I’m thinking over my whole life and over of all the preachers that I’ve listened to. The whole concept of preaching in the way that we have experienced it in the last few decades is I think, well, outmoded, or at least headed that way. Rapidly.

As I’ve analysed this intuitive statement I’ve been trying to dig down to work just why I think that is the case. At first I questioned the idea of x number of people sitting in their seats listening to someone talk for 30-45 minutes (and often what could be said in 5), and pondered whether this was a completely new experience for the unchurched. Of course it isn’t a new experience, people sit for longer, listen to drivel and are even subject to adverts for the pleasure when they watch TV every night - it’s just that in this hi-tech:low-touch society the average TV user need only sit with their family or friends that they’ve invited watch the box with and, should they feel challenged or uncomfortable they can change the channel - different to getting up and walking out of a church, perhaps it’s a bit more like switching preachers. However, the TV does not pretend to be something it is not. TV is entertainment (sometimes).

Preachers, I’m sure, (though I’ve only done it twice, both times at cluster), face the same primary issue that worship leaders do: performance vs worshipping in spirit & truth (that old chestnut - it just never goes away does it?). But it does ask some interesting questions: Why do preachers often talk funny? Why do they often put on that stupid voice? I’m a person, why do you preach at me? Just talk to me! That’s one of the things I like about Paul Maconochie - when he preaches he talks like he’s talking to a person. I do wonder whether the preachy ‘voice/attitude’ toward the listening throng is a legacy from the days before PA systems and people needed to shout and be clear to be heard. Quite possibly. Or perhaps its some kind of defence mechanism because being up on that stage is quite vulnerable. The key of course is to get used being vulnerable, not to invent a defence mechanism.

Then there’s things like preachers sticking to the 5 card trick. An intro, 3 points and conclusion. Ya know, God has never spoken directly to me this way, and people, when we’re having a chat don’t talk with a 5 card trick template in mind - why do some preachers then insist on keeping to it? I’ve seen people stretch sermons out for no point other than to cover the 5 card trick.

As much as I hate tradition for the sake of it, or singing songs so that at least a clanging cymbal reaches the throneroom (if nothing else), I think preachers filling in time, using up their slot fully, etc, ranks up there with the worst of them. At some meetings I’ve been to where there’s a tradition of someone speaking at the meeting, if there’s been a mix up and there’s no-one to speak, the person leading the meeting will sometimes ask if anyone would like to speak. Often this is met with someone with a bit of preaching experience saying “yes, I can make something up”, they then get up and do exactly that.

It makes me angry because it is presented as a word from God, but is really just someone making something up in the same way as someone making up a final point for their 5-card trick to spin out the sermon and round it off.

I think presentation is very important to us Gen X-ies, not just the standard “style over substance” stuff, but in honesty. Generation X can’t abide a lack of integrity or honesty. Say what it is.  In the case of someone making it up, I’d much rather hear about their life and what God is doing rather than a “preach-package” that they’re working on presenting soon. What ever happened to being real?

The thing is - I want to hear from God - raw, rough, sharp edged and as it comes - that’s actually the job of the preacher. But under the pressure to regularly speak God’s word they often feel that they don’t have enough ‘material’ to stretch it out so they make up the deficit themselves, thus failing in the worst way imaginable. We all face precisely the same issue but in a different context. We all feel lacking either in ourselves or whatever project, or whatever is required, and feel as though we need to make up the deficit ourselves - this is what it is to be a redeemed saint living in a fallen world of fallen expectations. Get over it. So why do some preachers feel they can get away with making up the deficit themselves? Because they feel it is them preaching rather than God? Because they feel its their ministry rather than God? Their life rather than God’s? Can’t they just press on - and if God doesn’t meet the deficit (for whatever reason - the preacher’s lack of faith or maybe even God leaving you standing - God reserves the right to do so), then so what! To take Thomas Keating’s idea.. when you give your life to God it’s His to do as he chooses, you often get left holding the bag when the music stops. Its just too bad. For a preacher its just an occupational hazard.

I don’t want to have to fight my way through a safely packaged sweetened presentation to find Gods intended word for me. Neither do I want the body’s time wasted with someone ‘making something up’. I don’t want to hear a preacher say he understands how x works when frankly he only just grasps the idea (the depth of which is infinite and will not be grasped this side of eternity anyway). There’s not enough honesty (or truth) - leaders & preachers too often give in to the pressure to be seen as in control, or that they understand the process that they, or the church is in, when in fact they know little of it and are as confused as the people they’re leading (if God knows all, or is at least capable of knowing all, then anything you or I know is minuscule compared to the complete understanding that God has or is capable of having: You see we’re ‘almost blind guides’, a minuscule better than ‘completely blind guides’ - right now we only see in part, etc..). I can’t wait for the day when a preacher stands up and says “I don’t know what God is saying today - he hasn’t told me yet. Lets pray and listen to God and see if he has something for today.” and take it from there. God’s power is made complete in our weakness - so the question is where have all the weak preachers gone?

God’s word to us is often quite simple, whilst carrying the sharpness of truth and the depth & weight of eternity also. Enough bread, or meat, whichever analogy you prefer, can be given to those that come to eat in a few sentences, perhaps 5 minutes if you really stretch it out. Chris Box and I used to say how we’d be rubbish preachers because we wouldn’t know what else to say apart from what God had said. Funny…

What happened to preaching in spirit and in truth? What happened to saying what you sense God is saying and stopping there so that we can respond to Him and not ’rounding it off’ or ’safely packaging it nicely’? (which can only take away from what God is trying to say and do anyway). What happenned to being honest and vulnerable rather than pretending there’s no deficit or trying to make up the deficit ourselves ?

What ever happenned to all the weak & foolish messengers using weak & foolish methods to bring a weak & foolish message?

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