Wasting Away in Lay Speakerville

Seeing her didn’t raise my expectations. A gray-haired woman, who looked like she had been resuscitated from a mortuary, shuffled up to the pulpit, slowly unfolded several pieces of paper and started talking about her ministry in the church with a time-worn southern drawl. The idea was that she would tell us what her ministry does and why it’s important to the Kingdom of Heaven, and then the congregation would drop some extra cash in the offering plate to support it.

Everyone was attentive at the beginning, but then, three stories and ten minutes later, as she meandered all over God’s green earth, we were wondering if she was going to let the pastor preach his sermon. Maybe she was also going to give the altar call and benediction. I was just hoping she’d let us sing another song—but even that appeared unlikely.

Along the way, two of her awkward stories about ministry volunteers showed them to be wondrously inept. I wondered how the church could expect me to give anything to a ministry that had such buffoons as volunteers and such poor spokespeople. It became clear that her memory and sense of place weren’t as strong as they used to be. Why did the leaders of the church ever give her a microphone? The ministry and its volunteers were probably far better than she represented. Probably.

Now, I’ve been to this church before, and this is something they appear to do frequently, either to raise money for a ministry or simply to highlight a personal testimony. The outcome is usually better—but not by much.

So—all you lay speakers—listen to me. When speaking in a church service, if you haven’t said something to grab my attention within the first thirty seconds my mind starts looking for an exit. And if you pass two minutes, you’ll find me far away on a tropical island sipping fruit smoothies in a hammock under a grove of palm trees. Nearby, the gentle waves of a sapphire lagoon caress the virgin sand. Please don’t even try to steal me away from my imaginary paradise by regaining my attention. My little island is so much better.

Pastor, why would you do this to your audience? Do you know how this reflects on your ministry? Apparently, not. So I’d like to suggest that you adopt three non-negotiable rules for non-professional speakers—if you feel a need to give them a microphone:

• NEVER give a microphone to someone who hasn’t been thoroughly vetted and approved. In other words, a qualified staff member can attest to this person’s Christian character and to his speaking ability.

• NEVER permit a person to speak who has not submitted a manuscript for approval. Extemporaneous speakers aren’t allowed. Neither are outlines. Every word must be written on paper and read from the paper. Everything that is written must conform to Christian doctrine and to the mission and vision of the church.

• NEVER approve a manuscript that exceeds 500 words or 2 minutes when read. As a general rule, shorter is better. Use the KISS acronym: Keep It Short and Simple. Your speaker doesn’t have to tell everything about the ministry just the most compelling part. There’s a saying that should drive you, “Always leave them [your audience] wanting more.”

And if the lay speaker strays from the approved text, NEVER invite him back. Why not? Because he has made your ministry look unprofessional, he’s made you look weak as a leader, and he’s offended the congregational members that have placed their trust in you. A bad guest speaker reflects poorly on your ministry. If you do that too many times you’ll risk losing people’s confidence and loyalty. You might also lose them to another church—and I’ll join the exodus. Or maybe I’ll just return to my tropical island.

Getting the Story Right, Part 3

THIS IS CONTINUED FROM PART 2

Jesus, the God-Man

The virginal conception and divine paternity of Jesus are revealed in the following passages.

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together [sexually] she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit [not from a man].  And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.  But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’  All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:   ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’ (which means, God with us).” (Matthew 1:18-23)

“Mary said to the angel, ‘How will this be, since I am a virgin?’  And the angel answered her, ‘The Holy Spirit [not a man] will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God [not the son of a man].” (Luke 2:34-35)

Jesus was not like any other man. The nature of his birth proved his DNA to be both human (Mary) and divine (our heavenly Father).  Because of this dual nature, he was the Son of God, a trustworthy Messenger from God who informed us of the Kingdom of God and the means to enter it. And he was the Son of Man, the sinless offering who became a full and sufficient sacrifice for the transgressions of anyone who would receive the benefit of his sacrifice. This benefit is that his sacrifice satisfies the judgment of God against any person because of his or her sin. And now, because of Jesus’ great victory over sin, death, and hell, proven by his Resurrection, we can all be beneficiaries of the forgiveness and redemption that God secured by himself on the Cross in the person of His son.

The Lesson

One of the lessons that we might glean from the story of Joseph and Mary might be this: God favors those who live honorably and who have hearts inclined toward him. This idea is echoed in the words of the prophet Micah.

