Preaching Re-Imagined: The Role of the Sermon in Communities of Faith [Hardcover]

Doug Pagitt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 16, 2005

Are we preaching too much, engaging too little? What is the role of preaching in the postmodern Church? Author and pastor Doug Pagitt looks at the kind of preaching that 'creates followers of God who serve the world well and live the invitation to the rhythm of God.' He introduces you to an approach to engaging with the Bible with a focus on three questions: -What kind of communities are we forming? (Sociology) -What story are we telling? (Theology) -How can we tell it more effectively? (Communications) These questions are asked through the introduction of Progressional Implicatory Preaching---an innovative way of catalyzing an open dialogue with active participants. Envision Preaching Re-Imagined as an agent in the creation of Christian communities, and take a hopeful look toward new approaches to encouraging the spiritual formation of your church body.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Preaching Re-Imagined The Role of the Sermon in Communities of Faith Imagine for a moment … that you can forget almost everything you’ve ever read, ever heard, ever been taught about preaching. Somehow, everything is new; nothing is impossible. Imagine if—with the Holy Spirit’s working—missional communities could be formed, vibrant stories could be told and retold for generations, in new and ever vivid manners of communication. emergentYS author and pastor Doug Pagitt offers an invitation to the kind of preaching that "creates followers of God who serve the world well and live the invitation to the rhythm of God." He introduces you to an approach to engaging the Bible with a focus on three questions: • What kind of communities are we forming? (Sociology) • What story are we telling? (Theology) • How can we tell it more effectively? (Communication) These questions are engaged through the introduction of Progressional Implicatory Preaching. This insightful combination of both theory and practical advice will open the floodgates of your imagination to once again dream big dreams for your church. Envision preaching beyond speechmaking as an agent in the creation of Christian communities and take a hopeful look toward new approaches to encouraging the spiritual formation of your church body. * Includes study/discussion questions

About the Author

Doug Pagitt (BA Bethel College, MA Bethel Seminary) is pastor of Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis. He is part of the leadership of Emergent: a generative friendship among missional Christian leaders. Doug is married to Shelley and they are parents of four children, and is author of Preaching Re-Imagined, Church Re-Imagined, and BodyPrayer.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Zondervan/Youth Specialties (August 16, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0310263638
• ISBN-13: 978-0310263630
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #906,715 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Doug is a speaker and consultant for churches, denominations and businesses throughout the United States and around the world on issues of postmodern culture, social systems and Christianity.

Doug has worked in churches, for a non-profit foundation and owns three businesses in Minneapolis.

Doug's current professional endeavors include pastoring a Holistic Missional Christian Community in Minneapolis - (www.SolomonsPorch.com), speaking and writing (www.DougPagitt.com) and owner of JoPa Productions (JoPaProductions.com)and host of Doug Pagitt Radio (www.DougPagittRadio.com).

He is seeking to find creative, entrepreneurial, generative ways to join in the hopes, dreams and desires God has for the world.

Doug is married to Shelley and the father of 2 young adults and two teenagers.

Doug has a BA in Anthropology and a Masters of Theology from Bethel Seminary.

Doug is the author of A Christianity Worth Believing (Jossey-Bass 2008),
Church Re-Imagined (Zondervan 2004),
Preaching Re-Imagined (Zondervan 2005), and
BodyPrayer (Waterbrook 2005).
He is the co-editor of An Emergent Manifesto of Hope (Baker Books 2007).

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 54 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Needs to be a part of every preaching class September 20, 2005

By Bob Hyatt VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This is a book that those who currently teach preaching and those who practice the art of preaching would do well not to miss.

Doug Pagitt, aside from being an excellent communicator, is also a top notch, challenging thinker. In Preaching Re-Imagined he lays out the problem (preaching as we know it is broken- the same people hear the same messages year after year and yet continue to struggle with the same problems) and some of the standard reasons why people imagine preaching is ineffective (the problem is the people, the method, the preacher, the content, etc).

Those aren't the problem, Pagitt says. Rather, the issue is "speaching", that is, defining preaching down to simply a monologue. And a steady diet of monologue is detrimental to the soul of the community- when all the communication runs in one direction, there are unintended consequences both to the speaker and the hearers. It may be fine in the short term, but long term this tends to stunt the growth of all involved.

Doug advocates something he calls progressional dialogue- becoming communities who listen to the preachers among us, not only the preacher standing in front of us.

This is a seriously great book that will challenge anyone who fills the role of "preacher" for his or her community to consider the impact their method may have on the hearers, and to consider from the ground-up the "hows", "whys" and "whats" of preaching.

