为公开布道写作
作者吉恩·G·布拉德伯里，神学、文学双硕士，神学家、作家，退休牧师，现居美国 华盛顿 塞基姆市
走廊的两侧都有房间，每扇房门上都写着作者的名字。走廊的地毯因我屡次登门造访而磨损。我的拜访行程自童年开始，但随着时间的推移，它变得更有意义。
刚成年时，我发现了赫尔曼·黑塞、薇拉·凯瑟、温德尔·贝瑞、弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫、约翰·斯坦贝克和其余一千多扇门。在大学期间，我拜访了苏格拉底之前的哲学家们，后来是柏拉图和奥古斯丁。再后来是克尔凯郭尔、萨特和尼采。每个阶段，我都在一丝不苟、有的放矢、手不释卷地阅读。
当有人问我 “成为一名作家必做的事情是什么”时，我总是回答道：“阅读，阅读，阅读。”有没有专业人士不用阅读就能出类拔萃呢？作家、心理学家卡尔·罗杰斯则不这么认为，他说道：“我宁愿要一个在文学或物理学领域博览群书的人，也不愿要一个为成为心理咨询师而苦修心理学的人。” 1
这个道理同样适用于牧区的牧师或教会的神职人员。解经、劝勉和属灵引导是必要的功课，但深度阅读会为他们的工作注入新的灵感。
阅读对教牧工作极其重要，且需要时间投入。我们经常听到花时间与上帝独处、祷告和默想如何如何重要。的确如此。但对我个人事工影响最大因素的是阅读。广泛地阅读启发着我思维、教导、布道及日常交谈的方方面面。
写作
阅读带来灵感。作者的见解能为布道和教导工作提供素材。有了故事和经验的加持，教牧工作也会因此变得别有趣味。一位演讲者若是腹有诗书，即使是不经意的对话也会变得妙趣横生。
最近我翻阅了一些旧的讲章，想找找看有哪一篇没有使用从阅读中学到的故事或例子。而我却没有找到。讲道有时可能是说教的，但最好的布道能够吸引听众并引发思考。从阅读而来的故事、比喻和个人经历能够开启听众的耳朵和心灵。我也会根据给定的经文讲道，但我的讲道会穿插许多使会众共鸣的例子。阅读乃创新之母。基于真实素材的讲道很少被铭记。但是穿插着故事的讲道会像一个钩子，牢牢地抓住人们的思想。
电邮、脸书、短信、推特等黑马每日在我们身旁腾跃，卖力的吸引着我们的关注。它们本身并非劣马。但它们往往会设定节奏。我们使用智能手机和各种电子设备使生活更加轻松与高效。黑马很快，但他们设定的节奏常常是模糊的。
牧师的确需要掌握最新的技术。但今天的我们又要放下电子奶嘴，聆听圣灵的柔声低语。没有了思考和默想的时间，我们的思维能达到怎样的深度呢？若让音频媒体和短信掌控自己的节奏，我们会在多久之后失去耐心思考和缜密写作的能力呢？T·S·艾略特说过：“在何处能寻得此道，它的回响又在何方？并非此地，因为这里不够安静。” 2
有时，教会的领袖必须放慢脚步，留心那以细腻、安静、耐心写作的白马。若如此行，我们的讲道、课程和谈话就能吸引我们所服侍的人。
左脑和右脑
作家刘易斯·卡罗尔对每周讲道的人别有兴趣。讲道需要讲者兼容偏重左脑和右脑思维的听众。当我开始讲故事或读诗时，有多少偏重左脑思维或分析型的听众会走神？如果过分说教，依赖事实和数据，又会有多少偏重左脑思维的人目光呆滞？这需要一个平衡。
作为一名牧师，我做到了。正如使徒保罗所提倡的，试着 “向什么样的人，我就作什么样的人”（林前9:22）。对那些在我的讲道中寻求知识的人，我可以使用严谨的学术研究。与此同时，对惯用右脑倾听的人，我也能将寓言、比喻、故事与艺术的神奇世界带给他们。
学术世界和故事世界都从我的书房开始。我的书房里摆满了书架。但墙上又挂着画家布莱克·伯吉斯的版画，画的场景取材于薇拉·凯瑟的精彩故事。在书房里，学术和故事并驾齐驱。虽然我是惯用右脑思考的人，以故事和寓言思考，但更多时候，我桌上打开的书往往是解经学、古代史和心理学。远离音频媒体和快问快答能够使我抽身，而去聆听成为一位好牧师和有思想的作家所必需的声音。
公开布道
在做公共事工时，你可能会公开谈论你的职业。但或许有时为了吸引未信之人，你又是隐秘的。许多人不愿拿起一本冠以宗教之名的书或杂志。那么，是否能以一种吸引无神论者聆听福音的方式写作呢？牧师或教会神职人员写作时，能否提供一种更加普世的真理呢？作为一名牧师，我可能会穿着有牧师领的衣服或者佩戴有“牧师”字样的徽章——也可能穿着短裤和T恤，但那仍旧是我。
我去医院见探望一家人。我穿着一件西装外套，其上没有任何特征表明我是牧师。但有些东西比外衣更有辨识度。我走进候诊室寻找家人。坐在门口对面的一位女士问道：“你是牧师，对吗？”
我迅速看了看我的外套和鞋子，以确认是否有可供识别的标签或徽章使我“暴露身份”。的确没有。我很好奇她是怎么知道的。也许有时就是看起来像吧。
我们的写作有时会透露一种柔和的精神，这种柔和不会将人拒之门外。有时我会匿名写作。但无论我是否署名，都足能表达出欲想表达的道理。事实上，如果我不署名，还可能会吸引更多的读者。或许，我们要铭记一位老牧师的忠告：“牧师就是高举上帝的道直至无法看见自己指尖的人。”传道者是一个努力隐藏自己而使人们聆听福音的声音。而作家在指出既有的现实后，就可能会离开。
