Transforming Sermons: Into the abyss

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Into the abyss

"We may discover the ultimate relevance to our preaching by becoming appropriately irrelevant. Preachers must be willing to take their congregations into the abyss where the Holy Spirit, speaking through the biblical texts, challenges our deepest convictions about the Christian life.”

- John W. Wright

5 Comments:

Anonymous said...: appropriately irrelevant

i love it; 12:07 PM, September 11, 2008
Milton Stanley said...: Glad to hear it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Peace.; 12:17 PM, September 11, 2008
Anonymous said...: i really is hard, in an earthly state of mind, to think of one's self being in the way, and the idea of gaining something new and better by giving up everything that we have come to know as our self.

we want so much to be relevant. to be known, loved, worth something, needed by the world.

actually what we need is what God has to give to us.

and we can have this need met by becoming nothing in our own eyes. this is something we fight, oh, how we fight it.

it just seems so much like we are being cheated in some way, giving up something that we are and becoming zombies...but, that is not the truth. it is not like that and we do not become puppets or zombies. we gain a choice to relate with God and we continue to choose to relate with Him. it is a brand new relationship in which we walk with God by choice and we are given what we need. and what we need we find out is also what we want. imagine that. we become nothing and we get everything. by the world's terms, we are bums. but, no...we are children, blessed children of the almighty God.

appropriately irrelevant

appropriately blessed; 6:11 PM, September 11, 2008
Anonymous said...: actually, i think that we deny that fact that we do not belong to our selves. we do not want to acknoledge that we truly belong to God.; 10:20 AM, September 12, 2008
Milton Stanley said...: Amen, Nancy, Amen.; 10:29 AM, September 12, 2008