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"Postmodern man is as open to the gospel as any has ever been--you don’t even have to prove God, all you have to do is tell His story.”  said Dieter Zander at a recent Conference.      Zander pastored the first GenX church in America.  In 1986 he and his wife started a church in Upland, CA.  He wasn’t trying to be a trailblazer, he started it because of group of “betweeners”--people who didn’t fit in the family section of the church or the youth ministry because they were unmarried and too old.  In 8 years, the church, with an average age of 26 grew to 1200 in attendance.      Zander then accepted Bill Hybels’ invitation to join the staff of Willow Creek to begin a “church within a church.”  For four years he was the teaching pastor and worship leader for “Axis.”  Today he is in San Francisco.

Zander sat down with FreshMinistry's Online Editor, Jim Wilson to discuss Preaching to postmodern people.  Here is an edited transcript of that discussion.

Fresh Ministry: Connecting with a Gen X audience means we need to be multi-sensoral . . .

Dieter Zander: Yes, that's right 

FM . . .and narrative rather than propositional. . .

DZ: yes,

FM: . . . Yet, as I listen some Gen X preachers, I've noticed that they are propositional but simply buttress their sermons with the narrative.

DZ: Yes, that's a great observation.

FM: I loved your message last night, it followed a puritan pattern of exploring an issue and making the points at the end.

DZ: Yes, I've come from the 3 point outline method, and I've been really trying to stay away from points . . .

FM: So you're a no point preacher?

DZ: <laughter> some would say that . . .I'm really finding that if I can take people on a journey in a message, punctuate it with windows of different things-like last night, the story of my kids' prayers. They (the stories) are not supporting a point as much as they are giving people emotional resting places. I want to take people on a journey as I'm talking, I want the journey to be not "this is the right journey," there is not a dominance in the story, but I want there to be a humble sharing of what God is doing. Does that make sense?

FM: Certainly.

DZ: I just had a guy in Chicago tell me (at Willow Creek where Zander was on staff) the thing that we miss from your preaching is we never felt that you talked down to us and that you were always sharing the part of your life where God was dealing with you. Regardless of what you were sharing, there was always a sense that we were with you in your journey with God, and that helped us know how we can be on that journey too. Does that make sense?

FM: So there was some transparency?

DZ: Oh, of course.

FM And you also assumed that your audience needed to contribute to the message. . .

DZ: Yes.

FM: . . .maybe you raise a question without giving the answer or maybe even raise a question that has no answer?

DZ: Right.

FM: And that's OK in this style of preaching.

DZ: Correct.

FM: It's OK to leave a sermon open ended?

DZ: Right-and that's the other part. They (postmodern people) don't require a really nicely wrapped up ending. In fact, if its too neat at the end, that discredits what you've talked about. There is a gut-level sense within them that life is too easy to summarize in a 30 minute message . .

FM: Right.

DZ: . . . or to give a 3 point answer to . . . or give . . .because when you do that, you minimize the complexity of my life . . .

FM: and you insult my intelligence

DZ: Right.

FM: Tell me one thing, since you said we can't boil anything down . . .

DZ: <snicker>

FM: one thing that a three-point-and-a-poem-propositional-preacher can do. What is the most significant thing that he can do to move toward narrative preaching? 

DZ: <pause>

FM: As you're thinking about that, let me say that I have a bias that there are no strictly narrative sermons.

DZ: right.

FM: the goal is to move it along the spectrum to become more narrative. So what can Joe Blow preacher, like me, do to move from propositional to narrative.

DZ: <pause> Let me give two suggestions. One is, I would say, "How would you communicate this to an eight-year-old child?" That gets it simple.

FM: Right

DZ: But the other thing is, "How can you put this particular propositional truth into the overall context of the story of God?" Give me a propositional truth from the Bible.

FM: Oh . . .We were called before the foundation of the world.

DZ: That's kinda easy, because that's the whole story from God, because we were designed for relationship. I'm always trying to put it (the truth) in the overall setting to see what is before, after, above, below. So people can understand it in its context. But Context isn't about interpretation, it is about the way it informs and describes the bigger picture of life. So its not a particle that I now take and use, it is something that infuses my life with meaning in God's larger story that is being worked out in history.

FM: OK, let me bounce a couple ideas I have about narrative preaching that might help us explore this issue in another way. One idea would be that it is a weaver taking different strands together of His story, my story and your story. It is my believe that if I weave my story with His story, my listener will interject their own story, substituting it and mine.

DZ: <pause> Sounds good, yes-to the degree that when I'm watching an Oprah show and listening to a guest and Oprah talking I find myself going, "that's my life." Its almost like it is a surprise when it occurs.

FM: Let me throw another one at you.

DZ: OK

FM: A punch line--when we tell a joke we tell all of the background information that clarifies the punch line, that without the information the punch line has no meaning and cannot provide comic relief. But then when the punch line comes, it all makes sense, and there is that strange twist that takes place.

DZ: right

FM and its funny because it applies to this, but it also applies to that. Sometimes I see narrative preaching as "punch-line preaching" We are telling a story that leads to a sudden discovery.

DZ: I totally agree. I'd call that advanced narrative preaching. I find it very hard to do-what you are getting at is the ability to create tension and then relieving it. Sounds great!

FM: The third model I would use is "serial preaching." As opposed to preaching a series. Like "same bat channel, same bat station." Taking one of the great stories of the Bible and instead of summarizing it and sermonizing it you draw it out for six to eight weeks. But instead of ending the story with a resolution, you leave it without it.

DZ: Right, stay tuned.

FM: and the resolution comes at the introduction of the next sermon.

DZ: Yeah.

FM: What is your way of looking at narrative preaching?

DZ: I usually start with something going on in my life or people's life. I usually start with my strand or their strand, then I bring in God's strand.

FM: OK, so the weaver's model is the one that you feel more comfortable with.

DZ: Yeah, that's the one I identify with most.

FM: For me that's the hardest.

DZ: Really? No, see, I love that. For me the most thrilling thing about preaching is helping people see the God that is standing right behind them and walking with them. . . .I want to tell stories that cause people to say, could it be true, could it really be true?

FM: mmmm

DZ: It's like the Fairy Tale. What is it that causes us to tear up at certain points? Its that thing inside that makes us say, "Could that be true?"

Like the strings of a guitar. When you put your face next to an "A" string and being to hum an "A"-that string will begin to vibrate. The "D" won't, the "G" won't, but the "A" will. Because it was created to vibrate with that tone. The thing about the story-God's story, is that when it is told and applied well, and when it is supported in a sensorial way, something inside our heart starts to vibrate, regardless of whether we are a Christian or not, because we were created for our hearts to vibrate with that story.

FM: So if we believe, that mankind is created to worship God, when we start worshiping in their presence and tell God's story, they will be moved to worship Him, without a volitional choice?

DZ: Yea, I think they will be moved, but they won't know why.
 

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