:: Keller On Preaching in a Post-modern City II
:: The Church Planter Spouse: Partner in Marriage, Partner in the Church
:: Church-Planter Spouse Competencies

:: You Can Spend Too Little, and Too Much Time With Family
:: Books: Urban Theology
:: Get the RCPC Church Planter Manual
:: Got Church Planting in You? Find Out!

KELLER ON PREACHING IN A POST-MODERN CITY II
Preaching To Create Spiritually Inclusive Worship
By Tim Keller, Senior Pastor, Redeemer Presbyterian Church

	Theology. Preaching Christ-centered, not moralistic sermons. Even epistles are put into the overall 'narrative' or story of Christ. Key: Solve all problems with the gospel. That way non-believers hear the gospel each week, yet believers have their issues and problems addressed. Example: Thou shalt not lie.
	Logic. Do not assume that the people out there all have the same premises. Never exhort point "D" if it is based on "A, B, and C" – without referring to A, B, C. Constantly lay 'groundwork' statements about the authority of the Bible, or the reasons we believe, etc.
	Apologetic sidebars. Try to devote one of the three or four sermon points more to non-believers. Keep in your head a list of the 10 or so biggest objections people have to Christianity. More often than not the particular Scripture text has some way to address them.
	Application. You have to literally address non-Christians AND Christians, almost doing dialogue with them. "If you are committed to Christ, you may be thinking this – but the text answers that fear." or "If you are not a Christian or not sure what you believe, then you surely must think that this is narrow-minded – but the text says this, that speaks to this very issue."
	Demeanor. The young secularists of NYC are extremely sensitive to anything that smacks of 'artifice' to them. Anything that is too polished, too controlled, too canned – seems like salesmanship. They will be turned off if they hear the preacher use non-inclusive gender language, or make cynical remarks about other religions, or use tones of voice that they consider artificial, or use a lot of insider evangelical tribal jargon.
	Respect for doubt. Always treat people's typical doubts about Christianity with respect. Never give the impression that 'all intelligent people think like me.' Stop to say: "I know this Christian doctrine sounds outrageous."
	Continual address concerns of the wider community, not just of the Christians.
	Show how the grace of God favors the poor, outsiders.
	Artistic excellence.
	Use the gospel to solve Christian's problems – this shows non-Christians how the gospel works.
	Celebrate deeds of justice and mercy and common citizenship in the community.
	Ground teaching in cultural references and authorities your listeners trust.
	•	It is critical to 'keep up' in order to preach in New York City. In general, my audience does not trust the Bible very much, and so I need to generously document and support my points with corroborating opinions from all the books and periodicals that the professionals of New York City read. If I read what they read, then a) I can use the Bible to answer the questions that are on their minds, not my mind, b) I can show how often 'the Bible already was teaching this' long before this contemporary authority said it. Some keys to reading non-fiction:
	•	In general, periodicals are more important than books. If you always read Books and Culture, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, The Wilson Quarterly you will be able to stay on top of the trends of thought without buying 99% of the books! (Another helpful spot is the "Arts and Ideas" section of the Saturday New York Times.) So for example, Andrew Hacker in the New York Review of Books recently reviewed 3-4 of the latest crop of books on homosexuality by gay scholars. He showed the new trend – all of the works are moving away from the concept of homosexuality being an involuntary, inborn condition. After I read this very thorough review article, I probably will not need to buy any of the books. And reading these reviews helps you identify truly seminal works or works you realize you need to buy to close a gap in your own knowledge.
	•	Read periodicals across the spectrum. If you read one perspective on a subject you are naive and over-confident. If you read a second, contradictory perspective that deconstructs the first view you become cynical and discouraged. But if you read a spectrum of 4 or 5 different perspectives, you find your own view and voice and often get rather creative ideas. I read the following magazines very regularly and very thoroughly: The New Yorker (sophisticated secular), The Atlantic (eclectic), The Nation (older, angry left-wing secular), The Weekly Standard (conservative but pretty slick), The New Republic (eclectic), The Utne Reader (new-Age semi-flaky), Wired (classic 'post-modern' if there is such a thing), First Things (conservative Catholic.) As I read, I imagine dialogues about Christianity with the writers. In that frame of mind, I almost never read a magazine without getting a scrap of a preaching idea.

