Preaching: How has your own identity as a preacher changed as you grappled with some of these ideas about postmodernity?

McClaren: I remember getting a feeling in the early and mid 90's that something I was doing was counter-productive to really getting through to the more postmodern people who were coming through our doors. First of all, most churches have no postmodern people coming through their doors because we give so many messages to tell them "you are not wanted" or "you would not be interested in what we are doing here" because it has such a modern feel. When we started having some postmodern folks coming through our doors, I just felt that something wasn't working and a change was going to be in order.

I was hearing other people talk about this a little bit. They were talking about the importance of returning to narrative. So, I started thinking, "what does that mean?" It doesn't just mean telling more cute stories, bringing stories and illustrations into our sermons. One thing I started realizing is that if we understand truth to be always human and contextual, then the way I quote the Bible changes.

For example, I was just working on my sermon for this Sunday and I am going to quote Jesus in John 7 when He says, "If anyone wills to do God's will he will know my teaching whether it is from God." I was just going to quote that but then I thought I should reroute this in the story, because what that sentence means, the nuances and fullness of that, will come out as people see the conversation He is in with the Jewish leaders in John 7. So, it is an awareness that the whole New Testament is contextual and the Old Testament -- every statement takes place in a story. So trying to reroute the statements in a story moves us away from proof-texting. It moves us back into always giving the narrative framework. Those are always inherently interesting -- so much drama to all of this. John 7, what incredible drama is going on there. So that would be a big change.

Another change would be to take the posture not of the expert but of the lead scout in an expedition. So it's not like I have been there and I have it all figured out and I am bringing it back to other people telling them what's out there. But we are all on a journey together. I am out in front a little bit but I am trying to give them a guided tour of the new territory. It is a different posture.

Preaching: Can you give me an example of how you were talking about reshaping the framework into a more narrative format. How would you do that differently?

McClaren: I think before I would have just quoted the statement and treated it as a bit of disembodied information or as an abstract principle. I certainly think there is a principle going on there. I am not trying to deny that. But I would have been more propositional, more interested in just what is going on in the abstract. Then when I look at this in context: the Jewish leaders sat there are marveling saying, "How does this man become learned having never been educated?" We have a traditional idea of how people get knowledge.