Jason Byassee: Exe-who?
Bob Wells’ fine piece on the need to learn to exegete a congregation led to a volunteer comment. Like a squash that grows up where no seed was intentionally planted (usually when the farmer drops one on the path), our commenter had something to say and was going to say it whether in the dutifully prepared row or not. So in her honor we offer this blog post.
Pastors will all have their own stories about the difficulty of learning to “read” a congregation—a skill not less dearly bought than that of learning to read a biblical text, with less seminary training devoted to it. Origen, the great 3rd century father of the church, spoke of the difficulty in horticultural terms. A biblical interpreter is like an ancient physician. They didn’t have hospitals back then, but they had medicinal herb gardens. A physician would first have to ascertain the exact nature of the illness in question. Then she would ground up the precise concoction of herbs for that ailment, and that one alone. It was clear in ancient medicine that reading the ailment was as important as reading the garden, and vice-versa.
For Origen it was clear that the skills of interpreting a congregation were as important as those for interpreting the scriptures. Make a mistake either way and you have something deadly. But mix and match right and you have healing, health, salvation (all the same word in Origen’s Greek).
But I can’t resist a little fun with Bob’s title. It reminds me of the seminary professor who heard a student’s confession halfway through his first semester of seminary. “All this time I’ve been hearing about exegesis,” he said. “And I’ve been thinking I was hearing people talk about the ‘acts of Jesus’.”
Jason Byassee is an executive director of Leadership Education at Duke Divinity.
Bob's piece was very timely
Bob's piece was very timely for me and for many United Methodist
pastors who are newly appointed and coming up on their fourth week in
the pulpit this Sunday. I took Prince River's idea about a 40 days of
Prayer with the pastor and have been using it in my congregation. It
has been amazing the stories I've heard from people. It also seems
that there are certain people who deeply appreciate the opportunity
and invitation to spend some one-on-one time with their new pastor.
Alongside this my wife and I have been hosting Sunday night desserts
at the parsonage. We're booked now for every Sunday through the end
of September! I'm hoping that I'll be picking up and "exegeting" the
context in both the prayer meetings and the group meetings. I'd love
to read more about how to do this well or read other people's
experiences and/or ideas.
Jack Stotts
A few years ago, Jack Stotts wrote in "Insights" (Austin Seminary's faculty journal) that while the church exists "wherever we see the word of God sincerely preached and heard, wherever we see the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ,”* it is the preacher who is the hearer.
*(Institutes; IV.1.9)
Bob Wells' piece was so
Bob Wells' piece was so timely for those of us here at Duke in Advanced Course of Study. We have been exploring this exact thing -- exegeting our congregation and the community in which we find ourselves -- in the Advanced Evangelism class. My first appointment was to six rural churches (not in a small town but smack dab in the middle of dairy farms with nary a town in sight). My life experience of living only in very large cities had not prepared me for the "culture shock" of rural churches. I had to learn an entirely different vocabulary so I could communicate with people whose background was so different from mine. After eight yeas at this appointment, I believe I am starting to speak it without an "accent" (although I still slip up and use an occasional "urbanism"). I am grateful for people like Wells who are pointing out something that should have been stressed in my seminary training.
It seems that exegeting a
It seems that exegeting a congregation is really about learning to know them, but also to really love them AND to tell them and really mean it! Simple, but so true. And when the hard places of scripture are preached by someone who truly loves a congregation, radical transformation happens for everyone...preacher and hearers.
I thought Bob's piece was
I thought Bob's piece was great, and I loved the bit on ecclesial organic gardening by George Mason. It's a much needed and too little heeded word.
And Jason: I thought you were going to tell the old joke about the seminary student who left after only a couple of weeks. When the church back home asked why, he said, "Well, they were always talking about the importance of your extra-Jesus. I thought I was a liberal, but that's too much for me."
Congregational Story
About 20 years ago in a doctor of ministry program at United Theological Seminary I developed a process for helping a local church "tell its own story." I now subscribe to the belief that the pastor should be THE one who best knows a congregation's story.
There was a time when I thought I didn't want to hear "all the dirt" about what had gone on before I arrived on the scene as a new pastor. "Let's start afresh," I used to say. "Let bygones be bygones!"
I've done a "180" on that. Now I believe it's important for the pastor to listen to and ponder EVERY version of EVERY story and to actively seek such stories out —— the good ones, yes, but especially the difficult or painful ones.
I liken pastoral attitudes in this regard to the attitudes of parents about to adopt a ten year old child. What parent would say "I don't care to hear or know anything about what's happened to this child before now"? Knowing the story of a church is critical to virtually every aspect of pastoral leadership.
Coming to know a church's story can happen sort of "naturally" if a pastor stays at the church for a long enough time. However, for us Methodists, it's often the case that about the time we're really coming to know the story it's time for us to be reappointed!
I developed a process, using a team of church members who assisted me, that enabled me to intentionally learn the story(ies) more rapidly. It included interviewing all the living former pastors and their spouses, former and current members, and anybody else with a story to tell. We used tape recorders and transcribed everything. Former pastors were invited back for a weekend of storytelling about their time at the church.
This process equipped me to be an effective pastor in a church that also had a troubled history. I was able to remain pastor there for 11 years, when the average stay for the previous 13 pastors was just over 2 years.
But its not only the pastor who needs to know the story (though he/she does need to know it best). I believe every member of a church also needs to have a knowledge and appreciation of their church's story. Such knowledge facilitates the formation of community, allowing new members to "join," and, when skillfully used and interpreted by caring leaders, the story enables a church to transcend its past by learning from and honoring it.
In our church we did this in a variety of ways, even using a moment in our weekly worship services called "The Word of God Among Us" when we would tell parts of the church story.
Overall it was an incredibly healing and empowering process for all except those who like to wield the negative power of secrets.
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