Pastoral Ponderings| Pastoral Ponderings | [printer version] |
| What do we expect to hear when we come to church? More than likely we haven't asked ourselves that question in a while, if ever. But we answer it whether we realize it or not. And it matters how we answer it because it reveals how we view the church, ourselves and God. What do we expect to hear when we come to church? One church is currently in a series titled, “One Month to Live.” It promises to challenge us to live each day like it was our last; to love in a way that transforms others; to grow through pain; to leave a lasting legacy. As Christians, we should live as if we only had one month left and all that it entails. This tends to be what most pulpits are preaching on Sunday mornings. But are we hearing the Good News or are we hearing good advice? While that may be true and applicable to our lives, good advice is not the Good News.  Does it matter? Yes, because the power and uniqueness of the church is most evident in the Gospel. A person can have a better marriage, be a better parent, have financial health, lose weight, beat cancer and a host of other life issues without Jesus. As sacrilegious as that sounds, it's true. A person can turn on the afternoon talk shows or go into the book store and find a message that makes a difference in his or her life. You can find good advice in a variety of places. But there is only one source designed to proclaim God's victory in Christ. Maybe this is why the church is no longer considered an authoritative voice in our lives and culture today. Is the | church offering anything we can't get elsewhere (and often with a lot less baggage)? To put it in marketing terms, maybe the church needs to rediscover its niche. The church has lost sight of what makes it unique. The church is also forfeiting its power. The real power the church has is found in the peace that results from the Gospel. Good advice can offer techniques for victorious living, but the Gospel offers the Spirit of God living within us. All good advice can do is make us better people. The Gospel can make each of us a new creation. The church ends up forfeiting its power when it presents life's greatest failing as missing out on God's best instead of our being condemned as sinners. One is solved with good advice. The other can only be remedied with the power of the Good News. A major objection to the church returning to preaching the Good News is that the Gospel is for unbelievers. Believers need sermons that give good advice on how to live the Christian life. That tends to make sense, but it should be noted that in First Corinthians, Paul is writing to Christians who are mired in sinful habits. Paul begins by first presenting the Good News. Only then does he proceed to give them good advice for living the Christian life. This is our blue print. Everything we do as Christians needs to begin with an understanding that our rightness before God is based on the righteousness of Christ alone. From that understanding we can then begin to live out the good advice found in the Bible. That way our motivation is not to gain God's favor, but to give thanks for the favor that is ours through Christ. From that understanding we can deal with our failures not as a loss of worth in God's eyes, but as a reminder that we need to be dependent upon Him. When the church starts giving good advice on Sunday mornings instead of The Good News, Jesus tends to become less our Savior and more our example. Our message becomes less, “look to Him” and more “look at me.” When we emphasize how we live more than who we are in Christ, doctrine becomes irrelevant as long as there is discipleship. And finally, when we come on Sunday morning looking for good advice we sooner or later begin listening to advice from places outside the church. How much we need to be brought back time and again to the life-giving words of the Gospel -- and you won't hear that on afternoon TV. |