Conversation Sermon - and apprenticeship model

Last Sunday (yesterday) my son Michael and I did a conversation sermon. It was the Diocesan Top Parish event, and the bishop thought it would be good for a young person to do the sermon. But for some reason he was not so keen to do it! So I offered to help him, and he thought that would be doable.

So, we met and did a wee lectio divina thing on the gospel reading. We read it out loud once and named the words or phrase that stood out. Read it out loud again, and this time Michael listed his questions. We then went away and did some work on those questions.

Then we re-met a day or so later and went through our answers. Then read the passage again and talked about what God might be saying to us as a church and as individuals in this reading. We then worked together to construct a conversation. We went away and did work on our respective bits. Then we rehearsed it a few times.

It went well. It was a bit rough on occasions, but overall I was impressed by the model. I had never done this before, or even thought about it. But as I worked with Michael I thought, this is a good model. And after church several people also commented on what an interesting model it was, not only for working with young people but also older people. I think Steve Taylor talks about apprenticeship. Certainly Tex Sample did at the conference in Auckland. I think this fits that really well. A way of apprenticing young people to reflect on the godpel passage and be able to speak about that in a public setting. So, there it is.