I keep hearing the contemporary evangelical/emergent/liberal birds chirping the same songs about the antiquity, ineffectiveness, and offense of preaching. I hear people say that we need to ‘re-imagine’ preaching and even recast it as more of a conversation. Still others say we need to supplement the pulpit with innovation and humor. The suggested changes here are doubtlessly draped in pragmatic reasoning, with, what I assume to be (for I don’t know) decent motives.
However, with all of this chirping I turn on the TV and I see candidate after candidate standing up and delivering speeches. I hear talk show hosts dissecting speeches about policy and planning. I go to websites and read of candidates articulating their specific views. My point is for all of the questioning and imagination that goes on in the contemporary church about the role of the preacher and the delivery of the message, specifically with regard to the audience’s ability to hear and listen, the political candidates apparently have not gotten the memo. They seem to be doing the same thing that politicians with something to say have always done, they stand up talk and expect us to listen and interact with it.
Along with the clear, timeless, and definitive biblical mandate for the pastor to preach the word (2 Tim. 4.2) we have the continual cultural articulation that a person speaking to a crowd is an effective means to communicate. Our culture is not as distracted and disinterested as some pastors paint them to be. The fact of the matter is that people listen to what relates to them. The contemporary baptism of the pulpit into a sitcom sized dose of self-help from a god who has had his sharp and jagged personality conveniently sanded off has done much to promote an imagination for something more. In other words, the reason why folks are not coming or are asking for something different is because many pastors are not preaching in the first place.
Pastors need to stop trying to be innovators and belly up to be expositors. If guys would just start studying, practicing and teaching the truth their lives would change and so would there congregations. Instead of becoming irrelevant in an attempt to become relevant, pastors would actually be relevant by meeting real needs with real solutions.
I’m tired of hearing pastors complain about preaching when they do not do it in the first place and while the public craves answers to real problems. We have much to say and there are many needs to be met. And at the end of the day the needs will be far better met and God will be far better glorified through exposition rather than imagination.
[note: A couple of quick things, 1. I am not saying that pastors should take their cues from politicians (there is a biblical basis for preaching), 2. I love preachers and preaching and wish more guys did, 3. This may be a rant, but I am barely raising my voice when I write (J) ]
