Today is much different than 2000 years ago. Everything is different: culture, society, technology, science, politics, and more. All of these changes combined with time and the evolution of tradition have made us change the way we think about evangelism, the gospel, and even Christ. Today I would like to compile of list of how we do things versus how Jesus did things.

We hang out with unbelievers when they come to our meetings and programs.
Jesus hung out with unbelievers.

We develop programs to attract the world.
Jesus developed relationships with the world.

We raise funds to build buildings and additions.
Jesus didn’t have a place to lay his head.

We believe that true fellowship with God happens once a week.
Jesus expects true fellowship every day.

We make the gospel attractive.
Jesus made the gospel unattractive.

We create religious systems, doctrines, polity, rules, and more; in the name of being right.
Jesus tore down all those; showing that he was right.

We expect non-followers to act like his followers.
Jesus expected his followers to act like his followers.

We believe that classes equates to discipleship.
Jesus walked with his disciples.

We believe that we cannot perform miraculous things.
Jesus told us that we could perform greater miracles than he did.

This post is part of a monthly synchroblog. The topic of this month’s synchroblog is “Maturity in the Light of our Faith”.

There are at least three parts to preaching. The first part is the preparation for preaching, the second part is the act of preaching, and the third part is listening to preaching. In today’s Christian life it is hard to find a place that does not encourage people to preach and people to listen to preachign. So, today I would like to discuss how each of these parts of preaching reflects on and affects our maturity as Christ followers. I am going to ask a few questions that I’ve thought of… questions that I’m thinking about. I will not answer these questions, I hope to get some conversation going about them.

Preparation for Preaching

I have prepared for preaching, I have attended many Sunday morning meetings where there was preaching, I have attended school where I was told how to prepare for preaching, I listen to preaching on CDs and the Radio, I talk about preaching with my friends and family. I’m not saying this to boast, I’m saying this so you understand where I am coming from. Of course, my experiences may differ vastly from others with similar experiences, but I have a feeling any difference will be purely semantic when it comes to how preparation for preaching reflects on and affects our maturity.

There are usually several things a preparer does when preparing for preaching.

1) Prayer that God will speak to him
2) Study a particular passage
3) Study what other commentators say a particular passage means
4) Study similar passages via a lexicon or other commentators
5) Put it all together for your listeners.
6) Practice, Practice, Practice…

None of these things are necessarily bad or wrong. In fact, if someone came up to me tomorrow and said, “I want you to preach two Sundays from now,” I’d pretty much follow this little outline (give or take a few things). To be perfectly honest, sermon preparation is really just glorified Bible Study – in our context it usually comes with compensation.

My questions are these: Does doing these things make you mature? Does doing these things mean you are mature? Does doing these things increase your maturity?

The Act of Preaching

Recently I saw a video of John Piper called “The Gospel in 6 Minutes“… to be honest it was really the gospel in a few seconds with an illustration and a lot of the word “never” – but that really isn’t my point. In this video John Piper said this, “You never outgrow the need to preach to yourself the gospel.”1 This quote got me thinking about the need to preach to ourselves… and the need for us to preach to other. It made me wonder about how the act of preaching reflects on and affects our maturity. In most traditional churches there is one man who does the preaching, often times called the Pastor. He is usually considered to be very mature. But sometimes, he will ask someone else to preach, perhaps a deacon or a seminarian. To most the act of preaching means that you have reached a certain maturity level. There is a hierarchy built into our thinking – levels of maturity if you will.

This is how I understand the hierarchy:

1. Layman
2. Layman who serves in some capacity
3. Layman who teaches
4. Layman who preaches
5. Deacon
6. Preacher
7. Pastor

I’m not saying that I agree with this hierarchy, this is simply who I understand it. If you were to corner me, I’d have a much different hierarchy, but this is what I believe others traditionally see in the church.

My questions are these: Does preaching make you mature? Does preaching mean you are mature? Does preaching increase your maturity?

Listening to Preaching

As normal church-goers we are always encouraged to listen to “good” preaching (among other things). We are encouraged to order CDs from the big named preachers, listened to Christian radio which has preaching, and even join churches where there are properly trained men to preach. There is actually a hierarchy built into this thinking as well. The more preaching you expose yourself to the more mature you are considered.

Consider this layman:

1. Goes to Sunday morning service
2. Does #1 and goes to Sunday School
3. Does #1, #2, and goes to Sunday evening service
4. Does #1, #2, #3, and goes to Wednesday evening service
5. Does #1, #2, #3, #4 and listens to preaching on the Radio or on CD.
6. Does #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 and watches preaching on TV or DVD.
7. Does #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6 and reads biographies about famous preachers.
8. etc., etc., etc.

By the way, I think this list also leads into the list for the Act of Preaching.

My questions are these: Does listening to preaching make you mature? Does listening to preaching mean you are mature? Does listening to preaching increase your maturity?

Before you answer any of these questions, consider these three verses from Scripture:

Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. And this we will do, if God permits. – Hebrews 6:1-3

Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature. – 1 Corinthians 14:20

For everyone who partakes {only} of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.- Hebrews 5:13-14

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Here is a list of bloggers who are taking part in this month’s synchroblog on the topic “Maturity in the Light of our Faith”:

