Word ministry is preaching, but is also more than preaching.
Prompted by a friend, I read the first chapter of Phillip Jensen’s The Archer and the Arrow last night. I wouldn’t actually exist without Phillip Jensen, my parents met and married while attending his church, if his preaching wasn’t good back then, then one or both of them probably wouldn’t have stuck around.
The chapter deals with the necessary centrality of the word of God in the gathering of God’s people, and the centrality of preaching – not just in the pulpit, but in our relationships with one another – where we are to “declare” God’s word to one another. The word rightly occupies the central place in Christian life, and communication. That said, it pushed what I think is a pretty unhelpful modern category, with the idea that the “word of God” necessarily requires “preaching” in order to be central. There are more types of “word ministry” than “preaching” as the Archer and the Arrow defines it.
I’m not going to argue that the act of preaching, thus defined, has no place in the church – it clearly does. Just about every narrative in the Bible that involves people being taught what God thinks, involves preaching: from Joseph (I can’t, off the top of my head, think of anything that looks like preaching coming from Abraham?), to Moses to the kings and prophets, through to the New Testament with John the Baptist, Jesus, the disciples, and then Paul. What I would argue is that to suggest that preaching is the only form of “word ministry” as this quote that ends the opening chapter of the The Archer and the Arrow does, misses some of the richness of the way the word of God is taught in the Old Testament, and arguably in the New (I think Paul’s sufferings for the gospel form part of his presentation of the gospel – but you’ll have to wait for me to post my Corinthians essay to get that argument in full).
If God guaranteed you that he would visit your church this Sunday, and bring a message to the congregation, direct from his own lips, speaking his life-changing truth to the spiritual needs of all, would you think about cutting one or two songs, and giving God some extra time? Would you ask the drama team to postpone their 20-minute re-enactment of the Prodigal Son? Would you feel the need, if you were the minister, to put aside some time after God had spoken to tell some stories that made the divine message a bit more real and relevant to the people?… The truth is, of course, that God is with us whenever we gather, and he speaks his very words to us, Whenever we open God’s Scriptures and read his words, he is with us and he speaks. And yet by our actions–by the way we run our meetings, and by the way we preach–we often demonstrate that we don’t really believe in the transforming power of his words.
This presents what I believe is an unhelpful, and unbiblical, definition of what “word ministry” is. Word ministry includes how we gather. How we run our meetings. How we relate to one another. I don’t want to jump the Francis of Assisi Shark and use the “preach the gospel, when necessary, use words” tripe trope. Preaching the gospel will necessarily involve words – but it is not limited to the use of words. We’re not created in a way that makes that an effective form of communication.
I’m reading up for an exam on Friday, and I found this cracker of an article from Gordon Wenham about the Pentateuch, which features an examination of the teaching function of the ritual laws. If one accepts this premise than we can no longer maintain the idea that the only way God’s word is taught in our gathering is from one specially trained dude speaking from the pulpit – and we shouldn’t be belittling other forms of word ministry in order to establish the supremacy of preaching – we should be making teaching the word the purpose of the whole service, not just 20 minutes tucked into a packed program. The songs, the drama, the way we meet, the way we speak, the physical space, the “liturgy”… everything we do together – and even everything we do alone, and outside the gathering, should be a proclamation of God’s word.
Anyway. Here’s the quote from Wenham that I liked:
“But not only is the Old Testament ritual law central to theological understanding of scripture; I also want to suggest it is a model of modern communication technique. For a long time Christians have imagined that communication between God and man is essentially verbal, merely a matter of words. God speaks to man through the prophets or through the Bible: man replies in prayer. We view communication with God as a sort of two-way radio. But God does not restrict himself to words, he uses ritual such as sacraments: ritual is more like colour TV than radio. Ideas are made visible… Educational psychologists tell us that we remember 10% of what we hear, 30% of what we see but 70% of what we do. Modern preachers put most of their effort into teaching by hearing, though 90% of what they say will be forgotten. Moses put his main effort into teaching through ritual, a wise move if he wanted the people to remember such fundamental truths, for ritual is a kind of doing and therefore sticks in the mind much better than words…But I believe we should go further: not simply act out the ceremonies of the Old Covenant, but in our post-literate age devise dramatic rites that teach the fundamental truths of the new covenant as effectively as the Pentateuch teaches those of the old. This will require imagination and sensitivity, but I think would be worth the effort.”
