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For those of you who have been following this series of posts we will be diving into what I believe to be a third temptation in preaching, to be significant. Thus far, we have explored the temptation to be original and the temptation to be masterful. As I have stated in previous posts each of these temptations will have a certain degree of overlap, but nonetheless I believe each to have its own distinctives and symptoms.
I have been thinking a lot lately about the role of church services and spiritual formation. It seems to me, as I am musing about this, that the most dangerous thing to do in a church service is to get people excited. Out of all the emotional experiences we go through, it seems to me that excitement is the most potentially fleshly and easiest to manipulate. Excitement is easy to use from the pulpit as a way to manipulate people to do what you want them to, whether that is giving money, getting involved, evangelizing, etc. This goes back to the blog I did earlier, suggesting that much of the evangelical church has bought into a kind of prosperity gospel. We do not orient our values around money, but around experiences of excitement.The revivals seem to have been predicated on excitement, and the wake of the revivals was faith that did not last but flashed brightly only to fade quickly.
In light of this, is there a "safe" ethos to create in church services, or an ethos that leaves less room for the flesh to prevail? I worry about excitement because, while it is certainly a part of the Christian life, it often is tied together with victory, which the Protestants have tended to push against replacing it with the cross. Humility, rather than victory, is the proper end of man, because the victory is not ours but Christ's.
Do we just leave this up to the shepherding task of the pastors, who, through a true knowledge of their flock can faithfully discern where God is moving in their congregation, or is there a general ethos we should help create in our church services? Any thoughts?
Perhaps you find the title of this series a bit odd, but as mentioned in my initial post, I have discovered that there are great temptations in pastoral ministry when it comes to preaching. Last week, we explored the first temptation, to be original. This week we will explore the second temptation, to be masterful.
As with originality, it must be noted up front that mastery in ones vocation can be couched in a very positive and in fact admirable sense. I have no doubt that there is great virtue in truly honing one’s skills and learning to be as effective and accurate as possible when preaching. That being said, with each virtue I suppose there may be a potential vice. So, I would like to explore the ways in which mastery can be a dangerous temptation leading the preacher away from dependence upon God. In essence, to be masterful in our preaching is born out of an unhealthy desire to be in control. We will investigate this temptation by exploring how it plays out in three areas of preaching.
As I noted in my introductory post a few days ago, I will be exploring what I believe to be temptations that pastors face in the ministry of preaching. Much of this has been born out of prayerful reflection on my own preaching life. I have found that many of these temptations have surfaced for me, and it has struck me that perhaps others are tempted in the same ways.
Our first temptation is, to be original.
How many sermons have we heard? How many Bible studies have we walked through? Many Christians could create a database of sermons they have heard based on topic. Of course, depending on their background and church affiliation this may vary. Sometimes churches themselves recycle a particular sermon series every couple of years. I would imagine that pastors have perhaps heard even more sermons, lessons, studies, etc. than your average parishioner. So, as we approach a passage or a topic which will take center stage the following Sunday through our sermon I would imagine many of us experience "preaching schizophrenia". We hear the voices of other pastors, seminary professors, commentary writers, evangelists...In fact, if we have been preaching for several years we hear our own voice. Whether we have been preaching on the exact passage in front of us or not, chances are we have covered similar concepts. We may feel like we have used up all our "good stuff". So, we wade through the litany of angles, interpretations, illustrations, etc from others and even from within ourselves.
So much is said about how a pastor should preach. So many thoughts have been poured onto paper, and now onto blog pages, offering insights as to the right techniques, the right methods, the right interpretations... Don't get me wrong there has been a need for much of this, and in fact I would imagine it has had a positive impact on the "quality" of preaching in many churches. However, I wonder if we aren't missing something in our discussion of preaching.
