Progression Implicatory Dialog

I've been spending this week in Minnesota at the Celebration of Biblical Preaching hosted by Luther Seminary.  The Celebration is now over, but I'm still around for a lectionary overview of the Gospel of Mark for this coming church year calendar.  Personally I have found continuing education conference much more rewarding in the long term if I can spend time shortly afterwards processing what was discussed.  So you all get to read my processing.

But A LOT has been covered in the 3 days I have spent at Luther thus far, so this will hopefully be done over a few of these blog posts in the next next few days.  And I also won't cover everything, probably just my favorite one or two sessions from each day.

So I thought I would start with Doug Pagitt's session from Monday afternoon.  Doug is the founding pastor of an emergent congregation in Minneapolis and has written many books including a series all entitled "_____ in the Inventive Age"   He was also our preaching on Tuesday's morning's worship.

The main premise I took from Doug's presentation was that we are in a new cultural age and need to adapt our preaching to better work with the markers of this current age.  He started his presentation by giving us a new term, Progressional Implicatory Dialog, and that should be our aim in preaching.  That our preaching needs to be progressional - relevant to today's society, it needs to be implicatory - applicable to the hearers daily life, and it needs to be a dialog - not just top down but something all participate in creating.

This new way of preaching has developed because we are in a 4th cultural age in our country.  1st was the agricultural age - where the church was the center of the town and the pastor wore the symbol of the shepherd - the stole.  2nd was the industrial age where the pastor represented the brand, (either the specific church or the denomination) and the goal was to produce the same thing over and over again in the form of worship and "godly families".  The 3rd age is the information age where knowledge is the center of focus and the pastor was the one who knew the important stuff and it was their job to tell all the people who came to listen.  Doug used the architecture of churches to demonstrate the shift in congregations during each of these ages, from country churches, to churches built to look like factories, to the huge education wing addition.

Agricultural age church

Industrial age church

Education Wing

I think this can also be seen through the names of congregations.  Most congregations founded in the agricultural age have biblical names - either names of cities or people from the bible: Bethlehem, St. John's.  Industrial age churches are often named after biblical imagery or theological terms: Good Shepherd, Atonement, Emmanuel.  Though a little counter-intuitively the church of the information age dropped these theological terms for the congregation names that have more lofty names: Peace, Faith, Lord of Life. 

We are now in the beginning of the inventive age.  An age where we value thinking, values, aesthetics and tools.  It is no longer what you know but how you know it and creativity is rewarded.  Many of these churches are in non-traditional worship spaces, meeting in coffee shops, bars, or in converted churches with couches and ping pong tables instead of traditional pews.  These church names tend to be double entendres or very relaxed sounding names- Sanctuary, Solomon's Porch, House of Mercy.

The inventive age can be categorized by valuing -

• relational authority - relationships have authority not degrees
• participation - we are all invited to be part of the creative process
• dialog - everything is a discussion 
• abundance - there is enough in the world, distribution is the problem 
• open source belief - people's beliefs shift over time
• beauty matters - aesthetic are just as valuable as function
• integration is essential - how does everything fit together from one area of life to another
• ownership - people are competent and want to be an owner in the system

Thus by keeping the Inventive age in mind and these things that are valued, especially the ownership, participation and relational authority, by changing our sermons to have more areas of participation so that it is a communal event that connects the rest of life better to scripture, we will be able to preach better to our society.

There was a lot of backlash to Doug's presentation and his interactive bible study type sermon, especially from the older generation.  I heard many people say "if I did that in my congregation....", "my congregation would freak if I did that" or "I could never do that." and it was quite frustrating for me to hear that.  I was talking to one other attendee and we decided that these comments come from two sources fear and underestimation.  

Many pastors have underestimated what there parishioners can actually do.  In fact they probably think their members are flat out stupid and therefore aren't able to interpret the bible for themselves and we, as those with the degrees, must do that for them (this is very un-inventive age thinking).  

Or pastors are afraid.  They are afraid that if they start letting their congregation members interpret scripture, they as pastors won't be needed any more.  Or they are afraid because preaching in a dialog/participatory way takes them out of their comfort zone.  It has nothing to do with the congregation's reaction but their own.  

Yes it is scary to start preaching in a participatory style.  I've been doing it for awhile, though not every sermon, though I do ask "where have you seen God?" at the beginning of each worship service.  There are times you can hear crickets or I have to reask the question and coax an answer out of people.  But after a few times, my congregation has gotten the hang of it.  And I can tell they listen more and the sermon gets them thinking more when they are a part of creating the preaching experience.  

So I encourage you to start being a little more participatory in your preaching because we are in a new age and just as our church buildings and names have changed, so too should our sermons.