SUBSTANCE NEGLECT

by Stephen L. Dunn

It's Thursday evening and my sermon is half done (no, I didn't say "half-baked."). Most weeks Monday is my Sermon and Study Day and I try to start gathering the notes, the exegetical discoveries, the illustrations that I have been collecting and begin to put it into a coherent and preachable form. Because of some pressing church business I did not do this until Tuesday, but having done so, Thursday night has arrived and I am fairly close to having something that is preachable.  I'll spend some more time with the message at some point Saturday.  Barring a last minute inspiration from the Spirit, Sunday morning will arrive with my "manuscript" notes complete, needing only a quick review over breakfast before stepping into the pulpit.

There is a popular misconception that good worship trumps poor preaching.  I once was asked to speak in Haiti for a conference only to have my sermon cancelled two days in a row because people had been so into the worship experience that they had run out of time for the sermon,  In the US, however, much of what passes for worship is more emotive than revelatory.  People coming away feeling uplifted is considered the most important thing in the worship event.

I am still traditional enough to think that the sermon is the critical element or pivotal act in a worship service.  For the sermon helps the worshiper focus on the message that the God people have come to worship intends the disciple to take away with them.  Remember, worship in Romans 12:1-2 is spoken of within the context of renewing our mind by discovering the mind of Christ.

But here's the rub.  Having defended the primary place of preaching in a worship service, I have to ask.  Is the message that you have prepared worthy of that place?  Is your sermon basically some popularized form of moral therapeutic deism or is it the Word of God?  Is the sermon substantive or is it so much religious fluff?  Is it grounded in a serious study of the Word, bathed in prayer, and reflective of the working of the Holy Spirit or did you just identify an opinion or personal preference that is dominating your thought these days and now intend to dignify it by declaring it to be "a word from the Lord?"  Has your relationship with the Lord and your attention to His presence and work been the source of the message? Or have you found something interesting, clever or relevant and are now asking God to baptize with His "amen."

When I stand before the people of God, I quite often utter this prayer in a public way, "May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be Your Words to Your beloved that I now have the privilege to share."

(C) 2011 by Stephen L. Dunn