Hi, I'm Jay Akkerman and welcome to
"Exploring Preaching Today," or more
officially, CEUM52301 offered
by Northwest Nazarene University. I'm
really excited to welcome you to this
lifelong learning course and I am
really looking forward to the time that
we're going to share over the next four or five
days together as we explore
what preaching can look like, should look
like, and does look like in our world today.
I'm going to begin, maybe a little
unfortunately, but i'm going to begin on
a bit of a serious note with an honest
and serious question: "Is preaching dead?"
It's a question that I think is
important for all Christians to think
hard about, especially for pastors -- many
of whom make a significant investment
of their week and their energies into
preaching week in and week out. I'd like
to explore a number of questions as you
see them and as people in your circle of
influence may see them today. I'd like
you to think for a moment not only about
what you think about this, but as you
think about the community where you're
serving in ministry: what kind of
vitality rating, if you will, best
describes preaching today? Is it dead? Is
it dying? Is it comatose? Is it sickly? Is
it healthy or thriving? I'd like you to
think about this: does the way you see
preaching match with the way people in
your ministry setting see it, and maybe
also, do those match with the way
others -- your neighbors, perhaps -- see
preaching today? And I'd like to have you
respond...
maybe pause this video for a few
moments... and dash out a few notes in
our Discussion Forum for Monday- Tuesday
with some of your thoughts, and then
we're going to continue this
conversation in just a moment. So I'm
going to pause and give you a chance to
respond to this first section in our
discussion forum. Just draft one forum for
this entire session, but don't submit it yet.
Let it ride until we're done with this
video [PAUSE HERE].
Alright -- I hope you've taken a few
minutes to jot down some thoughts about
the vitality rating of preaching in your
venue, in your community, in your ministry
setting. Now I'd like you to identify and
describe (just a little bit) three
unrelated laypersons in your ministry
context: what one word would likely
describe each one of them with respect
to their regular weekly
preaching diet? And maybe some of you
would dare to ask them yourselves and
share those responses with us here in
this forum. If you do in fact do that,
then I'm curious what you think about
the accuracy of their perspectives. Do
you think -- and I guess
you can answer this regardless of
whether you ask your neighbor or not, but
how accurate are the perspectives of
people in your ministry context to
preaching and do their perspectives
match the majority of those in your
ministry context? Are they outliers, are
they
mirroring really the heart of the majority
of people in your ministry setting? So
again, I want to encourage you to pause
this video and take a little bit of time
to think about this. What word or two
would likely describe people unrelated
to you who are in your ministry context
with respect to their regular weekly
weekly preaching diet? We'll pause
this and give you a chance to write again,
continuing in the same discussion thread
as before and then we'll come back
together... [PAUSE].
Alright -- for the third part of this
discussion, I'd like you to take
some time to reflect on this question:
how do the perspectives that you've
already articulated so far in this
discussion thread about preaching, how do
they compare with your own views today --
your views as someone who preaches on a
regular basis or perhaps you're not yet
preaching on a regular basis -- you hope to
maybe in the future or depending upon
what your unique role in ministry may be --
I recognize it could be a variety of
responses here. But I'd like you to compare
the perspectives you've already
articulated with the views that you
yourself hold about preaching and then
spend a little bit more time in the same
discussion thread to share that facet of
this conversation in this particular
forum. So again, you're going to submit one
forum response in the Monday-Tuesday
forum in these different areas we've
just outlined, and then submit it as one
thread line, and then we'll explore these
together on Tuesday. Again, it's great
having you on board in this course. I'm
really looking forward to the next few
days together. I hope this is a
productive time for you personally and
also for you professionally in ministry.
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