Buffoonery In The Pulpit (October 16, 2005)

I hope you all had a better experience at church on Sunday than I did.

On my Sunday off I took the boys to a large evangelical church. I gave them a brief lecture as we pulled into the parking lot. "We are here to worship God," I said, "not critique every little thing that goes on." My sons have highly developed bull detectors, and get irritated when sermon and song are showy and insincere. (They’ve inherited my genes - or maybe in this area I've trained them a little too well.) I didn't want their native cynicism (or mine!) to interfere with the experience of gathering with God's people to worship him.

Then the sermon started and I nearly walked out.

The title was "The DNA of Relationships: Part 3 - How To Create A Safe Environment." It opened with a film clip of some Warner Brothers cartoon character careening about, and the pastor said, "That doesn't have anything to do with the sermon, I just thought it was fun."

Actually, he said, it did have something to do with the sermon: sometimes in our relationships we're just like that cartoon character. Then he told a long folksy story about vacationing with his family and how he was responsible for several mishaps. He made himself out to be an earnest-yet-incompetent Chevy Chase, and the congregation provided the laugh track. Then as the sermon progressed he airmailed in a few Scriptures verses into a 5-point structure plucked from who knows where (not the Bible). Dr. Phil without the reverence.

I didn't storm out, but after the service I did leave depressed, knowing that the same cotton-candy fluff is being served at megachurches all over. Just the other day a member of a Willow Creek clone told me that the sermon series at her church is based on "Desperate Housewives." Pop culture references ("Survivor," "American Idol," "The Apprentice") create the template for what is taught there month to month.

Is it too much to ask that our ministers just preach the Word? What is so hard about this? As far as I’m concerned, a preacher’s message does not have to be entertaining, exciting, funny, captivating, inspiring, or even all that compelling. Not every minister has the ability to give a great talk. We know that and we can live with that. But we can't live without the Word - not spiritually, anyway. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4).

My own goal as a preacher is modest: to plow through some text of Scripture, explain it the best I can, and quit before too many people eye the clock or fall asleep. I hope God gives me the grace to keep doing that every (non-vacation) Sunday till he calls me home. But should there come a time when I must sit in a pew rather than stand in a pulpit, I hope it won't be hard to find a church where the Word is
preached. Then I can worship, then I can give thanks, then my spirit can be nourished and my heart can rejoice in the Lord.