Ever bored at church, felt like you've heard the message a thousand times before, or longed to hear something new from God?
Yeah, I have too. It's shocking to see what modern preaching has become. And we have no chance of reviving our churches or saving our culture if it doesn't change drastically. Soon.
This article will facilitate that improvement by addressing three of the most glaring weaknesses of American preaching.
3 Glaring Weaknesses of American Preaching
Weakness 1: Sermon topics are boring, irrelevant, and unprofitable.
This weakness has to do with sermon content, the things about which the preacher chooses to preach. The Bible has thousands of topics, and the preacher only has so much time. He must therefore choose to talk about some things and not talk about others (yes, even expository preachers choose; more about this later).
The problem is that preachers are not choosing well. Many go over the same subjects week after week, year after year, while others act as if the issues the people and culture are facing at the time don’t even exist. The result is tens of thousands of boring, irrelevant, and unprofitable pulpits.
The way to overcome this is to include sermons on “the issues of the day.” America is full of sins, deceptions, and errors that are leading God’s people and the nation at large to destruction. Climate change, transgenderism, socialism, polygamy, homosexuality, atheism, New Age cultism—the list is endless.
The great thing is, these topics will lead to all kinds of important Bible doctrines. Climate change, for example, leads to a discussion of God as Creator, the Dominion Mandate, the fall of man, sin, judgment, and redemption (see the graphic below for an illustration of how this can work).
Addressing issues of the day makes it possible to talk about important Bible doctrines in an interesting and unique way, making the Bible more relevant and powerful to the hearer.
“But I am an expository preacher. I don’t choose my subjects—the Holy Spirit does!” Is that so? Who chooses which book through which you will preach? You. Who chooses which verses/phrases/words to emphasize in a particular passage? You. Who chooses which applications to make? You.
As you can see, expository preachers make many decisions that filter the content of what they preach.
The greatest weakness of expository preaching is that it may never lead to a discussion of the issues of the day. First, the preacher himself may avoid them (through his choices; see above), and two, the text may never touch directly on the subject itself.[1]
For example, where is a verse that will lead directly to a discussion of the tyrannical power of government that socialism creates?[2] None. So, using this method alone will mean you will never address it.[3]
Expository preaching is fine (as is topical), but preachers have a greater duty than going verse by verse regardless of the needs of the people.
Weakness 2: Sermons are not offensive.
Nobody wants to offend anybody anymore. The typical preacher’s goal is to increase attendance, fill the collection plate, and be liked by everyone he meets. This means most of the Bible is off limits, or, at least, must be watered down so nobody gets mad.
Men of God today have become men-pleasers instead of Christ-pleasers.
But the whole Bible screams against this approach. God offends men from the very outset. Cain, Noah’s flood, the Tower of Babel, Pharaoh, Israel, Judah, Philistia, the Pharisees, Herod—the list has no end.
Today, we have fallen into the trap Paul was trying to avoid regarding the circumcision issue: causing the offense of the cross to cease. In Galatians 5:11, he said, “If I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then the offense of the cross has ceased.”
Paul was teaching that Gentile believers did not need to be circumcised to be saved. Many of the Jews hated this; to them, the idea that circumcision would be set aside was extremely offensive. Because of this, they fought Paul fiercely and persecuted him whenever they could.
Paul could have stopped this abuse if he had just given in. But he refused. He simply would not allow this true, yet offensive, teaching of the cross to stop. The cross must be offensive, and Paul was willing to take the hits to keep it so.
Interestingly, the word offense in this text literally means “scandal.” What Paul was saying was scandalous, but he did not cease from saying it.
Today, one man/one woman marriage is scandalous, two genders is scandalous, fetuses being human beings is scandalous, women staying home with their children is scandalous, one way to God is scandalous. And on and on.
If your preaching isn’t scandalous, you are sinning. You have become a men-pleaser, which, according to Paul, means you are no longer a servant of Christ (Gal. 1:10).
Weakness 3: It is not informed by interaction with the lost.
Part of the reason for errors 1 and 2 is that preachers no longer interact with the lost. Most of them have insulated themselves inside the church and rarely ever come out. They don’t personally hear the questions the lost are asking or see the sin in which those around them are engaging.
In 2 Timothy 4:5, Paul issued a very important command relative to this issue: “Do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” There is really no way around the implication of this verse for the life of pastors. Paul was directly commanding Timothy, and by extension all preachers, to engage the lost in an ongoing fashion. It is not an option.
And what is an evangelist? The word is only used three times in the New Testament, and the only time it refers to an individual is in Acts 21:8 when it discusses Philip.[4] And what did he do? He went town to town engaging the lost with the gospel of Christ (Acts 8:5).
This becomes our model, then. It does not require we go about it just as he did (town to town), but it does require that we engage the lost on a regular basis outside the church. It also clear from Philip’s example that preaching in a local church on Sunday morning does not fulfill this requirement. You must go out to the lost, as he did.[5]
Weaknesses can be made strengths
The weaknesses outlined in this article can be easily overcome. But we must be willing to hear the word of God afresh and see things in a way we have not before. We must break out of the mold of the past and allow God to lead us somewhere new. I believe every man reading this can do that by the grace of Jesus Christ. Get started today.
OTHER RESOURCES:
*Please use these in your preaching and teaching ministry.
"Section 2: Pastors, Preachers, and Teachers" in my book Saving the American Church deals in more detail with preaching and teaching in the modern American Church. If you would like to study this concept further, you can find a copy on Amazon.
NOTES:
[1] This is not a rejection of expository preaching. It is a perfectly acceptable approach. However, it is not the only way to preach, and it is not any more “biblical” than a topical approach. It has weaknesses, just as other methods do. The best approach is to mix these two methodologies to ensure key topics are covered (topical) and that a breadth of Bible doctrines are addressed (expository).
[2] Why should a preacher even care about the power government gains through socialism? Because Christ directly commands us to care for the poor and protect our fellow man from oppression (Isa. 58:10). Because socialism creates both oppression and poverty, we are commanded to teach about it and fight it.
[3] The Bible addresses this in principle when talking about the nature of man to abuse power (Matt. 20:25, as illustrated in Saul, 1 Sam. 8:11-16), the will of God for people to be treated with dignity (Luke 6:31), and the will of God that men are free to live in godliness (1 Tim. 2:2).
[4] The other two are Eph. 4:11, where Paul says Christ gives the gift of evangelist to the church, and 2 Timothy 4:5, where he commands Timothy to do the work of the evangelist.
[5] Most churches don’t have any lost people coming on Sunday morning anyway, so even if a preacher gave a whole sermon on the gospel, no lost man would hear it.