Pastoring from the Margins

What happens when the pastor’s teacher about pastoring is black? You will never get the same lessons from a black pastor-teacher you will get from a white pastor-teacher. In Jared Alcántara’s book, Learning from a Legend, we are treated to six teachings about pastoring and preaching by Gardner C. Taylor.

Each theme is illustrated from the sermons and life of Taylor.

This will be our next book club study, and we will begin July 9. The book is short, the chapters are short, so order it and you will be able to read a chapter a week along with us.

Liberation theology’s motto is “preferential option for the poor” and it has taught us that theology from the margins is not the same as theology done in the center of power.

What happens when the one who teaches us to preach and to pastor is on the margins?

What have you learned about pastoring from someone who lives on the margins?

If you have learned nothing because you’ve not “learned” from a pastor in the margins, say so (at least to yourself). And also commit to learning from those who have pastored from the margins.

To be brief because his life comes up in each chapter, Gardner Taylor was born in Louisiana, son of a Baptist pastor and a school teaching mother, but he became famous during a 41-year pastorate at Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn. He was a model of balancing redemptive gospel and social justice activism.

It bothers me that as a white professor, one who does some preaching and has read not a few books about preaching as well as books of sermons, that I have not heard of Gardner Taylor.

The wall between the white teachers of pastoral ministry and black teachers of pastoral ministry must come down.

The two will never teach the same. Ever.

The six themes are Pain, Redemption, Eloquence, Apprenticeship, Context, and Holiness.

How about joining us.