Following the theme of my last post, I want to take several posts and simply raise questions. You don’t reinvent the wheel by setting out to reinvent the wheel. The first step is to simply raise questions about the current model, and dream about what could be. In the next few posts, I will share some of the questions I have been asking myself.
Since in years past, I saw “preaching” as the central function of the church, I will begin by questioning it. Please understand that my questions are NOT statements of what should be, but simply “What if?” questions…what would happen if…?
What if Preaching and Teaching were Different?
What if we didn’t preach…at all? This is near heresy for some of us (it was for me a few years ago), but really, what would happen? I imagine at first, all those people who are used to showing up on Sunday to hear a 45 minute sermon would sit around staring at each other, asking, “What are we supposed to do now?” Exactly. If we didn’t spend 30-45 minutes on a Sunday with the sermon, what would we do instead? On a related note, what if we stopped telling people how important it is for them to read the Bible daily? It wasn’t until about 500 years ago that people even had the option, and even then, it wasn’t until about 100 years ago that there was widespread literacy. I’m not suggesting we jettison preaching and Bible reading from our churches. The opposite in fact. But I wonder what would happen in our churches if we fasted from gorging ourselves on Scripture for a while?
What if, when we did preach, instead of trying to be funny and cute in three easy-to-remember points, we simply taught the Word of God? What if we didn’t mask what we were doing by changing a book series into a topical series (calling Preaching through Psalms, “How to Praise God.”), or trying to be more “relevant” by speaking to people’s needs, or mask that we preaching a text by giving lots of illustrations, stories, and images? What if we just said, “Today we going to study Ephesians 1:1-10.” What if, in doing so, we taught as long as it took to adequately explain the text, whether 10 minutes or two hours? Would this be a wise use of time? Would this be an effective way to teach Scripture? Who would it be for? All people or just some? Who gets to decide what “adequately explain the text” means?
What if we didn’t apologize for biblical terminology, but used it and explained it? Are simpler translations of Scripture actually better? Or do they tend to dumb us down?
What if the preaching/teaching was more dialogue/interactive than monologue? Would this depend on group size?
What if we used movies and art and music to teach from, and bridges with culture to direct us to Scripture? What if instead of condemning movies and art and music, we looked for ways to redeem them?
What if the teaching and preaching was not done only by those with seminary degrees and formal education? Who else would do it?
What if we stopped trying to make sure a person was “orthodox” (by our standards) before we let them teach? If the argument is that we need to protect our churches from false teaching, just look at our churches. Can we honestly say that preaching and teaching only by the “seminar-trained and ordained” has kept false teaching at bay? Would allowing “untrained lay persons” the opportunity to teach really introduce heresy (by our definition) or would it open up more streams for dialogue? Would doing this be too dangerous in some settings? Would it make a difference if the teaching setting was set up as a dialogue instead of a monologue?
What if, after every time we opened the Bible to read and study it, we wouldn’t move on until we had asked “What is this passage telling us to do, and how can we as a church do it?” What if we didn’t move on to the next passage until, as a community, we obeyed the first passage? Week 1: Teach. Week 2: Obey. What if obedience and service were built in to the teaching aspect of the church?
What if, as we taught, we added humility to everything we said? Everything. What if, rather than say, “This is the way it is” we said, “This is my current understanding”? Do people really learn better from teachers who are certain of their beliefs, or do all the conflicting certainties from various teachers just confuse them further?
What if we refused to draw lines of orthodoxy about which people were in and which people were out?
What if in our teaching, we refused to judge a group of people unless/until we actually were friends with some people from that group? Would this keep us from judging them? Is that wise?
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Feel free to offer suggestions to the questions above, or to ask a few questions of your own below.
