More McClaren on Preaching: Church Marketing Sucks: A Conversation with Brian McLaren
If I’m Joe Pastor at the corner church, what can I do to foster a generous orthodoxy?
The preaching part of it is not easy. Because our congregations are so trained by radio orthodoxy, if they hear anything that sounds different, it sounds heretical. So it calls for great patience and wisdom on behalf of pastors. That’s one reason why I hope that books like mine and others can help get discussions going that will make it easier for pastors to have those discussions.
Then I think what has to happen is that it can’t be up to pastors, church members have to speak up and say, ‘I see things differently than you, and I hope you can love and respect me and I’ll treat you with love and respect.’ We need to create space for dialogue. When there’s only monologue nothing changes.
The bolded closing words to that quote (my emphasis) points out how the Church is missing the voice of dissent, which only adds to the impression that Christianity is dominated by culture, and that the “dialogue” that needs to happen is dependent upon an outpouring of the Spirit (I’m sounding quite Pentecostal there, huh? But my “liberal theology” is also a believer in the prescence of God, and the work of that amongst us. The missing dialogue occurs not only between us, but with God who is also wityh us, and among us. We need a good dose and revelation of the truth to blow amongst us, and to encompass a wider spectrum of the Church.