Does a preacher provide something that reading scripture personally does not?
That was the GREAT question asked by Angie Ward (http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2008/001/13.31.html) in the latest issue of Leadership Journal to five very respected Preaching pastors (David Anderson, pastor of Bridgeway Community Church in Columbia, Maryland, John M. Buchanan pastor at Fourth Presbyterian Church in downtown Chicago, R. Albert Mohler, Jr. president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucy, Tullian Tchividjian, grandson of Billy Graham and senior pastor at New City Church in Margate, Florida, and Rick Warren, an relatively unknown pastor from a struggling church in Southern California) and their responses were pretty disturbing.
Mohler: Preaching is a congregational activity. It’s not just one individual speaking to another. It’s God’s people gathered to hear his word. This is different from listening to a preacher alone, because people are experiencing it together in the context of the church. In addition, there is a teaching office in the church. It was God’s design that men would preach the word, those whom he has called and the church has recognized. This is not just a job that human beings have devised as a means of fulfilling a need.
What in the world is he saying? It’s “different” because we are all together? How does my “gathering to hear his word” make it different? This clearly does not answer the question but I do love how he evades with his “men” observation!
Buchanan: In every age and in every generation, God has called people to be conveyors and proclaimers of the word. The job of the preacher is to go to Scripture; wrestle with it; then report to the congregation what he or she has found. Wrestling with Scripture has always been a communal project.
Buchanan contradicts himself because the only one “wrestling” here is the preacher…HOW is preaching a communal project?
Warren: Anointing. It was said of St. Basil, “His words were thunder because his life was lightning.” You’re always more powerful as a personal witness than as an orator. People grow faster and better with models.
WHAT? Do we really believe Rick in saying that he is a “model”? How on earth can a congregation of multiple thousands receive the model Rick is communicating through preaching? Again, he doesn’t answer the question and the “anointing” comment is as distracting as it is unexplained.
Tchividjian: For those who might say, “I don’t need a preacher, my teacher is the Holy Spirit and I can learn what I need on my own”—if your chief concern is to follow the Bible, the Bible itself says you need to be sitting at the feet of reliable carriers of God’s truth (Eph. 4). God has gifted his church with teachers and preachers to explain and apply his truth.
The clearest answer to the question, but it reveals a misunderstanding of Ephesians 4! Is Paul really asking us to sit at the feet of reliable carriers of God’s truth? Might want to re-read that passage with a mind awake, but his statement bothers me for another reason. It communicates a condescension that preaching promotes! I know, you’re saying, “but Keith, submission and humility are key to spiritual growth.” Ok, got me! But doesn’t it strike you as odd that “telling” you what something means creates a dependence upon someone else to “explain” and “apply” ! Really? Are we culturally and educationally that immature and ignorant or do we have such a low opinion of our audience that we innoculate them from personal scripture study?
We are teachers of children and to encourage them toward a sufficiency in Christ and community is often at odds with a passive, spoon-fed audience-centric approach! Why can’t we foster dissent, discussion, intellectually stimulating community that is full of feedback and openness to candor? Preaching seems to me to be on its best, firmest ground when it encourages action on what we’ve just read!
Hi Keith. I’m a little confused as to what youa re inferring. I think that preaching is a communal act. The speaker is speaking to a congregation while being in and among that congregation. The speaker is sharing his/her heart concerning a text that God has led him/her to.
Yes the speaker has done some extra effort on that text to be able to approach it and share with Go has revealed to him/her through study and Spirit. But the congregation should also be studying that text and engaging it. they need to be learning on their own and bringing their questions and insights that God has brought to them.
Is that what you are thinking? A mix of both.
The responses above do seem to lean toward a medieval approach to Scripture in that a “clergy” has the text and reveals whatever God speaks to them to share with the “laity.”
yeah, Ken, I think I like the “mix of both” approach…but do you read that in these responses in the Leadership article? I didn’t either…and, candidly, does that even happen “in community” during the sermon? It is a passive activity that I’m afraid often leads to and promotes a passive Christian.
I think that if believers are only getting things out of God’s Word from a pastor and are not themselves reading the Bible and studying it some form or another they are missing how God wants to speak to them personally. To me, preaching is more of God speaking to the group about direction and action and challenge as a group and through the Holy Spirit individuals can be challenged about their own personal issues, but unless there is individual, personal Bible study – how can you expect to grow and mature in any significant way?
I have been giving this some thought recently…even brought it up at staff meeting. I think that the “modern” form of speaker speaking, audience listening might be passe. Perhaps there is a “new form” that can involved dialogue around a text.
