Post #121 Poets, Prophets, & Preachers: Day 1

What follows are a collection of my notes and thoughts from the Poets, Prophets, and Preachers conference in Grand Rapids. Some of these will seem very cohesive and coherent. Other parts may seem disconnected or confusing. As a preface, you should have been here. (They are apparently recording the seasons in order to make DVD’s for sale later, so you have that going for you.)

Poets, Prophets, and Preachers

Session 1, Sunday Evening

Rob took the stage and immediately asked the question, “What would the average person on the street say when asked to describe a sermon?”

Unfortunately, the response would probably not be “empowering, inspiring, revolutionary, and challenging.”

Much more likely you would hear, “boring, lecture, patronizing, or irrelevant.”

With such negativity towards the art of sermon, why would anyone want to give a sermon?

As the world becomes for virtual (twitter, facebook, blogs) people will eventually crave personal interaction. We will eventually be drawn to “actual reality.” This is good news for those who have a message to give. People will crave real conversations, in real settings, with real people.

A lot of people seem to believe that a sermon only exists in order to be evaluated.
Some people see a sermon as pure propaganda.
Others see a sermon as a burden, and anchor that weighs them down and ties them up.

Why would anyone want to give a sermon?

Sometimes, when we give a message, we might think, “this is going to be the best one yet. It is going to blow them away.” Then, once the message has been given, we only get crickets in response.

Other times, we think, “Oh man, this one bombed. I really stunk it up today.” Then someone responds, “that was the most powerful thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life!”

Rob explained that often, people in our churches will want to go back to “the way we used to do it.” Or they might say, “great job, that was like the old Rob.” How can we move people forward if they are focused on the past?

Ezekiel 4
9 "Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side. 10 Weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day and eat it at set times. 11 Also measure out a sixth of a hin of water and drink it at set times. 12 Eat the food as you would a loaf of barley bread; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel."

This is actually describing a sermon. Zeke is told by God to “go into the public and do something very specific.” Giving a sermon is going and doing. It is not merely saying.

In a way, the sermon is:
Performance art
Guerilla theatre
Actions that evoke

Sermon is:
A witness,
If you don’t share it,
Speak it,
Tell it,
Point to it,
Express it,
Preach it,
You’ll spontaneously combust.

Jeremiah 20
“…his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.”

Jeremiah 2:14
“14 Is Israel a servant, a slave by birth? Why then has he become plunder?”
This is not the way God intended things to be. Jeremiah has to let the people know this.

Mark 1:15
5 "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!"

Sermon is:
A call to return
An invitation
A fresh word
An implicit critique
The first punch

Isaiah 52
1 Awake, awake, Zion,
clothe yourself with strength!
Put on your garments of splendor,
Jerusalem, the holy city.
The uncircumcised and defiled
will not enter you again.
2 Shake off your dust; rise up, sit enthroned, Jerusalem. Free yourself from the chains on your neck, Daughter Zion, now a captive.
3 For this is what the LORD says: "You were sold for nothing, and without money you will be redeemed."

Sermon can be subversion
-there is another story.

Luke 4
“28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.”

Sermon is
Provocation
Loaded language
A warning

Stravinsky’s “Rites of Spring” actually evoke such a response from it first listeners that they rioted.
We have to be willing to take the bad and the good when we preach/teach.

Acts 17
32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject."

Göran Kropp – Mt. Everest Journey Wikipedia Article
If you do things that have not been done before or seen before or heard before you will get funny looks, angry letters, or worse. But you might get inspiration, truth, lights, revolution, excitement, anticipation, enthusiasm, dedication or even better.

Words can create worlds:
“In the beginning, God created…” “The Word was God and the Word was with God…”
Our words can show new worlds to people.

Sometime we have a series of seemingly unconnected thoughts and ideas. Trying to connect them is like “tying the clouds together.”

Sometimes the best sermon we can give is to tell someone, “Tomorrow does not have to be a repeat of today.”

There are layers to crafting a sermon:
Theological
Conceptual
Practical
Personal

Transformation happens when talks start talks.
The leader is often looked at to have the last word on a topic
It is more helpful if the leader has the first word and starts the conversation.