事实上，地毯是因我不停地造访作家房门而磨损的。我读的书已经转化为我的时事通讯、个人书信、灵修写作、儿童故事、面对面交谈和讲道的一部分。无论是预备公开布道还是私下咨询，都有一个相同目标：写作可以转化。通过它，文字成了有血有肉的生命。
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1.玛丽莲·麦克太尔，《谎言文化中的文字隐忧》(密歇根州，大急流城：威廉·埃尔德 曼斯出版公司，2009年)，第133页。^
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Writing for Public Ministry
By Gene G. Bradbury, MDiv, MA, Theopoetics and Theopoetics, is a retired pastor residing in Sequim, Washington, United States.
The hallway has rooms on both sides, each door with an author’s name on it. The carpet is worn from the trips that I have made knocking on doors. The visits began in childhood, but as time passed, my visits became more intentional.
In early adulthood, I found the doors of Hermann Hesse, Willa Cather, Wendell Berry, Virginia Woolf, John Steinbeck, and a thousand more. During my college years, I visited the pre-Socratic philosophers, then Plato and Augustine. Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Nietzsche followed. At every stage, I read—religiously, intentionally, and intrinsically.
When someone asks me, “What must I do to become a writer?” I answer, “Read, read, read.” Can any professional excel in what they do without reading? Carl Rogers, psychologist and writer, thinks not: “I’d rather have someone who reads widely and deeply in literature or physics, than to have someone who has always majored in psychology in order to become a therapist.”1
This is equally true for the parish pastor or church professional. Exegeses, counseling, and spiritual direction are necessary disciplines, but deep reading seasons these vocations.
Reading is essential to ministry and requires time. We often hear how important it is to take time for solitude, prayer, and meditation. True enough. But it is reading that has influenced my ministry more than have all the others. The visits to authors inform my thinking, teaching, preaching, and daily conversations in a variety of ways.
WRITING
Reading brings with it inspiration. Authors’ insights inform sermons and teaching material. Pastoral ministry becomes flavorful, seasoned with stories and experiences. When a presenter has salt in herself, even a passing conversation becomes more interesting.
