Chapter 8 in my book, Close Your Church for Good, is called “Down with Preaching.” In it, I explore the idea that preaching as it is practiced today may not reflect the biblical method of teaching the Scripture, nor is it the best way to make disciples of believers.  To properly teach Scripture, we many need to stop preaching!

Please note that due to some of the feedback I receive on these posts, this chapter might be radically revised for the final edition of the book. These changes will only be available in the print or eBook version when it comes out.

Here are the blog posts that come from this chapter:

• Hey Pastor! Sit Down and Shut Up!
• A Little Less Talk, and A Lot More Action
• Defining Preaching
• Preaching vs. Teaching
• Giving the Sense of Nehemiah 8:8
• Is Line by line Preaching Biblical?
• The Teaching Method of Jesus
• The Teaching Method of the Apostles in Acts
• Preach the Word – 2 Timothy 4 2
• Study your Bible LESS
• Healthy vs. Unhealthy Teaching
• Do I Hate Preaching?
• On the Way Teaching
• Preaching Today
• Increasing our Biblical Literacy
• How to Make Sermons more Interactive
• Doing Sermon Application Right

To read the content of any other chapters, check out the post which contains the Table of Contents to Close Your Church for Good.

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At the end of his Gospel, John writes that if all the things that Jesus did were written down one by one, not even the whole world could contain the number of books that would be written.

Some days it seems that we are trying to see if John was right. It often seems like Christianity is more about teaching, preaching, speaking, writing, printing, and publishing than it is about actually doing the things we teach and write about.

I say this as I write yet another blog post among the millions of other Christian blog posts that will get published today….

However, I think there is a difference between just writing about something, and actually putting into practice what you write about.

In general, I try not to just write about theoretical things, but things that I am actually doing, or have put into practice myself.

Writing, I believe, is not just about about having something to say, but having something to live.

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When I was a pastor, there was nothing I enjoyed more than studying Scripture for the three sermons I taught weekly. The second thing I enjoyed most was actually teaching what I had learned.

Eric Liddell once said this:

I believe that God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. When I run, I feel His pleasure.

When I was a pastor, I often felt God’s pleasure when I studied Scripture and when I taught it to others.

Today, as I am no longer a pastor, I rarely get to do either.

Why am I no longer a pastor?

Well, some of the answer to that question is written in various posts on this blog, and the rest of the answer will probably never get written anywhere. At the core, however, was a conviction that I could not go back into the pastorate, at least, not as it has traditionally functioned.

But I wasn’t sure exactly how it should function, or for that matter, how the church itself should function.

So about eighteen months ago I began to write a book called Close Your Church for Good. Writing the book was how I was going to work through some of the questions I had about church. I was making good progress, but then, exactly three months ago, I stopped publishing posts about it.
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