Worship, art, liturgy, and preaching, in the emerging culture
27 Dec 2004
April 18th-21st 2005, Asbury Theological Seminary.
I was due to speak at this in November but it got moved to April, so will be there then instead. My topic will be "Is There A Future for Preaching in the Emerging Church?" I have pasted some info below from the site.
It will also form the paper for this coming/term semester for my doctoral programme. So if any of you have come across any good books/materials on this please let me know.
BTW I hope you had a great christmas. I spent 5 days in bed with the flu, so missed it all :-(
link
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Join us as we begin an ongoing, generative conversation about worship, art, liturgy, and preaching among Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Mainline Protestant, Anabaptist, and Evangelical/Charismatic leaders, thinkers, and resourcers that will lead to more vital worship in local congregations throughout North America.
We believe that we are entering a new context, often referred to as “postmodern†– meaning post-Christendom, post-Enlightenment, post-secular, post-individualistic, etc. We share a hope that this new context can make possible unprecedented sharing and collaboration among Christian traditions, and that worship is a prime arena for generative conversation and “ancient-future†convergence.
15 comments
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Comment by Sivin Kit
8.44 am on 25 Aug 2004
hmmm … I’d be interested in what you have to say Jason on this. Our job depends on it :-) I did three sessions of “preaching” last week … one at a college, another at a Chinese church, one more at BLC where I serve. I enjoyed “preaching” thoroughly!
Comment by graham
1.37 pm on 26 Aug 2004
Sivin,
Why does our job depend on it?
Comment by Brian Orme
2.23 pm on 26 Aug 2004
I enjoy preaching as well – but I know that people have different images in their mind when it comes to the way we preach -(See: hell fire and brimstone…soft and sensitive…self-help, etc.) that’s what deserves some discussion for the emergent church – renewing our sense of how we preach…
Comment by Tim Butt
3.02 pm on 26 Aug 2004
Is the old discussion about the difference between preaching and teaching relevant here as well?
I’m a preacher-boy. I love to get with people and offer suggestions and explanation of how to live kingdom-stylee.
Teaching is much more of a challenge for me as I have to work much harder to understand the deeper, richer, intense meat of the Bible and then help others to do the same so that they can mature.
Is preaching more about proclamation? If so, we’ve got our stuff to share just like everyone else. Problem is, ‘Church’ has defined preaching as standing in front of people and speaking. Personally, I find it much easier to learn from the preacher stood next to me.
My job doesn’t depend on the faces in front of me on Sunday. My job depends on my being completely available for God to communicate what He wants, in the way that He wants, to the people He wants for Himself.
Comment by DanD
3.04 pm on 26 Aug 2004
Any chance this will be taped, and show up on your website as a resource? For those of us who whould like to attend but cannot, I hope so.
Comment by nick
4.33 pm on 27 Aug 2004
hello!
i found your website thing through somebody’s blog and i read your love/hate article of the emergent church. i figured that if i wrote on the most recent comment block, i would get a response back. i have a question, but first a quick reference builder so my question will make a bit more sense.
ok here goes…
i am an active member of an evangelical church and have been doing my share of ministry over the years. several months ago i read a new kind of christian by brian mclaren, and the ideas that he expresses in that book were pretty revolutionary to me. it’s really helped me look outside of a box that i think everyone seems to fall into with theology (whether in an organized institution or not). in fact i would say i really appreciate the book and the ideas and would like to implement some of them into my daily walk. sorry so long, but i’m getting to the point, please bear with me. anyhow, maybe a month or so ago i heard the word emergent for the first time in the context of an emergent church. and seeing as how i don’t know enough about it to comment on the love/hate post, a couple of questions do arise about it.
ok
1. is this emergent “movement” going to be like the so called “revival movement” from a few years ago?
2. why start an “emergent church”? why can we not implement them into our “evangelical” churches. somebody made a comment in your love/hate post that said something like how they hated their old church and never helped the drug addicts etc… when instead they didn’t do anything either. why not start doing and practicing what we are all “bitching” about? why do we need to start a new movement? it sounds like (and i could be very mistaken, remember i am new at this)the fundamentals of emergent (oh no! i said fundamentals!) sound like they are the same as most evangelical churches. ie.. truly and authentically loving others, reaching out to the druggies and the half-way houses, serving etc… why can we not do that in the evangelical churches either, or why can we not develop these “emergent” fundamentals in our evangelical churches? where are you “emerging” from in the first place? this next question is very sincere and is said out of love, so please don’t take this the wrong way…. what can the emergent church show me that will make me think that the emergent church is not really a bunch of quitters of their own churches who are looking for an easier way to follow Christ? like i said, i’m learning right now, and if my first impressions seem wrong or whatever, please inform me. i truly am trying to discover what this whole emergent thing is.
with love,
nick
Comment by nick
4.36 pm on 27 Aug 2004
oh and also, i’m moving to folkestone, england next thursday. it looks like you are in london, maybe someday we can talk this over coffee or something
Comment by Jason Clark
7.31 am on 29 Aug 2004
Hi Nick,
Great to hear from you, and glad you hav eenjoyed Brian’s book. In answer to your questions:
1. I suspect most of the emergin church response is akin to previous “revival” movements of charismatic church. A sociological response that won’t be revival at all, but wishful thinking for the church to be different.
