Preaching and Preachers

This past weekend, my wife and I had a little away time. The weekend away was going to include being away from the pulpit and preaching. Although I don't like to be away from Sunday morning, I have found it's a necessary thing to do if you're going to complete the marathon of ministry.

This also meant, I had an opportunity to go to a church and be a recipient of a good gospel message. I wanted to go to a Southern Baptist Church as this is my denomination and I wanted to see what's going on outside my church and in other pulpits. So I went to the Southern Baptist Convention website and found a possibility of five or so churches that were in my area. To my dismay, the information on that site was not very good and many churches did not have basic information - i.e., service times. In fact, the church we ended up going to had the wrong information on the site so it was a good thing we drove by to find the church the night before and that they did have their services times clearly posted.

Sunday morning we were up and allowed plenty of time to get to the church and find good seats. It started off good as the choir was full with at least 50 people to include those playing the musical instruments. They even had a baptism that morning of a lady probably in her 50's or 60's. However from there it went down hill.

I felt from the beginning that it was a "dead" or "dying" church but I maintained a positive attitude and prayed for the preacher and the preacher. He started with "Children's time" which there are still many churches that do this. This is a time where all the kids come into the auditorium and the pastor gives them a short message and then the teachers are supposed than build on the lesson the pastor gives in their classes. The message unfortunately was about a jar of peanut butter and that the month of September was their churches month to supply the food pantry. To his credit, he did throw in a little Scripture from Matthew 25.

The moment finally came for the preaching. I had my Bible out and turned to the text, although it was already printed out in the bulletin. I was hungry for the Word and the text was a familiar one but well needed for today. The text was Ephesians 6:10-20 and so I was expecting a message on Spiritual Warfare or something in that realm. As the preacher got up and moved to the platform he positioned himself in front of the pulpit and began his introduction. I noticed he put his Bible on the pulpit and that he was one of those preachers who preach without any notes. Something that I'm still fearful of today and know myself not that good to preach without my manuscript, although, I seldom read it but it's there as a safety net just in case.

His introduction was okay, but from there it just went on a terminal nose dive. He didn't follow the text at all and there was no real thesis or point of the message. The most I got out of it was to "stand firm." What was never answered was stand firm on what? What are the resources that are given to the believer for spiritual warfare? What is this the helmet, shield, sword, etc., and how do I use it?

None of those questions were answered fully and how could he answer them as his message was a total of 17 minutes. I must say, I was glad it was only 17 minutes because he had already said all that he was going to say and began to repeat a lot of what he already had said. Some of you know what I'm talking about. It's called rambling or filling time with words that have nothing to do with what your message is all about. It happens when you  are unprepared and you don't really know what you want to say. The message takes you nowhere and leaves you there, wherever that is, bewildered.

All is good though, because we ended at 12:00 pm on the dot so we can get to our favorite restaurants and spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing. Of course, there was no evening service so we could watch both football games from start to finish.

I hope you read in on the sarcasm in the last paragraph. I was sorely disappointed as this church is part of my denomination. What church is supposed to be about and center around is Christ and His Word. That was not the case here, as it was obvious that they spent more time in preparing the bulletin, which has a detailed order of service and plenty of inserts for all the programs that the church was sponsoring. I sense that this church was an "audience-driven" church that is prevalent in our day. Os Guiness in 1993 put it this way:

"The preacher, instead of looking out upon the world, looks upon public opinion, trying to find out what the public would like to hear. Then he tries his best to duplicate that, and bring his finished product into a marketplace in which others are trying to do the same. The public, turning to our culture to find out about the world, discovers there is nothing but its own reflection. The unexamined world, meanwhile, drifts blindly into the future."

 My admonition to that church and preacher is the same admonition Paul gave Timothy:

I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (2 Tim 4:1-4)