I recently thumbed through a stack of old sermons to find one where I did not use a story or example from my reading. I found none. Sermons may be didactic on occasion, but the best sermons engage listeners and stimulate thinking. Stories, parables, and personal experiences open the ears and minds of listeners. Reading supplies that. I may preach from a given text, but my sermons are filled with examples that worshipers identify with. Reading becomes the mother of invention. A sermon based on factual material is rarely remembered. But one with a story provides a hook on which to hang one’s thoughts.
Dark horses—email, Facebook, text messages, Twitter—prance alongside us each day, demanding our attention. They are not bad horses in themselves. But too often, they set the pace. We use smartphones and numerous electronic devices to make life easier and our time more efficient. Dark horses are fast, but the pace they set is often a blur.
Pastors need to be up to date when it comes to technology. But today, the need is to let go of the electronic pacifier and listen to the soft wings of the Spirit. Without time for thoughtfulness and silence, how deep can we get? If we pace ourselves by soundbites and texting, how long will it be before we lose the capacity for patient reflection and thoughtful writing? In the words of T. S. Eliot: “Where shall the word be found, Where will the word / Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence.”2
There are times when leaders in the church must slow down and pay attention to the white horses of thoughtfulness, silence, and patient writing. When we do, our sermons, classes, and conversations will engage the people we serve.
LEFT AND RIGHT BRAINS
Author Lewis Carroll is of particular interest to those who preach weekly sermons. Preaching requires that the speaker address people who favor both the left and right hemispheres of the brain. How many left-brain, or analytic, listeners tune out when I begin to tell stories or read poetry? How many others’ eyes glaze over if I become overly didactic and rely on facts and statistics? A balance is needed.
I have learned that as a minister, I can, as the apostle Paul suggests, try to be “all things to all people.” I can do careful, scholarly research to address those who look for information in my sermons. At the same time, I can bring the magical world of parables, metaphors, stories, and art to the ears of those who listen with the right brain.
Both of the worlds of scholarship and storytelling begin in my study. My study is a small room lined with bookshelves. But on the walls are prints by the artist J. Blake Burgess, who painted scenes from the wonderful stories of Willa Cather. In the study, scholarship and storytelling come together. Though I am primarily a right-brained person, thinking in story and parable, the books open on my desk are often more exegetical, ancient history and psychology. Spending time away from sound bites and fast-paced answers allows me to step away and listen to the voices necessary to be a good pastor and thoughtful writer.
PUBLIC MINISTRY
There are times in public ministry when you are overt concerning your profession. There may be other times when you are covert, perhaps for the sake of appealing to a nonbeliever. Many people will not pick up a book or magazine that is termed religious. Is it possible to write in a way that invites the nonreligious to hear the message? Can a pastor or church professional write in a way that provides a more universal truth? As a pastor, I may wear a clerical collar or a badge that reads, “Chaplain”—I may also wear shorts and a T-shirt and still be the same person.
I went to meet a family at the hospital. I wore a suitcoat with nothing to identify me as a clergyman; but there is something more defining than your outer garb. I walked into the waiting room to find the family. A woman sitting opposite the doorway said, “You’re a pastor, aren’t you?”
I quickly looked at my coat and shoes to see if there was an identifying tag or badge that gave me away. There was not. I wondered how she knew. Perhaps sometimes it just shows.
A gentleness of spirit may also come through in our writing, one that does not turn people away. I sometimes write anonymously. The truth I wish to convey will come through whether I identify myself or not. Indeed, it may reach a larger audience if I do not. At times, it is best to remember the instructions of an old pastor who said, “The preacher is one who so holds up the Word of God that his (or her) fingertips cannot be seen.” The preacher is a voice that strives to remain invisible so the message may be heard. The writer may point to the reality that is there but then move out of the way.
Indeed, the carpet is worn from the ceaseless trips that I make to the doors of these writers. The books that I read have become part of my newsletters, personal correspondence, devotional writing, children’s stories, face-to-face talks, and sermons. Whether the preparation is for public ministry or private consultation, it has the same purpose: writing is incarnational. Through it, words are made flesh.
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1. Marilyn McEntyre, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009), 133. ^
2. McEntyre, 133. ^
现代真理 