Preach like it matters

As we draw near to the first day of school, I find myself thinking back over my own school year. I had some great teachers through the years. Most of them cared about the material they were teaching and most of them cared about me. In fact, there seemed to be a direct correlation between those who cared for the material and those who cared for me. The handful of teachers who seemed to not give a rip about what they were teaching also seemed not to care about whether or not I improved as a person one bit.

There's a lesson there. One of the primary ways we convey that our people matter is by making sure that we are conveying that our sermon material matters. If it appears that we don't think our sermon matters (either through lack of preparation or enthusiasm), not only will we communicate that the gospel story doesn't matter, we'll inadvertently convey that our listener's don't matter either!

John Claypool tells a story about a friend who was assigned to an airborne division during WWII. This terrified his friend because he'd never even been in an airplane much less jumped out of one! He said it was funny, no one had to tell him to pay attention to his instructor. He hung on every word the man said. Plus, the instructor was a seasoned paratrooper himself, so he spoke of these literal issues of life and death with an urgency that only comes from one who trusts his material matters greatly.

Claypool summarizes, "Here was a human being sharing with other human beings what he knew about a subject of vital concern. I would suggest that this provides a getter description of what the preaching event ought to be than for some casual academic dilettante to pass out information that, even if correct, is of little existential moment. We are called to be and do far more than merely to pass out information" (John Claypool, The Preaching Event, 61).

Every week we stand up and share with other human beings what we know concerning a subject of vital concern. Let's do far more than just pass out information!

Illustration-a-day: Jesus gives bad advice

"Mr. Hayes was a churchgoer (indeed, a deacon), but he considered his religion a civic duty, a moral discipline, a social obligation, and (he was honest) a business asset. . . . Hayes was a Christian, but if the truth be known, Christ irritated him to death.  With the army in Freiburg, Germany, in 1959, he'd read the Gospels while cooped up in the infirmary, and he'd argued by pencil in the margins against the Savior.  In his personal opinion, Christ's advice sounded like civic sabotage, moral lunacy, social anarchy, and business disaster."

Michael Malone, Handling Sin, as quoted in Frank G. Honeycutt's, Preaching for Adult Conversion

Quote of the week: Preaching with a straight face

"Pastors who climb into a pulpit Sunday after Sunday inherit a rather odd story to proclaim with a straight face. . . Our homiletical goal for our people over time must be nothing short of conversion to this odd man revealed in this odd story."

Frank G. Honeycutt, Preaching for Adult Conversion and Commitment

Illustration-a-day: The Bible is offensive

This week, I was ironing some clothes, not something I do all that often, which led me to do something else I don’t do very often, channel surf. The reason I don’t channel surf very often is because we don’t have very many channels – twenty-two to be exact – the most basic cable package you can order. But, there I was ironing, flipping through my less than two dozen channels and nothing was on. I can tell you nothing was on because I landed for a few minutes on a reality show called Wife Swap. That was my best option. The premise is simple, two very different families trade moms for two weeks to see what conflict can ensue. In this episode a farmer’s wife, I believe from the panhandle, switched places with a rock and roll mom from California.

They let the moms scout out the houses so they can judge how much better of a mom they are than the other one. Anyway, Rock and Roll mom moving through the house, notices how clean it is, how cutesy - notices that Jesus is in every room. When she comes into the room she’ll be staying in she immediately affixes her gaze onto a Bible that’s been placed at the end of the bed. She looks into the camera and says, “You know, that offends me. It’s like they’re saying I need saving or something – like I’m not a good person already.” I don’t exactly know what the farmer’s family was saying by leaving the Bible on the bed (I didn’t watch any more of the show), but I do know what the Bible says – none of us are good people. We all need saving. The Bible goes so far as to call our righteousness “filthy rags.”

Is that offensive? You bet. The gospel is offensive.  But offending is what we need, if that’s what it takes for us to recognize our state before a Holy God. We all need saving. Not from the things we think we need saving from. No doubt Rock and Roll mom had probably been judged by Christians about her tattoos and her taste in music and all manner of other things – those aren’t the things she needs saving from. And Christians who think that are judgmental folks who misrepresent the kingdom of God. But don’t let us think for a moment that because some people misjudge us that judgment isn’t real. God will judge us. His judgments are real, accurate, and fair. We are a broken, sinful people. None of us are ok - whether we’re farmer’s wives from Texas or Rock and Roll moms from LA.

Illustration-a-day: The (non) utility of religious affiliation

This past week a group of mathematicians presented a paper that predicted that organized religion will eventually disappear from nine western democracies. You can read CNN's take here. The mathematicians came to their conclusions after measuring the movement from stated religious affiliation to non-affiliation in census reports over the last one hundred years. It should be noted that claiming to be non-affiliated with a religious denomination is certainly not the same thing as non-belief.

The reasons the mathematicians gave for the move from affiliated to non-affiliated status attempt to speak concerning the basic reasons humans are motivated to join up with religious groups. The first reason they gave is basically, people like to be in the majority. As more and more people dis-affiliate from religious denominations more and more people will dis-affiliate from religious affiliation. Essentially, we're all still in junior high doing what everyone else does.

The second reason provided is more interesting to me. Apparently, we join up with things that bring us personal advantages. The scholars call this the utility motivation. Religious affiliation used to have a utilitarian advantage over non-affiliation. But recent data claims the opposite, non-affiliation now appears to have a utilitarian advantage over religious affiliations in many western democracies. No doubt there was a day when belonging to a denomination brought with it certain benefits for a person in society. In former days, you couldn't do business in the south without belonging to some church. That day is gone. Now affiliation has no utilitarian advantage over non-affiliation. Let me repeat. Religious affiliation has no utilitarian advantage over non-affiliation. It won't help you be a better business person, have a happier family, be a part of a more cooperative society - at least not in the majority population's eyes (For an expanded look at this reality read Darrell Guder's Missional Church).

How is the church to respond? Well, many in the church are attempting to argue for the utilitarian advantages of affiliation. They ratchet up the marketing to promote the usefulness of church. Pastors preach sermons on the usefulness of Christianity for life, marriage, economics, etc. All in an attempt to win back the utilitarian advantage the church once enjoyed. That is one option. It might work. It might not.

Either way it doesn't seem a lot like New Testament preaching that preached not on the usefulness of the gospel, but its truth. Preaching that had little utilitarian advantage (believing the message could get you killed - how's that for non-utilitarian) but could certainly set you free. Maybe, just maybe, losing our utilitarian advantage isn't as bad as it seems. Especially, if it helps us return to the emphasizing our greatest advantage, the truth of our gospel and the power of the Spirit at work in our midst.