Saturday, July 31, 2010

Prophecy, preaching and poo

Many christian leaders draw a distinction between prophecying and preaching. preaching is seen as the main teaching function of the leaders, which is to be accepted by the pewfodder. Prophecying is some other kind of speech which is weighed up and judged by various people.

Now I study at an institution that trains church leaders. Here's my problem, whenever one of my esteemed colleagues speaks on an issue, I reckon 30% of the student body thinks he is speaking utter bollocks. For theological students, this isn't really a problem, it is part of the fun. But us guys are going to be pastors over congregations pretty soon. What will we do with the parishoners who disagree? What kind of forum do they have to question our blindspots, other than walking away from their christian community? Why don't we have some kind of forum for weighing up what we say? Perhaps it might lead to greater transformation when we are right.

1 comment:

byron smith said...

I assume by the third p in your title you're thinking of some kind recycling treatment plant that aims to recover valuable nutrients for improving soil quality rather than just dumping it all out to sea?