Who preaches your sermons?

I'm a strong believer that what comes out of a preacher's mouth during the sermon should be based on their personal study of and interaction with Scripture, the needs of and prophetic challenges facing their congregation and the world they inhabit, and what they feel the Holy Spirit is leading them to say.

Period.

That's why I bristle whenever I hear a sermon where the preacher's jumping on the latest bandwagon opinion spouted by their denomination or religious political affinity group. Or when preachers use sermon illustration collections, or worse, purchase entire sermons. And we wouldn't have issues with "Christian" flacking firms creating sermon tie-in content designed to boost the sales of the motion-picture industry (Hollywood and "Christian" films alike), or the latest "Christian" book the industry hopes will become a best-seller phenomenon.

Churches are constantly being bombarded with materials that promote the ideas of the mega-star pastors du jour, the next marriage-saving seminar series, the latest way to finally appeal to those hard-to-reach 18-35 year old demographics. They're hit with missives to preach about certain causes, get certain people elected, make sure certain other people don't get elected, March on Washington™, oppose this, work for that.

Every one of these so-called opportunities, whether they come from the secular or the ecclesiastical world, is someone trying to manipulate the church, whether for financial or political gain. These people don't care about you and don't care about your people. They just want to make a buck or use you to advance their cause. All of them. Even the people with whom you naturally might agree.

None of us should be naive. Churches and church folks are just another demographic to be exploited. And in these days of data mining and personalized advertising and other advanced techniques, this stuff is going to be coming at you and your people faster and harder every year.

So for heaven's sakes, be aware. Don't let your church become an arm of Christianity, Inc. Don't let other people put words in your mouth. Use your brain, your connection with the Holy Spirit, your prayer life, your immersion in the Bible, your observations about your congregation and the world around you today. Build your church around how your people, your community, and the world need to be touched by God. Every week, tell them something God's given you right now, specifically for them.

The real power of God comes from his interaction with you, and you with your people. Don't give it away to pale imitations.

An example of true repentance

A few days after I posted about the importance of taking repentance seriously, the news broke that Alan Chambers, founder of Exodus International, had apologized for the ministry and was shutting it down. Here is his apology in full.

It is an example of the kind of repentance I was talking about. Chambers is direct and contrite. He spells out all the ways Exodus hurt people. He acknowledges his part in it. He talks about how in trying to do good, he did great harm. Most importantly, he is ceasing what he is doing, ending the behavior, and looking to see what God will do next.

We rarely see this from Christian leaders of any stripe. That's stunning when you think about it.

It will be more than interesting to see what God does with this kind of repentance. I look forward to watching the developments.

Taking repentance seriously

A key part of salvation, a part that is for us to do, is to repent.

In both the Old and New Testament, God makes it clear again and again that one of the things he wants from us is to repent (*see some good references below*). If sin is the fundamental problem between us and God—and it is—then when we desire to come to God and receive his salvation, part of that desire needs to be a resolve to stop sinning, to look at our life and begin to change what needs to be changed to bring us increasingly in line with what pleases him.

God promises us that when we accept his salvation and desire to do this, he will give us the power to live differently. That's one of the things the Holy Spirit does in us.

Repentance does not mean feeling bad about what you have done and how you have lived in the past and thanking God that Jesus' work covers all that so you can now go to heaven, even if you actually do not plan to examine and make changes in your life from here on out. That's not what salvation is all about, and that is certainly not repentance.

No, the Bible is clear throughout in letting us know repentance means stopping, considering our lives, turning from how we used to behave, and living in a new way that pleases God.

I'd argue that you can't tell whether someone's really repented until time has passed and you see how things turn out, because repentance happens over time.

Don't get me wrong—I don't mean the qualification for repentance is that a person never sins again after accepting Christ. That's unrealistic and a ridiculous thing to argue. Come on now.

What I mean is that one component of accepting salvation means you're willing to actually look at your life and not live it the way you've always done in the past. It means you first look to God and what pleases him, and then you see how you have missed the mark (sinned). And you resolve to make changes, and you actually make them, and then you see what else does not line up, and you make changes, and on and on and on until the end of your life.

That's what salvation looks like in practice. That's repentance. And anything else is... not quite salvation, I'd argue. It's both your fault and the church's fault for not being adamant about what the "after" part of salvation entails.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke of cheap grace. I think cheap repentance is a component of that. Say the prayer and Jesus forgives your sins... and then just keep on living your life as you have been. I don't see a lot of churches showing people how to repent and what it should mean for their lives afterwards. We are living in an era of cheap repentance.

And I believe the church is suffering internally as a result. Our churches are full of people who've "received Christ" yet still behave in self-interested, dysfunctional, sinful ways that affect not only themselves, their families, friends, neighbors, and co-workers, but others in the congregation and the Body of Christ itself. Instead of working for the Kingdom, they're at best non-participants and at worst stumbling blocks and moles, agents of the enemy.