Phil Wyman at Square No More with “Is Maturity Really What I Want?”
Lainie Petersen at Headspace with “Watching Daddy Die”
Kathy Escobar at The Carnival in My Head with “what’s inside the bunny?”
John Smulo at JohnSmulo.com
Erin Word at Decompressing Faith with “Long-Wearing Nail Polish and Other Stories”
Beth Patterson at The Virtual Teahouse with “the future is ours to see: crumbling like a mountain”
Bryan Riley at Charis Shalom
Alan Knox at The Assembling of the Church with “Maturity and Education”
KW Leslie at The Evening of Kent with “Putting spiritual infants in charge”
Bethany Stedman at Coffee Klatch with “Moving Towards True Being: The Long Process of Maturity”
Adam Gonnerman at Igneous Quill with “Old Enough to Follow Christ?”
Joe Miller at More Than Cake with “Intentional Relationships for Maturity”
Jonathan Brink at JonathanBrink.com with “I Won’t Sin”
Susan Barnes at A Booklook with “Growing Up”
Tracy Simmons at The Best Parts with “Knowing Him Who is From the Beginning”
Joseph Speranzella at A Tic in the Mind’s Eye with “Spiritual Maturity And The Examination of Conscience”
Sally Coleman at Eternal Echoes with “vulnerable maturity”
Liz Dyer at Grace Rules with “What I Wish The Church Knew About Spiritual Maturity”
Cobus van Wyngaard at My Contemplations with “post-enlightenment Christians in an unenlightened South Africa”
Steve Hayes at Khanya with “Adult Content”
Ryan Peter at Ryan Peter Blogs and Stuff with “The Foundation For Ministry and Leading”
Kai Schraml at Kaiblogy with “Mature Virtue”
Nic Paton at Sound and Silence with “Inclusion and maturity”
Lew Ayotte at The Pursuit with “Maturity and Preaching“

After moving to North Carolina I began working for a Christian institution, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Truth be told, I enjoyed this job a lot! Why? I wish I could say that there was a lack of politics (like you see in the nonChristian world), but that would not be true. I wish I could say because they paid us what we were “worth” in the real world, but that would not be true. What made me enjoy this job so much was because of the men who I directly (and indirectly) worked with. I sat in a room with men who not only challenged me but loved to discuss, debate, and learn about new and important things. At least, they were new and important to us :).

When I made the decision to not pursue my Masters of Divinity, I had to find alternate employment. As many of my readers know, I went secular (employment wise). I worked for IBM for about a year before moving to Dublin where I started working for a small Network Consulting company called Alterra Networks. When my wife and I decided to pursue our dream of her finishing her degree we had to look at schools in the area. I then landed a job at Athens, which I started working at in the beginning of August. So far I have really enjoyed this job, I have my own office, a nice desk, two big monitors, etc., etc. I also really like the people – they are all very nice and accommodating.

But there is a problem. In fact, there has been a problem ever since I started working in the secular world. The problem is: they all know that I am a Christian, one who went to a conservative school. What does this mean? I means that they often censor themselves and when their internal censoring fails they often apologize. I hate this. I know they are being nice, because they don’t want to offend me. But I don’t understand where this comes from. I haven’t asked them not to say “Fuck”, “Jesus”, “Hell” or any other words. I don’t expect them to change who they are because I have entered the room. I don’t think it is even appropriate for people to change because of me… they should only change because of Jesus.

So this is my plan, whenever someone “apologizes” or I sense they are censoring themselves, I will take them aside and tell them, “I don’t mind if you do whatever it is that you do in front of me. I don’t expect you to censor yourself just because I entered the room. In fact, I’d prefer it if you didn’t. I want to get to know you – not the censored version of you.”

As I think about this, I wonder, how often do we (Christians) censor ourselves in front of our brothers and sisters? Is it appropriate to do so? How does this affect the community of believers?

Every Sunday you attend the service to be bandaged and recharged, like all other wounded soldiers. Far too often, however, the bandaging and the recharging never takes place. The reason is quite simple. The New Testament never links sitting through an ossified ritual that we mislabel “church” as having anything to do with spiritual transformation. We grow by functioning, not by passively watching and listening. – Page 77

This post is dedicated to my grandfather, Charlie Lachance. Last night I received word that Charlie had passed away. Charlie and his wife Rachel have been in my life since I was born. They are not my biological grandparents, but they have always treated me like their own grandson, if not their own son. Rachel passed away in the summer of 2003. It was a very sad time for me, she was one of the most loving and caring people that I knew. Charlie and Rachel’s marriage was one that is often unseen today. Sure, like any marriage, they had their share of problems, but the obvious way that they treated and respected one another had always amazed me. I am guilty of being unable to reproduce what they taught me by their example.

Charlie will forever remain one of my heroes. There are only a few men in my life who have influenced me the way that Charlie has influenced me. My childhood memory often fails me, but those fond memories I do have usually include Charlie and Rachel. He was a collector, some might even call him a hoarder. Always being afraid to throw something away because of its sentimental value or even its potential use in the future, Charlie’s house was filled with stuff. I think some of this might be an after effect of living in the depression era. I remember once, in his cabin, we found a locked lock, but no key. After going home he opened a tin with at least 100 keys inside. We searched through trying any key that might fit until we eventually found the right one. The sound of the lock popping was reward enough for our time spent. Charlie was also a keen business man. A postman by profession, but also dealt in antiques (along with his collecting). He would spend his weekends at the Flea market, selling and buying, dealing and trading. He also had a few rented tables throughout some local antique shops. His house was filled with wonderful collectables. But they didn’t mind if you picked them up, looked at them, or even played with them.

Some of my favorite memories of Charlie was the weeks that I would spend at his house. They would let me sleep in their big bed. Charlie and I would get up early in the morning and catch the early horror films on TV. We might go to the playground or we would walk the beach to collect sand dollars and unique shells. Of course, the best part for me was that the day usually ended with a trinket or two for me to play with when we got back. Even the hand buzzer that I would wind up and trick Rachel with… I think she saw it coming each time.

These are the memories that I behold, the love that he and Rachel shared with me will never be forgotten. I thank God for their relationship with me. And I thank you, Charlie, for treating me so kindly and loving me like your own.

Until we meet again.

Love,
Lew