I think what we’ve got to do is realize that people do learn in different ways. And if the academics and philosophers are right then we’ve experienced the biggest worldview shift in 200 years. From the Bastille to the Berlin Wall we had modernism and now we’ve entered this postmodern age. We would expect that preaching might change in some ways. I think we need to be careful about what those ways are.
We need to always see the Bible as the norm of our theology and of our preaching. We need to let the Bible set both the structure and the agenda of our messages. But I’ve found that in many churches that are reaching emerging generations, they tend to be more narrative. They’ll preach through stories of Scripture, and they’ll build. And they’re OK with the mystery—they’re OK with the unresolvedness of some text. I think that’s healthy. I think probably in some Boomer preaching we overemphasize that everything ended like a sitcom—in 30 minutes everyone’s happy and everything’s worked out.
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And so I think there is a sense that there is a shift in preaching. I think the challenge is the shift we need to see take place in all those contexts is more focus on biblical teaching that leads to the transformation of lives. That can be universally applied.
Preaching: Effective preaching is typically culturally contextualized. We preach out of and to the culture in which we live. So it’s natural that there would be some adaptation to the way postmoderns hear, because they do hear differently that Boomers do, don’t they?
Stetzer: There’s a book by Paul Hiebert—he’s a great missiologist who recently died. He wrote a book called
Missiological Implications of Epistemological Shifts, which I think me and eight people bought! It’s a fascinating book. And it asks that question: how do we learn? What are the epistemological shifts, and what are the missiological implications of that? I think we have to think through those issues. If we were reaching the Pokat in East Africa or preaching to Quechua in the highlands of Peru, we would ask how could we best communicate the message and the word of God?
I think that the order you ought to bring a message to is to start with an understanding of where the people are. Typically where we start is: The Bible says it. That’s important. You should do it. But I suggested that we ought to say: “Why is it important and how does it relate to me?” Then: “What does the Bible say about it?” And then: “And what am I going to do with what the Bible says about it?” Some of my readers challenged me, and I’m OK with the challenge. They said, “Couldn’t you say, ‘What does the Bible say? Why is it important? And how does it relate to me?’” But I think the answer is no. I think ultimately that truth can be irrelevant.
