Tag Archives: preaching

My Top Concerns for the Local Church

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peacefully-asleepI have a passion for the life of the local church. The purpose of ChurchETHOS is to redeem the prophetic and influential role of the church in American society. Ethos basically means the habits or character of a group or individual. It can also mean the sort of reputation one person or group has with another person or group. So, ChurchETHOS explores how we can restore habits and customs that conform to the Way, Truth, and Life of Jesus and develop a good relationship with those outside the church.

So here are a few of my top concerns for the local church:

1. Members are just going through the motions.
Many Christians spend only about one hour per week involved with their church. They go to a church building. They know when to stand or sit. They know when to sing or listen. Most importantly, they know when the “hour of power” is supposed to be over. And may it never be that the pastor ever forget.

2. Prayer is not effective.
Not that the prayer of a righteous person isn’t effective, or that God isn’t listening. Instead, most of our churches are infected with lazy Christians who have no vibrant relationship with God and think that prayer is just rubbing the lamp and the genie-god comes out and does everything we want it to do.

3. The local church isn’t led by the Spirit of God.
It’s not just the people in the church that concern me, it’s the leadership. Elders often think they are the decision makers and they lack the close connection with God necessary for the health of the church. Acts 14 gives a good example of the elders being led by the Spirit to act.

4. Preaching is talking.
Often the preaching elder doesn’t know how to exhort or rebuke or encourage. He doesn’t spend time discovering what God is saying to the Body through His word. Preaching becomes a series of talking points that lack persuasion or correction. Preaching isn’t prophetic anymore.

5. The American Dream is more important than the Kingdom of God.
For most people, life with Christ is crowded out by regular life. Working hard to be successful, to make money, to become more powerful, these are the reasons most members have for why they can’t invest more in God’s kingdom. They can’t imagine how their wants needs could possibly be provided for without working 60+ hours a week. Since prayer isn’t effective, surely God can’t be relied upon to fulfill His promises.

6. Serving and hospitality are no longer values.
Since the American Dream is such a powerful force, there’s little time left to help someone in need. We have our excuses: “Based on how they dress, if I give them money they’ll probably just spend it on alcohol or cigarettes.” “I can barely afford cable TV and the payments on my flat screen, much less give to the church.”

7. Making disciples is for the paid professionals
In fact, everything that needs to get done around the church is up to the pastor to do it. At the heart of this is the fact that members are no longer following Jesus. They don’t care about what He said. They don’t care about what He did. They don’t care that they are supposed to be following His example. Primarily what Jesus wants us to do is to love God, love people and make disciple-making disciples. There aren’t even a whole lot of paid professionals (pastors) that are fulfilling that commission.

These are just a few of the concerns I have for the church. What concerns you? What are your ideas for how to solve these problems?

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Missiological Thoughts for January 6th

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I am currently attending a two week course at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary on the subject of World Missions. This winter session is the start of my final year of seminary and this particular class ensures that it will be a good year. Yesterday I simply shared some of my notes from Day One and thought I would share, not necessarily the outline, but maybe some insights from Day Two. Hopefully, I will keep doing this for the next two weeks (with a few unrelated posts besides). As always, I invite conversation in the comments section because this is helpful to you and me as we think through these issues together.

The Great Commission

Today, Dr. Tennent spent the entire 3 hours discussing the Great Commission. There were a few things that were familiar and a few things that were brand new to me. The outline was quite simple. He went through each of the gospels and ennumerated all of the references to Jesus’ mission to the Gentiles. This culminated into the Great Commission passages from Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24 (and Acts 1:8), and John 20.

The Usual (but still good) Insights

1. The Matthean Commission

The command in Matthew 28:19 is not “Go” as most people seem to think, it is “make disciples”. I’ve personally been saying this for quite some time and wish more people got it. My professor talked about the imperatival use of the verb “make disciples” whereas, the other verbs are participles that modify the main verb: “as you are going”, “as you are baptizing”, “as you are teaching”. This is a church that is already on the go, and their task is to make disciples.

The full phrase is to “make disciples of all the nations”. The nations here are not meant to be geo-political entities. They are specifically meant to refer to people groups.

