I don’t like preaching to a group of people either and I’m a preacher!!

I don’t like preaching because it’s so often disconnected from the conversation that the church is having (all churches have conversations in one way or another). Even a good sermon, rooted in the present, can be removed from the concrete experience and conversation of the congregation. The guy who head’s up Solomon’s Porch in Minnesota, USA wrote a book about Church Re-imagined (or something like that) and now has a new book out about preaching. Haven’t read it. Don’t plan to, but it reminds of a book I have read and am reading about the “Round table Pulpit.”

The basic idea is to apply the gospel of God’s coming kingdom to the conversation of the church. Either to transform it, redirect it, or refresh it, or etc. Each week the people sit down with the pastor and talk over, with, and into the text. The pastor’s job, then, is not to tell the people where they are wrong or teach them, but to re-present to the whole congregation the conversation as it went on at the roundtable. Where did the group struggle with the text? What questions came up? Were there any answers? What did the group feel called to do? etc.

I don’t know if the Solomon’s Porch guy (Dan Kimball?) suggests the same, but it’s a place to start. If not, here are the books I’m reading about it:

The Roundtable Pulpit, John S. McClure (practical)

Sharing the Word, Lucy Atkinson Rose (heady)

I’m just beginning in my second church, a mainline, reformed congregation in Michigan, USA. Implementing this style of preaching will be one of my first moves. I’ll let you know how it goes.