In General, In Particular Blog for 8.25.2022

    Last week’s blog contained the phrase “Teaching, like preaching requires an ongoing engagement with literature in general and domain-specific reading in particular.” This week I’d like to discuss each of those two reading strategies in a little more detail. 

    These two strategies are essential for everyone in the Church. If you have chosen a career in the information architecture of the Church; preaching, teaching, leading songs, participating in worship, or really any kind of content-driven purpose, this should be of particular concern. 

    General reading orients us with respect to our full cultural experience. It is incarnational. It is particular in a similar fashion to Jesus' own incarnation, He lived in a particular place, at a particular time, experiencing a particular (mixed) culture. General reading helps us to understand our world as it stands now and how it got to be the way it is. Without that kind of information, it can be difficult to figure out how to approach the “real” world effectively with the Gospel. One of the books I mentioned last week was Newbigin’s The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. This book was a follow-up to his prior work Foolishness to the Greeks. In these two books, written by a career missionary upon his return to Britain, he laid out a compelling case that our Post-Modern, Post-Christian-world requires a nearly cross-cultural level of analysis if we are to articulate the Gospel to it. 

    We live in the world though we stand apart from it. We are embedded in our native culture and though the Gospel provides an alternative narrative to that spoken by our world, if we are to bring the message of Christ to bear in that world, we need to understand that alternative narrative. 

    General reading is a part of that orienting process. The process of understanding the world in which we live so that we might bring the light and love of Christ to life amid a fallen culture of death.  Now let’s consider domain-specific reading. You may not be familiar with that term. I’ll explain it as we describe the experience. 

    Doctors are supposed to know more about human anatomy, biology, and the various organs and systems which make up the human body than the rest of us. It’s their job to help fix us when we’re broke. They need more advanced knowledge than those of us who are not medical professionals.  They acquire this knowledge through a specific educational experience. They continue to learn throughout their medical practice so that they may keep abreast of new discoveries, advancements in treatment, and cumulative global medical experience. 

    Many, if not most doctors specialize. In each specialized area of medical study, there is a specific developing body of knowledge that an experienced practitioner would be expected to know—by their peers and prospective patients. So,  a general practitioner builds upon their general medical education by trying to be broadly informed about a wide range of common health issues. A pediatrician focuses on the illnesses and maladies common in children. A heart surgeon and an orthopedic surgeon both show up at work to operate but they have explored the literature and procedures of different specialties. 

    This general principle is found throughout most professions. Grade school teachers and college professors both teach. Their domain-specific training is different.  Like the medical analogy a fifth-grade teacher will likely be a generalist, a college professor focused on a specific subject area or discipline. 

    As a preacher, your domain-specific reading will primarily consist of Biblical Studies, Theology, and Practical Ministry. These are the basic disciplines you will need for a lifetime of ministry. Like a doctor, you need to work hard to keep fresh. We cannot possibly consider every single new approach to exegesis or theological development. However, it is important to keep your fingers on the pulse of your profession. Like rumors of new diseases that drive patients to look on the internet, or parents who do the same with respect to new approaches to education, you will meet people who have questions about your chosen area of concentration. You need to be the expert in your town, and certainly in your church. This expertise is gained through long days of studying and working through the issues which drive contemporary Biblical studies and pastoral issues. Another word for this kind of reading—is work. It’s a part of the job. If you don’t want to do this, you need to get out of the ministry for the same reason you or I will not go to a doctor who has stopped developing her professional muscles. 

    We do the general reading at night and on weekends for leisure. This reading needs to be combined with the other Media which transmit messages in culture. Cinema, T.V., Internet, social media. As an added twenty-first Century bonus, you can often do Cinema (which used to involve “going to the Movies”) and T.V. In the same streaming app. 

    The Christian author C.S. Lewis described himself as “arising in the morning with a thirst for print.” That’s how we grow and improve our general knowledge and perspective of the world and that’s how we get better at what we are called to do and be. Start early. Dive deep.  Move broadly across a variety of sources. Keep fresh and you’ll always be deepening your understanding of the world and articulating a faithful response from the Word.