Good preaching from the South

Ok - I got to hear one of the great preachers yesterday - Dr. Will Willimon. He currently serves as a Bishop with the United Methodist Church in Alabama. However before that calling....he served as Dean of the most beautiful chapel in North Carolina...Duke University Chapel. He was up here yesterday to be a part of a preaching series at Andover Newton Theological School and I got to hear him!

The series is called "Is Preaching Relevant?" The school has several "known" and two well known "great preachers" coming to speak on the topic. What happens in the world today, when technology and life gets in the way of church and the message that Christ is trying to convey?
How do you compete with extracurricular activities, text messaging, emails, overworked, and pre-occupied lives? Does it matter any more that we spend time and energy to get a message to the people, that you aren't sure they are listening to anyway?

You have an hour (and within that hour, about 20 minutes of preaching) to share God with the people and remind them what life should be like in a Christian Community. We heard a wonderful definition of preaching yesterday, "preaching allows the Risen Christ to walk among the people" (kudos to Dietrich Bonhoeffer). What a wonderful image. The challenge for today is, are the people looking for the Risen Christ or is something obstructing their view? Who removes the obstruction? Who is the one that shares the message?

Allows the Risen Christ to walk among the people - now that puts pressure on the preacher too. But is it our responsibility to be sure the people hear the message? When does the person in the pew accept responsibility to listen to what is being said? Do we need to be loud and overt? Are we confined to standing behind this piece of wood in order to get the message across? Can we move beyond the furniture?

Willimon reminded us that Jesus is a pretty hard person to work for. There are standards and expectations that we are asked to live up to. There are messages that he wants us to get across to people of the "Me" generation. He is waiting for us and we need to answer.