What do you preach?

This week's issue of Preaching Now offers, as always, some thought provoking ideas. Here's an excerpt from an interview with Doug Pagitt:

If you look at New Testament/Old Testament preaching, it's very contextual. It's contextual to the experience, it's contextual to the hearers, it's contextual to the happenings, it's contextual to the Old Testament. Even the prophetic preaching is, "Israel, this is where you are right now, this is who you are, this is what's happening, this is God's word unto you in this situation." So I think this notion that what we do is preach the text is a really faulty notion from my vantage point. What preaching ought to be is preaching the good news, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God alive in the world, the activity of God in people's lives.

What we ought to be doing is preaching to people in situations, sort of like that little adage that teachers will say when someone asks the teacher, 'What do you teach?' And they say, 'Oh, I teach students.' You know, the answer isn't, 'I teach math.' And that shows a difference in our focus. Are you more worried about the subject matter or are you worried about teaching people? Good teachers always remember, 'I teach people,' not 'I teach a subject.' It's that same attitude around preaching.

That certainly applies to teaching, but I'm not sure exactly the same can be said for preaching. Still, we do well to ask ourselves, "What do I preach?" I tend to bounce around between three basic answers: the Gospel, the Word, and Christ.