Practical Theology

An Introduction

Richard R. Osmer

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781467438124
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Every church congregation encounters challenging situations, some the same the world over, and others specific to each church. Richard Osmer here seeks to teach congregational leaders -- including, but not limited to, clergy -- the requisite knowledge and skills to meet such situations with sensitivity and creativity. Osmer develops a framework for practical theological interpretation in congregations by focusing on four key questions: What is going on in a given context? Why is this going on? What ought to be going on? and How might the leader shape the context to better embody Christian witness and mission? The book is unique in its attention to interdisciplinary issues and the ways that theological reflection is grounded in the spirituality of leaders. Useful, accessible, and lively -- with lots of specific examples and case studies -- Osmer's Practical Theology effectively equips congregational leaders to guide their communities with theological integrity.

CHAPTER 1

The Descriptive-Empirical Task: Priestly Listening

Olivia Potter twisted the handkerchief again and again as she stood in the airport baggage area waiting for her parents. She had been looking forward to this visit for weeks, but now that it had finally arrived she grew more and more anxious. She knew that her mother would immediately notice how much weight she had lost and the big circles under her eyes. She would tell them what was going on in her life in good time, but not at the airport. So she put on her best smile and began to scan the faces of the people coming down the escalator.

Later that evening Olivia decided it was time to “fess up,” as she put it. After clearing the dishes from the table and pouring coffee for her father, she asked her parents to join her in the small living room of the condominium. “Well, I guess you must be wondering why John isn’t here,” she said. “We’ve decided to separate. I’ve told you that he was drinking a lot, but I didn’t tell you everything. He never, ever comes home at night. After work he jumps in the truck and is off to meet his drinking buddies. I think the earliest he’s gotten home this week is two in the morning. He’s too hung over to say much at breakfast, although he’s promised me more than once that he will be home in time for supper. I let him make that promise one last time this Monday, and when he didn’t show up, I went through the house and got all the money I could find and went to stay with Patty. You met her last time you were down here. I’m only back in the condo for your visit. Then I’m packing up and moving out. I’ve already got something lined up.”

Olivia reached over and took her father’s mug. As she went into the kitchen, she tried unsuccessfully to hold back the tears. Her parents quickly joined her in the kitchen, and they placed their arms around her as she wept. Through her sobs Olivia went on: “That’s not all. With all this stuff going on with John, I’ve started to drink a lot myself. When he doesn’t show up at night, it makes me so angry I start drinking, and the more I drink, the angrier I get. Things have been terrible at work too. I never knew real estate agents and developers were such con artists. And they’re not just doing it to the clients, they’ve been conning me too. Remember how excited I was when I told you that I’d been promised a car and a big raise? Well, I’ve been working my butt off for two months now, and it’s pretty obvious that they’re not going to give me any of that. I hate going to work. I hate coming home. I’ve even been thinking pretty often about driving my car off the road and ending it all.”

As Olivia began to sob again, she whispered, “Daddy, I want to do God’s will. I really do. I’m trying to figure that out. But I feel so tired right now. I’m ready to give up.”

After a moment her father responded, “Olivia, one thing I’m pretty sure of. God’s will isn’t for you to be working these kinds of hours and to be living in such a rotten marriage and to be so unhappy. Please, please, go see a pastor. Get some help.”

Two weeks later, after she had moved, Olivia called up Pastor Dorothy Gains, the associate pastor of a local church. She had found out about Rev. Gains from the wife of one of her coworkers. So here she was, sitting in Rev. Gains’s office. “So what brings you here?” Rev. Gains began.

“I guess I’m more unhappy than I’ve ever been in my life,” Olivia responded. “I’ve even had thoughts about driving my car off the road and ending it all.”

What if you were Rev. Gains? You know nothing about Olivia Potter other than what you have just heard. Where do you go from here?

The purpose of this chapter is to teach the leaders of congregations how to carry out the descriptive-empirical task of practical theological interpretation. In seminary, students learn how to interpret many different kinds of texts. They learn the skills of exegesis and interpretation of biblical texts. They study classic texts and ancient liturgies of the Christian tradition and explore their meaning for today. Practical theology invites such students to interpret the texts of contemporary lives and practices, what Anton Boison once called “living human documents.”¹

If you were Rev. Gains, the chances are good that you would try to draw Olivia Potter out and get more information. You might ask her how frequently she had suicidal thoughts and how serious she was about acting on those thoughts. You might pay close attention to her physical appearance. Does she look thin and tired? How is her hygiene? You might attend to the way she communicates. Does she tear up as she talks? Is her speech faltering and subdued? Are the feelings accompanying her words flat or sad? Since Olivia shared suicidal thoughts, you would feel obligated to assess how serious they were. You would spend time drawing out more of her story to decide if a referral to a mental health professional might be in order. At the end of this chapter I describe Olivia’s life story more fully.

Congregational leaders experience episodes like this all the time as people share their problems, seek help, are hospitalized, lose loved ones, and pass through the stages of life. When they make observations and gather information in the face of such incidents, they are attempting to answer the question, “What is going on?” This question lies at the very heart of the descriptive-empirical task of practical theological interpretation. Yet it is important to view this task as broader than gathering information in the face of problematic or crisis situations like the example given above. It has to do with the quality of attentiveness congregational leaders give to people and events in their everyday lives. This is helpfully explored in terms of a spirituality of presence.

A Spirituality of Presence

In recent decades discussion of the spirituality of presence has been widespread and has moved in a number of directions.² Here it describes a spiritual orientation of attending to others in their particularity and otherness within the presence of God. The key term here is “attending,” relating to others with openness, attentiveness, and prayerfulness. Such attending opens up the possibility of an I-Thou relationship in which others are known and encountered in all their uniqueness and otherness, a quality of relationship that ultimately depends on the communion-creating presence of the Holy Spirit.

