IS SOUND PREACHING ENOUGH?

Shortly after arriving here in the USA I had the privilege of being an observer in a 3 day revitalization planning session. Three churches that had previously attended an Embers to a Flame revitalization conference had registered for the follow-up program known as “Fanning the Flame” (FTF). This entails a monitored coaching process in which FTF “coaches” seek to guide the churches through a process of renewal.

The three churches involved in this process were in varying states of vigor. One was a church with a tradition of careful, orthodox teaching and practice which felt a need to break out of its introversion and connect better with its community. The other two churches were struggling with congregational disunity and had become somewhat “derailed” from their central purpose.

What interested me about all three churches was the fact that they considered the strongest point in their congregational life to be their preaching and teaching. When asked to list their strengths, all three spontaneously said “Preaching and teaching is our number one strength.”

This perplexed me, and as the consultation progressed, eventually irritated and disturbed me. How could churches that were so evidently struggling be so secure about their teaching and preaching ministry? I reached the point where every time people mentioned “our great preaching and teaching” I felt something akin to an allergic reaction.

Please don’t mistake what I’m saying. My passion for preaching and teaching hasn’t lessened one little bit. I’ve spent the last thirty plus years trying to preach and help others to do so as well. I dream about it going to bed at night. I believe with all my heart that God does his work in the world through his word, and that he chooses and uses people to be his mouthpiece for speaking that word. But I am not at all convinced that our estimate of “sound teaching and preaching” always equates with God’s concept of preaching and teaching.

While accuracy (or soundness) is a critical factor in ministering God’s word, I don’t think it is all there is to it. Teaching and preaching can be perfectly orthodox but totally disconnected to what God wants to say to a particular group of people on a specific occasion. A preacher can bury himself in his study, exegete his text, reinforce it with the insight of learned scholars, and garnish it with pleasing turns of phrase. Yet, if it’s not what God the Holy Spirit wants to say to his people, it will fall on their ears without effect.

From experience I can say that it is far easier to be orthodox in ministering the word than it is to be alive to what God wants to say through his word on a particular occasion. That takes more than diligent exegesis and critical reflection on commentators. It takes prayer, meditation, and waiting upon God. That’s the price of Spirit-anointed preaching, the kind of preaching that penetrates, convicts and changes.

The point I’m making is that there’s an incongruity – something that doesn’t match up – when churches boast of their great preaching and at the same time are crippled by disunity, formality, lethargy and so on. If the preaching and teaching was really being used by Jesus to feed and bless his church it would be addressing these problems. True, it might not instantly change them, but it would address them and disturb them. It might even arouse hostility. But it wouldn’t leave churches in the grip of deep problems on the one hand and comfortably self-satisfied with their preaching and teaching on the other.