Preaching at the Rate of Change
by LeAnn Hodges
July 8, 2024
The church is at a crossroads, and I don’t want to be a chaplain for a dying institution. Instead, I want to be a physical therapist for a movement of liberation that opens up the possibility for us to co-create a new world in the shell of the old, where through God’s radical and transforming love all are made whole. Yet week after week too many people walk in and out of the doors of the church and remain unchanged, and we miss vital opportunities.
Last fall my teenage son injured his hamstring in a high stakes soccer game that put him on the bench for 6 weeks. He was desperate to get back on the field, and was committed to the challenging work of physical therapy.
At the beginning of every session, the physical therapist would ask him to point out where he was feeling pain, and that is where they focused their work. They began by gently moving the injured joint and massaging around the edges of the pain, and then gradually increased the range of motion, strategically targeting different places on the strained muscles. While the goal was to move his body toward health, it was painful in the process.
I want to be a physical therapist for a movement of liberation…
Watching my child’s healing journey, I realized that the church needs a model like that of a physical therapist where preachers help identify the places where the body is struggling or lacks necessary mobility and strength, and then equips the congregation with the resources to increase the capacity to do the hard, oftentimes painful work to heal the injured places, not just numb the pain.
Preachers cannot force people to do the work of change any more than a physical therapist can force patients to do their exercises between sessions. And yet the physical therapist still has a responsibility to work with who shows up, willing to push the patient at a rate that the body can tolerate, able to tell the difference between harmful pain and pain that is a necessary part of healing. So it is with preachers.
The biblical prophets at their best delivered difficult truths that resulted in a change in behavior and reoriented the listener back toward God. How is our preaching prophetic, not just blasting judgment, but rather delivering difficult truths in measured ways that result in a changed behavior that reorients us back toward God? I pray that our preaching might be a catalyst to push our congregations at a rate that they can tolerate, without ignoring or masking the discomfort that is necessary for change, expanding our capacity to stay awake to the pain of our lives and of the world for the purpose of participating in the healing of creation.
How is our preaching prophetic, not just blasting judgment, but rather delivering difficult truths in measured ways that result in a changed behavior that reorients us back toward God?
LeAnn Hodges (she/her) is the Coordinator for NEXT Church’s Preaching for Change initiative. She is a Presbyterian pastor in metro-DC, ICF trained coach, student of family systems theory, and former engineer. LeAnn is the mother of 3, wife and daughter of teachers, sister of a social worker, granddaughter of small town farmers, and a lover of creativity.
