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

To borrow the wording from a couple other reviews on here about this book, Pagitt's book is a bunch of post-modern, rambling fluff that throws the baby out with the bath water. While I can somewhat sympathize with some of his concerns about the nature of preaching, his answers to his concerns are all wrong. I whole-heartedly believe there is and should be a place for group interaction and discussion about the scriptures, but that place is better suited for a small group or sunday school setting, not as a replacement for good sound biblical preaching.

I am a senior at a bible college and once a week we have a freshmen chapel where a freshmen who has had no training in homiletics and very little hermeneutical training gets to preach, and let me tell you, it never comes out good. Allowing just anyone to preach to the church isn't the best idea.

Paggit's book is also very repetitive. He probably could have shortened it from 262 pages to about 150 or less. The whole book is just him rambling. I looked at the works cited page in the back and he has four sources cited throughout the whole book.....FOUR! The whole book is just him talking about the same couple of things over and over again with no support from outside sources.

If you're looking for a good book on preaching, DO NOT read this one. but if you're looking for a pretty awful book about preaching, by all means, pick up "Preaching Re-Imagined"

Doug Pagitt makes an excellent case for dialogue prior to, during and after a sermon between the preacher in the pulpit and those in the pews. I have been a pew sitter most of my life and welcome his desire to open up the discussion between the pulpit and the pews. His process for dialogue is more than having a discussion or a question and answer session on Sunday. He advocates that input and discussion from the parishioners on the Sunday sermon prior to, during and after is a great way to teach and learn about the Way. In addition, Doug provides several thoughts on how to accomplish this dialogue, progressional dialogue, with ease and minimal conflict to the preacher and parishioners.

I think that Doug's methodology is much more engaging than the dynamic speech of contemporary preaching, speeching, to those in the pews. His methodology utilizes two way communications as compared to the one way communication of contemporary preaching. He makes several good points on how contemporary preaching assumes what parishioners think rather than listening to what parishioners are thinking about via their feedback.

Today's cultures and customs transcend the first century's cultures and customs. The first century cultures and customs were very different than our present time cultures and customs. First century life is inherent in the text of the New Testament and the understanding of the first century's cultures and customs is critical to learning and following the Way. Parishioners need to hear and speak on these differences to truly inhale the immortal truths present in the New Testament. Doug Pagitt's methodology is available for that use.

As to skill development for progressional dialogue, I would recommend Communication and Conflict Management - in Churches and Christian Organizations by Kenneth Gangel and Samuel Canine. This is also an excellent source as well as Doug Pagitt's. Thank you Doug for furthering the discussion on preaching, it was great to read about you, the people at Solomon's Porch and your combined efforts and results.

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.

Pagitt asks some tough and good questions about today's preaching style, some which need to be seriously considered and answered by today's preacher.

Criticisms: He builds a straw man which he calls "speeching" and spends a great deal of the book tearing it down. Emphasizes the priesthood of the believer while neglecting the Biblical role of the pastor/preacher. Downplays the authority and sufficiency of Scripture and its role in the believer's life. Assumes that everyone wants to take part in and will grow through progressional dialogue. Some of the Biblical and historical evidence for his proposed model of preaching is simply wrong and ill-informed. I would also entirely disagree with his purpose in preaching.

I'm at least thankful that someone from the emerging church movement has engaged in a serious discussion about emerging church preaching. I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with the book and walked away challenged, but not helped.

I'm a sociologist of religion and I came across this book during my research on the emerging church. Progressional dialogues make sooooo much sense to me as a far more effective way of teaching than putting all the pressure on one person to break the bread of life so to speak. Doug realizes that his congregants are intelligent people who have much to offer each other as well as himself. Learning should be a dialectical process. As a professor, I teach my courses with this kind of socratic method Doug advocates and I see far better results than professors who offer long lectures (boring their students to death!!!!).

Who established the prevailing preaching model in which one person pretends to have a monopoly on biblical truth by giving long boring monologues every Sunday? Why can't each service be a time when the pastor lights a spark and then no one knows ahead of time where the fire will burn? Why not? Because most pastors are control freaks and have to take all the glory. Well for those of you pastors who actually care about reaching your congregants, you should read Doug's book and learn a more effective way of communicating the gospel through the collective knowledge base and cultural toolkit of your congregation rather than boring your people with your long monologues. I know you think you're so smart and have all the answers but your members will learn more if they can teach each other wisdom and share their experiences as well.