Having been a pastor for the last several years I can understand the validity of books, blog debates and conferences revolving around the concept of preaching, and why they have been met with great interest. Although, while I am sure there are many positive reasons for such interest, I also have no doubt that the interest at times has been born out of fear. It seems that regardless of tradition or denomination preaching is seen as important, namely "good" preaching-whatever is meant by that. There is a fear that as a pastor I am not correctly interpreting the text, powerfully impacting those listening, creatively crafting my message and on and on and on.
I continue thinking about celebrating Christmas, and I wanted to wonder "out loud" about Christmas services. What is the point about coming together to celebrate Christmas? Or, better put, what do we think we are doing when we meet to remember the birth of our Savior? I imagine that, for many, simply remembering the birth of our Savior is point enough - which is certainly understandable. Just as we regularly remember the death of Christ when we partake in the Lord's table, so once a year the church has focused its attention on Christ's birth. So what about that event do we focus on? I have no doubt that there are as many different answers as churches, but I had a thought from a quote from William Willimon that I wanted to share.
I read the quote off of Michael Gorman's blog, and it is a short post, so I encourage you to read it here. I reproduce the first two sentences of the quote here:
"I suggest that we are better givers than getters, not because we are generous people but because we are proud, arrogant people. The Christmas story—the one according to Luke not Dickens—is not about how blessed it is to be givers but about how essential it is to see ourselves as receivers."
Out with two international friends recently, my German friend inquired of our plans for "Second Christmas," to which my Australian friend responded, you mean "Boxing Day," to which I said "I beg your pardon, on either account?"
I'd never heard of such days and thought maybe our wine had illuminated conversations a bit more imaginatively than usual. Turns-out, however, that Wikipedia confirmed both accounts later that evening. Not only were both holidays legit, but they exposed overflowing layers to my current comprehensions of December 25th. I won't bore you with all my searching, but below is a quite interesting etymology of "Boxing Day."
I was in an Evangelical worship service recently where a young woman sang a song that seemed rather disjointed to me. The singing was fairly good, but the lyrics were odd, at least in my book. She began singing about the Christ being born and that this was such a wonderful gift, that He would die on the cross for our sins. Did she just jump 30 years?
Now, certainly the death of Jesus for our redemption is crucial, but I don't think this is the crux of what Christmas and Advent are supposed to be about. Still, I think the Evangelical church on the whole has failed to grasp this. We are focused on the death and resurrection of Christ and salvation from sin (and specifically guilt), and that is absolutely a positive thing. Yet I fear the church has become so focused that it has let slip other aspects of life with God and the work that Christ did.
Advent is indeed waiting period of the birth of the one who would eventually die to be the propitiation for our sins, but it is also the waiting period of the birth of God Himself, proving that God had not abandoned His people despite 400 years of seeming silence. It is the waiting that leads to the life and ministry of one who showed that God's love and work deals with the concrete problems of humanity - our inability to escape from sinful habits, our poverty, our disease, and so forth. It is the highlight of the waiting period that we are still in, waiting for the culmination of this age when we will be with the Lord fully amidst a new and perfect Heaven and Earth.
Dan Kimball has posted at Out of Ur about the nature of church design and aesthetics. He believes that church buildings need to conform to their mission. This is a bit different than more traditional understandings of church design based on worship and/or proclamation. I suppose, under a broader definition of mission, those could still very well apply. I also suppose that if you look at a church building you can probably determine what the church's subconscious mission really is. Is a church truly about proclamation of the Gospel, or is it simply about leader worship? would be a good question to ask.
For those of us who are concerned with a certain focus on spiritual depth in the church today, I was wondering if anyone has thoughts about how our church buildings should match our particular focus. Would we want to push spiritual formation ahead of mission (more narrowly considered as evangelism, justice, etc.) when we think of the church design, or would we not? How much do practical concerns play into this over, say, theological concerns of aesthetics for instance? In other words, do we focus on issues or ministries that would have more use of the building (Dan's church made a coffee shop that large groups of students use throughout the week), or do we focus on Sunday mornings as the main business of the church? Those are stark differences but you get the idea. I would love to hear your thoughts.
