This cries to be made into a cartoon….
Grandpa was visiting his daughter’s family. After lunch, he told the family he’d be back in 15 minutes, that he was going to take a walk around the block. Two hours later, he returned. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, “but I ran into an old friend and he just wouldn’t quit listening.”
The other day, reading a biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt, I ran across a new term. The writer spoke of FDR’s accommodating himself to the polio that hit him as a young adult. When people would come to visit him or to assist him, he would talk them to death. The writer said, “Polio victims call this ‘walking on their tongues.'” The idea is that they feel guilty when people come to assist them and so feel they must try to amuse them by a constant stream of chatter.
I’ve not had polio, but I think I’ve found the phrase that describes my condition!
Some things that just do not make sense….
Why does Hamas feel it can use the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip anyway it pleases — even as shields and suicide bombers — to provoke Israel into retaliating, then when they do retaliate, accuse the Jews of cruelty and barbarity? At a pro-Israel rally I attended Thursday night with one of our pastors who had been asked to speak, another speaker quoted former leader Golda Meir with the best bit of wisdom I’ve heard in years on that situation: “There will not be peace in the Middle East until the Palestinian political leaders decide they love their children more than they hate the Jews.”
Why does the embattled Illinois governor think he can hold on to his seat in Springfield? Why does Congressman Bill Jefferson (who was just defeated as our U.S. Representative) keep asking the courts to delay his trial? The constitution promises a speedy trial. How does that line go: “Justice delayed is justice denied”?
Why do football fans in this country feel the college game absolutely has to have a playoff to determine the undisputed national champion? The way it is now, a number of teams go to bowl games and half close their seasons with a win and thus feel good about the year they had. Install a playoff season and you guarantee that every team but one ends their season with a loss. Besides, without this to talk about, most of the sports fanatics in this country wouldn’t have anything to gripe about in the off-season!
Why are people in this country so angry about the electoral college system of electing a president? It’s worked well for over two centuries. Those who want the president elected by popular vote may be not thinking clearly. For example, throw out the state-by-state electoral system and elect the president by popular vote and you can forget about a presidential candidate ever showing up again in New Hampshire or Iowa or your town. The only thing that would matter would be the population centers. Anyway, it ain’t going to happen and I’ll tell you why. (Hey, I’m a political science major from Birmingham-Southern College; we know about these things!) In order to amend the constitution, three-fourths of the state legislatures have to vote for it. And since most of the states would be voting to end any kind of influence they have in the election of a president, it is not going to happen.
Moving inside the church, now….
Why in the world do some pastors feel they absolutely must have an acrylic pulpit in their church? Most look like cheap plastic for my money. Pastors have been conned into believing church members will listen better if they can see what kind of britches the preacher is wearing today. Such foolishness. One pastor told me he was thinking of installing one. I was just about to preach to his people, so I said, “While I’m up there at the pulpit, ask yourself if you would get any more from the sermon if you could see the bottom of my suit and my shoes.” I knew that was a ridiculous thought and evidently he decided it was too. At last report, he still has not bought an acrylic pulpit.
Why do we feel we’re worshiping better if we ignore the hymnal in the pews and throw all the words up on the screen?
Why do pastors feel church members will appreciate them better and get more from the sermon if they wear jeans and a sport shirt and sneakers? To me, this is the ultimate foolishness. The bottom line on this is something I once told a new staff member of the church I was pastoring when he offered to cut off his moustache if we hit a certain figure on high attendance Sunday: “Hey, friend, you’re in New Orleans. They don’t care whether you have a moustache or not!” Likewise, the average guy walking into your church is not encouraged or blessed or helped in any way if the preacher is dressed casually. He doesn’t notice and clearly doesn’t care. He’s thinking about other things, not what the preacher chose to wear to church today.
Why have pastors bought into the thinking that church members will get more from a sermon if a full outline is printed in the bulletin and thrown onto the screen with blanks left in strategic places to be filled in. I’ve followed this custom in churches across my part of the world — and no doubt preached it in at least two churches — but eventually it occurred to me that it was accomplishing nothing except distracting the worshipers from really listening and the pastor from really preaching.
One has to wonder how the Lord Jesus got that Sermon on the Mount across to those thousands on a Galilean hillside without the use of screens or printed outlines or any kind of pulpits and while wearing flowing robes. Didn’t He know jeans and sneakers would be more effective?
Screens in church can be a positive resource for worship and learning. But good planning needs to go into what you throw onto them. Put too much clutter or detail and it detracts from the service.
Note to Chris, Christine, and Stephanie Screen at First Baptist Kenner: “Your kind of Screens in church is always a positive thing!”
Actually I’ve found that I really like having lyrics projected on a screen because then my hands are free — to be raised or folded in prayer, as seems appropriate. Is that necessary? Not in a million years. But I find it very nice.
But please, people, please if you’re going to do the screen thing, do not have the screen smack front and center such that it covers up the cross. Please. I am begging here.
Hi Joe: Thanks for the insightful digs on ministerial accouterments. It felt good. Tom
Joe,
Great reminder of the need to focus on what is worth focusing on. This certainly was my error in my first (and only) pastorate.
Thanks,
Dwight
I still like the old fashion way of worship, in the old country church, with the Broadman Hymnal and the King James Bible.
What about this thought Brother Joe-Who are you preaching to? If Jesus had shown up in a three piece suit on the side of a mountain-it would have been a little odd don’t you think? Or if you are preaching to a room full of senior adults and show up in jeans and a tshirt, they might very well be turned off. I think the point is to look at the culture around you and the type of service. The bottom line, if it is a great sermon, after a few minutes, perhaps what the preacher is wearing won’t matter as much as what he is preaching. On the pastor search committee I was on last year, we had one preacher who said he would never wear a suit and tie to preach. That told me he was more concerned about what he was wearing than what he was preaching. I thought it an odd statement.I may notice what the pulpit looks like, what the preacher is wearing,or if the hymns or words are in a book or on a screen for a few minutes, but once the service starts, if the Holy Spirit is present, hopefully all those external things will fade away. Love you Gail
I hear you on the acrylic lecterns. We have a few laypeople in our church who keep dropping hints about getting one, which I think would be totally out of place with the colonial architecture of our sanctuary. However, I wouldn’t mind if they replace the huge desk we have now with something a little smaller. Whenever I preach, I always feel like our huge pulpit is a barrier (both physically and metaphorically) between the speaker and our people.
Personally, I like having the words on the screen. At least it gets people looking up. I agree, though, that these things need to be carefully planned out in order to avoid becoming distractions.
Hey, I recognized my moustache in this article!
Joe: Good article. There are times when casual may be alright. But not on Sunday Morning.
Let me paraphrase a sentence from your card on Prayer. Thou art standing before a KING, no we are standing before the KING of KINGS, THE LOD of LORDS, The ONLY ONE and TRUE GOD and TRUE MAN. How many would go to meet the President dressed in jeans and t-shirt? We need to come before God with our BEST. Not our rags.