Personal Statement – Ron Roberts.
Living the Bible in a Post Modern Context. 11th July – 15th July, 2011
In my ministry experience I have enjoyed the process of taking a text and “squeezing the orange” a bit more and a bit more to see what more the text has to offer. I have never been content with the face value of the text.
I needed to do some catching up with my guided reading in my M.Min and the opportunity was presented to take this intensive.
To be honest, I thought it sounded good fitting with the ‘squeezing the orange’ concept and it looked like there could be content that I could enjoy being involved with, but it was a needful guided reading exercise!
Well, I have to say, that what was offered and what I expected were two different things.
For a start the group dynamic was excellent. Thanks to each of the group who produced collective wisdom and meaningful responses. Thanks also to Steve Taylor for the input and facilitation, giving good content and oozing creativity, which quite frankly makes me wish I could be equally as inventive.
My processing pathways, in order are, visual, kinaesthetic and audio. As the days opened up my senses were being awoken and I began to be drawn into an intense way of not only handling the scripture but becoming intrinsically part of the text.
I think this aspect became very empowering for me. Rather than learning techniques that would benefit others, my church in particular, I found that the exposure to the text through my senses was taking me on a spiritual journey.
This was more than a learning journey, this was a journey that was actually causing change.
Because it was so personal and was touching my inner being, I got very tired. This process was sapping my energy and I didn’t want that to happen. I wanted to remain alert and absorbed. I was conscious of my need for God’s help and believed that occurred.
Of course Luke 1:39-45 will always connect with this intensive week, but more importantly, how the text can absolutely come alive through the senses has already changed my whole approach to the text.
I wish that I had connected to that years ago, instead of now on the eve of my retirement.
How true it is that my preaching has predominantly been communicated through words with the expectation that people exposed to those words would hear them in all their fullness and be stimulated to action of some sort.
The framework given this week helps make sense of how communication can best be effective.
The word is important, and I have come to a greater appreciation of how dialogue channels the word through the mix of image and community into what should be an environment of receptivity.
I really appreciated the introduction of sound, touch and smell when dealing with the text. These are elements that bring a richness and mystery, inviting me to become part of the text rather than just a reader or explainer.
I have already talked with some of our Elders about the need to carefully understand the principles behind ‘living the text’ in order that they might begin to adopt a way of entering the text personally. I figure that for me and them alike we need to totally enter this experience in our walk with God. Then, we are in a place to share it wider either in corporate worship or small groups.
When I was reading Bob Rognlien’s piece on experimental worship, I get the fact that an organised process needs to be in place. I have come to appreciate the fact that bringing these innovative ways into worship must not be a gimmick or just a ‘fun’ way (even thought they should be engaging and enjoyable), but a serious process of creating a space where all of us can move from being spectators of the text to participants.
Whilst the personal part of the journey is important, I am involved in communicating an important text, so I want to preach in an experiential, participatory, image base with connectivity as Leonard Sweet puts it.
I am an early baby boomer, and therefore exposed to an upbringing in the church where leadership exhibited the strong top down approach. Participation by the congregation was minimal and experimentation was frowned upon.
What a joy for me to come to this intensive and have a theological framework for experimenting outlined, and then to be able to go to my church congregation, who will be open to sharing in the appropriate implementation of aspects like:
- DJ’ing and sampling ( a concept new to me in the context of a way to open the text)
- New ways of being community
- Understanding imaging
- Participating in the touch/smell/sounds of the text.
I have hundreds of stories from the life I’ve lived. But I have learned this week to be careful how those and others stories might be told. I found the session on story telling challenging, yet I have been telling stories for a long time. I now look at stories differently.
I really enjoyed Brian McLarens presentation of the woman caught in adultery. I have never heard a better presentation about the Kingdom of God
Steve’s innovative use of take-aways, presented at IKEA, and the way he uses surrounding people as sounding boards for text presenting ideas, has challenged me into making my preparations extended, in order that these methodologies can be incorporated.
Peter and I thoroughly enjoyed preparing Café Church
I have to say that the week has given me energy and insight in a refreshing way to move on from this point in my ministry and hopefully I can make my experience of living in the text, the experience of our church.
Again, thanks to the entire group for a great week.
I agree with you that we place far too much emphasis on words. We have neglected experience. We have neglected the senses. Especially we have neglected image, even though today we live in a culture described as a "Civilisation of the Image", in which we have been "colonised by the image industry" (quoted in Taylor, The Out of Bounds Church?,71). I was helped by Sweet's idea that he calls the EPIC type of preaching. Experiential. Participatory. Image based. Connectivity. (See his The Metaphor Moment).
ReplyDeleteYou are also spot on with your comment about our needing to create spaces where each of us can move from being spectators of the text to participants in the text. A place for "wondering, rumination, and imagination" (McSpadden, in the Art of Reading Scripture, 131). Places where people engage with the text, using their various senses. And I reckon that has to start with us, in our own preparation. Dwelling in the text. That's a different sort of preparation - one that starts well before the Monday before the Sunday. I'm immensely challenged by the Brueggemann quote that proclamation - and worship too ? - is "a place where people come to receive new materials, or old materials freshly voiced, that will fund, feed, nurture, nourish, legitimate and authorise a counterimagination of the world (quoted by Baker, Throwing a Hand Grenade in the Fruit Bowl). How transformative would that be !