2. The Markan Commission

Mark 16:9ff are not included in the earliest Greek manuscripts. As a result, we cannot place the same authority on this text as we do on the rest of Scripture. Mark’s ending could’ve been lost, or he intentionally meant to end His gospel abruptly in the middle of a theological point. The new ending is anonymous but has been accepted by the church and it is not inconsistent with the thought of Mark and can still be preached.

3. The Lukan Commission

Luke emphasizes the sovereignty of God and the fact that we don’t “do” missions, we join God in HIS mission. He opened the eyes of the men in Luke 24 so that they would recognize Him. He opened the minds of His disciples so that they would do His will. Apart from God’s work in people’s hearts, there is nothing that we can say or do to make someone trust in Christ.

The New Insights (that I hadn’t thought of before)

1. The Matthean Commission

Most people in the Church associate the phrase “Great Commission” with Mt 28:18-20. We should delete that file and talk about the Great Commission (singular) that is found in all four Gospels. The Great Commission refers to the overall mandate that the One who was sent is now sending the Church.

2. The Markan Commission

Mark’s account seems to focus on individuals rather than people groups. Jesus says to “Go into all the world” World is less specific than Matthew’s “nation”. The imperative here is to “proclaim the message to all creation”. Since the world population of Jesus’ day was only 250 million and now is around 6.2 million, world population has changed the scope of Jesus’ commission to His first disciples. We have to go where the people are. Right now, around 60% of the world’s population are in China and India. If they are not receptive to the Gospel that will have huge implications on the future of the Church.

3. The Lukan Commission

There are no imperatives in the Lukan Commission. In fact, Luke is the first one to record actual content OF the Gospel that is to be proclaimed in the commission. The content of the commission starts with the prophecies that the Messiah would come and be killed but would rise on the third day and that repentance and forgiveness of sins would be preached to the nations. The next verse simply calls attention to the fact that the disciples are witnesses that this has taken place and He tells them that He is sending them the Spirit to help them. No command, just observation, but it’s an observation with implicit action involved.

Final Thoughts

Though Matthew, Mark, and Luke share some material, the Great Commission passages found in the Synoptics and also in John and in Acts 1:8 appear to be 5 separate sayings. For one thing, they take place in at least three different settings: Bethany, Jerusalem, and a mountain in Galilee. For another thing, they have completely different wordings and emphases.

Tomorrow I will be learning about the Johannine Commission. I’m looking forward to it. Meanwhile, what thoughts do you have in follow up to these other points. I should point out that these insights are not the entire content of the lecture. I just wanted to give you a couple of things that Dr. Tennent pointed out that were of interest to me.

Notes from my Preaching Class

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bibprerob1I’ve been preaching for years but I am just now taking a seminary class on the subject and it has transformed the way I approach the preparation to preach. My professor is Haddon Robinson (one of the top ten most influential preachers according to Christianity Today. He wrote Biblical Preaching which is “Still the preaching primer of choice!” according to Preaching Magazine) so you can imagine the intimidation I felt yesterday when I preached in front of a class of my peers with Dr. Robinson and his little yellow notebook sitting directly to my right.

Does preaching have purpose? I’ve written elsewhere that I believe preaching is Biblical and necessary for the strengthening of the church but in this post I want to describe my personal experience with what happens when a pastor faithfully preaches the Word of God.

Praying the Text

What I want to describe here is something I have experienced many times, not just in preparing a sermon, but also in personal Bible study. However, as I prepared to preach Romans 3:21-26, I remember spending a lot of time in prayer and reflection. These times of prayer change me every time I preach. It helps me to move from thinking “I hope I do well” and “I want a good grade” and “Maybe I will win some kind of preaching class award” to praying “Lord, may I find your Truth from this text” and “Who cares if I get a good grade, if only you will change me through this process”.

Preaching is a Discipline

Prayer helps to reduce my own pride in preaching. Preaching is a discipline that encourages me to pray for humility, to pray for the people that will hear the message, to pray for transformation in my life and theirs. Preparing to preach is a process of thinking Christianly. This isn’t a time to search the internet for someone else’s sermons. It isn’t a last minute scrambling to throw something together because you “have to”. Preaching is a unique exercise in loving God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving our neighbor as ourselves. It is introspective and revealing. I experienced a transformation in my own heart as I wrestled with the main idea of the text.

