Seeing the Korean church's stagnation after its phenomenal rapid growth, as a pastor in office I feel more than personal anxiety, a sense of urgency. This thesis diagnoses the reason of the stagnation of the church to recover its identity and mission and develop a homiletic model to grow afresh.
Postmodernity is not favorable to the truth and the church, in a sense; it is rendered upon an absolute denial of the faith. By these following questions are asked, that is, how in a changed situation can the congregation transform into a missional community to bear witness to the Gospel and to bring the people into the church, what they should look like and what they must bear, to build up the church, preaching should be primarily considered. Also, after the 1960's the New Homiletic which set up to renew the church in North America has not contributed as much, therefore, this study proposes to examine the problems by association with the New Homiletic with the church, and also suggests that the New Homiletic should be evaluated critically for the upbuilding of the church.
This thesis establishes a hypothesis that in the changed situation, in order to reform its identity and mission of the church from the declining Korean church, the purpose of preaching is to build up the church as a missional church. This hypothesis is proved by analyzing the changed preaching situations, identifying the characteristic of the postmodernity and its influence on the church. Also to recover the church which is pushed aside in this time, the church's identity and mission should be redefined by practical theological ecclesiology, and to overcome the problems in the churches in North America and Europe due to postmodernism, and propose a missionary church model shown by 'GOCN' to renew the church and closely look at the features and methods how ministry should be done for the missionary church in a changing world to do its mission.
This study focuses on how preaching must change to form a missional church in postmodernity, identifying preaching environments, in other words, the characteristics of postmodernism and its influence on the church. Then, after it is identified, I propose the missional church, a biblical and relevant church model by practical theological ecclesiology, and develop a homiletic model to form and transform the missional church. To achieve the aim of the thesis in an efficient manner, I primarily chose to refer to previous studies and government publications. In other words, it's depending on a research method by interpreting the signifier and signified and analyzing the meaning to understand the intention of the subject. As preceding research work, I read extensively into various domestic writings about churches and preaching based on postmodernism and practical theological ecclesiology, recently released doctoral theses and recent books on missional ecclesiology and preaching in missional churches. The preceding study is to understand postmodernism. I would like to look at the characteristics of the contemporary congregation, and what changes occurred to them and church due to the influence of postmodernism. The church does not fall even in the changing age and based on practical theological ecclesiology, I would like to stipulate the missional church as a church which does its mission, and I would also like to show an new perspective that this is rendered by preaching ministry, and also by conceptualization, I would like to seek a new method of preaching in a missionary church appropriate in this age.
To become a church that tolerates postmodern people living in postmodernity, this thesis tries to develop a homiletic theory based on previous studies by identifying some characteristics of the changed situation of the church, critically evaluates some homiletic theories in the New Homiletic with regard to the declining church and whether the theories from the New Homiletic helped overcome the current church's crisis, and proposes an advanced alternative. To demonstrate the hypothesis set in the thesis, I examined the characteristics of postmodernism and their influences on the church and also propose the need for the transformation of the contemporary church. In addition, through practical theological ecclesiology as a framework of how the church recovers its identity and mission in postmodernity, I propose the missional church as a biblical and relevant ecclesiology in postmodernity and developed a preaching model to form and transform the contemporary church as a missional church.
Preaching in the missional church is a part of God’s missionary activity, equipping God's people as a missional community, and proclaiming the gospel in the world through the community of faith and inviting people into the Kingdom of God. For the missional church to recover its mission, above all, a missional hermeneutic for preaching is needed, that is to find the identity of the congregation as the people of God and its mission, in order for this, the world of the congregation must be interpreted by the world of the Bible, and to do this, a missional hermeneutic has to be a God-centered interpretation and also a typological interpretation.
Above all, communication characteristics in the missional church should be examined, and I propose that the communication should be a dialogue which is biblical.
I also propose that within this understanding of dialogue communication, the sermon forms and language should make the congregation take part in it and that ultimately the preaching should be one that makes the congregation participate in God's salvific work.
For this, I point out at some weaknesses of various sermon forms of the New Homiletic and present an alternative in a missional preaching perspective and propose the need for metaphoric languages to stimulate our imagination in preaching in the missional church.