From Performative to Participatory Preaching
ChurchNext is the website and ministry of Chris Yaw, who spent the first part of his professional life as an interviewer and broadcaster in radio and television. Now an Episcopal priest, Chris uses those same skills to interview leaders, change agents, and skilled practitioners and harvest what they know to make it available to all leaders in the church, lay and ordained. A few weeks ago Chris interviewed me – I’m not sure which of those above categories I fit into 🙂 – and he’s just posted the fruits of the conversation we had via Skype on his site.
My topic: moving from performative preaching toward more participatory preaching and worship. What’s the difference? In a performative model, the preacher is the only one who talks, the only one who interprets the Bible, and the only one who makes the connections between the biblical story and everyday life. While this may have worked pretty well in a world and culture that was at least nominally Christian, I’m not convinced it works nearly as well today.
Why? Because we suffer from a distinct level of biblical amnesia today – that is, we don’t know the biblical stories well enough to find them useful in making sense of and sharing our lives. While that may have been okay when everyone went to church – it was something of a cultural expectation in many parts of North American until relatively recently – it’s no longer okay today.
Today people have demands on their time – including Sunday morning – and options for how to spend their time – including Sunday morning! – that were relatively unheard of even a generation ago. So the question becomes: in an age when people don’t just go to church because their parents did, why would you keep coming to a place that tells these stories from the Bible over and over again if you never think about those stories the rest of your week.
In this environment, we need to cultivate in our people skills that we formerly expected only the minister to possess. That is, church needs to become the place not so much where the minister offers a biblical and theological performance – interpreting the biblical passage for us – but instead is the practice room or rehearsal hall where the minister helps us learn and practice and use these skills ourselves so that we can interpret the passage, connect it to our lives, and share what we discover with others both in and out of the church.
Hence, participatory preaching – preaching, that is, that involves us in these tasks, giving us guidance, instruction, and concrete examples of what this looks like, while also providing us with the opportunity to practice the skills essential to living a Christian life in the world.
The interview runs about 47 minutes. You’re welcome to watch some or all of it as you have time and interest. A number of folks, after hearing me talk about this at various pastors’ retreats and preaching events have asked if I have a video tape of my presentation so that they could share it with their church council or vestry or presbytery. This is about as close as I can come to that, so I hope it’s helpful. You can watch it here or at Chris’ site, where you can also download it as an mp3 file if that’s an easier way to listen to and share it. Either way, I hope you spend some time at ChurchNext and take advantage of the banquet Chris has spread for us there.
Note: If you are receiving this by email, you may need to click here to view the video.
PS: I’ve worked out a lot of these ideas via the weekly column I write at WorkingPreacher.org called “Dear Working Preacher” and from the comments folks share there. Feel free to take a look around there for more ideas of what “participatory preaching” looks like.
Hi David,
Great interview! I haven’t watched the whole thing yet, but one question that I have after the first 13 minutes or so goes like this:
As a training/learning professional I know a couple of things. 1) Participatory learning design is far more likely to actually engage higher-level thinking and change attitudes and behaviors (have a better transfer success rate to talk like the evaluators) and 2) Participatory learning takes much more time to cover the same amount of content as a passive design does (think experiential, small group discussions with debriefs vs. powerpoint.)
If it’s true (and it is!) that people are stressed and pressed for time and don’t/won’t make time for a 1 to 1.5 hour (including coffee time) worship experience now that includes in the best possible cases participation by the assembled people and typically a more performative preaching segment, why would they make more time for an event that includes a participatory preaching segment?
What, in your opinion, are the trade-offs that will need to be made to allow the time for the preaching segment to expand to allow a meaningful participatory design?
Great question, Becky.
I think that folks usually do give – their time, their money, etc. – to things that they believe are worthwhile and help them make sense of the rest of their lives. If we can encourage a kind of preaching that increases their own sense of competence and confidence in their ability to connect their faith to their daily lives in meaningful ways, I think they would invest the additional time. And I’m not even sure how much additional time it would be, but that’s something for us all to experiment with.
That’s the short-answer. 🙂
I have been enjoying your blog for several weeks and enjoyed the interview as well. I have found your book and the video that we are using at Westwood to be both interesting and challenging.
I received a link to an interview with a young musician that grew up at Westwood, but has expanded his Christian life beyond what he perceived it to be in his early education. If you find the time I think you might find a connection to the experiential Christian life you have been talking about.
http://www.bebopified.com/2012/03/john-raymond-talks-about-his-music-his.html
Thanks for your messages!
Hi David-
I have been mulling this idea over since we spoke and even put it into action – much to my congregation’s delight- when we think of ways to preach that involve more than ourselves, but actions, participation, and even physical tokens of meaning, the connection to the Biblical story can get clearer – again, thanks for your insights and I look forward to more-
Chris+
As I listened to this interview, the thoughts rolling around in my head were: 1) the preacher becomes an equipper of faith. I use this term, equipper, when coaching church staff to think of them selves as such when helping congregants discover their gifts and vocation.
And, 2) I was thinking about your recent posts regarding faith and doubt. I would venture a guess that participatory preaching would lead to equipping people for the next time they are in fact dealing with doubt. Does this make sense to you?
As always, thanks so much for all of your efforts. You make a huge difference in my faith journey.
Thanks for your comment, Dee. Yes, it makes sense to me that by giving folks practice in making sense of their faith themselves they would better understand that doubt is a part of faith and that doubt does not need to have the last word. The more we can equip – great word! – the saints for ministry and life, they more fortified they are, I think, to navigate the ups and downs of faith and life. I sometimes think we need to move from the idea that the preacher is the sole proclaimer of the word and more in the direction of the preacher being the steward of the word, one who oversees and facilitates the proclamation – which often entails proclamation itself – but is no longer the only one doing it.
I love what you offer to us as pastors for participatory preaching, but am wondering about the small congregations with the population that is aging (60+). Many of these folks attend because of duty and obligation model besides wanting to ensure they have a pastor to bury them someday. How then do I go about participatory preaching when it will be so foreign to their idea of what a pastor is and should be doing?
Also then the second part is – how to go about inviting the unchurched and underchurched to feel like this is worth taking/coming as a risk?
Great questions, Christi.
Briefly, 3 things: 1) Take it slow – changes can be very small and there is no need to hurry. Inviting people simply to leave church looking for some of the things you talked about may be enough for a while. Then perhaps invite them to write something down. But there really is no hurry. 2) Explain why you’re doing things. As much as our 60+ crowd may love the way we’ve always done things, they love their grandchildren more and may be very open to trying some different things that may have greater appeal for their children and grandchildren. 3) Meet people where they are – in whatever you try and do make room for folks who aren’t ready to participate yet. Again, taking small steps and taking them slowly will be a big help.
Thanks for your post and questions.
David,
Watching this video brings to mind the spiritual practices and fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.
The participative journey of faith of which you speak–is exactly what makes AA (and her sister twelve step programs)such an effective spiritual and recovery model.
It is designed as and in practice is exactly that of which you speak. All of the people, every day, are the participants and teachers and leaders and learners of the text and therefore the spiritual solution to their brokenness (aka: sin).
I am a grateful member of a twelve step recovery program for over 24 years and have always believed that The Church could learn a lot from The Fellowship, the twelve steps and the twelve traditions of AA.
God bless your ministry and the aha’s that you are having and offering to others.
Wendy