Byrnesys Blabberings

Jim posted this brilliant quote on his blog the other day, and had some very interesting things to say about it. I equally find it really on the ball.

But as Jim rightly points out, this is not just something that preachers have to look out for, but also those of us who have been Christians for a long time, we can forget the race we’re meant to be running.

I remember hearing Matt Redman once say that one of his favourite secular songwriters made the ordinary sound extraordinary, where as in church we can make the extraordinary sound ordinary.

Sad to say, the people who seem to lose touch with themselves and God most conspicuously are of all things ministers….Ministers give preeminence to all books the Bible whose absolutely central and unifying thesis is that God makes himself known in historical experience. In other words, a major part of their ministry is to remind us that there is nothing more important than to pay attention to what is happening to us, yet again and again they show little sign of doing so themselves. There is precious little in most of their preaching to suggest that they have rejoiced and suffered with the rest of mankind…what is it like to love Christ, say, or to feel spiritually bankrupt…Ministers run the awful risk…of ceasing to be witnesses to the Presence in their own lives….Their sermons often sound as bland as they sound bloodless…. (Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets, pp. 36-38)