“He has showed you, O man, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God.”

(Micah 6:8)

So what about you? What is your life like?

• Are your actions in harmony with God’s expectations?
• Does your speech reveal your kindness and mercy toward others?
• Are you walking in a humble attitude of reverence toward God and dependence on him?
• Do you have an inner spiritual ear that is listening for his quiet voice?

The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth

In many courtrooms across America, people are still asked to place a hand on the Bible and pledge to “tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.” Christian preachers and teachers should go through the same exercise every week while they are preparing their lessons, and in the moments before delivering what they have prepared. People deserve more than half the truth, or a version of the truth. As a pastor and teacher, you have an obligation before God to give them the whole Truth and nothing but Truth. When you have that firm commitment, preparing as fully as the scriptural text and preaching moment requires, God will help you.

Returning to our youth pastor, simplifying the Christmas story to one of a “crisis pregnancy” between a slutty girl and an immoral boy who doesn’t want to step up to the plate and take responsibility for being a father does a great injustice to what actually happened. It reduces the story to something that is common, rather than exceptional and holy. It betrays a belief that people, regardless of their age, don’t have the intelligence to rise to a full and accurate understanding of Biblical Truth. And so, it offers them a distorted portion of truth that is devoid of its transforming power. Disciples who are offered unbalanced, incomplete, or misshapen doctrine will develop a shallow faith, at best. Predictably, many of them won’t live very long by a Book that can’t help them rise above their sinful condition, and they won’t follow a pastor very far who doesn’t inspire them with the power of the Word.

Getting the Story Right, Part 2

THIS IS CONTINUED FROM PART 1

Joseph’s Righteousness

“Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.” (Matthew 1:19)

Mary’s pregnancy was proof of her immorality as a single woman. The Old Testament Law prescribed death for such women, a sentence that was still occasionally meted out in Joseph’s day. So, according to the requirements of the Law, Joseph would have been considered a “righteous” man for exposing her to the disgrace of a public divorce (and possible execution by stoning). But this isn’t what Joseph did. The Bible tells us that the reason why he DID NOT expose Mary publicly, which would have made her the object of ridicule and judgment, was BECAUSE he was righteous. This suggests that his righteousness was not defined or limited by the Law.

Joseph’s “righteousness” is best explained by the Apostle Paul, who spoke of living by the Spirit of the Old Testament Law, rather than by every “letter” of the same Law (2 Corinthians 3:6). This is precisely how Abraham could be considered righteous prior to the giving of the Law through Moses (Genesis 15:6; Galatians 3:6), and how Joseph could be considered righteous when not abiding by the strictest application of the same legal code. They lived by a faith in God apart from the Law, a faith that compelled them toward goodness—that quality of character that can be described only by others as “righteous” (Galatians 3:11—12). Joseph, Jesus, and Paul accepted the Law as a guide pointing us in the direction of holiness, but they also understood that the Law, by itself, does not fully define, and thus limit, holiness. As a static legal code, “the letter kills” (2 Corinthians 3:6). But when we have apprehended God’s purpose for the Law, to protect us and provide for us, and have embraced what inspires the Law, the Holy Spirit of God, then we discover the life of the Spirit that is not limited by the Law.

Mary’s Righteousness

“But the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.’” (Luke 1:30)

True holiness requires not only knowing God’s righteous commands; it requires knowing the heart of God and being moved by the Spirit of God. This is why Joseph did not expose Mary to public disgrace. He wasn’t fearful of his reputation being marred by his association with a “sinful” woman; he was known to be a good and righteous man. People in Nazareth would have trusted his report of her infidelity, and this is likely what concerned him. They would have quickly reacted according to their incomplete understanding of the Law, following it’s “letter”, and judged her unmercifully.

But Joseph knew Mary to be a good woman, not licentious, one whom God would favor (Luke 1:28). Her Godly character, like his own, is what had drawn him to her in the beginning. So he acted according to the Spirit of the Law—breaking the engagement privately—until God revealed to him in a dream the piece of this puzzle that had him perplexed (Matthew 1:20): How could a woman of faith, a Godly woman, debase herself by having sex with a man outside marriage? The Angel in Joseph’s dream revealed to him that Mary’s pregnancy was not inconsistent with her pure-hearted devotion to God; it was because of it. The baby growing inside her womb had been conceived by the Holy Spirit. Joseph wasn’t the father (Luke 3:23; John 1:45, 6:41) and neither was any other man. Mary was a virgin; the father was God.

