Week 6

Question 1

What does postmodern preaching emphasize?

Answer 1

Postmodern preaching emphasizes collaborative preaching and the de-centering of authority (inclusions of all voices).

Question 2

Bland mentioned two representatives of postmodern/collaborative preaching. Who are they?

Answer 2

The first is Doug Pagitt of Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis. He wrote Preaching Re-Imagined: The Role of the Sermon in Communities of Faith (2005).

The second representative mentioned by Bland is John McClure, author of The Round Table Pulpit: Where Leadership and Preaching Meet (1995).

Question 3

What does the emergent church emphasize?

Answer 3

The Emergent Church emphasizes interpersonal, relational interaction. The use of couches and chairs “in the round” says “something about where authority lies.” Every voice is valued.

There’s a strong emphasis “on the experiential.” “Worship is participatory and multi-sensory,” incorporates elements from various religious traditions, and highlights “community and social justice.”

Questions are encouraged; blind acceptance of traditional explanations is discouraged. Expression is more valued than being right about everything.

Question 4

What is Don Carson’s major critique of the postmodern/emergent church movement?

Answer 4

“There is truth to be announced. If you start losing that, you really step outside what Christianity is. The gospel is something to be taught and to be believed; it is not something simply to be experienced.”

Question 5

Describe John McClure’s collaborative preaching model.

Answer 5

In McClure’s model, “the preacher puts together a round-table group of about four to five laypersons that will meet regularly each week with the preacher to help the preacher and be involved with the preacher in brainstorming the biblical text in relation to real life on the street, in the home, in the church today.” Such a group might include people from inside and outside the church. The group’s membership should change regularly. “The sermon form, then, grows out of the conversation.”
The preacher should do Bible study before the conversation but should not let that knowledge “squelch the insights of others.”

Question 6

What critique of postmodern preaching is found in Tom Long’s quotation of Jurgen Moltmann (The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 1977, 303):

Answer 6

“The church finally does not want to listen to itself and project its own image of itself; it wants to hear Christ’s voice.”

Question 7

Describe Doug Pagitt’s approach to collaborative preaching.

Answer 7

He advocates “progressional dialogue” (input during sermon preparation and delivery).

Question 8

What is Dr. Bland’s critique of Pagitt and McClure?

Answer 8

Bland points out that Pagitt does not address the questions of why and how. Bland also says that McClure’s strategy can result in too many thoughts in a sermon.

Question 9

What is James Kay critique of post-liberal preaching?

Answer 9

He says that in postliberal preaching all you have to do is stand up and read the Bible.

Question 10

How does Dr. Bland respond to James Kay’s critique?

Answer 10

Bland says Kay doesn’t get it - biblical language is a filter to say new things to this time and these listeners.

Question 11

What does post-liberal preaching emphasize?

Answer 11

Post-liberal preaching emphasizes “the power of language.” It “re-performs the biblical words.”

A sermon needs to “move into the biblical world.” “It lives in the world Scripture produces rather than discovers the world that produced Scripture” and “holds to the strangeness of uniqueness of Scripture.”

Question 12

What are some representative statements from William Willimon on post-liberal preaching:

Answer 12

“We’ve leaned ever so far to relate to our culture that we’ve fallen in.”

“Preaching is about opening the gap between God and humans not closing it.”

“The Bible doesn’t want to speak to the modern world. It wants to convert the modern world.”

“It’s a sad day when evangelicals have to come to Methodists to hear a biblical sermon.”

Question 13

List Dr. Bland’s five categories of sermon forms

Answer 13

1. Explain
2. Encounter
3. Experience
4. Embody
5. Emerge

Question 14

Explain sermon forms include:

Answer 14

Expository, teaching, deductive style sermons

Question 15

Encounter sermon forms include

Answer 15

1. Paul Wilson’s 4-pages model

2. Karl Barth homiletic - The sermon IS the word of God

Question 16

What is a major critique of Paul Wilson’s 4-pages?

Answer 16

The gospel is more complex than just the “judgment/law” and “grace” categories.

Question 17

What does experiential sermon forms emphasize?

Answer 17

Emphasizes human experience as the primary way of understanding scripture.

Question 18

Name some major experiential sermon form advocates:

Answer 18

a. Craddock and the New Homiletic
b. Eugene Lowry
c. David Buttrick

Question 19

What are two critiques of experience sermon forms?

Answer 19

1. This model is primarily based on one proposition.

2. It is individualistic (all about the individual interpreting the sermon).

Question 20

Emerge sermon forms include:

Answer 20

1. postmodern preaching

2. collaborative preaching

Question 21

What is a major critique of emerge sermon forms?

Answer 21

This paradigm ends up with the congregation coming to worship to hear their own voice

Question 22

Embody sermon forms include:

Answer 22

Post-liberal preaching.

Question 23

What are the major aims/emphases of embody sermon forms/post-liberal preaching?

Answer 23

1. Post liberals live in the world Scripture produces rather than discover the world that produced Scripture.
2. Human experiences are not the common bond that enable us to understand scripture. Listeners need to be immersed in the language/voice of Scripture.

Question 24

List major critiques of embody/post-liberal sermon forms:

Answer 24

1. Does the world of Scripture carry more weight than the contemporary world? Both worlds are important.
2. Incarnation proves this world is important to God.
3. The Scriptures require preaching because scripture
   requires interpretation as the scriptures themselves witness. Preaching involves the interpretation of scripture. Interpretation is not an intrusion or abuse of Scripture.