How We Preach

I've been having several conversations with people about Water's Edge lately. They have gone a little like this:

"So do you do the preaching at your church?" they ask.

"Actually, we don't have sermons," I reply.

I notice a strange, confused look on their face.

Beneath the strange look is a struggle for words.

I jump in and help avert the unspoken "huh?" "Our teaching time is more of a conversation, a dialogue."

"Oh." Confusion gives way to mild shock.

"Yeah, so I usually, facilitate the conversation, but not always."

"Oh." Mild shock gives way to either suspicion or interest.

"We think that people learn best when they have a part in the learning. We think that the Spirit speaks through more than just one person's perpective, so we try to listen to each other and hear what God wants us to be learning.

"Sometimes I or someone else will have a teaching that is more monologue, but most of the time everybody gets involved. In fact, most of the time I will have three or four main insights that I will want to be sure I share, but I will not have to even mention them because someone else comes up with it on their own."

"Huh. Cool." or "Huh. That's different."

I think we really have developed an ability to learn together. I think that the next learning edge for us is to learn to listen to and identify what the Spirit is saying through the group as a whole--to notice the threads that the Spirit is weaving through our learning conversation. The next edge after that, I think, is to identify for each other the particular application(s) in our actual situations to a degree that happens now only occassionally.

For instance, let's say Steph is having a problem with someone at work, and we're talking about Jesus' teaching to love our enemies. So she invites the group to help her identify the particular actions she can take to do what Jesus taught.

Or let's say we're going through Mark 13 (which we are), and we hear something in our conversation that challenges us as a group--you know, how we are supposed to BE the church. So we talk about specific actions we can take to embody what we're learning.

So it is situational training in how individuals and groups become like Jesus. It is group discernment about what God is calling us to do in response to what we learn, to what we are involved in, or to where we find ourselves at that particular place and time.

I love our dialogical preaching/teaching/learning. I am grateful for people who have taken responsibility for themselves and for each other. Let's keep pressing the learning edge, listening for the Spirit through the people around us, and responding by doing what we hear.