Spirituality in Educational Leadership Book

Leonora Tubbs Tisdale is very conscientious of our need to practice and preach in an appropriate context. She recounts how she and her husband went to South Korea as missionaries for a year and how they were prepared through interacting with people of Korean ancestry and through taking classes to better understand the culture, its values and its language. However, when she and her husband began ministering in four rural churches in the northeastern United States, Tisdale found that she experienced an unexpected "culture shock" because she couldn't connect well with country, blue-collar types. She didn't know how to address the questions and values they cherished (this book was published in 1997 but we can glimpse the cosmopolitan-country divide that came out in the 2016 election) and she notes that the examples and illustrations that her seminary professors had recommended she employ were city-centric (a young woman serving in ministry in a rural community came by the bookstore I work at one day and commented that the author who really spoke to the people in her church was Wendell Berry). Seminaries may train prospective pastors in the minutiae of exegesis, Christian history, and Karl Barth, but often this is a world away from the "common sense" ethos of those in the congregation (in fact, Tisdale humourously recounts how one of her country congregants thought she was referencing "Karl Marx," not "Karl Barth," during one of her sermons, the congregant not knowing who Barth was, p. 8, 129). This is an important point. For some years now I've had this imaginary figure in my mind who is a chain-smoking grandmother who works at Wal-Mart and lives in a trailer park in Kentucky and who is a more devout Christian than I am in order to keep me grounded and not egocentric. At the same time, part of preaching is also teaching and I think the pastor has a role to elucidate and instruct their congregants; we are holistic beings and preaching should balance warming hearts with sharpening minds.

Tisdale draws heavily upon cultural anthropology in explaining that some people are "1) like all others," "2) like no others," and "3) like some others" (p. 11). Thus, there are certain universals we can generally assume, but we must also be aware of contested beliefs and practices and the reality of individual uniqueness. This focus on the importance of contextualization is predominant throughout her book. She asserts a highly poetic, eloquent sermon that inspires an upper-middle-class congregation may flop when given in a church made up of mostly blue-collar types and what appeals to the blue-collar types might not connect with those in the upper-middle-class church. Tisdale also draws attention to the emerging, interdisciplinary field of "congregational studies" which "weds the social sciences (cultural anthropology, sociology, social psychology, organizational development) and theology in an effort to gain a better understanding of congregational identity and action" (p. 29). She believes congregations need prophets, poets, and professional theologians, each guiding and offering their gifts to the church in their own unique ways (p. 54).

Pastors occupy a strange position within the congregation as both "outsider" and "insider" (p. 49-52). They wield spiritual authority that sets them apart but Tisdale notes that as pastors serve and care for their congregants, they also come to know the messiness of their lives (p. 11-12). Large services can sometimes have such a vast assortment of people, including guests, that sermons may be more to a generalized audience, but in a smaller congregation how does a pastor preach on divorce when they are well-aware one of their worship leaders and his wife are going through a divorce? This is a sobering point to stress as I sometimes think I would be too timid to preach a sermon with a particular individual or couple in mind; preaching a generalized sermon allows for the safety of anonymity but it also foregoes the possibility of personal, intentional connection.

While denominations often have their own subculture, congregations themselves have their own subculture, or even subcultures. The subculture is established by an "idiom," both verbal (e.g. favourite worship songs) and nonverbal (rituals, arts worship, etc…). While preachers often do not come from the same subculture as their congregation, they have a duty to preach to that subculture, or subcultures (p. 15-16). Some churches are more oriented towards social justice, others towards doctrine. This is one of the quandaries with affirming diversity because sometimes this is simply lip-service. I do think every church has a generation orientation in its identity, but if anything, a church that acknowledges its strength should be even more intentional about shoring up its areas of weakness. Preaching has a direct effect on this since sermons that are more doctrinal attract those more interested in theology while those that stress the social gospel attract those committed to social justice. Tisdale exhorts pastors to proclaim the faith in its relation to the wider, historic Church, as well as Christians in the Majority World, while also composing their sermons with attentive detail to their congregation's "local theology" (p. 39). Tisdale emphatically champions stories as a way to understand the ethos and identity of a congregation (p. 65-67).

