A very helpful comment on my reflection on the recent service at D+1 BC reminded me of one of the things that has always fascinated me about communication in general and preaching in particular, namely the 'what I said, what you heard' effect.  I have been taught more times than enough, thank you, theories on communication and the small proportion that is actually accurately transmitted.  I know the theories of 'ideal,' 'implied' and 'real' reader and authors, which are not altogether dissimilar.  For all that, I still find it intriguing how diverse can be the 'hearings' or 'readings' of the same sermon by different people: I vaguely recall many years back being asked by someone what a sermon I'd heard had been about, and being told my recollection was utterly different from that of someone else they'd asked. 

So why is this, does it matter, and if so, how?

There are some obvious practical reasons, like audibility, accessibility and maybe intellectual ability.  There's the nice spiritualised answer of 'the Holy Spirit' - I believe that's true, but not the whole picture.  There're also factors such as the way something that's said sparks off a train of thought, if this passage has past associations (and what they are) or what is going on in our lives.

I have long since learned not to worry if people seem to drift off, so long as they are not counting the occurences of the letter 'e' in the notice sheet or playing the Powerpoint equivalent of 'hymn number bingo' (have you read 101 Things to do in a Dull Sermon?) but it is very difficult to get any useful feedback.  Sometimes I feel a sermon has been quite intense, a bit 'telling off' and someone will say 'that was really encouraging.'  Sometimes I feel a sermon was muddled or never quite got where it was going and someone says 'that made me think.'  Just occasionally I think a sermon was quite good - and someone says 'didn't like your hymns'!

I have also learned not to worry too much if people think the sermon was about something other than what I intended - at least it shows they have engaged with something I said.  I do worry when they expand on my (rare!) anecdotes as if they were the main point of what I said.  And I really don't like 'nice service' as a comment... as the song says 'I'm not ready to do nice.'

When I was a relatively inexperienced engineer, writing my first technical report, my supervisor gave me some good advice which has remained with me and to some extent applies to sermons too.  He said, 'our job is to put up game birds for others to shoot down.'  I'm not advocating bloodsports (though let's face it preaching sometimes feels like one!) but there is a sense in which he was right.  My task is to prepare carefully and prayerfully what I want to share with my people.  Once the words are released I relinquish control (though not ownership or responsibility) and allow the combination of human reception and Holy Spirit indwelling to determine what happens next.  This allows me to be less defensive of what I deliver and to worry less about what others hear - so long as they do listen and do hear!

The theories on communication and the like are useful, and help me think about how I deliver what I deliver, but as a preacher rather than a teacher I am less concerned with accurate tranmission of my views than insightful reception of what God is saying through/inspite of/despite that. 

I received an email from a friend regarding the above.  Having checked the usual hoaxbuster sites, it appears that this one is GENUINE and certainly it seems to function in an authentic way.  It is NOT an email chain letter.

If you are interested then go here and follow the links.

Last Sunday we had our fifth shared service with 'Dibley plus 1 mile' Baptist Church, for whom I really ought to be thinking of a better name by now.  It was quite well attended though the beginnings of the holiday season are starting to show.  The style was far nearer to our own, reflecting what they usually do in their morning services.  Three out of four hymns were produced on sheets, not being in the 'green hymn book', and the one thing we sang from Songs and Hymns of Fellowship was.  That made me smile to myself, but I was impressed by the efforts to a more contemporary approach.

I found the service intriguing, with its use of agrarian imagery and three Bible passages I would never think of linking, so well done for engaging me in deeper thinking. 

We had the Mark 4:32 version of the parable of the mustard seed, complete with birds nesting in the shade.  We were then asked whether the church was a place of shelter for those who come in.  Good question, but for me it confused 'church' with 'kingdom': while the former should be part of the latter, I fear a danger of insularity lurking if we make them equivalent.  It's probably not what the preacher meant (I know you read this stuff - please feel free to correct me!) and it certainly made me think about how people coming into the 'church' experience it.

Then we went (I think) to Ezekiel 17:3ff with the image of transplanting.  If it wasn't this, then it was very similar.  Alas, because the Ezekiel passage is on my own 'significant passages' list I half drifted onto another plane at this point.  I think we thought about transplanting; I know the questions posed in the passage are ones I have asked myself regularly as someone who anticipated being in urban ministry and ended up in Dibley.  Happily, I think that I am surviving in the place where I've been transplanted, and hope that my city ideas are bearing some fruit.  Perhaps we were meant to think about transplanting our congregations - if so I'm not entirely sure it quite works, since as a minimum we're more looking at a graft than simply a transplant, I think.  But maybe I missed the point being lost in my own little world.  Tricky analogy perhaps?

Lastly we briefly pondered John 12:23 - unless an ear of wheat falls to the ground...  Was this to be read/heard at the level of local congregations?  That's how I heard it, certainly.  If so, brave stuff to say.  Certainly it echoes my own thinking about this process, and ideas I approach, if in a different way, with my own folk.  The courtship phase is scheduled to continue at least another 6 months, so I guess it is time we started to move beyond small talk to real conversations.

Towards the end of the service we were each given a tiny poppy seed to hold in our hand as we prayed: giving them out was interesting and needed a little ingenuity!  With this tiny black speck on my hand, I was struck afresh by the mystery of the potential that is contained in something so small and seemingly lifeless.  All that is needed is to cast it into the earth and allow nature to take its course...  To do that with our churches... If only it felt so easy!

As I see the poppies in the fields around this area, defiantly red or orange amidst the green stalks of wheat, yet frail and fleeting in the grand scheme of things, I wonder just what the parable of the poppy seed might be for us at this time.

1 John has not turned out to be the break from tough stuff I rather naively imagined it would be; instead it has served as an important reminder of the real challenges that lie behind some of our Christian jargon.  It’s relatively easy to come up with headings for a commentary or a sermon series, much harder to get underneath the waffle words to the questions and challenges they pose.

Yesterday I was out on a training walk ready for my crazy 200 mile coast-to-coast outing in July.  My walking companion is busily walking 5 miles three times a week to build her stamina for distance; I am trying to get out to walk up steep bits and in the heat of the day as, whilst I can walk the distances, these are my weaknesses.

For me, walking and thinking tend to go together - it's amazing how many engineering conumdrums or theological queries I've managed to unscramble whilst walking miles and miles.  Perhaps I should have been a peregrinato?

Anyway, as I pounded the miles across the fields, and literally forced my way through a field where the only signs of the footpath were the way marks at either end, my thoughts inevitably turned to how we use the 'journey' metaphor to talk about faith - and how a 'training' walk has no real place in that metaphor.  My thoughts rambled (how appropriate!) around the theme and an old hymn, rarely sung nowadays, came to mind (and written out below as prose as the formatting does wierd things otherwise!).

Father, hear the prayer we offer: not for ease that prayer shall be, but for strength that we may ever live our lives courageously.

Not forever in green pastures do we ask our way to be; but the steep and rugged pathways may we tread rejoicingly.

Not for ever by still waters, would we idly rest and stay, but would smite the living fountains from the rocks along our way.

Be our strength in hours of weakness, in our wanderings be our guide; through endeavour, failure, danger, Father be there at our side. 

 

This hymn seems a bit more honest and tentative than some contemporary stuff; it accepts that life can be tough and that you can end up with scratches and stings when you are walking in the way you believe you should go.  It recognises that we get things wrong - or at least that our best efforts sometimes fail - but still wants to carry on with God's help.

I might contact the local council about the state of the footpath, I will certainly have to keep up the midday hikes to get acclimatised to them, but at least it got my brain cells whirring into action!