Preaching is a Process

As I submitted my study to the rigorous discipline of Dr. Robinson’s “stages” of sermon preparation, I was amazed at how articulate I became. I couldn’t just throw something together. I had to wrestle with the text. I had to argue with it. I had to be frustrated by it. I had to ask my wife for help. I had to come up with a way to articulate. When I finally wrote down the words that became my “homiletical idea” it was a word from the Lord. It hit me hard. I literally fell to my knees and wept when God gave it to me. What struck me were the words in Romans 3:26 which says “He presented Him to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time so that He would BE righteous and declare righteous the one who has faith in Jesus.” After struggling for hours over how to articulate the main idea I wrote, God would not BE a good God, if He had not sent His Son to die. I didn’t get that sentence from John Piper or Mark Driscoll or from someone else’s blog. I received it as a reward from God as I wrestled with Him and His Word. Feel free to disagree with my homiletical idea…feel free to disregard it as common knowledge. But it was so clear to me that this was the word I was to preach for that particular time and place that I was overcome with emotions of gratitude and praise to God for His providence – not just of providing the words for a sermon but of providing us with His Son.

Where We Go Wrong

If I hadn’t waited for that word from the Lord I would’ve settle for something else. I would’ve preached a message that hadn’t gripped my heart. I think preachers often sell themselves short. Many preachers don’t preach a word from the Lord; they preach a plagiarized copy or a watered down version of what God has to say in His Word. If we don’t grapple with the main idea of a text and let it shape us and let it guide our prayer for the congregation and for the world and let it tackle us with its simplicity and its power then we will never be preachers, we will only be talkers. Preaching is discipline. Preaching is a selfless, pastoral act given to the church of God. Preaching is humility. Preaching is a process. If our preaching is anything less then it is disqualified.

What Happens After the Sermon?

What happens after the sermon leaves our mouths? That is not my concern. I don’t need to hear “Good job, pastor!” or get a pat on my back. I don’t need to hear someone talk about how it changed their life. I don’t need an email from someone on the mission field saying I preached a sermon that inspired them to move to Africa. If I prepare to preach with discipline and humility I will know that whatever happens after I preach has nothing to do with me. If I am diligent in my preparation then I will know that God’s Word changed me, that God’s Word presented me with the main idea, that God’s Word shaped how I crafted the sermon, that the Spirit presided over the process and the delivery, and that the Spirit of God was at work in the people’s hearts and minds. Charles Spurgeon entered his pulpit every time praying, “I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Holy Spirit.” A preacher is a servant with a mouth, nothing more.

So these are reflections of my experience in preparing to preach yesterday. What are your thoughts on the purpose of preaching?

The Challenge of Preaching Today

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This is Part One of a book review of the still timely work by John Stott entitled, Between Two Worlds.

After months of discussing the relevancy of preaching I have decided to write a book review of one of my favorite books on preaching. This book was written in 1982 but still has importance for important questions we have about the validity of preaching. People are asking, “Does preaching still connect with people today?” “Have preachers overstated their own importance and role in the life of the church?” “Where in Scripture do we find preaching that is exhortational in the church as opposed to evangelistic preaching in the marketplace?” The book Between Two Worlds: The Challenge of Preaching Today goes a long way in making the case that preaching is a God-ordained vocation that is still essential to the building up of the body of Christ today.

A Historical Sketch of Preaching

John Stott is the Rector Emeritus of All Souls Church in London. He has been an Anglican and an evangelical almost his whole life. He has written over 50 books and has been a major leader in evangelical Christianity. [Source] 

In the first chapters of this book, Stott describes the glory of preaching. From the prophets of the Old Testament there has always been the man of God singled out to preach God’s Word. This sweeping sketch of the history of preaching invokes both a sense of humility and confidence in any would be preacher. The confidence comes first in that this is an historic calling that God himself calls men to preach and that we may stand with centuries of faithful men and women who have refuted error and stood for truth. This confidence is in the glory of those who have come before us. He quotes Charles Hodge who said, ”In every age, great reformers have been great preachers.” Today there is still such a need and God still chooses broken vessels like us. Stott also quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer who said, “The preacher should be assured that Christ enters the congregation through those words which he proclaims from the Scripture.” I’m not sure that there are too many people today that still believe such a controversial statement.

