In reference to my post about "long winded, old school Bible preach[ing] or collective ignorance", my friend Steve Taylor, had this to say on his blog:

In modernity expounding the Bible usually belonged to one person. But a close look at the Bible makes that problematic: the school of the prophets in the Old Testament suggests a community engaged with the text, Jesus and the Emmaus Road suggests God is revealed not in the expounded words but seated around table, Paul in the lecture halls of Greek culture "dialogued" between text and context. I am not suggesting either/or; replacing one way with another way, but both/and.

One of my students summed it up beautifully: Preaching belongs to the community. But that statement requires the learning of a whole new skill set.

First is the skill of trust: It is much safer for 1 voice to speak. To allow community engagement requires whole new levels of trust in Spirit and trust in people.

Second is the skill of engagement: Ask a dumb question and you are likely to get so-called "collective ignorance." Ask a question that everyone knows you know the answer to and you are asking someone in the group to look stupid so that you can look expert. But in every group are life experiences and insights that out-trump a preacher's limited perspective and experiences. The skill of engagement is the creating of ways for these gifts to be brought to the table.

The image I often use is that of an athelete. The church has trained one muscle well - that of the Bible speaker. In so doing, we have lost the muscles of community learning. It will take a while to recover those muscles. There will be some inevitable ups and downs as we re-learn. Which makes it such an exciting time to be Bible people today.

I couldn't agree more.

Labels: community, leadership, speaking