'Our challenge is not simply to understand the word we hear preached but to do it. Our business is not Biblical interpreation but Biblical performance. We need to be a community who interpret the word; but the kind of interpretation we are to aim at is much more than agreeing what it means. We are to interpret the word in the sense of becoming a living visible interpretation of the word, a community in which the word of Christ is lived out and made concrete. We will only do this if we understand that our gatherings as whole local churches under the preached word are the defining context for church.'
Christopher Ash, The Priority of Preaching, p.101.
