Doug Pagitt is pastor of Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis, and one of the key influencers of the Emerging Church movement. His most recent book is
Preaching Re-Imagined (Zondervan). He recently visited with Preaching editor Michael Duduit.
Preaching: What is it about postmoderns that makes preaching to them such a particular challenge?
Pagitt: I think it’s that postmodern-minded people, at least with postmodern sensibilities, are looking for a different outcome in their Christianity than what most preaching seeks to provide, or what most preaching could provide. So it’s almost as if what preaching can do for a person is not the most highly valued outcome that people of postmodern sensibilities are looking for.
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Preaching: Why is that?
Pagitt: I think what they’re looking for is an entire life that is well integrated. In some ways the sermon does just the opposite of that; it sort of highlights one component which puts an extreme amount of emphasis on the point that the pastor’s trying to make -- which is what you do when you are making a presentation, one component. For postmodern people, they’re looking for integration in their lives. So you get a whole room full of people together you know, dozens or hundreds or thousands, who are looking for their own life to be fully integrated with their faith, so as not to be a level of distinction there, and the pastor can only speak so specifically.
Preaching is just a very difficult task because postmodern people tend to begin with their own experience and their own life and their own way of thinking as being quite important in the equation of who they are and who they’re becoming. So the role that a preacher has to play is to somehow bridge or to find commonality among those people. And the seeking of that commonality is something that can feel very generic to people with postmodern sensibilities. It feels and sounds like you’re making assumptions and generalizations and broad sweeping understandings and statements, rather than having it be a handcrafted “now this really affects my life” spirituality. So, it’s a difficult task.
And boy, what’s even more difficult, I think, is for people with postmodern sensibilities, for postmodern people, to be the preacher, especially week in and week out. Preaching isn’t such a problem every once in a while. People can hear a good sermon. They can find ways to have it make sense in their life and so on. It’s the regular rhythm of the preaching act that is really difficult for postmodern people to find of value.