One of the joys of college is all the reading ... one of the frustrations of college is all the reading!!! At times it can feel like I'm only reading certain parts of things in order to write an essay, and other times its totally gripping and you're able to run with a thought into several books in a 'proper' fashion. However, summer becomes a valuable time, a time to do all the reading you wanted to do but couldn't; a time to read all those books you passed on the shelves day after day and longed to pick up but had to remind yourself that there really are only 24hours in a day!

Reading one such book at the moment, though it is doubling as research as might be able to use it in a dissertation. Not too far into it yet, but was reading this about preaching today and it really hit me deep. It made me think about my preaching, and even my 'general' ministering, and what kind of preacher and minister I want now to commit to be. The book is Richard Lischer's The End of Words: The Language of Reconciliation in a Culture of Violence (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005). Here is what I was reading:

When ministers allow the word of God to be marginalized, they continue to speak, of course, and make generally helpful comments on a variety of issues, but they do so from no centre of authority and with no heart of passion. We do our best to meet people's needs, but without the divine word we can never know enough or be enough, because consumer need is infinite. We are simply there as members of a helping profession ... no seminarian or candidate sets out to minister with such reduced expectations, and not everyone succumbs to this scenario, but ultimately the marginalization of the word of God fractions it into a hundred lesser duties.

pg. 23-24

As a young minister in the making this is an important thing to think through and bear in mind in order to be one of those who does not succumb to that lesser-ness (if that is even a word!). One of my pastors once wisely said that our role is to bring God into situations and spiritually guide in that sense. He was talking in relation to knowing where 'boundaries' may lie in the sense that while you may counsel, you are not a counsellor etc. Yet in relation to what Lischer is talking about it also makes sense. If as pastors part of our 'job' is to bring God into situations and spiritually guide then the Word has to be central to that. When that is lost or becomes misplaced things have gone seriously wrong! While that may seem obvious, I pray that it is something that stays with me as I grow into ministry more.

On a different, yet perhaps related note - this is what I was reading relating to preaching that I thought was also worthy of note:

In the act of preaching something dies and something rises. What dies (or should die) is the preoccupation with the self that plagues so many performers. This death is ironic, since some sense of "self" is stimulated by God's call in the first place and is necessary for public speaking ... Today's preachers are heirs to the twentith century mantra, "Be yourself!" Preaching is "truth through personality", but the two elements in Philips Brooks's famous definition have become so entangled that they are [often] indistinguishable from one another. And whenever there is a conflict between truth and personality, personality always wins [not good] ... What also dies in the act of preaching is the scavenger hunt for novelty that drives many sermons ... What rises is the remarkable synergy of the spoken word and the life of the baptized community, which in the parlance of Isaiah is the gift of a "new thing."

pg. 35-36

Now thats an exciting thought! Especially in relation to my thoughts about preaching as prophetic witness. As Lischer notes

The prophets are uniformly annihilated by a conversation with God, only to reappear as powerful individual performer's of the word on God's behalf.

pg. 35

Now if thats what a death to self and a need to perform for praise leads to in the rising of a sermon that is the synergy of spoken word combined with the Word within the life of the community then perhaps, just perhaps our experiences would be more like that of the prophets ... annihilated regularly but annihilated in a way that leads to life-giving words, though various in nature. Now that really would be preaching experienced as prohetic witness!!!