I think I am going to like my preaching class.
This is not a surprise to me. Intro Preaching is being taught this semester by Chuck Campbell, about whom I have heard many classmates rave. And a number of my friends from both the second- and third-year class are taking Preaching this semester.
My first confirmation was the John Coltrane video that was playing as we took our seats. By the time Chuck (as he insists we call him) launched into a comparison between jazz and preaching, I was hooked.
Preaching, like jazz, is all about several different tensions, in particular the dynamic between learning and mastering the fundamentals (often tedious work) and having the freedom to improvise. The fact is that you cannot improvise freely unless you are solid on the fundamentals. This is not what I want to hear; I am the kind of person who tends to drop something if I can't do it well right away. But this is true not only about preaching and music but also about ministry, relationships, spirituality and more; you can't get to the really exciting stuff without learning your scales, and the better prepared you are on the fundamentals, the freer you are to play.
One thing Chuck pointed out that I particularly liked is that the term performer at its root means "form coming through." The form, whether it is jazz or preaching or any number of things, is always particular to the one performing because it is embodied in that person. Chuck encouraged us to find something that we are really good at and care about, relate that to preaching and try to find a place in you where preaching and that meet to play together and inform each other. Preaching is not about the preacher, but it is never separated from the preacher's particularity.
As much as I've whined about having to take this course because it meets twice a week for 2.5 hours, I really am looking forward to preaching class. I have a professor who really cares and gets it, and classmates who are ready both to work and to play and to challenge me to do a little more of both.
Monday, August 29, 2011
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Monday, August 29, 2011
Form Coming Through
Posted by
Sarah S. Howell
at
2:56 PM
I think I am going to like my preaching class.
This is not a surprise to me. Intro Preaching is being taught this semester by Chuck Campbell, about whom I have heard many classmates rave. And a number of my friends from both the second- and third-year class are taking Preaching this semester.
My first confirmation was the John Coltrane video that was playing as we took our seats. By the time Chuck (as he insists we call him) launched into a comparison between jazz and preaching, I was hooked.
Preaching, like jazz, is all about several different tensions, in particular the dynamic between learning and mastering the fundamentals (often tedious work) and having the freedom to improvise. The fact is that you cannot improvise freely unless you are solid on the fundamentals. This is not what I want to hear; I am the kind of person who tends to drop something if I can't do it well right away. But this is true not only about preaching and music but also about ministry, relationships, spirituality and more; you can't get to the really exciting stuff without learning your scales, and the better prepared you are on the fundamentals, the freer you are to play.
One thing Chuck pointed out that I particularly liked is that the term performer at its root means "form coming through." The form, whether it is jazz or preaching or any number of things, is always particular to the one performing because it is embodied in that person. Chuck encouraged us to find something that we are really good at and care about, relate that to preaching and try to find a place in you where preaching and that meet to play together and inform each other. Preaching is not about the preacher, but it is never separated from the preacher's particularity.
As much as I've whined about having to take this course because it meets twice a week for 2.5 hours, I really am looking forward to preaching class. I have a professor who really cares and gets it, and classmates who are ready both to work and to play and to challenge me to do a little more of both.
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