Dude…Seriously…Preach the Word
It is a tragic Sunday when you wake up genuinely excited to gather together with family, to attend worship services at a local church, but you leave those services embarrassed that you brought your Bible. In Spokane, our family attends and worships at a church, where the pastors faithfully open the Word of God each Sunday…without exception. They preach the Word, during the sermon, and the Word is taught during Sunday school.
When traveling, one has the joy of joining with another local congregation on the Lord’s Day. With a number of children living in Oregon, we often travel and worship in Oregon, being exposed to other bodies of believers and other pastors. On one occasion, one of my children summed up the experience with an exclamatory question, “What was that?” My answer was, “Well, I think it was what they call, ‘group therapy with a mild Pentecostal twist.”
The pony-tailed pastor was very nice. We chatted before the service with him and his wife. We learned that they were both graduates of Multnomah University, and that he was working on his doctorate at George Fox University. We learned that he taught some on-line courses at the university. Needless to say, I was hopeful and expectant to hear his exposition of the Bible.
Instead, it was an increasingly painful hour and one half wait, for the therapy session to be over. The beginning was promising. We opened with a brief prayer, a familiar worship song, and a two minute meet and greet (which I am not a fan of during the service), but it tergiversated from there.
A video of pictures from the activities of the church was followed by a “pass the mic” session, for many people to speak about how much they appreciated others. Next, a slide reporting the church’s financial giving beneficiaries was followed by a slide with “a prophetic word” from different members, who had e-mailed these to the pastor the previous week.
A “God loves you” chat from the pastor was followed by some live “prophetic words” from the congregation members. Women like the microphone more than men at church, so it became a “don’t be afraid” round of talks from the ladies. We were now one hour and ten minutes into the psychology-laden, prophetic, group therapy. We sang two songs and were invited to attend the communion buffet tables to the right and left. Everything was nice, but my soul was hungry when we departed.
I had gone to church to worship God in Spirit and truth (Jn 4:24). I was genuinely longing for an exposition of the Bible, a Word from God’s revealed, written will. This was, however, the void on this Lord’s Day. It was a significant void…very significant.
A church worship service without God’s Word is a worthless experience. It means we are trusting in the flesh and another spirit. In contrast, the exposition of the sacred text is God’s means to call people to come to Christ, to come in repentance and faith. God speaks to unbelievers and believers when a sermon is preached. Preaching is sometimes “good,” but most of the time a bit deficient in delivery.
The real test is faithfulness. Did the man of God faithfully preach the Bible? Did the congregation faithfully hear, listen, and contemplate what was proclaimed to them? Even if he is not eloquent or clever, the power of transformation is in the preaching event, where the Lord speaks to His own from the text.
Living a long time in this world, I have attended hundreds of different worship services, at different churches. This experience was the first that was utterly void of the Bible. There was no pulpit. There was no Book. There were no verses on a screen. There was no public reading of the Scriptures. There was no preaching.
Christ’s church in the world needs the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It needs faithful men of God, who spend hours, even days in faithful preparation of a sermon to be delivered by means of preaching…preferably expository preaching. The people of God need the Word, not group therapy.
It is a supernatural experience to meet in worship of God, and the Word is absolutely central, not periphery…or in this case, utterly neglected. It is tragic to attend a church with no Bible. It is a sad commentary on both pastor and congregation. It is my hope that I will never have to sit through prophetic gibberish from Tiffany and Betty Sue, again, when I have come to hear Jesus Christ proclaimed…Christ exalted.
Please join with me in praying for this pastor and congregation. Pray that they would love the God of the Bible, and be found faithful to lift up the Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ is revealed in the written Word of God, to be preached with heat and light, that is, passion and truth. Hence, my final word to the pastor is, “Dude…seriously…preach the Word (2 Tim 4:2).”
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
October 20, 2022
