This review makes me reconsider the whole book . . .

. . . which now, dadgumit, i'm going to have to read again. Garret Keizer on Barbara Brown Taylor's "Leaving Church," with the interpolated question -- "Is middle class Christianity even possible?"

Ow. (Rubs sore spot, sits and thinks.)

http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2006/003/20.41.html

Dreaming above the many spired landscape . . .

looking south, from the spire of St. Mary's --

Tilden's principles of interpretation

In his 1957 book, "Interpreting Our Heritage", Freeman Tilden defined six principles of interpretation for the still new and developing National Park Service. I keep meditating on these from the perspective of congregational life, with the church as the visitor center and the community around it as "the resource," the parkland or site or wilderness area which the center "interprets." Tilden and others in his footsteps remind us that 95% of all park visitors never get more than 100 feet away from their car, unless it's to enter an interpretive facility -- but our job in the visitor center is to get them to want to go back out, not straight to their cars, but to explore and experience "the resource."

Sound like the challenge of church-ism to you? For anyone visiting national parks, state parks, or interpreted historic sites this summer while not being able to completely forget about the challenge of sharing the Good News back home, here's the six principle idea that may tie both experiences together.

Could a pastor be an interpretive ranger? You tell me . . .

Tilden's Six Principles

1. Any interpretation that does not somehow relate what is being
displayed or described to something within the personality or
experience of the visitor will be sterile.

2. Information, as such, is not Interpretation. Interpretation is
revelation based upon information. But they are entirely different
things. However all interpretation includes information.

3. Interpretation is an art, which combines many arts, whether the
materials presented are scientific, historical or architectural. Any
art is in some degree teachable.

4. The chief aim of Interpretation is not instruction, but provocation.

5. Interpretation should aim to present a whole rather than a part,
and must address itself to the whole man rather than any phase.

6. Interpretation addressed to children (say up to the age of twelve)
should not be a dilution of the presentation to adults, but should
follow a fundamentally different approach. To be at its best it will
require a separate program.