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| hope college > campus ministries |
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The Dead Preachers Society“It is, perhaps, an overbold beginning, but I will venture to say that with its preaching Christianity stands or falls.” The Dead Preachers is a society dedicated to the exploration, through study and practice, the arts of Christian proclamation. The society seeks to both encourage and inspire a young generation to join the noble guild of preachers, stretching as far back as the Hebrew prophets. We want to help young woman and men discern and identify a possible call to preaching the mystery of Christ – Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again. Dead preachers are dedicated to the study of the Word and the theology it inspires. We want to think biblically and theologically about what it is we say and why we say it. We want to explore the questions – Why do we preach? What do we hope a sermon to accomplish? What does is the Bible’s particular authority for the preacher? What is the role of the Holy Spirit? We want to enter the Word and begin to go to work. But before we work on the Word, Dead Preachers are dedicated to letting the Word to work on us. Dead Preachers are dedicated to eating the book. We memorize scripture, believing the wisdom of the past, that the best preachers are those whose imaginations are saturated, soaked, and inspired by Holy Scripture. We don’t want to learn about the bible, we want to live out of it. To live the bible out, we first have to get it in. We want Bible’s nutrition to feed us like food feeds the body. We want to get the book into our bloodstream so it metabolizes into sermons lived. We eat the book like honey. Dead Preachers are dedicated to sitting at the feet of giants. We want to listen to the great preachers whose words are still echoing down the canyons of time. We take time to study their sermons. We pay attention to form, rhetoric, exegesis, theology, context, illustration, and their sense of pastoral care. By such study, we seek to learn from the great chorus of witnesses that have gone before. What does Chrysostom, Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Barth, Lewis have to teach us today? How can words from the past, inspire new words for our present? We are dedicated to honoring the giants who dared to speak. Dead Preachers are dedicated to words. We believe in the power of language. Fundamental is our belief that words create realities. We believe that words, spoken at the right time, and in the right place, have the power to shatter perceived realities. We believe that language has the power to unlock us from presumed assumptions and push us out of the caged worlds in which most of us have been trapped. We want to honor that power by reading great writers, poets, anyone who uses words with care, love, and precision. We believe using words in the service of the Word demands our attention. Dead Preachers are dedicated to orality. Preaching takes place in a particular context. Our context is no longer shaped by primarily by print-literacy. In a technologically saturated age, our minds our once again shaped by sound. Dead Preachers are haunted by the question, how do we communicate in an age, of what Walter Ong, describes as a secondary orality? We do not just write sermons, we want to speak them. Faith Comes by what is heard, says Paul (Romans 10:17). We want to learn how to speak the old word in a way. We believe that reclaiming principles of orality is essential to this task. Dead Preachers take time to practice reading, reciting, and speaking off the page. We live in an increasingly oral world, and we want to trust the simple power of the spoken word communicated with conviction. We practice orality. Dead Preachers are dedicated to learning from living preachers. We want to enter conversation with those who have dedicated their life towards the call of preaching the gospel. We will be meeting with various artists of the pulpit, and will occasionally take field trips to hear great preachers. We also listen to great sermons and great lectures on sermons. We want to hear from preachers who inspire us to preach. Who is eligible for the Dead Preachers Society? We welcome all woman and men who are discerning a call to Christian ministry. We welcome anyone interested in learning more about the art of preaching. If you loves words – if you are a writer, a poet, a singer/songwriters check us out. If you want to read great sermons and maybe try and create your own, then come and see. Anyone who loves the Word and loves words is welcome. If you are interested in more information on the Dead Preachers Society, contact Trygve D. Johnson, Dean of the Chapel, at johnsont@hope.edu. “And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard. And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?... So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.” Scheduled Meetings winter/spring 2008: To be announced. The Bible
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