Missional leading that is concerned with cultivating missional awareness is also concerned with the congregation discerning the leading of the Spirit. What is the Spirit doing amongst us? What is the Spirit doing in the community into which we are being sent? How are we being equipped and empowered by the Spirit to participate in God’s mission in our ministry settings? These are key questions – for which I see preaching playing an important role in cultivating a congregation to become more deeply sensitive to the Spirit’s leading.
A former colleague of mine at Northern Seminary, Michael J. Quicke, taught a course entitled Leadership Through Preaching, which ended up becoming a book – 360 Degree Leadership, in which he argues that preaching is key to leading that brings about transformation. In addition, I believe that the kind of preaching that is key is one that involves the congregation in discerning together where God is leading us as a church to participate with God in God’s mission.
In a previous column I mentioned that leadership is about discerning and articulating the vision the Spirit of God is casting within a church community, seeing the people themselves as gifts the Spirit bestows to the community because it is their gifts and passions that give us a clue of how God is shaping us to be participants in God’s mission.
Since Easter I have been exploring a different approach to preaching – I even discovered it has a name – interactive preaching – though little is written about it. Basically, it is about engendering a conversation on Sunday morning so that we encounter God’s Word in a multi-voiced way, rather than God’s Word being expressed as a monologue – i.e., my being the sole voice in preaching.
It involves retraining me as well as the congregation, because preaching for centuries has been the primary profession of the clergy – this is how I was trained in seminary. But if we take seriously the priesthood of all believers (which the Reformation expressed, but did little practically to bring it about) then somehow what God is saying to us, how we understand Scripture, how we hear the Spirit opening us to Scripture, is to be a communal activity, rather than an activity limited to clergy.
This is still very new to me and I am making mistakes as I am learning to be more open to hear what the Spirit is saying to us through the Word of God. I also believe that we as a community are beginning to learn to engage Scripture, express insights that the Spirit brings in ways that are fresh and particularly relevant. Over the centuries preaching has involved one speaking and the rest listening, but interactive preaching is an attempt for each one of us in the community to take on the calling of being open to Jesus, being open to the Spirit, so that together we might be led in being sent out to participate with God in God’s redemptive mission. Mission and ministry are corporate activities, so why not preaching as well?
This was the way the early Anabaptists engaged Scripture in worship – together; this seems to be what Paul was getting at in 1 Corinthians 14 in which each one brings something with them to share in their gatherings, for some to prophecy, and others to speak in tongues and others yet to interpret – it involves the church being the Body of Christ – building up one another, being responsible for discipling one another. It involves a whole different attitude in how we come to worship on Sundays – rather than being about “being ministered to by the Word,” we instead having spent time in Scripture, come prepared to engage others, share insights in hearing corporately what the Spirit of God is saying to us, so that we might be obedient as a community to where and how we are being sent by God.
It seems I am rambling a bit – but I am trying to get my mind and life more around what it means for a community to “preach” the Word to one another in an interactive way. I believe as we develop facility with this approach to preaching, the community I serve will become more deeply engaged in God’s Story and Vision (Scripture) and be continually transformed as a community that is sign, foretaste, and instrument of God’s present and coming reign. May we be open to hearing and expressing God’s word as a multi-voice community.
Next week: Being missional in preaching – Some ways I am trying to be interactive
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