After a deep confidence that is in the majesty and glory of God that is displayed through preaching must come humility. Stott makes sure the preacher understands that ”The ‘message’ is God’s own Word. For the people have not gathered to hear a human being, but to meet with God.” A preacher doesn’t preach his own message but preaches the Word of God. He is a herald that proclaims not a lecturer that postulates. Richard Baxter is another one of the preachers Stott highlights. Baxter was successful in converting almost his entire town to become disciples. He was systematic in his catechizing of every family every year and also in his public preaching. Stott writes, ”This catechizing would occupy Baxter two whole days a week, and was one essential part of his work. But the other part, ‘and that the most excellent because it tendeth to work on many’, was ‘the public preaching of the Word’.” Baxter valued preaching because it was an opportunity every week to share the message with many hearers. That seems to be a value lost on today’s anti-establishment crowd.

Contemporary Objections to Preaching

The second chapter in Between Two Worlds is about the contemporary objections to preaching. He writes, ”The prophets of doom in today’s Church are confidently predicting that the day of preaching is over.” Written over 25 years ago, these words not only ring true, they have become an understatement. He lists three major arguments launched against preaching: “The anti-authority mood, the cybernetics revolution and the loss of confidence in the gospel.” I won’t go into each one of those things but will simply make some comments from the chapter as a whole.

Stott writes that ”Christians know from both Scripture and experience that human fulfillment is impossible outside some context of authority.” As I read through this section I thought of the church through the example of “the family of God”. It would be silly if a dad didn’t correct and teach and exhort and discipline his own children. What a silly family it would be if it resembled a complete democracy. Besides, a sermon is not just an authoritarian monologue…if crafted well, the preacher has already thought through the issues that would arise in the hearts and minds of his people. Stott writes, ”Preaching is rather like playing chess, in that the expert chess player keeps several moves ahead of his opponent, and is always ready to respond, whatever piece he decides to move next.”

Another topic Stott deals with in this chapter is how people learn. When disciples learn, they do so through listening, discussing, watching and discovering. Most would say that the preacher is limited to teaching the congregation through listening but that should not be the case. The preacher can and should provide opportunities for discussion but Stott goes even further with teaching people through observation. Not only has God ordained baptism and the Lord’s Supper as participatory visual aids, but the preacher himself is a visual aid. Titus was told, “Show yourself in all respects a model of good deeds.” Were it not for this example-setting, our words as preachers would fall on deaf ears. This gets to the heart of the purpose for my blog and the reason for the title ChurchETHOS. The way we live should be a visual aid to our congregation to help communicate Biblical ideas and the congregation itself is to be a visual aid to the world. 

Stott concludes that ”There is no other form of communication which resembles [the sermon] and therefore could replace it.” He writes, ”For here are God’s people assembled in God’s presence to hear God’s Word from God’s minister.” When we as listeners of a sermon have that sort of anticipation about what we will soon hear, how can we not hear from God. 

Theological Foundations for Preaching

There were several great thoughts from this chapter. The first that I thought was crucial to the success fo the pastor was that “Technique can only make us orators; if we want to be preachers, theology is what we need.” From here, Stott discusses various convictions that a preacher must have if he is to be successful. First, a preacher must have a conviction about God that he is light, that he has acted, and that he has spoken. Secondly, a preacher must have a conviction about Scripture that Scripture is God’s written word, that it still speaks to us today, and that Scripture is powerful. Next, a preacher must have  a conviction about the Church and a conviction about the pastorate.

Finally, a preacher should have a conviction about preaching. Specifically, Stott believes in expositional preaching that transcends subcategories of topical or textual or narrative, etc. He writes, “Exposition has a much broader meaning. It refers to the content of the sermon (biblical truth) rather than its style (a running commentary). To expound Scripture is to bring out of the text what is there and expose it to view.” He believes that ”The Word of God is the scepter by which Christ rules the Church and the food with which he nourishes it.” The preacher contributes to this process by faithfully proclaiming God’s Word to the congregation.

What’s Next?

