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Remarks at "Persuade" Conference

Below are notes for my remarks I offered on a panel about sermon preparation from the perspective of open, relational, and process theology. My actual remarks were expanded from these notes. 

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Delivered at "Persuade: Open, Relational, and Process Preaching"

St. Andrew UMC, Denver, CO – April 11-12, 2024

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I am so grateful for this opportunity.

 

I want to begin by giving a shout out to my friend, Ron Allen, who published a very important book in 2022 entitled, You Never Step into the Same Pulpit Twice: Preaching from a Perspective of Process Theology. As far as I know, there had not been another book-length exposition of preaching process-relational theology since Marjorie Suchocki’s book, The Whispered Word: A Theology of Preaching, in 1999.

 

In his book, Ron conceives of preaching from a process-relational perspective as “a conversation among invitations (or proposals).” He sees the preacher as engaged in a conversation with God, with a text, and with other sources aimed at “helping the congregation better identify and respond to possibilities for more inclusive well-being.”

 

I extend that to see the whole process of sermon and worship preparation as fundamentally a relational conversation and interaction between God, the preacher, others involved in worship planning, members of the congregation, and ultimately, the world. 

 

I want to share our experience of doing this very intentionally in the Church of the Village (COTV), where I have served as the lead pastor since 2015. I never conceive or prepare a sermon on my own or even only in relation to God and the scripture text or other reading.

 

COTV rarely follows the lectionary. Instead, we have 4- to 8-week sermon series on themes discerned by our Worship Vision Team (WVT). That team includes the two pastors, the Minister of Worship Arts, and the Worship teams chairperson. The latter two are lay persons. We don’t randomly pick a topic out of a hat. We are always discerning not only what feels most compelling to us, but what the congregation needs most at that moment in the context of what is going on in our church, our city, and the world and the direction we feel God calling us to move.

 

Once we have a series topic. The WVT discerns a list of potential preachers for each series. In addition to the two pastors and the other members of the Worship Vision Team, we can call upon several lay members of the church, 3 Ministers in Residence who are current or former seminary professors, as well as guest preachers (like John Cobb, Thomas Jay Oord, Catherine Keller, John Thatamanil, Ignacio Castuera, and others). Throughout the year, the congregation benefits from hearing many and diverse voices. 

 

Once a theme is chosen and preachers scheduled, we hold a separate gathering to plan each individual worship service. We call them “First Imaginings.” These occur every week 10-12 days before the service being planned. The First Imaginings gatherings run 45-60 minutes. The conversations are facilitated by Jorge Lockward, the Minister of Worship Arts. They often include two members of the Worship Vision Team along with the designated preacher and 1 or more lay members of the congregation. Every preacher (including guest preachers) is required to participate in a First Imaginings conversation. 

 

Each preacher is asked to offer a tentative title, description/blurb, reading(s), and initial thoughts on the direction of the message. Then, everyone participating is asked to comment on what the preacher has offered, usually in response to prompts offered by the facilitator. Most of the time, the direction the preacher suggests is affirmed by everyone. But occasionally, one or more participants suggests an alternate direction. We always arrive at a consensus around the direction (something everyone can live with, if not love).

 

As a preacher, I love this process because it allows me far ahead of the Sunday to get feedback on what I am imagining. Each person participating is influenced moment to moment by the lure of God and may be hearing God’s invitation more clearly than me or, at least, informed by a different perspective and background. This consistently enriches my preaching and makes it feel relational and communal. 

 

Every time I prepare to preach, I participate in “conversations” and receiving “invitations” from other members of the congregation, friends, colleagues, and from the broader world through articles and books I read, podcasts I listen to, and more. 

 

So, especially since I have become immersed in practicing ORT and process theology, I never think of the sermon as my sermon alone that I preach. In powerful ways, it is, of course, God’s sermon, the Worship Vision Team’s sermon, and the congregation’s sermon preached through me.

 

I recognize that not everyone has colleagues or church members who are all on board with open, relational, and process theology, but every one of us is connected in an intricate web of relationships with God, the members of our churches, the communities in which we live, and the world beyond. 

 

For a more detailed description of the experience of engaging this process in the Church of the Village community, I encourage you to read the essay, “Becoming Church: Process-Relational Theology and Worship,” written by COTV’s Minister of Worship Arts and the former Worship chair. This essay is included in the new book, Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God – a collection of sermons, essays, and worship elements from a perspective of Open, Relational, and Process Theology. The book is available in paperback and e-book versions from several online booksellers. 

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