I have a lot of time for the missional communities approach, but one of the things we seem to have got into the habit of doing on this blog is prodding the currently received ecclesiological wisdom (multisite, cities, numbers, vision). And this one is deserving of a prod too!
 
While it would be unfair to get too dogmatic over one tweet that was responding to a whole conference worth of ideas, the assumptions behind it are worth questioning. These are the kind of things that spring to mind:
 
1.  First there is the very obvious, “But you are tweeting in response to a sermon!” Ok, maybe it wasn’t a ‘sermon’, rather a conference talk – but, really, that is a subtle distinction. The point is, information was being communicated and inspiration generated, and this was happening through the medium of someone speaking.
 
2. Then there is the questionable time claim. If we view sermon prep mechanistically then, yes, it’s going to be pretty much a waste of time, no matter how long or short we give it; but that is not how it should be. On average I reckon I spend about ten hours in sermon ‘prep’, so that scans pretty well with the “2 days” point. But, in reality, sermon prep is not done in ten hours, but in all of life. Sermon prep is itself actually part of the larger discipleship whole. Getting ready to preach necessarily involves a certain amount of time sitting at a desk, but if it is going to be real preaching it involves the whole of life – all the experiences of the week by which we know the grace of Jesus and interact with other people and engage in worship. Real preaching is an overflow of a disciples heart and so itself is part of the discipleship process.
 
3. I get the point that we shouldn’t get so locked up in our offices and behind our computer screens that we fail to engage with people, but I do not concede the dichotomy between preaching and disciple making. A key part of being a disciple is to submit to teaching, so when the preacher stands to deliver God’s word he is offering a path to discipleship, for those who will give themselves to it. In my own experience, how have I been brought into closer discipleship of Christ? There are many significant contributory factors, but a key one has certainly been sitting under the authority of the preached word.
 
4.  And then there’s the memorability factor, which often gets thrown about, but I’m not sure it’s much of an argument. Does it matter if no one remembers the sermon in three weeks time? Preaching is not merely the communication of a list of points that should be committed to memory but a spiritual activity that changes the heart. I think it was Jonathan Edwards (though I might not remember correctly!) who spoke about preaching being like water flowing onto rock. No individual drop makes any impression, but over the course of time the rock must yield to, and be shaped by, the water. Consistent preaching shapes our thinking and souls in similar fashion; and that is part of being discipled.
 
I would contend that preachers should be preparing sermons and making disciples. These two are friends, not enemies! So my preferred tweet would be something like, “Be a disciple who spends time preparing disciple making sermons, and making disciples that shape your sermons.”