In the next part of this book review, I will look at the more practical chapters in Stott’s book. If the above issues raise any questions or objections to the role of the preacher in today’s culture, please feel free to discuss. I would highly recommend this book for your reading.

Why Is A Sermon Still Important?

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Wesley-PreachingI’m concerned about a movement today to do away with the sermon. The argument is such that many believe sermons are irrelevant in a postmodern society where experience and stories are much more transforming in a person’s life. Many believe that sermons have slipped in their importance in the process of making disciples for the following reasons:

1. Fewer people are preaching.

2. Many that are preaching, aren’t preaching well.

3. Fewer preachers truly understand the changing culture today, therefore fewer preachers are connecting their sermons to people.

4. The Church has become consumeristic and so the sermon as part of the buffet isn’t as appealing as the music and the candles and the emotions.

5. Maybe most importantly, too many people have begun giving “talks” rather than sermons unintentionally undermining the value of the sermon.

But rather than allow sermons to be thrown out because the ones being preached are not relevant or they are preached by people who think little of the sermon itself, we need instead, to begin thinking about the role a sermon plays in the life of a local church.

A Case Against Preaching

I agree that we live in a new world and a new culture. We need to rethink church life from every angle. As we look to our future, we as Biblical preachers must always be looking to the Ancient Way as described in God’s Word. I recently heard someone condemn preaching and say that in order to make disciples we need to “Midrash” because that’s what Jesus did.

This is an incorrect interpretation of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus preached! The person who rejected preaching and elevated the Midrash (a discussion where the community interprets a passage together) gave two evidences that this was Jesus’ default position: 1. Jesus asked his disciples “Who do you say that I am?” (which has nothing to do with the way the Jews conducted a Midrash), and 2. people called Jesus “Rabbi”…. That’s it. I had to infer that his logic was thus: a) Rabbi’s in Jesus’ day taught Scripture through Midrash. b) People called Jesus a Rabbi. Therefore, c) Jesus taught Scripture through Midrash. This ignores all of the Biblical evidence of what Jesus did throughout His ministry.

A Case For Preaching

For one thing, chapters five through seven of Matthew (the first book in the New Testament) gives a detailed sermon of Jesus to His disciples. Luke 4 tells us that it was Jesus’ habit to teach in the synagogue. Mark 2 tells us that he was preaching the word to a packed house. Romans 10 asks “How will they hear without a preacher?” Throughout the gospels people were amazed at the teaching of Jesus because He taught as one who had authority.

This gets to the root of why I have a problem with people discarding the sermon: authority. Bible discussions are healthy and good and I enjoy doing them on a weekly basis with my small group (and even more often when possible). However, the sermon is just as important because it bears with it the authority of God to proclaim Truth into people’s lives. A sermon is meant to proclaim Truth whether it is to unbelievers or to the faithful. Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” was delivered specifically to the disciples. He also taught in the synagogues regularly to those who were not necessarily His followers.

Jesus didn’t Midrash the Sermon on the Mount by saying, “Here is a passage from the Old Testament that says not to commit adultery, what do you think this means Peter?” Instead, Jesus proclaimed Truth with authority. A sermon does the same thing. The phrase, “The Lord says,” appears hundreds of times in the Bible and that is what a preacher does when he preaches a sermon to the Body.

Conclusion

Regardless of what people think, the sermon is an important part of the overall formation of a Christ follower. It isn’t meant to be THE way a disciple learns Scripture, instead it’s like a meal. We eat meals three times a day and every once in a while we get together with others and share a meal with them. Just because we got a meal on Sunday that someone else cooked doesn’t mean we stop eating for the rest of the week.

We have to have a steady diet of God’s Word and it is beneficial to receive a word from someone else every once in a while. The sermon is not the WAY to make disciples, but it is something that God still calls people to even in our postmodern era. I’m convinced that the people who are against preaching are people who’ve never heard a Spirit filled sermon or they’ve never given one. That’s no reason to deny Jesus’ use of the sermon and God’s call for certain people to be set aside for the ministry of the Word. The Church needs the full spectrum of gifted men and women to be apostles, prophets, evangelist, pastors and teachers. We need elders and deacons in the church to oversee and to serve the family of faith faithfully. May God continue to raise up qualified people to lead our local churches closer to being like Christ.