We are now in the home stretch of the presidential conventions. With the exception of the Olympics, these last several months have seemed like a constant barrage of speeches. The candidates and their respective teams believe that speeches are one of the best mediums for communicating their ideas to the American people.
I thought we were cutting edge?
Does this not sound a bit old fashioned to the sophisticated evangelical pastor? After all, we are told by many ‘experts’ today that talking to people in large chunks of time is not effective. Furthermore, it is often said to be arrogant and archaic to stand up behind a podium and have people sit down while you talk.
But what do you see at the National Conventions? A speaker, a podium, a crowd seated, an appeal to action, and even propositional statements! What’s more, we have panels of talking heads dissecting everything about the speeches with the tenacity of a hyper-calvinist in a Methodist church.
It seems to me that the people who are spending millions of dollars to get their candidates message out actually believe that this venue is appropriate. They have apparently not gotten the evangelical memo outlining the social dynamic of our culture and their inability to listen. Political experts must have dismissed all of the questioning and imagination that goes on in the contemporary church about the role of the preacher and the delivery of the message, specifically with regard to the audience’s ability to hear and listen. They seem to be doing the same thing that politicians with something to say have always done, they stand up talk and expect us to listen and interact with it.
Think of how out of place it would have looked last night for Governor Sarah Palin to sit on a stool or on a couch to deliver that speech. She didn’t even walk around! She just stood there and talked. And she talked for quite awhile.
The ‘experts’ would have you to believe that Americans (those in or out of church) cannot sit and process information in this format; we have changed, we are a culture that feeds on the narrative. However, if we listen to the political crowd they tell us that the speech is where the candidate actually connects with the American. It seems to me, in looking at what politicians do, that we actually do have the ability to process information over an extended period of time. These conventions become a helpfully instructive social study.
Timeless Charge
Further, as preachers we have the clear, timeless, and definitive biblical mandate for the pastor to preach the word (2 Tim. 4.2). We are called to do this. This is not a command that is resigned to the first, second, or 15th century, but rather it is resigned to the existence of the church! And if you are a pastor you need to preach, to herald the word. And if you are a Christian you need to hear preaching. It is as simple as that.
We should be refreshed to be reminded that our culture is not as distracted and disinterested as some pastors paint them to be. The fact of the matter is that people listen to what relates to them. The contemporary baptism of the pulpit into a sitcom sized dose of self-help from a god who has had his sharp and jagged personality conveniently sanded off has done much to promote an imagination for something more. In other words, the reason why folks are not coming or are asking for something different is because many pastors are not preaching in the first place.
Pastors need to stop trying to be innovators and belly up to be expositors. If guys would just start studying, practicing and teaching the truth their lives would change and so would there congregations. Instead of becoming irrelevant in an attempt to become relevant, pastors would actually be relevant by meeting real needs with real solutions.
I’m tired of hearing pastors complain about preaching when they do not do it in the first place and while the public craves answers to real problems. We have much to say and there are many needs to be met. And at the end of the day the needs will be far better met and God will be far better glorified through exposition rather than imagination.
Unrivaled Message
It is also helpful to remind ourselves that people listen to political speeches and they get excited. They get excited about earthly kingdoms and earthly benefits. Friends, we are not preaching about that which perishes, but that which is imperishable! The president’s ‘reign’ will have an expiration date on it, but the reign of the Sovereign Lord Jesus is eternal. The blessings of the government are temporal. However, the pleasures, blessings, and joy of the heavenly administration is forever.
May the fervor that surrounds political speeches compel preachers to run for a drink in the fountain of grace that we might preach and live like we have tasted and seen the Righteous one.