Minor Thoughts from me to you

I've thought about Scott's comments all week long. He presented a contrast between preaching (reaching out to the unsaved) and teaching (reaching out to the saved).

As I thought about the discussion this week, I noticed something ironic: Blackhawk is Blackhawk Evangelical Free Church. The "E-Free" denomination is supposed to be about the good news of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, we can go many weeks without hearing the name of Jesus mentioned during a sermon. (For instance, Jesus wasn't mentioned in tonight's sermon and he wasn't mentioned in last week's sermon. Will he be mentioned in next week's sermon?)

Because of this, I agree with Scott. I think Blackhawk tends to reach out only to those who already know Jesus. It's right there in our mission statement: "Building a community...". The ultimate goal is for the Blackhawk community to reach out to the broader community (Madison) and present Jesus to Madison. The church community does present Jesus through our actions: the church is involved in multiple charities and service organizations around the city. But the teaching team does not often present Jesus from the pulpit. I think this is a problem.

I think it's a problem for two reasons: the teaching doesn't inform seekers who come in from the community about Jesus, and I think it misses the main thrust of the Bible. I won't spend much time talking about the first point -- it was the main focus of last week's discussion. But I do want to reiterate it: a non-Christian visiting Blackhawk would leave most Sundays without a clear idea of the gospel. As Tim Mackie discussed in the Jephthah sermon, "God" is a word with many different definitions. Ask a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, and a Wiccan who God is, and you'll probably get six different answers. The true, distinctive mark of the Christian faith is Jesus. As I said last week, we are what we are because of Jesus and only because of Jesus. That is the single biggest idea that differentiates Christianity from every other religion on earth. I believe that it must be preached on a regular basis.

I believe that Jesus must be taught on a regular basis. I believe it for three reasons:, it's important, we're forgetful and we need a model. It's important because Scripture says it's important:

[esvbible reference="1 Corinthians 2:1-5" header="on" format="block"]1 Corinthians 2:1-5[/esvbible]

I've always noticed that Paul said the gospel is of first importance. It's not the only important thing in the Bible. But he does think it's the most important thing in the Bible. Instead of telling someone the gospel right before they commit to Jesus, I think we should tell them the gospel on a regular basis, as the foundation of Christianity.

[esvbible reference="1 Corinthians 15:1-3" header="on" format="block"]1 Corinthians 15:1-3[/esvbible]

Notice that Paul says he is reminding the Corinthians about Jesus. We Christians are forgetful people. It's easy to forget how desperately wicked and evil we are apart from Jesus. It's easy to forget that Jesus is the only hope we have for ever seeing heaven. It's easy to forget that we can do nothing good apart from Jesus. I think the old hymn had a lot of wisdom:

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it

Prone to leave the God I love

I think any good teaching has to lead us back to Jesus on a regular basis. We have to be (or I have to be, at least) regularly reminded of who we love, why we love him, and what he's done for us. Only then can we live the life of good works that he's called us to live.

We also need a model. It's easy to say that we (the Blackhawk community) should be the primary people to communicate Jesus to our friends and neighbors. It's even true: my friends, neighbors, and co-workers are going to trust me a lot more than they're going to trust a pastor from a random church. But how do I share Jesus? How do I relate him to the modern, secular world I live in? How do I tie Jesus to the moral principles that the world loves and yet still talk about the sin that Jesus hated? How do I tie Jesus to every page of Scripture? Pastors can model these discussions through their sermons. If Jesus is relevant to modern life, it should be possible to both effectively teach the Scripture and effectively present Jesus. Through a constant diet of Jesus-filled sermons, I can see how to present Jesus to people I interact with.

I want to see this happen at Blackhawk. I admit to being spoiled. For the past year, I've been listening to the sermons of Pastor Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill Church, Seattle. In every sermon -- every single one -- that he preaches, Pastor Mark presents Jesus as the sole solution to the problems we face. Every week, he presents sin as the root problem and Jesus as the only solution. He preaches practically, but grounds every message in the story of Jesus. It's powerful stuff. And, as I've listened, I've gained more of an understanding of both how to live and how to share Jesus.

Mark Driscoll does have one advantage over the Blackhawk teaching team: the average Mars Hill sermon is 65 minutes long. It's a lot easier to cover ground when you have that much time. I'm not arguing that Blackhawk should look and act exactly like Mars Hill. We live in a different community and in a different culture. But maybe we could learn something about how to present Jesus, even if it is every other sermon instead of every sermon.

Thoughts?

Alternate Title: Sheep Feeding or Adding to the Flock

Hi Joe,

I think your point is well taken, although I see it less as a theological issue at this time and based on the information and more an issue of preference. How do you like that for hedging:) But I'm of mixed minds about the issue, and appreciate the question, as well as the opportunity to respond.

Based on some of our prior conversations, I think it would be fair to say that there is a sentiment that Blackhawk does not consistently present the Gospel in its Sunday sermons that would allow a person with no, limited, or incorrect of Scripture to identify a) who Christ is, b) why it's important to know Christ in general and in the context of the message, and c) what you should do with the knowledge of Christ.

SHEEP FINDING (PREACHING)

I certainly think that it is typically for a sermon message to contain the elements in the above paragraph. It was at the church I grew up in and it is at the church my parents attend. Anyone who walks through the door will, assuming they've listened, heard something about the power of Christ before they've left. Evangelism is the primary goal of the Sunday sermon, or at least the last five minutes.

