The Future of Preaching. Geoffrey Stevenson

that inspires is not enough: we need preaching that transforms, enlivens, converts’ (Holmes, 2009, p. 7). This is the work of the Holy Spirit who took what even appeared to be foolishness in the apostolic era and through it was pleased to bring salvation to believers (1 Cor. 1.21). Yet the Holy Spirit does not work alone, and herein lies the mystery of preaching and the secret of its transformational power, the interplay between the human and the divine, between the sovereignty of God and human freedom. As Holmes so deftly observes, ‘we must be careful to steer the right course: human acts do not cause divine action – of course not! – but nor are they irrelevant to it. God has chosen to use our words in his sovereign work of salvation’ (2009, p. 7).

      Conclusion

      Preaching is a demanding discipline. The preacher is called not only to wrestle with the Scriptures so as to understand them more adequately but also to wrestle with their contemporary cultural context to determine how the gospel message is to be appropriately formed and communicated. None of this is simple, straightforward or static. Culture is continually shifting and presenting new faces to us, while our own theological perceptions are shaped and reshaped by our ongoing interaction with the Scriptures and the ever-unfolding narrative of our personal experience. It is truly mediated preaching, as it is within this dynamic, three-dimensional interaction between the preacher, their culture and the Bible, that God chooses to give life to his Word.

      Notes

      1. Anthropologists suggest that a healthy number is around 150 in concentric circles of closeness of 5, 10, 35 and 100. See Dunbar, 2010.

      2. Daily Telegraph, 22 December 2009, ‘Lily Allen describes quitting Facebook and Twitter’.

      3. Steve Tuttle, 4 February 2009, ‘You Can’t Friend Me, I Quit! On Facebook’s fifth anniversary, a not-so-fond farewell’, Newsweek; Virginia Heffernan, 26 August 2009, ‘Facebook Exodus’, New York Times.

      4. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-502649/Tony-Blair-makes-1m-month-private-speeches-offers-flood-PM.html.

      5. http://thenightingaleinstitute.com.au/wpress/?p=1367.

      6. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/aug/10/religion-comedy.

      7. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/07/tv-comedy-humour-mockery.

      References

      Abbot, H. Porter, 2002, Narrative, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

      Baker, Jonny, 2009, Transforming Preaching: Communicating God’s Word in a Postmodern World, Grove Evangelism Series, 86, Cambridge: Grove.

      Bartholomew, Craig, and Thorsten Moritz (eds), 2000, Christ and Consumerism, Carlisle: Paternoster.

      Bauman, Zygmunt, 2000, Liquid Modernity, London: Polity.

      _____ , 2003, Liquid Love, London: Polity.

      _____ , 2005, Liquid Life, London: Polity.

      _____ , 2006, Liquid Fear, London: Polity.

      _____ , 2007a, Liquid Times, London: Polity.

      _____ , 2007b, Consuming Life, Cambridge: Polity.

      Brierley, Peter, 2006, Pulling Out of the Nosedive, London: Christian Research.

      Charles, Tyler, 2010, ‘Thumb Wars’, Leadership Journal 31.1, How Will They Hear? pp. 39–40.

      Craddock, Fred, 1978, As One with Authority, St Louis: Chalice Press.

      Davies, Nick, 2009, Flat Earth News, London: Vintage.

      Dunbar, Robert, 2010, How Many Friends Does One Person Need? London: Faber & Faber.

      Fulford, Robert, 1999, The Triumph of Narrative: Storytelling in the Age of Mass Culture, New York: Broadway.

      Grenz, Stanley, 1996, A Primer in Postmodernism, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

      Holmes, Stephen, 2009, ‘“Living like Maggots”: Is Preaching Still Relevant in the 21st Century’, The George Beasley-Murray Memorial Lecture 2009, Unpublished.

      Howe, Mark, 2007, Online Church? First Steps towards Virtual Incarnation, Grove Pastoral Series, 112, Cambridge: Grove.

      Jenkins, Philip, 2007, The Next Christendom, 2nd edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

      Johnston, Graham, 2001, Preaching to a Postmodern World, Grand Rapids: Baker.

      Laws, Peter, 2010, ‘Preaching in the Dark: The Homiletics and Hermeneutics of Horror’, unpublished University of Wales M.Th. in Preaching dissertation.

      Lowry, Eugene, 1980, The Homiletical Plot, Atlanta: John Knox.

      McClure, John, 1995, The Roundtable Pulpit, Nashville: Abingdon.

      _____ , 2001, Other-wise Preaching: A Postmodern Ethic for Homiletics, St Louis: Chalice.

      Murray, Stuart, 2004, Post Christendom, Carlisle: Paternoster.

      Postman, Neil, 1985, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, New York: Penguin.

      Rosenberg, Howard, and Charles Feldman, 2008, No Time to Think, London: Continuum.

      Smith, James K. A., 2006, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, Grand Rapids: Baker.

      Standing, Roger, 2002, Preaching for the Unchurched in an Age of Entertainment, Grove Evangelism Series, 58, Cambridge: Grove.

      Tear Fund, 2007, Churchgoing in the UK, Teddington: Tear Fund.

      White, Heath, 2006, Postmodernism 101, Grand Rapids: Brazos.

      2

      Preaching in the Roman Catholic Ecclesial Context

      duncan macpherson

      Preaching