A few weeks ago I posted some concerns (you can read them here)
about various subtle—and I believe threatening—trends in preaching
today. One respondent gently took exception and expressed concern that I
might’ve over-generalized in making my case. While a full treatment of
this subject is thicker than the limits of typical blog-posts, I
promised a more extensive look at the matter.
Recently I listened to a panel discussion of well-known pastors
discussing the merits, if any, of establishing new churches whose
primary shepherd/preacher is heard and known only by live-streaming
video. Those in favor offered two main reasons: (1) It works! Patently
faster than other numerically-driven approaches, the live-stream
messages of admired preachers draws more people from, well, wherever
they were before; (2) Only some men have the kind of giftedness to
“bring it powerfully” in the pulpit, and so we should maximize their
outreach potential through technology.
Now, aside from what I think are grave
errors with that particular approach to feeding the flock (which weren’t
addressed in the panel discussion, but that’s for another post), two
issues cause me to think that evangelicalism is being duped when it
comes to how we evaluate effective ministries and preaching. We make
wrong assumptions about “giftedness” and this leads to an errant view of
expository preaching. This post will simply focus on the first of those
points. Keep Reading ...
