The January/February issue of Preaching Magazine is out bearing the theme of "Missional Preaching." This issue includes an article which is adapted from the book Breaking the Missional Code by David Putnam and myself. Throughout the history of the church the best preaching has been contextual, and the best preachers were experts at contextualizing. Of course we think of Jesus and the Apostles who not only preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, but utilized the language, common knowledge and metaphors of their culture to make the gospel as comprehensible as possible. And following that example are men like Chrysostom, Augustine, Wycliffe, Luther, the Puritans, Wesley and Whitefield, Spurgeon and everyone else who believes that solid preaching is guided by a missional conviction and missiological perspective.

Contextual Preaching

At the heart of effective preaching is a solid missiological perspective. Are you communicating in such a way that your words actually convey biblical truth to your audience? Or does your preaching float right past your hearers because it's not delivered "on a frequency" that they listen to? In this respect, we can probably learn as much about good preaching from Hudson Taylor as we can from Haddon Robinson.

Continue reading Contextual Preaching.

The "Missional Tribe" is a new collaboration of friends with a passion for all things missional. They have quite a list of contributors and are focusing on grass roots idea sharing around the missional turn.

While in Chicago, Imbi Medri and Bill Kinnon (two of the co-founders of Missional Tribe) got David Fitch and me together to have a discussion about the missional church.

David is a professor at Nothern Seminary, a co-pastor / church planter at Life on the Vine, and the author of The Great Giveaway.

I was there teaching at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and we got together on a cold day in Chicago.

Check out the Missional Tribe site here and enjoy the video below:

Ed Stetzer & David Fitch - a missional conversation from Missional Tribe on Vimeo.