The Sermon-Centered Life
Over the last so many years I've tried to look at how we do religion and compare it with what the bible says. After all, as a Protestant I'm supposed to believe in Sola Scriptura and also in the Berean Spirit, where everything is searched in the Scriptures to see if it is so. So, here's my question: How did the Sunday sermon become so central to many of our religious lives?
In the Protestant Reformation, the reformers promoted the preaching of the word. Many of the Puritans placed their pulpits up on the wall, above the congregation, to emphasize the importance of preaching. This spirit has continued down to today when the sermon is still held in high regard. Okay, this is fine.
Now if I want to be really honest here, I don't see the doctrine of the pulpit in Scripture, nor do I see the centrality of the sermon. Off the top of my head, and without having read the entire New Testament in one sitting prior to this post, most instances of preaching are to unbelievers, whether to unbelieving Jews or to Gentiles. Yes, Paul talks about preaching and Timothy is instructed to preach the word in season and out of season. But of the four things the early church devoted itself to that many of today's pastors use as a basis for church essentials, namely the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayer (Acts 2:42), preaching isn't one of them. The church meeting shown in 1 Corinthians 12-14 doesn't include a sermon.
Don't get me wrong here. Preaching is scriptural. The sermon may have developed more as a tradition than not, but a tradition that isn't forbidden is fine. I'm fine with sermons and preaching. But what I'm trying to get at is why it's often so central, so much more important than all other things in the church, so often exclusionary of other things. Many times I have found myself thinking, "Gee, I'm a bit late to church for whatever reason, but at least I didn't miss the sermon." If the sermon goes late, sometimes other activities can be cut short for the sake of preaching. People don't often ask how the praying or singing or offering went, they ask how the sermon went. We often make recordings of only the sermon. To many, the sermon is the most important thing in church, and even the thing around which all other Christian life is lived. It can solve our problems like nothing else. It can make or break the reputation of a pastor.
Years ago I spent time in several circles where the most spiritual among us passed boxes of sermon tapes around. Sermons were everywhere. Listen to one on the way to work, one at lunch, one on the way home. There are serious sermon junkies out there. Now with .mp3 files and on-line listening available, we can listen to anybody anytime. I've known people who went to churches that the only thing going for it was the preaching. In looking for churches, some will put the preaching as foremost in making a decision which to attend.
So again, how did the Sunday sermon become so central to many of our religious lives? Anybody else wonder this?
In the Protestant Reformation, the reformers promoted the preaching of the word. Many of the Puritans placed their pulpits up on the wall, above the congregation, to emphasize the importance of preaching. This spirit has continued down to today when the sermon is still held in high regard. Okay, this is fine.
Now if I want to be really honest here, I don't see the doctrine of the pulpit in Scripture, nor do I see the centrality of the sermon. Off the top of my head, and without having read the entire New Testament in one sitting prior to this post, most instances of preaching are to unbelievers, whether to unbelieving Jews or to Gentiles. Yes, Paul talks about preaching and Timothy is instructed to preach the word in season and out of season. But of the four things the early church devoted itself to that many of today's pastors use as a basis for church essentials, namely the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayer (Acts 2:42), preaching isn't one of them. The church meeting shown in 1 Corinthians 12-14 doesn't include a sermon.
Don't get me wrong here. Preaching is scriptural. The sermon may have developed more as a tradition than not, but a tradition that isn't forbidden is fine. I'm fine with sermons and preaching. But what I'm trying to get at is why it's often so central, so much more important than all other things in the church, so often exclusionary of other things. Many times I have found myself thinking, "Gee, I'm a bit late to church for whatever reason, but at least I didn't miss the sermon." If the sermon goes late, sometimes other activities can be cut short for the sake of preaching. People don't often ask how the praying or singing or offering went, they ask how the sermon went. We often make recordings of only the sermon. To many, the sermon is the most important thing in church, and even the thing around which all other Christian life is lived. It can solve our problems like nothing else. It can make or break the reputation of a pastor.
Years ago I spent time in several circles where the most spiritual among us passed boxes of sermon tapes around. Sermons were everywhere. Listen to one on the way to work, one at lunch, one on the way home. There are serious sermon junkies out there. Now with .mp3 files and on-line listening available, we can listen to anybody anytime. I've known people who went to churches that the only thing going for it was the preaching. In looking for churches, some will put the preaching as foremost in making a decision which to attend.
So again, how did the Sunday sermon become so central to many of our religious lives? Anybody else wonder this?
posted by Steve Scott | 11:54 PM
14 Comments:
Great article. I've been having this conversation on Twitter off-and-on for awhile. The bible talks about teaching and preaching--but it's US who assume this means from the pulpit during an organized worship service. I'd much prefer the 1 Cor 14 or the Acts 2 model (and I'm a full-time, "professional" minister).
Yes, good question. Lately I'm questioning this as well. Why has a 30 minute monologue become the main part of 'church'. Why don't we "teach and admonish one another" with more body participation?
I think we need to be Christ's church in many ways all week long.
Good questions.
Thank you! Finally, somebody questions the centrality of the sermon. How about a short homily instead or intersperse teaching and prophecy throughout the service?
What Vache said. It should come here and there or I'm going to have to go tear 1 Corinthians 14 out of my Bible
Steve,
Good post, while I agree that the sermon is not central, it appears you interchange "preaching" with the "sermon."
