COMMENTS FROM THE EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Paul D. Robbins
July 1, 1981
Of all the questions we have heard since LEADERSHIP was launched, two have distinguished themselves for being asked the most often: 1) What has happened to great preaching? and 2) Who are the great preachers of today? With these questions in mind- plus a host of others-we began to develop and assemble the material for this issue's theme, Preaching and Worship. Two clippings came to my attention that individually do not directly address these questions. Together, their impact has started a chain reaction of thought that I want to share with you.
The first clipping came from Fredrick Buechner's book Telling the Truth and freezes in time-like a flash picture-a scene that could occur any Sunday morning in almost any church. In fact, this may have been the setting in which you found yourself last Sunday morning:
"The sermon hymn comes to a close with a somewhat unsteady 'Amen,' and the organist gestures the choir to sit down. As the preacher climbs the steps to the pulpit with his sermon in hand, he hikes his black robe over his knees so he will not trip over it on the way up. His mouth is a little dry. He has cut himself shaving. He feels as if he has swallowed an anchor.
"In the front pews an old man turns up his hearing aid while a young mother slips her six-year-old a Lifesaver and Magic Marker. A college sophomore home for vacation, who is there because he was dragged there, slumps forward with his chin in his hands. The vice-president of the bank, who twice that week seriously contemplated suicide, places his hymnal in the rack. A pregnant teenage girl feels life stir within her body, and a high school math teacher, who for twenty years has managed to keep his homosexuality a secret, creases his bulletin down the center with ...
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