Christain Training
Do you want to know what saddens me? It saddens me that the truth of God is not being propagated from the Church. What I mean by this is that the members of the church are not spreading the truth of God to the culture around us. Our impact on the world is not proportional to the number of people who claim to be Christians.
Why is that?
I think it is primarily the fault of the form and current priorities of the Church. The services emphasize the feelings of the churchgoers. The music is mostly emotional in nature and simple theologically. The sermons are not educational in nature. They are more akin to self-help speeches that are supplemented by the Bible. The average churchgoer doesn’t remember their content past the first week or two. I read a quote from a pastor that said he could preach the exact same sermons year after year if he just swapped out the examples and stories every year and no one would notice. I know that I only remember the content of a handful of sermons from the last ten years of my life.
How has this become the norm? And, more importantly, since this is not working why haven’t we changed it?
What is the solution? I don’t know, but I do have some idea of where to begin. We need to make the substantive bible lessons that are usually reserved for the extra-curcular activities the norm for what is taught during the main service. It needs to be substantive and it should challenge the average churchgoer to stretch themselves and learn from the material. Then, I think we should place the worship after the sermon. I’m convinced that this is a good idea for several reasons.
- First, it takes some time for us to get into the worship. I don’t know anyone that can drive up to the building and start worshiping with a true passion during the first fifteen to twenty minutes of the service. That doesn’t work.
- Second, worship is not simply an outpouring: it is a response to what God has done in our lives. It should take place after the sermon to thank God for the insights and lessons that we are given from the message.
Next, I think the children’s and youth programs need to be overhauled entirely. In all the years of going to youth programs I learned very little about the Bible and the truth of God from those programs. Instead of the ministry pastors doing whatever comes to mind we need to rely on programs that are normally extra-curcular like AWANA to provide young people with solid instruction.
Will churches go along with this? I don’t know. It will be a hard sell to many of them. Church politics will inevitably get involved because such measures will step on a lot of people’s egos and pet projects. It will be painful, but those people need to be ignored because politics only wastes time and serves to divide the Body of Christ. I’m certainly not final authority on this and I’m under no illusions that my church would actually do this, but I think it needs to be said and it needs to be discussed at length in elder boards around the country.
