Constructing a Community
Walter Brueggemann writes in the book Testimony to Otherwise: The Witness of Elijah and Elisha an page 5:
I understand preaching to be the chance to summon and nurture an alternative community with an alternative identity, vision, and vocation, preoccupied with praise and obedience toward the God we Christians know fully in Jesus of Nazareth.
Brueggemann provides us with an interesting presentation of preaching. Preaching is the forging of an alternative community. Sometimes preachers are so in the individualistic mode that they do not understand or realize that they are preaching to a “community” and not a “group of individuals.” However, contrary to popular opinion, God does work with groups as well as individuals. God does call Groups towards holiness and community. If your preaching is only about individualistic concerns and never about the building up or the creation of community, then you are truly missing the mark.
Let us seek to preach towards the construction of this alternative community rather than just a group of individuals.
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