When maintenance and survival begin to dominate the consciousness of the church community, missional thinking suffers and the willingness to reach out withers. But if God wishes to preserve the church so that it may proclaim God' s message. then the pressing question for the preacher in a struggling community becomes how to cooperate with God and develop preaching which focuses on mission in the broadest sense. This three year exploration begins a commitment to discover our call to mission from within the gospel of Mark from week to week, and continues with a focus on enhancing the authenticity of the preaching event through preaching without notes. Finally, convinced that mission emerges from our context, and from our core identity as a people sent out, we embarked on a project of roundtable preaching, where the discussion around the weekly texts was translated into the sermon on the Sunday that followed. Sermons emerged which exhibited genuine post-modern character, lifting up marginal voices, and breaking down hierarchies. Evidence is presented that missional preaching leads to a grow ing missional character in the congregation, and a renewed energy towards active mission.