And most of them don't even know it, because most of them have never been told otherwise.

Now, let me be clear. I don't know what God does with folks who "accept salvation" and keep living the way they always have. I'm not going to go there now. Let me just say I trust in God's mercy and his justice, his faithfulness and his righteousness. We'll find out when we get to the Kingdom.

But I do think churches need to do a much better job of being clear about what salvation and repentance mean before the "prayer is prayed" or Christ is confessed. And we also need to do much better at walking alongside new Christians and showing them the ropes once they do join our ranks. Anything less does them a great disservice and is slow suicide for us.

* See—
The Book of Judges to understand a cycle of sin and repentance in Israel. In your opinion, did Israel really ever repent during this time in its history?
1 Kings 8 and 2 Chronicles 7 for God's word to Israel at the dedication of the temple.
Matthew 3-4 for what both John the Baptist and Jesus have to say on the matter.
Luke 16 for Jesus' parable about the rich man and Lazarus.
Revelation 1-3 for the importance of repentance within the Body of Christ.

It's no longer working

Somewhere in my 40s, I started noticing something about people in my age group. It's become more apparent now that I'm a decade past that. Perhaps I see more of it because I'm an ordained minister and people tend to confide in me. But I really think I am on to something.

What's hit me is how many people who have been trying to make life work on their own terms seem to hit the wall at about this point in their lives. However they've been coping with life's realities become less and less effective with time, and now it's to the point where it's crumbling.

Addictions don't fly under the radar anymore—now they're causing real damage. If they've been self-medicating to get by, it's no longer enough. If there are financial issues, at this point the hole seems impossibly deep. If mental health hasn't been looked after, now its built-up repercussions are taking a real toll. If there has been physical neglect, disease has set in. It's also the time when friendships, marriages and families fall apart.

In every aspect of life, people can no longer get away with living as they did when they were younger. The chickens come home to roost in these decades.

Everywhere I look in my age group—friends and family, co-workers and church folks—all seem to be hanging on by a thread as they experience setbacks and major life disappointments, many of their own making.

What an opportunity for the church to offer hope to ordinary, broken people, to really reach out with a message of love, acceptance and healing.

Book review: The Wisdom to Know the Difference

Being in a season where I am re-evaluating my service to the church, I picked up this book last month at my local Cokesbury store's closing sale. (RIP Cokesbury brick-and-mortar stores.)
Flanagan's premise is to explore the facets of the oft-quoted Serenity Prayer, specifically: to accept what cannot be changed, to change what can be changed, and to have the wisdom to know the difference between the two situations. Her book relates the stories of a number of people whose lives embody one or more facets of the prayer, and provides commentary on what they have learned over the years.

I confess to almost not making it out of the first chapter, the weakest part of the book. Here Flanagan makes a number of sweeping general statements about the way things are in the world, and why they are that way. She bases her statements on statistics and studies that she never  sources, either in the text itself or in footnotes. In this age of massive political spin permeating so much of what we hear, watch and read, attribution is critical. One cannot get away with statements like, "numerous studies have shown...," "most psychologists agree...," or "in one study, researchers learned..." without the careful reader immediately asking him or herself, "Which psychologists? What studies? Funded by who?" The lack of attribution immediately raises suspicion about Flanagan's agenda; it would have been easy to fix these omissions. Unless, of course, Flanagan was just being sloppy and vaguely remembering that some study somewhere had made her point for her.

Fortunately, once Flanagan starts introducing her protagonists, the sweeping statements fade to the background.

Christians reading the book must take into account that Flanagan is a Quaker, and brings that group's practices, thought and quirks into her writing. Some may be disappointed in her ecumenical embrace of wisdom found in non-Christian religions. This didn't bother me very much except in her sometimes references to "the wisdom of the universe," which I felt was going a bit too far. Others may tire of the frequent references to AA and other 12-step programs. Given the subject of the book and the role the Serenity Prayer plays in these programs, I did not find the time spent here was wasted.

Flanagan is at her best when talking with the interviewees and summarizing what they have learned through their experiences. It is in these passages that she makes her most important, and most helpful points.

While the book is unevenly written, it contains enough actual wisdom to make it a worthwhile read. I profited from what I learned, often in unexpected flashes of recognition and solidarity with the situations of those profiled. I suspect most readers will mine enough gems to make their time with Flanagan worthwhile. But I also expect what each reader gains from the book will be different, as some of us need to accept, some of us need to get up the courage to change, and we all need wisdom to navigate our particular circumstances.

The Wisdom to Know the Difference, by Eileen Flanagan
ISBN 9781585428298