The visual examples the prophets use (eg Ezekiel cooking his food on poo and eating a scroll) are another example. We need to move past this stupid “word ministry = preaching” equation, as much as we need to dismiss the idea that preaching is an unnecessary part of word ministry.
That is all.
Confession: I have been a bad citizen of blogworld
A long time ago, in a virtual galaxy not so far from me, people used to comment on blogs as a blogging love language. I knew that, It was blog etiquette. Somehow that world passed me by. And I miss that.
Image Credit: Apparently there’s a conference called blog world. Who knew? (This guy)
I have commented much more sparingly than I used to. Others seem to have a similar blog comment malaise. I’m going to do my bit to hold up my end of the social (media) contract. And be more appreciative of the good content other people are writing that I’m thinking about.
Here are some links, rather than comments, as my first step towards rectifying this situation.
Andrew has pretty much killed Things Findo Thinks, replacing it with A Borrowed Flame. I liked this SLR camera simulator he found.
Anna at Goannatree has been writing about writing about writing. She’s posting about her PhD, which is about literature. Which is pretty meta. I enjoyed this post, which came hot on the heels of this one about a week of dissertation themed life in Scotland.
Al writes nice little posts, and I like them. His posts about Tim Chester’s posts about Social Media made me grumpy, not at him, at Tim Chester. So angry I commented on the first one. Also, his post about preaching at weddings is something I’m going to file away for the future.
Ali posted something last week about her near brush with a raving gunman in Sydney, and this week introduced me to The Tallest Man on Earth. She also tagged me in a book spine poetry meme which I will participate in once my books consist of something other than light reading on Corinthians and the Pentateuch.
Arthur and Tamie are getting ready to finish life in Melbourne, start life as parents, and start life in Tanzania. Their posts are fun. I liked this one.
Ben has a new theme. Which looks nice – though for some reason the first second after you load it the fonts are really effeminate, only to be replaced with the felt tip styled ones.
David posted a good little review of the 2 Ways 2 Live App, and a better post about marriage and stuff.
Izaac has been pondering preaching, I commented on two of those because I think the idea that word ministry is ONLY preaching is a bit spurious and doesn’t fit with the Bible’s picture of prophetic ministry, or the way Paul conceives of his teaching of the churches he cares for to include his life and sufferings.
Mikey posted about the search for black curtains, spiritually inspired cake, and excellence – following this discussion on Hans’ blog. Hans has an excellent post on Christianity and homosexuality too.
Steve at Communicate Jesus also reflects on the excellence thing.
Peter Ko posted on a strange issue (I thought). Apparently there are young Christians who think it’s a good idea for unmarried Christian couples to holiday together. Alone. And further, that it’s a bad idea for people to be “legalistic” about the issue. This isn’t legalism. This is wisdom. And thus, I became an old person.
Simone has been writing reports and musicals.
This isn’t a comprehensive list of the posts I’ve enjoyed from the blogs that I read, but I hope that in some way it makes amends for my poor online citizenship in recent times.
UPDATE: I completely forgot this one. Which was, indeed, the motivation behind providing a list to blogs I enjoy. Dave McDonald has started a blog tracking his fight with cancer, and the thoughts that go with it. This sensational letter to Sam Harris is a fine example of what he’s producing and why you should read it. Plus – it’s a great way to keep him, his family, and those around him, in your prayers.
June 9, 2012