Tisdale shows us how congregations interpret and understand metaphysical questions relating to God, theology and the Church. She exhorts preachers to pay attention to seven areas within their congregation: 1) view of God (theology, Christology, pneumatology) 2) view of humanity (theological anthropology) 3) view of nature (theology of Creation) 4) view of time (eschatology) 5) view of the Church (ecclesiology) 6) view of Christian mission (evangelism, missiology, social ethics) and 7) interrelationships among the above concerns (cosmology, soteriology, revelation) (p. 80-86). Within this list, she breaks down different perspectives; for instance, regarding time, do people in the congregation most orient themselves to the past, the present, or to the future?

Another astute point Tisdale makes is that pastors often point to great saints as models of Christian living and obedience. Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King Jr. are pointed to as paragons of Christianity. The Olympia Eric Liddell is acclaimed for his faithfulness and commitment to the fourth commandment to "honour the Sabbath" (though I suspect most evangelicals today would say he could have, just for that one week, moved his Sabbath to a Monday or Thursday since we're pretty fluid with how we interpret that commandment these days). But the point is that these are larger-than-life figures who can seem impossible to emulate. Preachers may find such figures helpful to reference due to their name recognition, but it is even better if preachers can find examples of individuals in their congregations who model faithful Christian living because these people are members of the church and thus more relatable and approachable.

Tisdale tends to use the example of a scholarly, cosmopolitan preacher fresh out of seminary who is placed in a congregation of country-folk or blue-collar types. While it is often the case that the preacher has a greater degree of biblical and theological education, not all preachers are seminary-trained. Additionally, no effort is made to explain how a preacher from a rural community who becomes a pastor in a thriving downtown congregation is supposed to adopt that locale's ethos; the assumption is always that the pastor condescends to the congregation. This is true, I think, as Paul writes about the need to "become all things to all men" (1 Cor. 9:22), but the danger in this is to also keep feeding the congregation milk instead of moving on to meat (1 Cor. 3:2). Pastors do challenge congregants to pursue lives of greater holiness, generosity, hospitality, etc…but do they challenge them to become better theologians (everyone is a theologian). This is the fundamental tension - preachers should condescend, but also challenge, and if God is really "God in my everything," that must be applied holistically, not just to the practicalities and routines of daily life, but also to how we critically think and engage with the world. A pastor may think s/he is helping avoid the culture wars by not preaching on politics, but in the vacuum, impressionable Christians can be tempted by the strong man. If the pastor believes the sermon is not the place for deeper biblical and theological exposition, does the church offer adult Sunday school classes that can fill this need?

One wonders if Tisdale sometimes overstates the importance of "local theology" and contextualization. She is correct, I think, in advocating that preachers pay attention to the subculture(s) in their congregation, but subculture(s) can be fluid; indeed, often the pastor exercises tremendous influence over a congregation's "local theology." If a pastor is a talented spoken word artist, he may introduce more ways for artists in the congregation to show and share their work and incorporate it into worship. How long-lasting is a congregation's "local theology," especially in a metropolis that has a transient Christian populace and frequent changes to the church's staff? Even denominational distinctives, which used to play a significant role in congregational identity, have dissipated as the Christian who grew up Baptist switches to a hip new Anglican church plant before settling into a neighbourhood Presbyterian church.

I truly do appreciate this book and its championing of "local theology and folk art." I've become snobbish when it comes to literature (the form of art I most gravitate towards) but "folk art" is different from bad art like Thomas Kinkade or "The Shack." It reflects the beauty of down-to-earth, amateur-yet-authentic, creativity and tradition. This was also the first book on preaching I read and I majored in sociology in undergrad so I really did appreciate the way she wove homiletics, contextualization, and ethnography together.