Check this book out- even if you are at a size as a church where dialogue has become impossible on Sundays, there's much here to glean. This book serves as a wake up call for pastors to once again begin involving the people in the work of teaching one another....

A quote:

"As pastor I want to be part of a community where the workings of God are imbedded in all, where the roles of teaching and learning aren't mine alone, but instead are intrinsic to who we are as a people."

Amen. Read more ›

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars A Light Disappointment September 15, 2008

By J. Miller

Format:Hardcover

Pagitt has taken a stand against oratory in general. For a book on preaching, it is guaranteed to be lost in the history of the discipline, buried under better works.

Pagitt's contention is that oratory, to which he gives the inane and grammatically painful term, "speaching," exalts an individual to an undeserved position of authority which doesn't honor the community's role in discerning truth. Instead, he recommends the equally painful "dialogical progression" (as though any dialogues don't have an intended progress), which boils down to nothing more than talking with his audience. What Pagitt lacks, and what I'll go to pains to detail, is 1) any biblical foundation, 2) any accurate understandings of history, and 3) any proof that his own methods are fruitful.

Pagitt makes wild claims about dialoging with the audience to be a biblical norm, even stating that speeches in the Bible are a rarity. This is, in a word, nonsense. In nearly every book of the Bible someone makes a speech, and in every case, the Bible exalts their speaking with authority FOR the community, and not merely with the community. Pagitt offers no proof that his assertions about what the Bible says and does are accurate.

Secondly, Pagitt makes the completely unfounded and uncited claim that "speaching," or oratory in general, are a product of the Enlightenment. Anyone with a college education will find this intellectually insulting. From the ancient greco-roman orators, whose methods influenced the biblical writings, history and timelessly and repeatedly proven the effectiveness of oratory (that is, of a speaker in authority moving an audience to an intended purpose)....

Thirdly, Solomon's Porch, his popularized church, has proven to have an actually minimal effect in its immediate community. While their event invitation list claims hundreds, actual attendance is small. His "radical" move to church without microphones doesn't forward the priesthood of all believers, it only forwards the cause of having a minimal number of priests in your church. Pagitt speaches widely at conferences in exactly the form he decries, despite the fact that he has no proven track record of his own effectiveness.

All that to say, this book is a waste of time. It is founded on nonsense and it will be lost in history. Perhaps the most telling indicator is that Pagitt dismisses the expository methods of Martin Lloyd-Jones, and tells readers who like him simply to return Pagitt's book to the store. It kind of gives you a sense of how much Pagitt is really interested in dialogue.

James W. Miller is the author of God Scent: A Devotional. Read more ›

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars exaggerated and filler full January 10, 2008

By C Eric

Format:Hardcover

Doug Pagitt is convinced that preaching would be more faithful to Biblical faith formation and the nurturing of healthy communities if it were more dialogical and less monologue (I agree). Encourage people to respond to statements by the preacher and to each other, and you communicate worth of their insight and enrich the preaching event.

There you go, you don't need to read the book now, everything else is redundancy or gross exaggerations of the downside of not taking his approach. It's as if he's never heard a well crafted sermon from a pastor who knows and loves his/her congregation, and as if preaching is the only event in the life of a congregation. He says at one point "Speaching also strips away any chance for people in the congregation to feel known and understood by their pastor." Oh come on. There is also no acknowledgment of the good purpose of having someone who is trained and dedicated to studying the Word and bringing teaching to the congregation. Not everyone gets a lot out of their own reading of the scripture, not everyone has time to really dig into the history and meaning of the context or the original language. That's something preachers give to their congregations.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Important and Practical, But not New October 20, 2008

By Brian

Format:Hardcover

The book "Preaching Re-Imagined" re-discovers and re-packages the idea of dialogical preaching. Creative styles of preaching in general, and dialogical styles of preaching in particular, have been discussed and used for a long time. While this book doesn't present anything "new," it does offer a practical guide to understanding one way of preaching in a conversational style. This style is characterized by preparing and facilitating the sermon collaboratively. The most helpful aspect of this book is it's practicality. But other books also describe similar approaches.

John McClure's book "The Round-Table Pulpit" describes "collaborative preaching" where the pastor hosts a "sermon roundtable." Lucy Rose's book "Sharing the Word" suggests "conversational preaching" where "the preacher and the congregation are colleagues, exploring together the mystery of the Word of God for their own lives, as well as the life of the congregation, the larger church, and the world." Mark Elliot's book "Creative Styles of Preaching" describes nine different styles of preaching. All of these books add to the growing cannon of books on creative styles of preaching.