2. I think you are onto something profound here stay with it. To move ahead church needs to change, but many of us need to do that where we are, and some, a few need to start new forms of church. Insead of all leavingh church complaining about what church doesn’t do, we should be starting to be and do the things that are needed to move church forward. So if your church doesn’t do the ministry to drug addicts you think it needs to you do it…don’t leave and bitch about your church.
When we do church and change by affirming what is good, and take on the challenge of adding the things we need to do better, health is going to happen. Read Brian’s new book and you’ll see that this is our manifesto for emergent. Keep in touch and come and visit when you are around. Warmly, Jason
Comment by Randy
4.00 am on 30 Aug 2004
First — great response Jase…
Second — preaching (telling the message) is key to our future, Sivin is right, again. The transmission of the story is near and dear to my heart, not just as an art form but as a pathway for individual transformation (…how will they know unless they hear…), can’t wait to see your stuff
Comment by Jason Clark
8.05 am on 30 Aug 2004
Oh the pressure to produce! ;-)
Comment by Michael Mc
12.04 am on 30 Dec 2004
Have you ever read a book titled “Future Worship” by LaMar Boschman?
Anything I have read by Leonard Sweet has also been very thought provoking.
This question I has occuppied my thoughts for the last few years. I was raised Methodist but spent about 15 years in the a Charismatic type church. After being burnt, I’ve spent the last 2 years wondering what I am…where I fit in.
Comment by Whitewave
10.17 pm on 12 Jan 2005
It’s a shame the preaching question got dropped here. Is it picked up anywhere else? I think it is a very valid one.
“Why does the job depend on it?”
…and it’s prequel should be considered close by, “What do we mean by the word ‘preaching’?”
Methinks Jason doesn’t mean what Randy spelled out. There are many ways to “preach” the gospel. Using words is one of them.
I for one, would be glad to see the kind of preaching I’m thinking of – the standing in the pulpit or even walking in and amongst the listeners and talking to them about what the Bible says about God and all the usual homiletic stuff that we’re used to – go bye-bye for a while. Like going back-packing or travelling to another country, it’s a good exercise in identifying what we take for granted and learning about what the necessities really are. From what I understand about Luther, he was open to that. I’m sure Sivin knows that too.
If we lose the forms, what will we have left?
Content.
What happens if we pour the content into another form?
Comment by lou
6.12 pm on 17 Jan 2005
Hi Jason, I would be really interested to know whether you find anything that offers insight into that question as it’s one of the topics I would like to address in an upcoming research project on emerging/alternative worship.
I guess my current thoughts are that as a preacher I would be very sad if I didn’t preach again, but most preachers we have in my church bore me senseless and I could quite easily do without listening to 90% of sermons I ever hear. Perhaps a break would be a good thing.
I’m always wary of pronouncing no future for anything – a couple of years ago the publishing industry was moaning that no-one was reading any more, then a certain Harry Potter came along and since then I’ve not heard anyone complain about the lack of people reading books.
Comment by Whitewave
11.58 pm on 17 Jan 2005
Lou, thanks for picking this back up. Can I pick your brain?
How much of your religious education (%) would you estimate was taken up by homiletics?
How much of homiletics (%) is directed towards the form I mentioned above and cannot be transferred to another form?
I wonder what would happen if pastors who wanted to explore new forms went back to their institutions to ask for a refund for all the stuff they didn’t want.
I think its important to look at how much it would grieve preachers to see that market dry up for a while. I have a retired preacher friend who basically said the same thing several months ago.
What does that mean? Does it mean that the preaching becomes such a personal expression that it ends up being more about the preacher than about the hearer or about Jesus? Y’know that song by delirious? (or Matt Redman) “It’s all about You”. I don’t want it to sound like I’m pointing my fickle finger of shame, because I don’t think it’s necessarily bad to invest so much in what you do. My purpose in asking this question is to open it up for examination and find what’s real before we make statements about the value of things. Y’know? The church is really good at parroting what it values without really looking under the hood at the human process of assigning value.
I think one of the things Harry did for reading was present a previously taboo subject – evidenced by the outcry from the religious sectors. I’ve done a little pot-stirring in my day and I’ve become familiar with some of the places preaching won’t go. I was told outright that “blood” was not to be discussed. I’ve watched conservative friends talk about how they don’t like hearing any kind of earthy or gritty details when people give personal testemonies. “It’s okay if you come to the Lord from some vague bad place, but I don’t want to hear how many men you’ve slept with or abortions you’ve had or drugs you’ve whored for…” Aparently if all we hear are pleasantries, then our tendency to be judgmental jerks won’t be exposed. We don’t want to be made to have bad feelings. Especially “in the sanctuary”. You see what I mean? This is so far away from the experience of the early church and the dynamic that Jesus was initiating. It irks me.
What if…?
Comment by lou
7.13 am on 20 Jan 2005
Actually very little of my course is taken up with homiletics, I take one module out of 36 in the subject but the main purpose of my course is not training preachers so perhaps other institutions place more emphasis on it.
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