Hi Ron,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing something of your ‘learning journey’ and in particular just how personal it was for you. In mentioning how much you appreciated the richness and mystery that come as we use sound, touch and smell, I’m reminded of your comment in class that these aren’t tools to only be used in our gathered community, rather a gift first to enrich our own engagement with the text. And it’s this personal engagement and wrestling with the text that gives authenticity to our preaching. Rose (Sharing the Word, 125), elaborates on the work of children’s fiction writer Katherine Paterson, and observes that conversational preaching is rather like fiction. It begins with something that “impinges on my own life” (quoting Paterson 1989, 104), “a sound in the heart,” a grain of sand that keeps rubbing at your vitals” (1981, 26), or “an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach” (1989, 92). As well as that, “the only raw material I have for the stories I tell lies deep within myself” (1989, 137). Increasingly I’m aware that people want to hear stories – authentic, honest, autobiographical stories that show how the gospel is shaping us. And they want their own stories to be heard – to have their experience of God validated by the community. However there’s a note of caution that needs to be heeded here. In describing Sundar Singh’s use of story, Wood notes that he “sometimes made the mistake of relying too heavily on stories at the expense of the foundational biblical principles which the stories could have supported” (Turning the Key to Creativity, 61). If we can find the right balance between the two we’ll have some great preaching.
Hi Ron,
ReplyDeleteWhen you wrote, 'I really appreciated the introduction of sound, touch and smell when dealing with the text. These are elements that bring a richness and mystery, inviting me to become part of the text rather than just a reader or explainer', I thought 'right on'. That reflects well with what we saw in Lecture Block 8 and the section on 'Stories are built on sensory detail'; the Wednesday handout 'I smell, therefore I am'; & the Friday handout 'what is touch?'. We realize that there are dimensions to the text that we may not have encountered in earlier years when we began our studies in ministry. We now see how society seems to be seeking a fuller involvement with the text; 'Words are not enough' says the song and how true that is. It's as if the boundaries or fences have been expanded or pushed down, and new ways of engaging texts leads us into new fields of discovery. Technology seems to be more user-friendly now, so we have opportunities to go well beyond the 'words-only' approach that we probably grew up with. I found Si Smith's '40' so simple, yet so effective at communicating so much, & Steve's 'practices of creative play' (Out of bounds, pp.72-74) helpful prompters.
Your comment about 'innovative ways' ... that 'must not be a gimmick' is a point that others have made and well worth keeping in our vision. I've seen stories dominate to the extent that the substance of the Biblical truth was submerged in triviality, and I'm sure we've all seen the comedian preacher who works for the laughs.
Blessings,
Ken
Dear Ron, I agree with you on the incredible reach Brian McLaren achieved by helping so many of his audience could choose which role we would like to play, or just play witness. I went today to a service which was mind-numbing and alien, only for people who had received training for years to become docile and sit still – no matter what was presented. So I ‘chose’ the option to replay , in my mind, the vividness of the story (presented by Brian) and thus harvested so much more. This makes me realise just how privileged we were to experience that week and to see so many different approaches. Also, it made me wonder a lot more about the people attending church– what do they want – do they just need ‘space’, do they need to be refuelled or stretched, or affirmed? And this type of presentation of Brian can maybe help each to get something on their own terms as the story then happens in each person’s head, with their own application…...I really enjoyed Brian McLarens presentation of the woman caught in adultery. I have never heard a better presentation about the Kingdom of God. The way he crafted that presentation was brilliant and made me stop and think again about audience/congregational involvement and participation with the whole of the text and characters. And reading the paper of Sandra Pollerman, and seeing how she guides the reader in i) reading the passage thoroughly; ii) closing the book to find a time for recall and reflect, then iii) focussing and iv) allowing the story to settle by v) placing the characters and vi) allowing Jesus to enter the scene (pages 66 – 68) the process of visualizing and living the text gave me another insight just how Brian may have crafted his presentation. I hope to use this approach when working with a team on worshipping, to help them see a different way of entering the text. Also laughed when I read the inset from Martin Buber (p 162) about a lame story teller who was cured as he ‘demonstrated his story’ (Ref: Preaching to a Postmodern World by Graham Johnston)
ReplyDeleteThanks for your tip on saving my responses in word format – before that I have sent many messages to various blogs…..and these may all form part of the milky way now?!
Thank you so much for your reflection. I also ‘began to be drawn into an intense way of not handling the scripture but becoming intrinsically part of the text’ as the intensive unfolded. Could it be that in becoming part of the text there was a sense of ‘play’? Steve broaches this concept and described the ‘emerging church’ as a ‘community at play’ (The Out of Bounds Church?, 63). Without wanting to reduce the academic rigor, nor the professional development, nor the serious grappling in the room during the intensive… I’d like to suggest that, perhaps, on more that one occasion we were at ‘play’? Jesus did touch on this child-like stuff (Luke 18:15-17). Perhaps this was some of what He had in mind? The Café Church on the Friday afternoon sticks with me. The picture of the homeless man with his dog on his lap is on my noticeboard now. I look at that picture and realise that the unconditional love offered by that dog to the man is the stuff of Jesus. Thank you again.
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