Developing a spirituality of presence is a great challenge to congregational leaders. Most of us who have led congregations have experienced some of the following at different times in our ministries. We are so busy that we become completely task-oriented, relating to people solely in terms of the job we need to accomplish. Even when talking to another person, our minds race ahead to the next thing on our schedule; we are preoccupied, listening with only half of our minds. Often this leads us to make snap decisions without pausing to find out what is going on and at stake. Or we rush to judgment, making quick value judgments about others without even bothering to find out who they are and what they face.

Even worse, we may begin to act like the religious leaders who walked by the traveler in distress in the parable of the Good Samaritan. We fail to even notice—much less stop and help—those individuals and groups who are suffering and in need. Our society is good at keeping such people hidden. But all of us encounter at some point those trapped in poverty or on drugs, ravaged by mental illness and disease, or excluded because they are different. Too often we walk on by because attending to their plight is inconvenient or too threatening to our own way of life.

Ultimately, the descriptive-empirical task of practical theological interpretation is grounded in a spirituality of presence. It is a matter of attending to what is going on in the lives of individuals, families, and communities. This poses certain challenges that congregational leaders must face up to. How can we lead if we fail to attend to others in their particularity and otherness? What sort of influence do we have to offer if we have not struggled to overcome our own tendency to not listen, to rush to judgment, and to ignore suffering others in our midst? Struggling with these kinds of issues lies at the heart of a spirituality of presence. It is a matter of opening ourselves to the forming and transforming Spirit of God who remakes us in the image of Christ within his body. Unless we first learn to attend, we cannot really lead.

Priestly Listening

In The Bible in the Pulpit, Leander Keck offers a helpful theological starting point for thinking about attending in the descriptive-empirical task of practical theological interpretation. Intercessory prayer, he notes, is a priestly act only when the leader does not merely pray about the people but also offers prayer to God from the people on their behalf. As Keck puts it: “The pastor is truly a priest when the prayer articulates the situation of the congregation through his or her prayer. For this to happen, one must listen to the people and establish a critical identity with them.… To pray on their behalf, one must enter into their lives to the point that one begins to feel what they feel, yet without losing one’s identity.”³

Keck captures nicely the twofold movement of intercessory prayer. It requires entering into the situation of others through personal contact, listening, and empathetic imagination. It then moves upward to God, placing their needs and concerns before God in prayer on their behalf. This twofold movement reflects the pattern of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. In his incarnation Christ entered fully into the suffering and beauty of finite existence; in his life of obedience and sacrificial death he made an offering to God on humanity’s behalf.

In the New Testament the entire Christian community is portrayed as a holy and royal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:5, 9; Rev. 1:6; 5:10), which is joined to Christ, the one true high priest and sacrifice (Heb. 2:17). All in the community are to act in a priestly way, praying for one another (Eph. 6:18), confessing their sins to one another (James 5:16), and bearing one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2). Drawing on the imagery of the priestly cult, Paul portrays the Christian moral life as a “living sacrifice” that should be pleasing and acceptable to God and as a form of “spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1). Here, too, all in the community are to build up and encourage one another in living holy lives (1 Thess. 5:11).

It is important to begin with this understanding of the priestly ministry of the entire congregation. Priestly listening is, first and foremost, an activity of the entire Christian community, not just its leaders. It reflects the nature of the congregation as a fellowship in which people listen to one another as a form of mutual support, care, and edification. Within the priesthood of all believers, congregational leaders are set apart by the congregation to carry out ministries that will enable it to participate more fully in the priestly office of Christ. When leaders engage in priestly listening, they therefore do so on behalf of the congregation as a whole. Two contemporary practical theologians, Thomas Long and Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, provide much help in considering what this entails.⁴

Building on Keck’s description of intercessory prayer, Long and Tisdale emphasize the importance of priestly listening in the preaching ministry. As Long puts it in The Witness of Preaching, when preachers turn to the Bible to prepare their sermons, they must bring with them an awareness of the life situations of the hearers, for preaching “speaks to particular people in the concrete circumstances of their lives.”⁵ Otherwise, they will not be capable of articulating the concrete claim of a biblical text on the members of their congregation. Long continues: “Going to the Bible on behalf of the people is a priestly act. As an exercise of the priestly office, the preacher represents the people before the text as a way of representing them before God.” Like intercessory prayer, “the preacher goes to the biblical text as a priest, carrying the questions, needs, and concerns of congregation and world, not as an agenda to be met but as an offering to be made.”⁶ Priestly listening—attending to the people addressed by the sermon in all their particularity and otherness—is crucial to every step of sermon preparation.

In Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art, Tisdale further develops Long’s depiction of priestly listening as important to the preaching ministry.⁷ She argues that it is important for preachers to do more than enter intuitively and imaginatively into the circumstances of listeners. Just as preachers explore the meaning of scriptural texts with the methods of biblical exegesis, so too they must learn to use “methods for ‘exegeting’ the congregation in all its sociocultural particularity.” As Tisdale puts it: “Congregational interpretation is a necessary ‘first step’ (as well as an ongoing process) through which the pastor can listen attentively in order to deepen his/her understanding of the congregation on its own terms.”⁸

Why is this important? As Tisdale notes, unless preachers attend to the culture of their congregations, as well as the diverse groups in these communities, they are likely to preach abstract sermons to a generic humanity that do not address the real-life situations of their hearers.⁹ Too often, for example, sermons fail to connect with the youth of the congregation. The preacher does not understand youth culture and almost never has in-depth conversations with young people or participates in their activities. It is little wonder that the examples, issue...