I hate preaching

Preaching. I don't think anyone really wants to be preached at. Most of the people sitting in pews every week don't want to be preached at. I don't know what makes us think someone wants me to ring there doorbell and preach at them. I can't stand preaching most of the time. Where did it come from, anyway?

I'll tell you where it came from. The Greeks. Those Greeks loved their orators. They were celebrities in their own time. In fact the best orators could convince you of something you didn't believe, and they didn't believe themselves. Greeks would have loved used car salesmen. Remember they invented democracy, I don't know if they were trying to be more fair or if they just loved all the filibustering.

The question is, does the Greek tradition of speaking homilies belong in Church any more than say showing a film? Is it biblical? I can't find any references to preaching in the bible that isn't also tied to teaching. Think of it. Sitting on a hard bench, eyes forward, listening to a lecture. It's more like school than anything else. So why do we think of it as part of "worship?"

My answer is to be creative. If you think you already know the information being preached walk out. Hang out in the lobby and talk to other people who are bored. That way you get in some fellowship. You can't have fellowship when only one person is speaking. The word paster means sheppard. Bringing someone to Christ isn't accomplished by dragging them to church where one guy is authorized to speak for God. That actually takes you out of the equation when you are the one that attracts them to Christ.

Now that I think of it people don't grow through the modern system either. Sure their is a lecture, but compare that to how much you'd grow if you had to lead someone to Christ and mentor them from born again till ashes to ashes. Relationships mature people. They get messy, and uncomfortable but you grow up. A really good paster is probably counter productive to spiritual growth. People come once a week to get fed and they think they are doing their part. What if they had to go looking for what God wanted to give them next?

Just some food for thought.

Repost: Faith in Action

"Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, to subdue nations before him; and I will (1) loose the armor of kings,(2) to open before him the two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; (Isaiah 45:1-2)

God promises Cyrus that He will open the gates of an otherwise impenetrable city for him. Most people would not know how to take a promise like that. They want to spiritualize it away. They want to delay it ‘til the future, preferably the after life. But Cyrus lived in the here and now and believed he was born for precisely that purpose... to subdue nations, not metaphorically, but in practical reality.

This brings me to the second point I wanted to make in the previous blog on this topic... Don't tell me what you believe... Show me! Or more to the point; don't try to impress God with your ability to quote His word back to Him. He's not impressed. He expects us to meditate on His word. What He is impressed with is faith. (Heb 11:6) Faith talks, but it also walks. If your faith doesn't have legs, if it doesn't take action in sync with your words, it's dead.

So here's my challenge to you: Meditate in God's Word. Press in. Let His Spirit impress upon your heart anything He chooses. Then act as if it applied to the here and now. One time in a parking lot of a state park, I was praying before work. A homeless mother and two children who lived in their car pulled in so she could sleep and the kids could play. I was concerned and approached the woman in her car, but she was already asleep in the back seat of her trashed out car.

The Lord let me see she was suicidal, but I didn't know what to do. I walked away and prayed. The Lord took me to Matthew 6:13 in the Lord's Prayer where it says, "Deliver us from evil". I knew God wanted to deliver this woman from the evil oppression she was under, but I wanted to just pray for her from across the parking lot and go back to work. When I asked the Lord if He wanted me to deliver her from evil, (to be the vessel He used to deliver her), He asked me if I saw anyone else in the parking lot?!?!

I knew He wanted me to act NOW on the Word. I did and within the hour she was born again, healed of an affliction and her friend who arrived on the scene also got born again on the spot! Moral of the story... Don't put off ‘til tomorrow what God intends for today!

Michael Q. Pink