My night-time reading these evenings is taking longer than planned, not because I fall asleep too early–as is often the case–but due to the nature of the book. It deals with a favorite period of history, one I’m well read on and which occupies a couple of shelves of my home library. The book is, well, frankly–it’s boring.
The author of this volume–and I consciously decided not to name it here–has made the assumption that anyone who buys his book has a built-in interest in that period and a foundational knowledge of its context and background. Therefore, he decided not to do the hard work other writers would have done in order to give it a human interest. No fascinating facts, no interesting tales, and, oddest of all, almost no conflict.
Plowing (trudging, toiling, laboring!) through this book, I could not help thinking of similar assumptions some of us preachers make as we prepare sermons for our Sunday services. Three assumptions in particular loom largest:
–“If I’m interested in this subject, the congregation will be, also.”
Bad conclusion. After all, any preacher will have had a certain amount of theological training and should be miles further down the road of doctrinal understanding than his congregation. Because he’s interested in “whatever happened to the Jebusites,” there is no guarantee anyone else is.
That, incidentally–“whatever happened to the Jebusites”–is a line from Harry Emerson Fosdick who cautioned preachers against assuming people in the pews have an interest in such esoteric matters. As both a Bible student and student of history, actually, I would love to know what happened to those people of antiquity! You will recall they were the residents of Jerusalem when David conquered the city, ousted them, and made it his headquarters. Scripture is silent about the fate of the Jebusites.
I wonder about them, but won’t be preaching about them.
–We falsely assume the members have a good biblical understanding.
The plain fact is not everyone in the congregation knows where Leviticus can be found in the Bible, or for that matter, even brought a Bible with us today. A large percentage of literate adults in any country on the planet, including America, has no idea what the Exodus was all about or can name as many as five of the Ten Commandments. Mention the Sermon on the Mount or “the Johannine Epistles” (as one pastor I heard kept doing), and you’ve lost them.
Dwight L. Moody used to remind pastors of his day that “the cookies must be put on the bottom shelf so all may reach them.”
–Pastors make a false assumption when they preach as if everyone in the congregation is a professing believer in Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Paul stresses in the first couple of chapters of I Corinthians the huge difference in believers and unbelievers. “The natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God,” he said in 2:14, “for they are foolishness to him.” And why is that? “Because they are spiritually discerned.”
Recently I attended a worship service in a church of another denomination in a distant state alongwith some family members who had just resumed their church involvement. They liked this particular church, the pastor had been a faithful shepherd to them in a trying time, and they found the congregation receptive. We were eager to attend and express our appreciation to the minister.
We found much to enjoy and appreciate about the morning service that day. Only as we exited did it occur to me that the single thing missing from the service was an awareness that not everyone in that large congregation that day was a believer. The ministers had addressed us and addressed the Almighty as though we were all faithful disciples come to worship and serve. And that, I submit, is a faulty assumption.
The plain fact is we are not all interested in the same issues that intrigue the minister, we do not all have adequate biblical understandings, and everyone in the congregation is not saved.
Pastors would do well to consider this in the study when they begin preparation for Sunday’s homily.
I suggest a small, brief exercise for pastors who need some prodding in these areas.
Go to the mall and sit in the food court on a Friday evening or Saturday afternoon. Open your notebook or laptop and work on your sermon. Look around at the young families and teenagers and ask yourself three questions:
–If the people sitting near me knew the sermon I’m working on at this moment, would they find it interesting? If I told them, would they be intrigued and want to attend?
–If I explained the subject matter the way I usually do, would they understand it?
–If these young families and teens who never go to church sat in my congregation Sunday morning, would they hear from me how they may come to know Christ as Savior?
I keep thinking about a question 7-year-old Holly Martin raised in the middle of one of my sermons. I’ve long forgotten whatever subject I was dealing with at the moment, but clearly it was tough going for a child and must have been for adults too. Somewhere in the middle of that message, Holly leaned over and asked, “Mother, why does Pastor Joe think we need this information?”
Every pastor on the planet ought to be stopped about halfway through his sermon and made to answer that question. Why do they need that information?
A better plan, of course, is for the minister to ask that question of himself in the study early in his preparation of that message. Unable to answer the question, he may decide the congregation is not interested, he is depending on their having a better understanding than they do, or he needs to deal with something far more basic before considering that subject, such as: how to know Christ as Savior.
Oh, and while you’re at the mall, an ice cream cone would be nice. Sermon preparation does not have to be all work and no play.
Another way of checking relevance is to note the popular magazines, especially at grocery counters. They choose their subjects to sell mags, so the headlines point directly to things that interest people enough to spend money on. They contradict themselves, sure (see how many you can find that both have recipes for delicious cakes along with diets that tell you not to eat it!), but people are interested in both. Sex is always displayed prominently, often with tips! Celebrities rule!
What does all this have to say to the pastor? Well, obviously he’s “agin” a lot of it, but it tells us where the people are. They also point to excellent illustrations, topics, and needs. (There are a lot of articles on improving relationships, for example.)
I can’t remember where I heard this. I may have heard it from you, but here goes: “Never underestimate the congregation’s intelligence, but never overestimate their knowledge.”
In public speaking they teach not to speak over a 3rd grade level, but most of us cannot remember what we learned in 3rd grade ;)lol.
As for the Jebusites- seems like some lived with the Isrealites and faced whatever fate they did: 2 Samuel 24. I for one love these kind of minute details in scripture and have a notebook full of little odd details like these that catch my attention in scripture.