Dialog in preaching requites utter humility and a real vulnerability – a lectern is safeplace and almost there is a sense of – when I have the mic, Im in charge! At least I have seen that played out many times in churches. Dialog recognises God speaking to a whole community and not just one person and I have seen / am seeing this done in two ways:
1. In cafe style setting or even in pews, the preacher can give a chance for people to break in to small groups for a few minutes to ponder a sermon point or scripture and really engage with what is being share. I love this as it is almost like a seed is planted and then the watering begins right away in the pew! It is like Mark 4 and the story of seed falling on good ground on fast forward!
2. I am part of a small congregation of around 25, at the moment we sit in the church spread out, there is talk of all moving into the sanctuary and from there sitting in a circle and creating an intimate community and foster a sense of sharing together. In this style, the preacher will have no lectern to hide behind, will need to be more conversational and again promote dialog.
Pete, your post has really helped me think this through since posting my own initial thoughts a few days ago. I particularly like your reference to "God speaking to the whole community and not just one person". I've more than once had the experience that people heard things in my sermons that I didn't remember saying, or interpreted my words in ways that seemed more apt than what I'd intended. I think you, and others, are quite right in trying to make room for that to happen more often and also to make (some) ministers more aware that it can happen!
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think we need to be careful with the terms we use. "Dialogue in preaching" is, for me, an oxymoron. The plain meaning of "preaching" is that it is about discourse - always proclamation, exhortation, instruction, even prophecy; and usually taken to be in the form of a "sermon", which is just the Latin word for discourse. "Dialogue", in contrast, is always about conversation; two or more people discussing things. For me, then, any dialogue we have must be a consequence of the preaching and not the preaching itself.
It might seem like a nice point, but I want my preachers to be able to proclaim the Word of God with authority and in keeping with the doctrines of the universal Church, not invite me to join them in a design-our-own-faith kind of (what?) spirituality club. So I'd like to keep the two things quite separate.
Agreed but you are really coming up with radical suggestions that have the impact of changing how we sit in church. We may have to do away with the whole idea of sitting pews and replace them with chairs that can accomodate groups of people. The word preaching might have to dissappear altogether. All we need to do is to communicate the Message of the Master and not worry ourselves with the "how" bit of it.
ReplyDeletePeter,
ReplyDeleteWhat a fabulous header. Thankyou for that visual image and what it suggests.
I think you might find it helpful to check out Steve Collins work on church design and the use of tables to encourage dialogue http://www.btinternet.com/~smallritual/section5/bigtable.html
Steve
Hi Pete
ReplyDeleteLike the idea of small groups and have seen this work well. It does put people out of their comfort zones but it also mixes people up so they get to know others and communitcate with them rather than just the polite hello.