This is such a useful approach to take in the training of preachers. It always has an impact.
A few years ago I illustrated this from a performance of Stairway to Heaven, with Led Zepellin in the audience. Watch their faces carefully, very carefully. That hint of a smile. That satisfied glance to one another. They are loving this new performance of their song. This is how I’d love Peter or Amos, Moses or Paul, to respond when they hear me preach from their books.
Well, this year brings another example – this time for those who may not be Led Zepellin fans. How about the composer, John Williams, and the way Harvard University’s Din and Tonics acapella men’s group perform his music at their graduation last month?! This time it is a bit different from the Led Zepellin example. Here the singers take so much more liberty with the original score. But still they are faithful to the original meaning. Listeners – and the composer, more importantly – recognise this and can hear this going on. And yet the contribution they make is that in their creative performance they render the orginal significant for a new setting.
About Me
the art of unpacking
After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.
Recent Posts
It was my very first training seminar with Langham Preaching. April 2009. We were based at the OMF Guest House in Chiangmai, Thailand. As I wandered the property, I came across this striking quotation on one of the walls: So striking, in fact, that I stopped to take its photo! But is it really true?…
Ten years ago, Ode to Georgetown was my response to being surprised by grief when the only church I had ever pastored closed its doors. Last week brought the news that the theological college which I attended, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS), was to close most of its Chicagoland campus. I have been feeling a…
I am neither painter nor poet, musician nor actor. With Art and Music and Drama classes at school, I was present in body—but absent in spirit and skill. However, as a teacher, there has been the occasional flare of creativity in the crafting of assignments. One of my favourites is one of my first ones.…
John Stott was the first one to help me see the tension in Jesus’ teaching on salt and light. They are pictures for how his disciples are to live in society. Salt pulls them in, keeping them involved. Light holds them back, keeping them distinctive. Being light responds to ‘the danger of worldliness’, while being…
I'd love someone to name all the pieces of music – because I can't pick them all!