{"id":22985,"date":"2023-11-06T09:47:37","date_gmt":"2023-11-06T14:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/?p=22985"},"modified":"2023-11-06T09:48:01","modified_gmt":"2023-11-06T14:48:01","slug":"lord-deliver-us-from-our-word-congestion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/lord-deliver-us-from-our-word-congestion\/","title":{"rendered":"Lord, deliver us from our word-congestion!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cLet thy words be few\u201d (Ecclesiastes 5:2).<\/strong><\/p>\n

We preachers know how to \u201cmultiply words without end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preaching is our occupation and wordiness is our occupational hazard.<\/p>\n

Well-meaning friends call on us for a few words before a gathering of some type and half an hour later, they wish we would sit down and shut up.<\/p>\n

When one preacher asked why his hosts had not called on him to say grace throughout the entire week they\u2019d been together, the man replied, \u201cBecause we want to eat tonight!\u201d\u00a0 (I was there and I heard it.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWords from the mouth of a wise man are gracious, while the lips of a fool consume him\u2026. Yet the fool multiplies words\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>(Ecclesiastes 10:12-13)<\/p>\n

We fill the silence with words, fill the air with our thoughts, try the patience of everyone around us with our wordiness.\u00a0 Long prayers, wordy introductions, repetitive announcements, the list is unending.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As a retiree and frequent guest preacher, I go to a lot of different churches.\u00a0 I hear tons of announcements.\u00a0 Often they sound like this: The women of the church will be meeting Tuesday night in fellowship hall to discuss missions in China.\u00a0 That\u2019s Tuesday night, right?\u00a0 In fellowship hall.\u00a0 I sure hope they bring those delicious cheese straws, the way they did last time.\u00a0 I think Mildred Phillips made those, right Mrs. Phillips?\u00a0 Anytime you want to make me a batch of them, you know my address.\u00a0 Heh heh.\u00a0 Okay. So, the women are meeting Tuesday night in fellowship hall.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lord, deliver us. What is wrong with such a preacher to purposely get on the nerves of everyone like this!<\/p>\n

Aw, we know. I\u2019m a preacher.\u00a0 I know all too well.<\/p>\n

The wordy preacher likes the attention.\u00a0 He enjoys the spotlight.\u00a0 He loves the sound of his own voice.<\/p>\n

Lord, deliver us.<\/p>\n

Wordy preachers\u00a0multiply words\u00a0in sermons\u00a0for lack of thorough preparation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If I do not prepare for telling a story I\u2019ve heard or read, it may take me five minutes to relate it.\u00a0 But if I plan it ahead of time and rehearse it, I can do it in half the time.<\/p>\n

We preachers sometimes think people need a sermon of so many minutes.\u00a0 A half hour, maybe.\u00a0 Or an hour in some places.\u00a0 The times we have fudged and turned in a much abbreviated message, the criticism of a few has wafted its way up to us.\u00a0 \u201cFor this, I drove all the way across town?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t come to church for a 15-minute sermon.\u201d<\/p>\n

We foolishly take those criticisms to heart, and make sure we never again speak briefly.<\/p>\n

In funerals, we anesthesize the pain of the mourners with our soothing words that lull them to sleep.\u00a0 After 45 minutes of our droning, they are ready to lower the loved one into the grave if it will mean putting a stop to this.<\/p>\n

The old joke has someone saying to the pastor, \u201cJust because your message is timeless, Preacher, it doesn’t have to be eternal.\u201d<\/p>\n

We pad our sermons with words.\u00a0 When my church gave me six weeks to visit other congregations and learn from them, on two occasions I worshiped with mega-churches where the pastors were media-stars.\u00a0 in both cases, the men of the Lord preached 45 minute sermons with 25 minute messages.\u00a0 That is, each sermon could easily have been over in 25 minutes, but they had a larger slot to fill, which they did with unnecessary words.\u00a0 Filler, is what the newspapers call it.\u00a0 Multiplying words.<\/p>\n

I just read Chuck Swindoll’s book on “Moses,” which no doubt was a compilation of a sermon series he’d done on that great man.\u00a0 He could have published a volume of half the size however, if he had cut out the clutter.\u00a0 By “clutter,” I mean his pastoral ramblings and barely relevant illustrations.\u00a0 He was doing what Chuck Swindoll does, I know, and God has used that to touch a lot of people. I don’t begrudge him for it; I’m just saying this is what he did.<\/p>\n

I am not calling for 10-minute sermons or smaller books just for thorough preparation.<\/p>\n

Wordiness.\u00a0 You know what it is.<\/p>\n

So, let me practice what I\u2019m preaching and end this here.\u00a0 (You\u2019re welcome!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cLet thy words be few\u201d (Ecclesiastes 5:2). We preachers know how to \u201cmultiply words without end.\u201d Preaching is our occupation and wordiness is our occupational hazard. Well-meaning friends call on us for a few words before a gathering of some … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pastors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22985"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24725,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22985\/revisions\/24725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}