Breaking News, Kate Bruce (@johnschaplain), #medialit

1991 – fell in love with Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird.

• Wise, thoughtful, courageous, etc. as Atticus Finch: “”You never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.””
  • Old Media: Understand the skin that those using new media are in..
  • New Media: Be more open to those who are in a different world
• What does life right now look like from the perspective of a Louisiana fisherman, etc.?  Maybe we can never really know. May have to undertake an ‘imaginative exercise’ which puts you in their shoes.
  • Introduce to Ignatius of Loyola: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatius_of_Loyola
• Whose news is it anyway?
  • What’s on the front page of the paper doesn’t necessarily have to form the front page of the church agenda.
  • Do we use national/local news as the focus (sometimes)? Does preaching help the congregation understand the news differently?
  • 16% say yes, isn’t that a shockingly low number?
• What are the pastoral and prophetic modes of preaching?
  • Pastoral preaching – around empathy/arouse compassion;  a resonation with life experience for the hearer. See God in a situation, cry out in lament/not tidy & closed down as have to join in the pain where God doesn’t seem obvious – return to hope in God on the basis of past faithfulness.
  • Where does the power lie in this preaching? Who has been left nameless – Prophetic preaching, takes risks as it looks to uncover that.
• Key features of the imagination.
  • Re-creative
  • Inventive (Story-telling relies on a vicarious retelling of other’s experiences. E.g. May have no experience of redundancy after a lifetime in the steelworks – would be patronising to say that you did understand, but can imagine – how far?)
  • Speculative (Intentional alternative – either/or; not an optional extra for ‘arty types’ – shape the content, otherwise naïve platitudes… )
  • Transformative
  • Preaching without imagination is just dull & they should be shot! Otherwise is less evocative, otherwise the hearers are left with “so what” questions?
• In what sense id preaching imaginative vocation?
  • Rummage in the experience we’re talking about, find the living/breathing text that we’re talking into – from both texts (news story, congregation, Bible)
  • Pray, study & discuss – do we put as much effort into trying to “sit inside” news stories as we do inside the Biblical text? It’s in the interplay that the meaning comes alive. Preacher’s job is to “arc the spark” – otherwise reductionist/closed, church-to-church. Should be dramatic, artistic, open, daring & liberated! Have a life after the sermon – provoke conscience, etc.
• What can we learn from Atticus and Ignatius in terms of how preaching might deal with news imaginatively?b
  • Atticus stepping into people’s lives, and Ignatius into the Gospels.
  • Read in different accounts, reading editorials, understanding the surrounding.
  • What’s the link between the 2, and where is God in this situation, or is there a sense of God’s absence?
  • [Cockermouth – heard stories, family connection, reflected on who’s where]
  • See themes start to draw out that you can start to see the links to the Bible
  • Is this traditional teaching/preaching?
  • What about not starting from the Lexionary, but from a news story which inspires a sermon?
    • The difficult descriptions – do we run away from them?
    • How do we join with secular agencies to bring hope to e.g. Niger?
  • Imagine, pray and act!
  • Is this problematic, starting in the scriptures & not leaving – so how does that speak to us. Why are people not starting from news/film, etc.
    • Is God revealed in the world at all?
    • What about the situations in which God’s absence is palpable?
    • Shouldn’t we always begin with the scriptures because God is uniquely revealed here? Are the questions that we ask the scriptures limiting the Biblical text, but that assumes that God isn’t with us as we work for him.  Are the Scriptures sitting hermetically sealed until we open them – living words that God can use.
      • “Bible in one hand and newspaper in the other” – is that possible? Indicates that the news can be seen through a Biblical lens, etc.
      • Be careful about what we label as grace…  Lament – name pain, etc. in the world.
• What are the objections to this approach to preaching?
  • What is the starting point for preaching, does it indicate that it’s last minute?
  • Different ‘learning styles’ (different media)..  we learn different ways.. : https://drbexl.co.uk/tag/personality-type/
  • Every day, 140 character sermon on the day’s news! Takes the triteness out of you, as you’re essentially announcing it…