitatively better Christians?
A comment by Steve Timmis to me on the phone the other night gives some clarity to the issue.? He told me of two churches in a small UK town.? One was a conservative evangelical church replete with a good teaching ministry, while the other was what is often called “evan-jelly-cal” bordering on what many would call liberal, with a (not surprisingly) lower view of teaching the Bible.? Yet when it was examined which church had more impact in, and involved itself more self-sacrificially with, the local community and all of its no-go lower socio-economic areas, it was the latter not the former that scored the points.? Steve commented that often the definition of whether the teaching is working or not in evangelical churches is by ticking the boxes of what congregational members are NOT doing.? As if the best we can hope for is a tabula rasa – a blank slate just waiting to be written upon.? The question is, how much IS being written?
Which brings us back to our original question of whether the current biblical teaching model is resulting in qualitatively better Christians.? ? Perhaps the problem is the model of community we see in many of these churches.? It’s often been said that small groups during the week are the place to work out the application of the passage preached on Sunday – but surely application is something to be WORKED out, not talked about how to be worked out.? After it’s been preached about on Sunday, then talked about on Wednesday night, where is the time left over to go and do it?
What if small groups were established with a time-limit?? What if they were told that their role was to do some research about their local area then find a way to go out and do together as a smaller group, what they in the large group were told to do on Sunday.? Application is almost invariably privatised.? Rarely is it seen as something we are physically going to go out and do together.
I hate to go on about our experiences at TCH (please, please go on, we love to hear about it! – Ed), but what we found in our household congregation was that our relationships were fast-tracked by being involved in mission together, and our expectations of each other and how we would respond to gospel truth was heightened.? On top of this there was a genuine excitement over the way God was working in the lives of our non-Christian friends as we carved out space as a group to include them in things like meals, pub visits and trips out to the countryside.
Comments and brickbats appreciated
February 21st, 2008 at 8:41 am
Steve,
All good points.
I think that small groups are great for “working out” application of a lot of personal/moral implications of the gospel (I’m assuming the sermon has been gospel-based). But they’re a terrible format for applying the social implications of the gospel.
That gets me back to my comment on your other post regarding WHAT is preached. Lots of “great preaching” in evangelical circles is about the implications of the gospel in a personal/moral context.
A while back when I was starting to see the magnitude of this problem I wrote this post:
http://unveiledface.blogspot.com/2006/10/on-mission-part-3-missional-and.html
I think the book “A Call to Conversion” by Jim Wallis absolutely whacks the nail on the head regarding the left wing/right wing divide.
All that to say that I think preaching can be great but can easily push us along just one trajectory. Small groups are useful for dealing with some kinds of gospel application. Small groups in comfortable lounge rooms, however, won’t get us in contact with the truly poor and marginalised.
BTW, have you noticed how some of these big evangelical preaching-centric ministries use marketing with pictures of big oak desks and massive leather-bound bibles and stuff? I can’t imagine a better way to ensure a disconnect with the marginalised…
February 21st, 2008 at 9:17 am
It begs the question Steve, by what criteria are we using to measure a “qualitatively better Christian”?
February 21st, 2008 at 7:46 pm
A few thoughts:
The actual impact that Bible teaching has on us will usually be measurable or discernable only in the way we go on to interact with others, both inside the church and particularly those outside. This is hugely affected by how we view our identity in Christ and how our church ’structures’ reflect or are shaped by this identity.
If we understand every Christian to be a minister and every Christian to be a missionary, it is much more likely we will focus on applying our teaching in each of our lives. If we understand our identity as ‘individuals in community’ then our way of doing church will be community focused and teaching will tend to be focused on interactive relational behaviour rather than individualistic behaviour. Our teaching mechanisms will be more interactive and participative, with many people contributing and sharing their understanding, rather than relying on a series of monologues by someone else paid to do the job. Our evangelism will be seen as a way of life each of us lives EVERY DAY, in whatever job or role God has placed us, rather than as something done in a specific evangelistic meeting in a specific place by someone else paid to do the job.
