The power of the pulpit

We live in a day of shallow, therapeutic preaching. Most of the messages coming out of evangelical churches today do little more than tickle the ears of the unbelieving visitor so they become convinced that we aren't those "weird Christians" they keep hearing about but are actually just as cool and worldly as they are. This approach to preaching isn't serving the Christians in the congregation, but is, in reality, stifling their would-be growth by keeping them on a steady diet of spiritual skim-milk. All this soft preaching is creating hard hearts. To that end, we are seeking to preach differently. That brings us to our fourth commitment:

We are committed to the diligent and careful preaching of the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27) and applying the Scriptures to all of life (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

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Diligent and careful

When I say diligent and careful preaching, I mean a well thought out and intentional pathway through the Bible for the purpose of taking people from a place of immaturity to maturity in Jesus Christ. This is done by praying, planning, and practicing. We prayerfully consider what to preach, asking the Lord for his guidance and power in bringing the Word to bear upon the hearts of the people. With prayer in mind, we also plan, charting out a course through a book of the Bible or a certain theological concept, making note of the flow of the given book or topic and its connections to the rest of Scripture. And finally, we practice what we preach. As the one preparing and delivering the message labors in his craft, the Lord is shaping and forming the man, bringing the truth of the message to bear in his own life before it ever reaches the ears and hearts of the congregation.

Applying to all of life

One of the ways we allow sermons to fall short is in giving half-hearted and generic application. We do this by functionally severing the felt experience of truth from the mere reception of it asa truth. We fail to push the application out into the corners of our lives, considering some areas as off limits because they aren't "gospel-centered." This is a grave mistake, and one that has numerous consequences for the Christian.

We want to be a church that brings the gospel and the truth of the Bible home to roost, not only metaphorically in our hearts, but literally in our homes. We want theology that affects our kitchens and bedrooms. If the truth is to take deep roots in our lives, the kind of deep-rootedness that changes a culture, we must take the light of gospel truth and allow it to shine into all the dark, cobweb-filled corners of our lives.

A closing note for parents

In a typical American church, there is a ditch to be avoided in that we treat the sermon as the most important part of the service. This is a danger because, in reality, the service is the most important part of the service. While the preached word does hold a special place of power and prominence, we can fall into a trap that minimizes the formative role of the service in its entirety. I say all that because it can be difficult to really hear a whole sermon, beginning to end, with complete focus and attention, when you have children in the service with you. This is not a flaw: it is a feature. We get the joy of having children who grow up being a part of the Lord's service, a covenant-renewal reality that deeply forms and shapes the way a child thinks about not only the church, but about the world. Remember this when you get frustrated and feel like you are missing out on all the good stuff in the sermon; you are being formed by the service just like they are, and they certainly aren't catching all the golden nuggets from the preacher.

We are committed to preaching the Word faithfully, effectively, and boldly. We stand in need of a reformation in our day, and a reformation has always been marked as a return to the truth of the Bible. May we be a church made up of people endeavoring to see a reformation in our day by hearing the Word preached and being doers of it.

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This series of articles is from our church's 8 Commitments. These are guiding declarations regarding faith and practice that shape how we do church, both now and in the future.