What is the best forum for communicating what your church is on about

What is the best forum for communicating what your church is on about?

Hey I have a question!
Reading about church planters and different ministers and their approaches to ministry and their vision for church etc etc, what strikes me as common is that they communicate what they are doing and the principlkes behind it to their congregation.
Now, here's the question, what is the best forum for this?
If you do it too much in the sermons, the sermons become about the way you do church, if you do it outside the sermons, when? Multiply meetings and vision days etc?
So, I'd love your thoughts on this.
I'm about to start a follow up course with some new christians. One set of material presents church in one week, kind of as an obligation on the believer, the other makes church almost the entire focus. I like the second to tell you the truth, but it has issues too.

What is the best forum for communicating what your church is on about?

Hey I have a question!
Reading about church planters and different ministers and their approaches to ministry and their vision for church etc etc, what strikes me as common is that they communicate what they are doing and the principlkes behind it to their congregation.
Now, here's the question, what is the best forum for this?
If you do it too much in the sermons, the sermons become about the way you do church, if you do it outside the sermons, when? Multiply meetings and vision days etc?
So, I'd love your thoughts on this.
I'm about to start a follow up course with some new christians. One set of material presents church in one week, kind of as an obligation on the believer, the other makes church almost the entire focus. I like the second to tell you the truth, but it has issues too.

Done rambling

Justin's seven lessons for preaching

Justin Moffat has put up seven gems for preaching, all well worth my attention.

here

Chastised from the past: Gregory the Great brings some smackdown

"Provided that it is in good faith, then, it is a mark of virtue to put up with superiors' faults. One should, nevertheless, if there is any prospect that the offending trait could be emended, make a humble suggestion to that effect. Yet one should take great care, when defending justice, not to go too far and cross the threshold of arrogance; not, in an ill-judged love of right, to forfeit humility, the mistress of right; not to forget that the person of whose action one happens to be critical is in fact one's senior. Subjects will discipline their minds to guard humility and avoid the swelling of pride, if they keep an incessant watch on their own weaknesses.

For we neglect to examine our own strength honestly; and because we believe ourselves stronger than we really are, we judge our superiors severely. The less we know of ourselves, the more our field of vision is occupied by those whom we aspire to criticize"
Gregory the Great (540-604) Moralia, Book 25:16:36 in "From Irenaeus to Grotius" ed O'Donovan and O'Donovan" pg202

Ecclesiastes and Wisdom

Only 4 of us attempted the Ecclesiastes essay I believe. The surprise of what we found I'd like to share.

The question compared other Near-Eastern wisdom literature to the theological meaning of Ecclesiastes. Here is what I found and corroborated by the others.

We found,
1. Virtually no documents are similar to Ecclesiastes.
Not verbally, structurally, or theologically were there significant parallels. Having read the other documents this shocked me. I realised that many commentaries (including respected Evangelicals) come to unsubstantiated conclusions - long bows.

This lead to an increased confidence in the revelatory nature of the Old Testament. After researching all sorts of ANE-Ecclesiastes comparisons I drew this conclusion: Ecclesiastes is different.

2. Ecclesiastes is best seen as part of a Biblical genre 'wisdom'.
It turns out that much of the 'wisdom' literature of Egypt and Mesopotamia presents itself as cultic. Job-Ecclesiastes-Proverbs are more moral than cultic. As a friend commented 'Jews and Christians were the first atheists'. he he.

3. Ecclesiastes closest parallel is with Gen 1-4.
This explains the closest parallel with near-eastern wisdom: the Gilgamesh epic. One small passage echos closely to a couple verses in Ecclesiastes. This is not surprising given Genesis 1's satire on the Babylonian creation myth. Interestingly one article claimed (I didn't trace it fully) that all the positives in Ecclesiastes are pre-fall activities (work, food, sex).

Ecclesiastes seems best explains as how to live out this God-given life post-fall: 'under the sun'.

Forsyth on Bible and Jesus

“we never do the Bible more honor than when it makes us forget we
are reading a book, and makes us sure we are communing with a Savior.”
PT Forsyth 'The Evangelical Churches and the Higher Criticism"