Friday, November 30
Let me add this to the discussion…
Thanks so much to all of you who are contributing to the discussion on the post about ‘teaching as an art’, please continue to converse…In my research I came across some thoughts from Frederick Buechner on teaching/preaching that I had filed away years ago…
(By the way, for those interested, Buechner is going to be at King College in Bristol, TN in January. They have a Buechner Institute there at the college and he is coming to speak and ‘cut the ribbon’ so to speak. I’ll post more info on it later…)
From “Listening to Your Life’, December 18…
Buechner- I had never understood so clearly before what preaching is to me. Basically, it is to proclaim a Mystery before which, before whom, even our most exalted ideas turn to straw. It is also to proclaim this Mystery with a passion that ideas alone have little to do with. It is to try to put the Gospel into words not the way you would compose an essay but the way you would write a poem or a love letter---putting your heart into it, your own excitement, most of all your own life. It is to speak words that you hope may, by grace, be bearers not simply of new understanding but of new life both for the one you are speaking to and also for you.
Mark Nelson at 1:00 PM 0comments