The goal of preaching is to be faithful to the text.  But in order to be faithful to the text do I need to communicate it in such a way that people are able to “get it”?  Would I really be faithful to the text if I stood behind the pulpit and ripped off a few Greek sentences of the original text and then sat down?  I mean how much more faithful to the text can you be than just saying the original then shutting up and sitting down?  Is it possible that being faithful to the text means preaching it the way Jesus would? 

One of the pitfalls of verse by verse preaching through a book of the Bible is sometimes you get to a text where your congregation is not at.  Let me give you an example.  I do verse-by-verse preaching with our teenagers.  A decent portion of our teenagers are unchurched: their parents do not attend, a fair portion does not attend on a Sunday themselves, most are just beginning to discover who Jesus is. 

I have been preaching through Ephesians.  As we have went through the first 3 chapters it has been relatively easy to preach on.  We are looking at God’s great global purpose of redeeming broken people and a broken world.  We have frequently discussed that part of this process of redemption is restoring our broken relationships with one another.  The students have a context for understanding that.  But when we get to talking about life within the body they have little context for understanding that. 

Ephesians 4-6 is all about life within the body.  So, in order to remain faithful to the text it means that I have to have ridiculously long introductions to get the students to a spot of understanding.  You may not read it in a preaching manual (and I would never pretend to be qualified to write one) but I think it is perfectly acceptable to stop “preaching” and start “teaching” if you can tell that you’re hearers are totally clueless.  Wouldn’t it be unfaithful to the text to just keep plodding along (of course spiritualizing it by saying stuff about the power of God in His Word) while your congregation is totally lost?  Didn’t Jesus stop for questions?  Didn’t he welcome interruptions? 

I am not saying that we need to always preach in a dialogue.  I am merely saying that we need to be certain to preach where our people are…if we don’t then we are only stoking our own ego’s…and not being faithful to the text or the God it proclaims.

Quite a bit of this can be done in the preparatory stage.  It might mean a longer introduction and taking a couple more weeks on the text—but so what, the goal is being faithful to the text.  So, I would encourage preachers to spend just as much time “expositing” their congregation as they do “expositing” the text.  Then put those two together into a sermon.  And if you get up there and realize you goofed and are preaching over their heads—then don’t just get through your notes…be humble enough to start asking questions or something to get back on the same page. 

So, what do you think?  Am I a heretic?

For the second time I am reading Ed Stetzer’s landmark book Breaking the Missional Code. I agree with most if it. But one thing I am having a hard time with is this statement and the implications that come out of it:

“Our growing cultural diversity requires a church within the reach of every people group, population segment, and cultural environment if we are to be faithful to the Great Commission”.

The implication here is that if you live in an area that has lots of “cowboy’s” then perhaps a cowboy church would help reach people with the gospel. Or maybe you live around a bunch of skateboarder’s; then you have a skateboarding church. Maybe it’s fried chicken that unites your community; well, then you obviously have the green light to call it Southern Baptist.

I get the principle and it seems to make sense…but…is it biblical? I do see the idea of being missional and contextualizing the message so that people can even hear the gospel. In other words if I go to Korea then I need to either learn to speak Korean or get a translator. Yes, the gospel is powerful and it is the word of God that changes lives—but it needs to be heard in your own language or else it just sounds like babbling. So, I get that. And I get that a cowboy hears the message of the gospel differently than a banker from Vermont. But to me having a cowboy church is contrary to the heavenly scene of people from every tribe, tongue, nation, and language.

Maybe to cross a cultural boundary I need to speak a little cowboy and maybe learn how to catch a greased pig. But shouldn’t the gospel be the thing that unites people instead of our culture? Isn’t the gospel meant to break culture so that there is no longer slave nor free, Greek nor Scythian, cowboy nor Indian Native American.

Help me understand…

UPDATE: Here is an example that might make my point more clear. I am a Clevand Browns fan. Now, let's pretend that I live in a community of Browns fans, all eight of them. If I want to take the gospel to Browns fans then I need to find some commong ground. So, I share the gospel with them over an argument over whether or not Brady Quinn or Derek Anderson should be the starting QB. Let's just imagine that a few of them end up coming to know Christ. We decide to plant a Brown's Church.

I preach with a football helmet on. The fans wear those dog masks and have those crazy dog bones. We even let a few of the extra chunky guys come to church with their shirts off (only the guys though). We are certain to let out our services before the game starts (then we have "fellowship" time where we watch the games together). And the few times when the Browns get a prime time game we hold special services. It is our goal to attract more and more Browns fans to church.

Now, I know this is a silly example...but have I really described church as it should be? Wouldn't a better example of church be that a Browns fan and a Steeler's fan link arms, skip out on a football game, and go share the gospel together to a lost Raven's fan.

Maybe I'm missing something...again...help me understand...