|
|
TBC Newsletter | |
| March 2006 |
BORROWING A PROPHETIC VOICE TO FIND OUR OWN |
On Sunday February 19, 2006, the Sunday after Phil Strickland’s memorial service, I decided to do something I have never done as a pastor. I climbed into the pulpit and preached someone else’s material word for word. Now, in confession, I must say that although I have borrowed lines, phrases, and illustrations from various preachers, this was the first time I relayed a message that was in its entirety, the creation of another imagination – a prophetic imagination. I did this because I believed Phil wouldn’t mind if we borrowed his voice in a search for our own.
Phil’s November 2005 address to the Texas Baptist Committed Breakfast in Austin bears the mark of the highest prophetic order in the biblical tradition. It needs to be heard and heard again among Texas Baptists and beyond. But it will not be enough for us to merely post it on our websites, mail it out in newsletters, and forward it through emails. Re-preaching it from the highest pulpits will not be enough either. What’s needed is substantive response – we must find and use our prophetic voice.
This address was Phil’s last public statement. We can treat it as such and reference it as a fitting epitaph to his life’s work. But such a high-order address calls for high-order response. In asking “where have all the prophets gone?” the prophetic mantle has been passed. Will we merely hear Phil’s question as a memorial or answer by taking it up as our charge? It is left to each one of us to answer that question for ourselves, answer it for a world in need, and answer it for the sake of the gospel. After all, as Phil reminded his pastor to remind us at his memorial, “Remind them. It’s not about me. It’s about the gospel.” We’ve been given a voice. It’s time to speak.