CONTINUED IN PART 3

Getting the Story Right, Part 1

A youth pastor preached a peculiar sermon on the conception of Jesus to a group of students. His points followed these events of the Christmas story: 1) Joseph and Mary were engaged, 2) Oops! Mary got pregnant, 3) Joseph was afraid that this would harm his reputation, 4) he fearfully (and cowardly) broke off the engagement rather than experience humiliation in the eyes of the people who knew him, and 5) he reconsidered his decision and he married her. Joseph wasn’t the godly man that the Bible portrays him as being. He was just another young man dealing with the fear of his girlfriend’s crisis pregnancy. The youth pastor’s interpretation of the Biblical story made it sound like so many other stories of out-of-wedlock pregnancies. In fact, in the United States today, close to half of all births are to single women.

Amazingly, the pastor never mentioned that Joseph wasn’t the father. He omitted the key point of the story: the incarnation of Jesus—you know, the insignificant little doctrine that Jesus was formed by God, the Father, in Mary’s womb, and that Jesus was therefore God-in-the-flesh, or Emmanuel. The youth pastor never mentioned the Virgin Birth. What makes this even stranger is that it happened in a large evangelical church.

Dumbing Down the Doctrine

This situation illustrates a problem in conservative churches today. Rather than fleshing out the full Biblical story with the rich doctrine that it contains, many pastors assume that people aren’t smart enough to understand supposedly esoteric theological explanations. They assume that the Bible has to be “dumbed down” so that people will get at least some of it.

Several years ago, a college-educated church member pulled me aside to let me know that I was preaching over the heads of most of my listeners. “These are simple people,” she said, “they don’t have a college education.” She was right to the extent of my vocabulary. I immediately simplified my speech—without watering down the doctrine—and the positive response of the people was overwhelming.

The problem with “dumbing down” the doctrine is that it offers people an incomplete picture of Scripture from which they can independently develop false interpretations. Using the youth pastor’s message as an example, if Jesus were the product of a typical crisis pregnancy then Joseph, or someone else, could be the sperm donor—or so people might speculate. Maybe Mary wasn’t so pure. Maybe she was sleeping around. Maybe the conception of Jesus wasn’t so immaculate. So then, Jesus might have been fully human and not divine. Maybe he wasn’t really God’s Son. Maybe he was an ordinary guy who aspired to be God’s Son and who “had the amazing ability to pull it off” (I heard a liberal college professor say this to his class.)This subtle progression of reasoning undermines everything else in the New Testament and erodes the faith of a Christian.

Wouldn’t it be better to dig deeply into God’s Word during sermon preparation, to meditate on it with a heart of faith, to apply it to your life with an earnest pursuit of godliness, and then to develop an urgent sense of what God wants your people to hear? Wouldn’t it be better to preach biblical doctrine in a manner that challenges people to think and then watch them rise to new heights of discipleship? When you preach to the lowest common denominator you give people the impression that the Bible is a simplistic book that isn’t capable of addressing their deepest needs. Then, when their spiritual growth compels them to seek more doctrinal meat than you are giving them, they will either learn to be content with your nutritionally inadequate spiritual milk and remain immature, or they’ll go elsewhere in search of someone who can feed them deeper, more spiritually satisfying, biblical truth (1 Corinthians 3:2: Hebrews 5:12-13; 1 Peter 2:2). These hungry disciples will continue their healthy growth toward maturity in someone else’s church. Of course, there is another possibility. Some people may grow weary of your trite, simplistic, inadequate explanations of Truth and conclude that the Bible is irrelevant to address situations in real life. They might walk away from church, and God, altogether.

A disillusioned former church member wrote about his reasons for leaving the church of his youth many years earlier. He concluded by saying,

“Those of us who chose to walk away could also choose to walk back. What might prompt us to do that? Hard to say. The shortest answer is for churches to be places that clearly offer something powerful and positive not found elsewhere. That might give churches and strays a reason to bother with each other.” (Peter Greene)

So let’s take a moment to consider the part of the story that the students didn’t hear.

CONTINUED IN PART 2