Last Sunday, when I listened to the Word of God being preached, I felt nothing.
Before you judge me as a heartless heretic, let me explain.
My wife and I decided to visit a nearby church that met in a school just to check it out. The pastor was away and someone spoke in his place.
The speaker based his message on Psalm 78 and talked about the importance of passing our Christian faith onto the next generation. Well and good.
During his entire 50-minute sermon, he spoke positively … pleasantly … and peacefully. He smiled a lot, and kept encouraging us to read our Bibles.
But something about his message was missing, and I couldn’t put my finger on it.
After the service, as my wife and I were walking to our car, it hit me.
I remembered a story that the great Welsh preacher D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once told. He was attending a conference where various preachers were expounding the Word of God. During one message, the person sitting next to Lloyd-Jones leaned over to him and said, “Heat without light.” During the next message, that same person observed, “Light without heat.”
Some preachers excel in producing “heat without light.” They get all worked up during their sermon but offer little insight about Scripture or life.
But to me, the great majority of preachers that I hear today fall into the “light without heat” category. Even if they have something important and insightful to say, they just don’t seem to be very passionate about it.
If the preacher isn’t moved by the truth, then how can the congregation be moved?
Maybe I’m wrong, but all too often, the preaching I hear in my community is devoid of emotion.
Let me offer three examples:
I’d love to hear preachers demonstrate more righteous anger. There is so much in the world and in the church that’s wrong, and sometimes I think I’m the only person around who becomes vexed by corrupt politicians or deceitful clergy. While I know I’m not the only believer who feels strongly about corporate and personal wrongdoing, I would welcome hearing stronger words directed against the destructive effects of sinfulness … not careless condemnations, but careful warnings.
Jesus certainly exhibited righteous anger when He taught, especially when He was dealing with the Pharisees, who gave Him a lot of material to work with. Jesus wasn’t always a nice guy when He spoke, and I seriously doubt if the Christian faith would have spread throughout the ancient world if His message could be reduced to, “Let’s be nice to everybody.”
Sometimes when I preached, I’d feel a surge of righteous anger come upon me when I was expounding a specific text, and I had to make a split-second judgment call as to whether I was going to restrain that urge or unleash it. If I did let it fly, most of the time, those brief rants ended up being the most impactful – and memorable – part of the message.
Maybe it’s just me, but from time-to-time, a pastor’s preaching needs to be a bit edgy. It’s good for the soul.
I’d love to hear preachers demonstrate genuine sadness. I grew up listening to preachers who seemed to be able to manufacture tears on a dime, and I promised myself that I was never going to manipulate a congregation by crying all the time. But looking back, I could have … and probably should have … let the tears flow once in a while.
Jesus publicly wept outside the tomb of Lazarus. He lamented the coming destruction of Jerusalem within earshot of His disciples. Even though He was the Son of God, Jesus didn’t cover up His humanity while ministering in public. He let the tears come.
I’m sure that I’ve shed tears during one of the multitude of sermons I’ve heard over the past few years … but I can’t remember any specific occasion … which speaks volumes about how rare it is to hear a preacher shed tears anymore.
And this makes me wonder: how much does the preacher really care?
I’d love to hear preachers demonstrate more vulnerability. Have you ever watched Star Trek: The Next Generation? (I missed watching the original Star Trek so this example will have to do.) Data, the android, looks human but is incapable of feeling human emotions. His inability to feel means that he often can’t connect with the humans he works with.
Sometimes I wonder why so many preachers just don’t connect with their listeners.
Many of us … myself included … connect best with preachers who are vulnerable … who don’t just tell us what that they’re thinking but how they’re feeling … even if those feelings aren’t always EC (ecclesiastically correct).
I don’t want to hear an android or an angel preach.
I want to hear a sinner saved by God’s grace who lets us know that he’s been tempted … battered … doubtful … depressed … betrayed … abandoned … and weary … yet continually relies upon the grace of God to see him through.
Several years ago, my wife and I attended a worship service at a large church we passed all the time. The church’s practices made us a bit uncomfortable that Sunday, but I loved the pastor’s message.
Near the end, he openly questioned whether he should tell us his story, then decided to drop his mask and tell us that he had left the mission field in Africa because of severe depression … and it took a long time for him to recover.
It was moving. It was real. It connected. He had our full attention.
And thank God, we knew that we were alive because we could feel something during the sermon.
There is an ethos among too many Christian leaders that says, “Hide your emotions. Never show anger. Hold the tears back. Always appear strong. Give them the Word … just don’t give them yourself.”
I hate that ethos.
Especially when it comes to preaching.
Awesome article Jim! I completely agree. When a pastor shares his struggles we can relate to him. Our faith is intellectual but it is also practical and emotional. It encompasses all that we are, and when a pastor acknowledges that in his own life from the pulpit he makes the sermon relevant.
I can’t go without commenting about Data, my favorite character from that show. One episode that comes to mind is the one where he tries to understand humor. Try as he might he can’t understand what is funny and what isn’t. What makes him my favorite character is that he keeps trying to understand what it would be like to be human, to have emotions, and to have relationships. I believe he actually understands friendship. Data knows he had a creator, he calls him “father”, and he strives every day to be everything his creator meant for him to be…hmmm. Data was built with a moral sub-routine…(am I a true Trekki or what?).
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You may know this already, but we have a mutual friend who worked on STTNG. Ryan introduced me to the program in the 90s and I really enjoyed it … especially the episode where the Enterprise was going haywire and they finally rebooted it and that fixed the problem!
Jim
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Great article, Jim, as always. We are too nice in so many ways, niceness being the primary emotional value of our culture today. Because we don’t know how to think logically, we think we can hide behind the smile. But make a statement that is, ironically, judged a judgmental statement, and nice goes right out the window.
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Dale,
I just noticed that I never addressed your comment. My mistake!
There isn’t one command in the NT to “be nice to one another.” Maybe kindness is the word that comes closest, but still … if being a Christian just means we’re to be nice all the time, then Jesus was a poor Christian because He often wasn’t nice! But He was always loving, and there’s a big difference between the two.
Jim
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