I guess if you could define what you mean by preaching which is biblical and define what you mean by the sermon.
Thanks,
I've had similar thoughts in my ponderings of the difference betweeen "teaching" and "preaching". Is there a difference? And what is it? I think the sermons we have in Sunday services are much closer to the spiritual gift of teaching than that of preaching. As far as I've seen, like you noticed, "preaching" in the Bible seems to always revolve around delivering the gospel message to non-believers for the purpose of evangelism. I have issues with people saying things like "the pulpit is sacred" because the pulpit's not in the Bible. And is it then wrong to use any teachings methods during a Sunday sermon that we might use in teaching a small group Bible study, or a devotional on a Wed or Fri night?
Also, somewhat related, how did we turn "meet together regularly" into "sit through an hour and a half church performance of music, monologue, and ceremony"? From what I know, we've looked to a lot of the practices of the early church, and Jews in synagogues, and taken them on as what "church" should look like. And I have a feeling the earliest Christians had a much different view of what "church" is.
I think "preaching" and "teaching" are used interchangeably in the New Testament. I've often wondered why we don't "do church" a lot more like many of our youth groups conduct their meetings--more focus on discussion and prayer.
I wonder what happened to 1 Cor. 14???
Got to have something for preachers to earn their pay. Preachers preach.
Steve,
Knowing you (we're friends, folks), you won't like this, but there is a reason that most of the music isn't recorded on Sundays. Are you ready to gag? Churches can't record music without permission. Songs are protected by copyright laws. I know, I know, it stinks, but that's the reality of life in the US.
Still praying for you and the fam.
Cathy
Yep, I've been asking this question since sometime around the mid 90's and every time I ask it I get grilled or just looked at with a scowl like I am a rebel.
I believe that many pastors consider the "teaching" or "preaching" time to be a fulfilling of their charge of equipping/perfecting/training/preparing the saints for works of service/of ministry for the building up/edifying of the body of Christ, a la Ephesians 4:12.
As for myself, I love a good sermon! But at the same time, I have never been convinced that it is the most effective way of equipping the saints. NOT AT ALL! It is amazing how tradition can really suck one into things. Arguments are also made that this is one more reason Christian homes are so weak. The men are relinquishing their spiritual leadership to the pastors. It is a similar problem that is faced with youth groups. I don't believe this is only the pastors' fault as it is shared with the parents' and the structure of how things are done (i.e. faulty tradition).
I believe this tradition leads to laziness in leading families and spiritual discipline in general. Unfortunately it melds right in with a huge weakness of our culture where people don't interact with one another on a face to face level and are content with a disconnected sort of relating with the world around them - T.V., radio, IMs, Twitters, emails, texting, and even blogging! lol It seems to me that the Sunday morning "teaching"/"preaching" falls right into this same category.
While, as I said, I love a good sermon, it sure would be nice if there were a time of interacting with what was taught. I'm not leveling an accusation, but what it seems like is that the leaders are afraid of losing control and some crazy ideas might come out of these things. Great! That would be a good thing! Then it can be dealt with immediately rather than festering under the surface for months or years only to weaken the body! It seems as though we tend to operate out of fear rather than moving forward boldly (note, I said WE - myself often included unfortunately). All the more reason to have more interaction so we can encourage one another to move forward boldly when we need to.
And so on and so forth and etcetera blah blah blah blah :-p
I'd love to see a poll taken on how people learn (become equipped) better - by lectures with no interaction at all or by a free discussion/interaction with the teacher/pastor and other attendees that isn't overly controlled. I have a feeling the outcome would be extremely lopsided.
I know you have seen a sampling of this at some conferences/retreats where the last session is for Q&A. Although it seems that these are almost always too short, and too tightly controlled (written questions only and no interaction with the questioner outside of their one question), they are at least aiming in the right direction and offer a chance to give more clarity to the teaching.
How do you write short posts!? I think if I did it, I would ramble on and on! There is so much attached to these things that you write about that I could go on for ages just responding let alone if I were doing the blogging!
Later Dude! :-)
Dale
I agree with what you wrote-from what I gather reading the NT the focus of the saints gathering together was a love feast/the Lord's Supper. I do see teaching going on among the saints when they gather together-but not a 50 minute sermon-we need to fellowship together and not listen just to a sermon when we get together. One of the reasons I stopped going to church was I did not want to hear sermons but I wanted to talk to another lover of the Lord Jesus Christ-sad to say no one wanted to talk to me.
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I believe you can trace the centrality of the sermon back to the Protestant Reformation which in turn had it's roots in the Roman Catholic Mass.
What we typically see today in most Protestant churches is a result of a gradual yet steady shift towards an order of service that revolves around the sermon or message. We didn't get to this point overnight; the history was a long, slow process.
Do you think preserving the clergy/laity divide might of played at least a minor role?
Thanks to everybody for all their comments.
Phillip: I'm not quite using them interchangeably, but I see what you mean. I would take "sermon" to be the overall message which includes preaching, and preaching is the act of delivering that message.
Cathy: Well, I could cite some violations. :)
Crookedfingers: Yeah, we kinda read our experience back into the Scriptures, don't we?
Jeff: Yes, it was a long process. Clergy/laity divide? Not many laymen are preachers, so, I guess you could be right.
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