Friday, June 24, 2011

An Argument for the Antiquated


Fred Craddock said that the mind is like a hallway in an art gallery with pictures hanging on it, and under each picture is a word identifying the subject of the picture. So that if I say a word, you get a picture. “Nun,” “Southerner,” “Doctor,” “Homeless.” The problem is, we don’t all have the same pictures hanging on the walls of our minds! Hence, we use words, thinking that we’re communicating clearly because we have a clear “picture” in mind of what we’re talking about, but the other person has a different picture.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Any News From Headquarters?

Occasionally someone will say to me: “So-and-so is a really good preacher.” As one who has been interested in preaching for over forty years, that gets my attention. Sometimes I probe deeper: “Really? How so? What is there about his preaching that makes it good?” Typically that gets a blank stare, but when someone does venture a response, it usually comes out something like this: “Well, I found it relevant to my needs, where I am in my life, my home, my job, my family” and so on. That seems to be the sole criterion for “good preaching” these days – I found it relevant to where I am at this point in my life. Or, to say it another way, “It helped me to get along better in the world.” To put it succinctly, good preaching these days is defined as a spiritual “Dear Abbey” column, and a good preacher is a sort of “pious Dr. Phil.”