PREACHING THE GOSPEL ACROSS THE THREE PERSPECTIVES

When anyone hears someone say, "we need to preach the gospel every week" there will be a fear of being repetitive. And indeed there is a danger of this unless we understand the gospel in Biblical perspectives.

The word evangelion ('the gospel') or evangelizdomai ('declare the gospel') occurs so often in the New Testament (virtually every author uses it) that "clearly the term gospel is a kind of code word for many New Testament writers that summarizes something very basic regarding what the early Christians thought Christian faith was all about." [James V. Brownson, Speaking the Truth in Love: New Testament Resources for a Missional Hermeneutic. Christian Mission and Modern Culture Series (Trinity Press: Harrisburg, PA, 1998), p.31]. But what is that 'very basic' core of Christian faith?

In our desperate search for simplicity, it is easy to overlook the great variety of ways that the 'gospel' is used in the Bible. The most obvious example is how Paul makes 'gospel' almost synonymous with 'justification by faith', while the gospel writers almost seem to make it synonymous with 'the kingdom of God'. We have to be careful that we do not elevate one perspective on the gospel over all others, nor that we assume the perspectives contradict one another. We must have an outline of the gospel that encompasses the way all the Biblical writers speak.

a. The gospel is news rather that ethical instruction ("THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST" Mark 1:1)
The 'normative' perspective: What happened?

The term Greek term "ev-angelion" distinguished the Christian message from that of other religions. An 'angel' was a herald or messenger that brought news of some historical event that had already happened, and that radically changed the listeners' condition. The most common examples in Greek literature are "evangels" about a victory in war or the ascension of a new king. When Christians chose evangelion to express the essence of their faith, they passed over words that Hellenistic religions used, such as "illumination" (photismos) and "knowledge" (gnosis) or that Judaism used such as "instruction" or "teaching" (didache) or "wisdom" (sophia). [Brownson, p. 46] Of course, all of these words were used to describe Christianity, but none achieved the centrality of "gospel". What does that mean?

First, it means that the gospel is news about what God has already been done for you, rather than instruction and advice about what you are to do for God. The primacy of his work, not our work, is part of the essence of faith. In other religions, God reveals to us how we can find or achieve salvation. In Christianity, God achieves salvation for us. The gospel brings news primarily, rather than instruction.

Second, it means that the gospel is all about historic events, and thus it has a public character. "It identifies Christian faith as news that has significance for all people, indeed for the whole world, not merely as esoteric understanding or insight." [Brownson, p. 46] In other religions, the stories of miracles and other special events in the lives of the founder are not essential. Whether or not Buddha did Miracle X, that does not affect whether the 8-Fold path to enlightenment works or not. But if Jesus is not risen from the dead, Christianity does not "work". The gospel is that Jesus died and rose for us. If the historic events of his life did not happen, then Christianity does not "work" for the good news is that God has entered the human "now" (history) with the life of the world to come.

This public, historic aspect of the gospel is especially seen when the term "the gospel of Christ" or "of Jesus Christ" is used. Often the word "gospel" and the life and work of Christ are essentially synonyms. Particularly significant is how Luke links "gospel" to "Jesus". In Acts 5:42, it reads, literally, "they never stopped... evangelizing Christ Jesus". Obviously, Jesus is not the object of their evangelism (they are not trying to convert him!) But the word "evangelizdomenoi" means, all by itself, 'to preach the gospel' or literally "to gospelize". So in the places in Acts where it says, literally "they evangelized Jesus", the English translations have to render it "they told the gospel about Jesus Christ" or "they told the good news that Jesus was the Christ" (cf. NIV Acts 5:42). But the Greek construction clearly has a stronger meaning than that. Its intentional redundancy aims to say that the good news they preached was Jesus. His very life, and all his works, is what saves us. To declare Jesus and to declare the gospel is the same thing. Jesus does not bring the gospel – he is the gospel, because the gospel is that God has broken into history and accomplished everything necessary for our salvation. (You will find this same construction repeatedly. See Acts 8:35, 10:36, 11:20.) We can also see the terms "gospel of Christ" or "gospel of Jesus Christ" in Mark 1:1; 1 Cor. 9:12,18; 2 Cor. 2:12; 9:13; 10:14; Gal. 1:7, and so on. (Compare also Rom. 1:9-"The gospel of his Son".)

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