SHEEP FEEDING (TEACHING)

However, I don't think the absence of those elements make a sermon unsound. Sermons can and should be used to deepen the understanding of Scripture and relate it to our lives today, i.e. that it has meaning, that it does still translate in modernity, that our human condition has not changed. Fundamentally, Matt's sermon illustrates the continuing need for Christ in our lives, although this was not explicitly stated. I think Matt may make the assumption that many of those in attendance get the point.

FINDING AND FEEDING

I don't think the two subjects, finding and feeding, need to be mutually exclusive. A Sunday sermon can address both, but it may not be necessary that it does both, or one or the other, in the name of theological soundness. My concern is the imbalance.

If the message from the pulpit does not help people find Christ explicitly, then this duty should be held by someone and it should be exercised on Sunday during the sermon. Some pastors point out people in the back of the room that are waiting to talk and answer questions, while other churches have "Fireside Rooms" to invite newcomers or those with questions to hear about the Gospel more explicitly. Currently, I do not think that Blackhawk has excelled addressing this issue.

Alternatively, if the pulpit doesn't help people grow in Christ through the effective exposition of Scripture, then the flock can falter. While some would say that this is the purpose of Sunday school, and I would agree, there is a good and useful purpose to the pulpit being used to teach.

CONTINUING DILEMMAS?

I think that there is an imbalance at Blackhawk. The Gospel is not presented in a traditional way in each sermon. There is no Sunday school. There is no immediately visible (to me) means by which a seeker can gather more information and hear the Gospel without taking some risks. In the effort to be welcoming, we may simply be offering a place for a club to meet (not unlike many other churches, whether they preach the Gospel or not). How then is it best done and should it always fall on the pulpit, or should it fall on those that are fed? If so, what direction, motivation, and organization does the flock need to feed others that attend on a Sunday?

After writing last night's post, I sent an e-mail to a friend -- Scott Sager.

A couple of things were running through my mind as I listened to today's sermon.

Do you think I'm off base? I actually talked (very briefly) with Matt after the sermon tonight. He basically said that he wanted to go in a different direction. I'm not very good at actually confronting people, so I don't think I expressed myself as well as I could have. I wasn't mean or anything -- just timid. I'm not exactly sure how a lay person goes about bringing a theological concern to the teaching team.

Anyway -- do you think I have a point?

I've invited him to respond here. I'd like this to be the start of a (hopefully) edifying conversation.

Today's sermon at Blackhawk (in the "The B Team: Book of Judges" series) was on Samson. Matt Metzger preached a wonderful sermon illustrating that Samson was no action hero.

Samson was a narcissistic, selfish man. Everything he did was designed to feed his own ego and legend. He consistently ignored his religious vows and violated the agreement God had made with Israel. From wanting to marry a Philistine women to regularly visiting a Philistine prostitute, he had no respect for God's laws. More than that, he had no desire to use his God-given strength to help his own people. He only used his strength for his own amusement and vengeance.

At this point, Matt turned the message to us. We are no different from Samson. In our natural state, we seek to glorify ourselves not God. In our natural state, we want revenge for whatever wrong's we've suffered. In our natural state, we want to live only for ourselves.

But I don't like where Matt took the sermon next. He didn't point us to Jesus. He didn't tell the good news of the gospel. Instead, he invited us to stop looking out our own tiny story and look at God's big overarching story. He invited us to stop working for our own good and start working for the good of everyone around us. He invited us to join God, in the work of God's kingdom.

That's not bad -- we should work for the good of others. We should join the work of God on earth. We should focus more on the big story of God and less on the tiny stories of ourselves. But it's not the full story. The truth is, we don't have any choice. We all act like Samson. No matter how hard we try, we can never act any differently from Samson. We can try to look at God's big story. Inevitably, we'll find ourselves living out our own tiny stories again and again.

There's only one solution. We need a power stronger than ourselves. We need Jesus. We can only have salvation and change through Jesus's death and resurrection. That is the gospel -- the good news.

[esvbible reference="1 Corinthians 15:3-11" header="on" format="block"]1 Corinthians 15:3-11[/esvbible]

The good news is that Jesus died for our sins and that God brought him back to life. The good news is that Jesus gives us the strength to be different -- the grace of God. Or, put differently,

[esvbible reference="Ezekiel 11:19" header="on" format="block"]Ezekiel 11:19[/esvbible]

God changes us. God makes us different from what we were. God actually makes us into new people.

[esvbible reference="2 Corinthians 5:17" header="on" format="block"]2 Corinthians 5:17[/esvbible]

This is the power of the gospel. This is the power of Christ's death on the cross. We don't have to lift ourselves out of our own story. We don't have to move ourselves into God's story. Jesus will do that for us. Jesus will change us and make us new. Jesus will give us a heart that wants to glorify him, not ourselves.

Samson is not a Biblical hero. Samson is a cautionary tale. Samson lived the empty, meaningless, pointless, violent, lustful life that we all live. In spite of his "religious vows", Samson never actually had faith in God. Samson never once depended on God's strength. Without Jesus, we are all just like Samson.

Because of Jesus -- only because of Jesus -- we don't have to be like Samson. Because of Jesus, we can be reborn and be new men. Because of Jesus, we can look at the world with new eyes and serve the world with a new attitude. But it's only because of Jesus. If we forget that, we forget what makes us strong -- just like Samson.