I imagine some things never change

Scot McKnight and Brad Boydston have begun reviewing Doug Pagitt new book, Preaching Re-imagined. You can read the first installment here.

I especially enjoyed this insight from Brad on preaching by the OT prophets:

The OT prophets often spoke against the community and would have thought it nonsense to engage the community in the process of coming up with the word. For them, the problem WAS the community and they had a message from God that needed to be communicated to the community regardless of whether the community heard or understood. They were driven by an individual mandate from God. These were often INDIVIDUALS speaking down to the community in a society which valued community above the individual. In other words, it was quite out of sync with how the culture functioned.

Yep. The process, the situation, and the calling may be different today, but being out of sync is the nature of good preaching.

Update: Part 2 and Part 3 are now online.