Ineptness in the Pulpit, Not Length, Creates Yawns in the Pew!

That's right. I just heard Dr. Timothy Dwyer, Associate Professor of Bible and Ministry from Northeastern Seminary in Rochester say as much. I believe that he is right. People will stay with you IF you have something worthwhile to say. For the last two decades I have heard repeated that 20-somethings are leaving the superficial, frothy, glitzy kinds of churches to find ones that actually say something profound. They want MORE, in other words. The problems mankind faces demand answers they've not been receiving. Well, to return to Why Johnny Can't Preach from the last two posts, let me quote T. David Gordon's take on preaching that makes a difference. See what you think . . .

What would make a difference would be Christian proclamation that is consequential, that is concerned less with current events than with the history-encompassing events of creation, fall, and redemption. What would makes a difference would be Christian proclamation that did not panic every time a court rendered a decision on some pet geopolitical concern, but called our attention instead to the certain judgment of God, with whom we have to do. What would make a difference would be Christian proclamation that was less concerned with "how-to" and more concerned with "why-to," why humans are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God. What might make a difference would be Christian proclamation that was less concerned with the latest news from the Beltway, and more concerned with the stunning and perennial good news that God in Christ is reconciling sinners to himself. But any one of these preferred alternatives requires a sensibility for the significant; a capacity to distinguish the weighty from the light, and the consequential from the trivial. [emphases mine]

Gordon is not arguing that there isn't a place for some of these things, but he IS arguing that comparatively, God's truth trumps all else. And where else must that truth be broadcast more than in the Christian pulpit? That is a legitimate concern.