Paul preached and taught…and he exhorted others to preach and teach as well. Acts 11:26, 15:35, 20:20, and 28:31 all describe leaders teaching; there are many references to continuing to do “the things we’ve been taught.” I don’t understand your concern with the idea that Believers learn in a preaching/teaching setting…
Saul and Barnabas taught (Acts 11:26–to only Jews) at Antioch because there was no other means to describe the “good news”! There were no books except the valuable scrolls at the synogogues and frankly “the good news” had not been written. Preaching/Teaching was the ONLY means to give the message. You point out a great passage (Acts 15:35) but if you look a few verses earlier you see “the people read it” (referring to the letter from the church at Jerusalem) “and were glad for its encouraging message”. And then of course Paul and Barnabas continued to preach and teach (what’s the difference?). We talking an oral culture here where anything written was highly valuable, though limited in copies! 20:20 again describes Paul preaching (house to house…seems to me that there had to be a little give and take there!) and again in 28:31.
But note here the PRACTICE was really all people had! They had no books, they declaimed, they spoke, people listened and the culture required this and the message spread. I’m just saying that TODAY why don’t we update the medium? The Message does not change, but the medium, I think we can all agree, has indeed changed.
Now here’s a thought: we call it a “worship service” but include a sermon and announcements which seem to be tangential, don’t they? Do you “worship” when you listen to a sermon? But I digress : )
Another thought. Read Romans 10:14…”how can they hear without someone preaching to them.” It’s rhetorical, but let’s answer that! How can they? Remember, the original listeners (hearing the letter to the Romans from Paul) were LISTENING. But how can we NOW hear? Honestly! We ALL read, don’t we? We all watch TV, hear podcasts, listen to radio and yes, we go to church and hear a sermon. But preaching is now only one of MANY means by which we can “hear” isn’t it?
Jonathan Edwards, as was the custom, was the smartest person in his town. Harvard and all our early learning was to prepare preachers. This was appropriate in a preliterate, agrarian society. So let’s jump a few hundred years to today. We train children to hear God’s voice, to read scripture and apply it to their lives. Right? Right! Then we say, sit and listen to someone do it for you? They’ve studied all week and are “anointed” (Warren’s phrase) or are “gifted” (Tchividian’s phrase) or are helping us “experiencing it together” (Mohler’s phrase). What? Experiencing is listening? You see how this creates a super-saint, an elitism or just a simple passive listener. I don’t get it…I am going to hear another sermon tomorrow and I’m just going to be driven nuts unless my mind center’s on what God is saying through his word to me! Haven’t you walked away from a sermon and wondered, what on earth did that person do all week to come up with THAT? If I hear another “five key things that we can take from this passage” again I’m going to explode! What if there are “six” things? Or 2? Or just ONE thing that is not even one of the listed things that I’ve been taking notes on? (Oh, and don’t get me started on the insane fill-in-the-blank sermon notes…that is a LISTENING activity not a LEARNING activity)!
I’ve always wondered why so many profoundly decent children’s ministers don’t attend worship and yet maintain their core spiritual strength and maturity…it is because they are LEARNING and READING on their own!
Interesting thoughts, and I think I have a better grasp of your point; your reply to my comment was much more clear; thanks.
I agree with much of what you said; I guess I would say this: Preaching/Teaching is certainly A way that we can be challenged to grow, etc., but you’re right–it’s not THE way, or even the BEST way. The Bereans were commended for searching the Scriptures for themselves to see if what Paul was preaching was accurate.
A message is part of our Kids’ Church–but only a PART; we worship, we interact, we apply, we have some fun, and there is some teaching, too. In fact, I regularly nag the kids (in the most spiritual sense of the word, of course!) that they should have their Bibles with them and read along for themselves; I tell them, “Don’t take my word for it–Check it out!”
I also say, all the time, that THIS (i.e. being together in Kids’ Church) is not the Christian life–that is what we live “out there” the other six days of the week. We come together to worship, to encourage each other, to pray, and to be trained & refilled so that we can go back out there and keep winning our friends to Jesus.
But I’m preaching now, so I digress. I think, bottom line, that it’s all about understanding that people learn in different ways, and that we, as leaders, must always be asking ourselves the question, “Is what we’re doing resulting in transformation among the kids?” If the answer is “No,” then we need to change!
Great post Chris! I’d love to explore more options for the “sermon”! God got back at me on Sunday since the sermon was on Humility (dang) AND it was given by our SUBSTITUTE pastor who has no clue on the art and craft of even speech preparation…sometimes God speaks AROUND a faulty pastor and thats what He did on Sunday.