If we essentially regard someone else to be ‘the minister’ or ‘the missionary’, then it is likely our church will be based on one man paid to stand at the front and deliver monologues to a largely passive audience congregation. “Treat your congregation like an passive audience – and that’s exactly what you’ll get!”
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:12 pm
There is a lot to comment on here, not least the perjorative way in which you talk about liberal christianity. But there appears to be an illogical assumption implicit in the comparison between the fund…sorry, conservative evangelical and liberal evangelical churches you mention.
This assumption is that “liberal” churches(whatever that means) do not practice biblical preaching. As you will no doubt be aware, Steve, the dean of the Anglican cathedral in Perth is often labelled as “liberal” in his theological views (whether or not he would accept this designation is unknown to me). However, he is a very good biblical preacher. I had thought that perhaps expository preaching had disappeared forever, but the last time I heard the Dean preach he presented one of the best expository sermons I have ever heard.
The assumption seems to be that a high view of Scripture is required to produce “good” Biblical preaching. I think this is dubious.
February 23rd, 2008 at 12:47 am
Interesting comments.
A few replies to them,
First Jenno – I guess when I talk about Biblical preaching I am talking about preaching that both takes biblical theology seriously, and sees the ultimate role of the Bible to bring us to God only and ever through the person and work of Jesus, thus enabling us by the Spirit to be the people of God from now on right on into God’s future.? That puts people like Creflo Dollar out of the picture immediately!? But to be fair I think it puts the Dean out of the picture too, if only by his own stated beliefs. I find it hard to believe that his preaching is expositional in the sense that its ultimate goal is to unveil Jesus.? In fact the Dean may be uncomfortable coming under my def. given the comments frequently attributed to him in The West Australian newspaper are any indication – he prides himself on having non-orthodox views on just about every central Christian tenet. I would be interested to hear the sermon you are talking about. Is it available?
I have heard some great biblical preaching from evangelical ministries and some pretty dodgy stuff too. But I have NEVER heard someone who does not have a high view of the Bible ever preach anything other than the most inane homilies from the Scripture and I worked in a denomination and in a church which held a low view of Scripture, so I have had plenty of opportunity to hear it.
An anecdote only: a self-avowed atheist told me that he often went to the Cathedral because he liked the spectacle of the event, but the thing that really put him off was the aforementioned Dean’s preaching because it was so inane.
Cam – my statement “qualitatively better Christian” is perhaps a rather lazy way to describe what I am talking about. The real question is whether there is a process in churches for Christians to corporately enact what they hear from a sermon or other form of Bible teaching, and whether there is a tangible measure of this. I guess I need to get some empirical evidence on this one – though that would seem to be difficult because of the subjective nature of t
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:34 am
I’m glad I provoked your response then, Steve, as I can see we are using terms quite differently. I understand Biblical expository preaching to happen when the preacher takes a passage of Scripture and goes through it, applying exegetical techniques to expose the meaning of the text. Of course, interpretation is always subjective, and so I would also expect the preacher to admit her or his own bias, and also whether or not she or he found the text difficult or even untenable. An example of the latter, personally, would be the prohibitions in St Paul against women in ministry, or the scattered references (mostly Paul’s again) forbidding homosexuality. Were I preaching such a passage in an expository manner, I would feel duty bound both to state what the Bible was actually saying (rather than what I wish it were saying), and also to admit that I disagreed.
Personally, and I think this relates to your original point, I find this sort of preaching edifying in that there is an implicit recognition that I have a brain and I am not merely bound to slavishly follow the preacher’s interpretation of the Bible – I am required to make my own mind up. I’m not sure if that works for others in real life – I think pastors like yourself are in a much better position to assess that than I am. But I find being treated with that level of respect is a motivating thing. Then whether or not I am a “qualitatively better Christian” is up to me.
June 25th, 2009 at 1:48 am
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