The Divine Crash

My average sermon is 22minutes.  I have once preached 35 minutes and my shortest is 8 but usually around 22 minutes.  I spend months preparing and I already have sermon series planned through June.  My goal is to preach the entire Bible before I retire.  I pray for each sermon that each person would hear what they need and would grow closer to Jesus through the spirit moving in my words.

However, there is a fundamental problem with sermons.The problem with sermons is that too often the people consume a sermon and then spit out what they think; leaving the pastor, who has put weeks into crafting the sermon to be as palatable as possible, with a loss of their self-worth in the negative comments, or worse being lost in the lack of comments.

This week I had to give a sermon in seminary for my “Preaching in Crisis” class.  I was given a crisis and told to preach to that scenario.  The sermon went well but immediately afterwards the professor gave us time to be critiqued.  I spent the next 15 minutes hearing all sorts of things.

• Why didn’t I pick the same event in a different gospel
• Why didn’t I talk about the supralapsarianism evident in the theological subtext of the gospel?
• I left without enough hope
• I used too much humor
• I didn’t use enough humor
• I shouldn’t have been as personal
• I should have stood behind the pulpit
• I shouldn’t use an iPad

After all this it is enough to drive any pastor to burn out.  But it isn’t all that different on a Sunday.  Too often people use the minutes after the service is over to say what they want and then run away.  They want to dish it out and run away.

If we get enough comments about our hard work that are negative it will destroy us.  Even worse are the 9 people who say they loved the sermon and the 1 who says nothing, that will drive you insane if you let it.

The problem with this view is it means the sermon is about consumption.  It is supposed to leave a person being satisfied and if they aren’t satisfied you will know about it.  This means the pastor is forced to endlessly work to make sure everyone can easily digest the sermon.  What if the sermon had a different point?  What if the sermon wasn’t about filling a person but about witnessing what we have seen?  What if the filling came from the Holy Spirit regardless of anything the pastor says or doesn’t say.

If we witness what we have seen then suddenly it can’t be consumed it must be acknowledged and reacted too.  The positive and the negative comments suddenly fade into the distance behind the cross that gives you the freedom to witness to the truth.

Yes, some people will not like it and some people will love it but the sermon is no longer about your self-worth being on the line.  The sermon is now about you witnessing to the truth you have seen.  And the truth is true whether someone likes it or not.

This idea will free a pastor up to write sermons that will change lives because it allows us to say things that are controversial and risky but will open the doors for people to be changed.  This style of sermonizing gives pastors the freedom to use a sermon to start a conversation instead of staying safe and saying only things that no one will challenge.

So how do we start this kind of sermon, it starts with forgiveness.  It starts with the pastor forgiving all the comments, and the non-comments in advance and not allowing them to control you.

To forgive is to let go.

Let go of the comments, let go of the bitterness and the misunderstandings in those comments.  If you can do that then you and your sermons will be free.

I know as soon as I said that, someone popped into your head, someone who makes stupid comments all the time.  Forgive them for what has happened and for what they said to you.  Release them from the control they have over you and be free to love them and give them the sermon they deserve.  One that witnesses to the truth you have seen.  The truth of the cross.

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Church Thoughts by RevBT