Liberating you from bad ideas about God
Stop relying on pastors and Bible teachers to tell you what the Bible means.
Read this book and learn to study the Bible for yourself. Available now on Amazon.
The book discussion questions with each chapter to make it perfect for a home study group. There is also a LONG appendix on how to understand the violent passages in Scripture.
Some men go fishing, and sometimes, fish go “menning.” Either way, here is a video about how real men fish:
This type of fishing is called Catfish Noodling.
I wonder what would happen if a church decided to plant a church for these types of guys?
What would this kind of church look like? How would they function? Would there be singing and sermons? I doubt it.
I remember when I preached my last seminary sermon. It felt so good.
Though I learned a lot about preaching while in seminary, I immediately tried to forget most of it.
If I had to preach for the rest of my life within the box that is the seminary sermon, I would quit the ministry.
Sadly, I think most seminary students don’t understand that what the seminary teaches about preaching is a bare bones template, and we have to add in our own personality and creativity to make preaching come alive. Such pastors who preach predicable three point sermons every week, are boring themselves and their congregations into spiritual sterility.
Seeds of God’s Word are being flung out there, but the seeds are impotent to reproduce disciples.
Part of this is because too many pastors get their sermons from a can, and present them to a sitting, smiling, and nodding audience (maybe they’re nodding off). Adding more stories and jokes is not going to help. It may help people pay attention, but keeping their attention is not the same thing as making disciples. Some have tried shorter sermons, while others go for longer sermons. Some go for topical series, while others do “exposition.”
None of it seems to be working very well.
It’s a cop-out to say (as I’ve heard some pastors say) that “Results are not up to us. We just need to preach the Word and leave the rest up to God.” This is an excuse to not face the hard questions.
So I wonder if it isn’t time to reexamine “The Sermon.” This is something I fear to do, because frankly, I LOVE to preach. Preaching is one of the aspects of pastoral ministry I enjoy the most. I am not sure I would enjoy pastoral ministry if I wasn’t able to preach (maybe that says something about my heart…).
But I’ll put off that examination until some other time, since I don’t want to face the music today.
2012 update: I faced the music. See my posts about preaching here.
Sometimes our church traditions can get in the way of doing what we’re supposed to be doing. For example, I am not convinced that it is wise for most churches to have buildings, meet on Sunday morning, and be non-profit.
Sure, there are times when these things make sense. But in many ways today, such practices are only getting in the way of reaching out to unbelievers and adequately making disciples.
So how can we discern good and helpful traditions from bad ones?
One good way is to practice something I learned from my two-year old: ask “Why?” a lot.
To discover if a certain church practice should be continued or not, ask “Why?” about it seven times.
If, in asking “Why?” seven times, you don’t get to a good reason, you might want to consider dumping whatever it was you were asking “Why?” about.
And if you ever answer “Because the Bible says so” then ask “Where?” and “Is that really what that verse means?”
This is often good to do with a group of people because they can help you answer the questions, and tell you when an answer is not valid. You may have to “tweak” your question asking a bit to get at the root of the issue, but the point is to ruthlessly examine and question everything. It may look like this:
Here’s how it works:
Statement: The church meets on Sunday morning.
Why?
Possible answers:
It’s the Sabbath. (No, it isn’t. Saturday is.)
It’s the day Jesus rose from the dead (So? Where does it say we have to meet on the day Jesus rose from the dead? Doesn’t Paul say all days are equal?)
It’s a day that everybody has off. (Not any more. If we’re trying to meet when most people are free, would Tuesday night be better? And for that matter, why do we want to meet when most people can meet? Furthermore, which people are “most people?”)
See how this works?
Just keep questioning everything you do in the church, and with some careful, critical thinking, you come to see that most of what the church does, it does by tradition: just because we’ve always done it that way.
This frees us up to realize that if there is a better way to make disciples, we should do it, even if we have to abandon most of our traditions.
What if we asked “why” about preaching?
Why do we have preaching?
So we can teach the Bible and make disciples.
Ok. Why? Is preaching the best way to teach the Bible and make disciples?
Well, it is not the only way (or even the best way) to do either.
Ok. So if there are better ways, back to the original question: Why do we have preaching?
Well, because the pastor has the spiritual gift of teaching and he should get to use his gift.
Ok. So why is the pastor the one who gets to use the majority of the church service using his gift, and why is preaching the best way to use the gift of teaching?
Well, other people get to use their gifts too, but the pastor went to Seminary, and we’re paying him to preach, and preaching is when he can reach the most people all at once with biblical truth. If he had to use his gifts one-on-one, it would take hundreds of hours of week to disseminate the same biblical truth. And besides, Paul told Timothy to “Preach the Word.”
I see. Each of those statements is going to need it’s own “Why?” question: Why did the pastor have to go to seminary to get his training to use his gift when we don’t send others to seminary to get training to practice their gifts? Why are we paying the pastor to use his gift when we don’t pay others to use theirs? Why do we need to reach a lot of people all at once with biblical truth? (Which returns to the earlier question of whether or not preaching is the best way to make disciples.) And why do we need to follow today the same instruction that Paul gave Timothy? And related to that, why do we think think the practice of “preaching” as it is done today is the same thing Paul meant when he told Timothy to “preach” the Word? If we do have to follow Paul’s instruction to Timothy (which isn’t yet certain), why don’t we figure out what Paul meant by “preach the Word” and then do that?
This line of questioning goes on and on.
The end result is that we eventually see that there are no good reasons for why churches do most of what they do. Often, as we try to defend the practices and traditions of the church, we find ourselves talking in circles and arguing from the basis of the way things have always been done, which keeps us from thinking about how things could be done.
One of my Christmas traditions during the weeks leading up to Christmas is to watch the six hour movie “Lonesome Dove“
Afterwards, as we were sitting on the couch, a little depressed from all the people who die, the women who get treated like trash, and the overall view in the movie that life is cheap, my wife said, “Of all the traditional Christmas movies, “Miracle on 34th Street,”
I looked at her and said, “I have no idea. It’s just what I’ve always done.”
Upon further reflection, this tradition began for me around 15 years ago. I think that the local television station showed this movie on television around the Christmas season for two or three years, and then my mother bought me the tapes for my birthday one summer, and after that, it was just something I did during Christmas. Now I watch the movie at Christmas because it helps me “feel” the season.
I think most of what we do in church is the same way. We do what we do because we’ve done it for a long time, and it helps us “feel” like a Christian. It’s not that what we do is mandated in Scripture, or that it helps us accomplish what Scripture does mandate (e.g., go and make disciples), but we do it because we’ve always done it.
Tomorrow we’ll look at a way to determine if a tradition is something that should be cut or continued.
What strange Christmas traditions do you practice during the holidays?
2012 Note: A while back I tried to start a church planting website to promote and encourage churches that focus on the free grace of God. The attempt failed…
Here is the post from that time….
Free Grace Churches is now live!
At that site, we want to focus on taking the Free Grace theology we all know and love, and putting it into practice in our churches, in our communities, and around the world. By joining today, you have the opportunity to change the future.
By becoming a member, you can:
Best of all…there is no charge! Like grace, it’s free.
Check out the site, join today, and start connecting with others.
