Who's your favorite speaker?
Stephanie said in a recent comment on this blog:
ben, i like hearing your thoughts on this. i have listened to mark driscoll sermons in hope of finding some redemptive value but instead end up frustrated. so i empathize with you.
So here's my question. Who's your favorite speaker or speakers--the ones where you do find redemptive value--the one's who manage to plant lovely story seeds inside you which bear delightful fruit? If you can, also share links to talks from these speakers.
To start us off--one of my favorites is Dan Allender, who always manages to surprise me and (lovingly) shove me right out of my completely whacked comfort zone.
4 comments:
well, one of the very BEST speakers in the world, whom I love to listen to, is Benjamin Ady! Remember when you spoke on board LOGOS II, just before we started going out? I know I was utterly smitten, but that really WAS one of the best talks I've every heard!! Others? My Dad's 'Daddy' talk is beautiful and comforting. Brian McLaren is wise, and 'sees'. Martin Luther King Junior is like that, too. I feel more alive when I'm listening to him. John Ramey, of the 'shit happens' talk, where his problem wasn't with the shit, but with the idea that its happening is random and pointless. Brent Rue. Roald Dahl, whose stories delight me. Justin Moffatt preached an excellent sermon when we were in New York City, on how God is affected by us (sort of, if I remember rightly) in Hosea. Peter Wagner. Myles Toews. Dang, why are they all male so far for heaven's sake? Ahhhh! Oh, of course, Eva Homberg!!! (Phew!) And my sister Seren, in our one-on-one way! And Eowyn and Cosette!
I think almost all speakers have some redemptive value. It's sometimes the ones I initially have written off for whatever reason who end up giving me something good...
Maybe it's strange, but I'd have to dig into history a bit, and say Abraham Lincoln. Granted, I have never heard him speak, never met him, or have never known anyone who personally heard him speak. But I have read his speaches, and they are inspirational today, just as much as during the Civil War. The beauty, eloquence, intellegence involved. Amazing creations from someone who had a total of one year of schooling.
Dan Allender is an awesome speaker! I've heard him live once and online several times. What an incredible story-teller. He combines passion, transparency and wisdom to make a compelling case for each listener to to actually coauthor his/her own story with God, to live that story. And then I loved hearing him encourage us to each tell our unique story - not to evangelize, but just to be real and alive and loving, in a way which inherently points to God.
I also really enjoy listening to Rob Bell, at the OTHER Mars Hill in Michigan. I'm so glad that there's no connection between those two Mars Hill churches. Or, for that matter, between Driscoll's 5,000 acolytes and Dan Allender's Mars Hill Graduate School.
Pastor Rose Swetman actually contacted Rob Bell to find out how they view and treat women at that Mars Hill. Not surprisingly, Bell's church shared a view that would probably cause Mark to refer to them as 10,000 feminists and "chickified guys". (I really despite his use of that term.)
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