I take a bit of exception (not a lot, but a bit) to the idea of molding things to seekers. Sermons can be appreciated by non-Christians, but they shouldn’t be aimed at them. This is back to the age-old debate about what a worship service is for – “seekers” or believers. The worship service should be compelling enough to cause them to desire Christ, but not so much aimed at them as to neglect the spiritual nourishment of the believer.

It is true that “God has not given us a systematic theology. We wrote ALL of those. God has given us scripture as a story; a narrative.” However, “systematic theology” is nothing more than a rigorous, formalized overview of the same kind of story that a preacher will convey to the congregation. So by preaching a message, one is usually delivering a message that is little more than a “Readers Digest Condensed Version” of some aspect of a systematic theology. But again, it need not be delivered in a cryptic fashion.

Even though I definitely dislike most aspects of the Emerging Church, I did read Dan Kimball’s book (“The Emerging Church” – I liked much of the book, I’m just not fond of the movement) and was taken by one of his points. He says that those in the Emerging Church have “A new hunger for depth and theology”. He states that preachers should not “…insult people’s intelligence or desire for spiritual depth”. In this section, he relates the following:

“One time, when preaching on Romans 6-8, I felt like I was teaching an English class, because I walked the audience through the definitions of sanctification, comdemnation, imputed righteousness, and other terms. I put together extensive sermon notes to hand out, and that night we actually ran out of them and had to print extra sheets for several weeks afterward because the demand was so great. Emerging generations are starving for deeper teaching, and our job is to respect them enough to give it to them”

It’s the old addage: “know your audience” (which is, in essence, what you say in item 6). In the case of worship, there are two audiences: the congregation, and the LORD, and of course the latter is the One we need to pay closest attention to…

-Wow– you have talented pastors who are young? Amazing. I need to get out more. I haven’t seen a pastor in a very long time, especially any younger ones, who could communicate worth squat. Forget about preaching– I’d settle for simple coherence.

OTOH, many of the older ones I see are stuck in the very rut that Michael describes. They aim for the seniors, who lap it up, and criticize anyone who doesn’t approach it from their favorite angle.

Our senior pastor, in his mid-40s, communicates well, but his exegesis (i.e. application of the actual meaning of the actual scripture) leaves a lot to be desired. Good thing he’s a decent and loving shepherd of his sheep, or I’d be outta there.

Yeah, I’m kinda fed up. Sorry to be ranting. Well, not really!

-JIkm Bob

This could bring up a whole different topic. If you are just hiring a guy to stand in the pulpit and preach/teach, then that is probably all the “old guard” is considering. However, if the senior pastor has other duties as well, I’m sure the “old guard” is carefully considering whether a young kid fresh out of school has the experience and maturity for a senior pastor position. For example, how much actual marriage counseling has he done? How many times has he sat at the bedsides of dying people and helped minister to them and their families? Is his household truly in order, and how can you determine that if he doesn’t have any children yet or only a baby or two? What godly advice, born from experience, could he give to the parents of a young adult killed in a tragic, self-inflicted accident? How well does he minister to the needs of everyone in his congregation, of all ages?

We just went through a pastoral search process, so this is fresh in my mind. I’ve also been around the block enough to know that, if you are going to hire a completely inexperienced senior pastor, you had better have some really strong and experienced men in your church who can mentor this young fellow and pick up the ministerial slack while he learns and matures.

Nothing against young pastors…but when I was going through the rough past two years of my life, I was really thankful that there were pastors in my life who had also experienced the crushing blows of grief, who had counseled the dying and their loved ones, who had been in the trenches so to speak, who had walked with God long enough to experience the rocky, messy, ugly aspects of life, and who could give me hope not just from Scripture but from their own life.

Which brings me back to the topic at hand…I sometimes think the problem with some of the sermons that are incomprehensible to those not in the in-crowd is that the pastor only hangs with the in-crowd. I recall hearing a young pastor (not that long out of seminary) who was doing an evangelism training class. He actually suggested we begin our gospel presentations with an overwhelming, theologically heavy description of the trinity and creation. We were a pretty astute crowd, but his sample gospel presentation was a bit on the overly intellectual side, even for us. I doubt that anyone, other than seminary students, would have found it engaging. It made our eyes glaze over. I think any unbeliever would have run off as quickly as possible.

He simply had no idea how to communicate to those who did not come from where he came from — since his teens, he had been engaged in deep, theological study.

But I also know pastors who actually spend time hanging out with their neighbors, who volunteer in the public schools, who coach their kids’ sports teams, and who are out and about, rubbing shoulders with those who don’t darken the doors of a church. And these guys tend to learn to talk about the gospel in a way that doesn’t require a lifetime of church attendance to understand. And, frankly, the more these pastors have experienced personal brokenness, the more compelling they are when they talk about Jesus.

My father, who has spent years in the pulpit and who has been known to use the word “propitiation” in a children’s sermon (he doesn’t believe in talking down to kids and he did define the word) also has the amazing ability to talk about Jesus to anyone, anywhere, and to make it comprehensible. If he just kept himself locked in his church study or just hanging out with church people, I doubt that he could preach understandable sermons to the wonderful, eclectic bunch of people he now has in his church.

And, after all he has seen and experienced, he truly can speak with authority about the good news of the gospel.

steve