Keith Knight

To clarify, I mentioned 'dozens of conversations' with folks in CRCs across Canada. No, there isn't a mass exodus of Christian Reformed members leaving the denomination.

Granted, we have many excellent preachers across the denomination and those churches are thriving.

As a life-long member of the CRC who was privileged to have had a few leadership positions, my heart aches for the church ... especially for those congregations that have struggled with pastors who simply don't preach well. And it is proverbial slap in the face to suggest that things would change if the congregation simply prayed more. I have seen church leaders agonize over this issue.

I also recognize that Calvin Seminary has a stellar reputation for its theological and scholarly work.

This wasn't mean to be a finger-pointing exercise but to simply raise the issue and the concern. To put it crassly, some of our pastors preach poorly. Then again, I am sure that no pastor intentionally plans and preaches a poor sermon. There's the rub: is a sermon's quality in the ears of the beholder? I don't think so. One can quickly spot a sermon that has been thrown together without little exegetical thought: a few anecdotes here, a quote from Tim Kellar there.

It makes me wonder -- speaking broadly -- if we have pastors who don't spend enough time exegeting a text, digging into scriptures, spending hours chewing on the text during the course of the week. Is it possible that we have pastors who would rather do a lot of the usual pastoral/administrative work instead of searching scriptures for next Sunday's sermon.

The church today needs excellent preaching. That is how we grow, numerically and spiritually.

Thank you so much, Scott, for pointing out the painstaking efforts that Seminary and its professors take in teaching, training and mentoring potential pastors.

I am particularly impressed by the work of the Center for Excellence in Preaching and for the amount of 'traffic' that the website receives. It is my hope and prayer that pastors continue to use the excellent resources that the Center offers, both online and in person.

The pulpit continues to be the single most effective way to disciple, teach and grow the congregation. Within an hour on a Sunday morning, the pastor is able to reach hundreds of men, women, young adults and children with a message that reveals God's grace, holiness, covenant relationship and love for his people. That is an incredible responsibility and opportunity.

Thanks, folks, for your varied responses and for the interesting tangents that this discussion took.
I do understand that congregations are fickle and that a pastor can fit in wonderfully in one congregation but not in another.
I also understand the pain of churches and pastors in conflict and the growing need for transitional pastors and specialists to deal with that pain..
I do think that you've missed the fundamental point of the initial question: Why do we have pastors who preach poorly?
 
Your natural reaction as a pastor is to blame the congregation for being stressed or anxious or finicky. You've got to protect your own.
I think it was Peter who mentioned that "the quality of preaching can never be measured." I beg to differ. When a church loses it members because of what those members describe as poor preaching, that's measurable.
Maybe, just maybe, a more appropriate term is 'lazy' preaching. When one sits in the pew and hears a sermon that lacks substance and that clearly hasn't had much thought put into it, that's lazy preaching. When pastors are more prone to exegete a TV show or the latest newscast, that's lazy preaching.  Granted, perhaps those pastors consider their preaching 'relevant'.
Is it being old fashioned to expect a pastor to 'preach the text'?

I am delighted that Seminary's Center for Excellence in Preaching regularly puts on touring workshops across the denomination. Their very existence underscores the need for excellence in preaching.

And perhaps Seminary should create a Centre for Excellence in Discerning, Listening, Tolerance for those of us in the pew who are at the receiving end of that solitary Sunday morning sermon.

I don't envy today's pastor/preacher. He/she has a tough audience. Preaching isn't for the faint-hearted, nor for the lazy, nor for the person who is looking for a soft job and a fat cheque (check). Congregations not only deserve excellence in preaching; it's crucial in equipping the saints for the working world and the battles that exist in the trenches.

Your comments make a lot of sense. In fact, I regularly come across employers who approach most of their decisions this way. I am the executive director of the Canadian Christian Business Federation and I regularly connect with about 3,500 Christian business leaders across the country, from small operations to multi-national corporations. Our membership also includes a half dozen Christian universities and 15 Christian non-profits.

Hundreds of Christian business leaders meet monthly over breakfast to deal precisely with the kind of issues that you raise. But why stop at hiring practices? Why seek God's will only when we're hiring an employee ... whether that's in a church or in a business?

We claim that God owns everything ... even the church!

I regularly come across men and women who live and breathe their faith at their work. When they develop long range plans for their companies, it's a prayerful process, balancing THEIR plans with God's will.

When they create their corporate budgets, they include a set amount for 'kingdom causes' ... rather than simply giving God 10 per cent of their net profits ... if they have any.

They responsibly value their employees, providing mentoring environments and appropriate maternity and paternity leave.

Your suggestion to employ the spiritual disciplines when hiring staff and appointing volunteers seems to me to be a foundational practice that every church should employ.  Certainly this should all be done prayerfully and pastorally.

Here's one more tip when it comes to the appointment of volunteers to head up various church ministries. Pay them a dollar a year. They're now considered 'paid' employees and the appropriate church body now has the right to 'fire' an employee if he/she isn't doing a good job. It's virtually impossible to fire volunteers. After all, they volunteered. If nothing else, it conveys a message to the volunteers that they're accountable and that they can be released from their responsibilities if there are valid reasons.

The Church can learn a few things from their members who genuinely reflect Christ in their business.

Keith Knight

... I need to add something. There is a recurring refrain among the Canadian Christian business community (and they're a broadly ecumenical lot): If you're involved in business, you're involved in ministry.

I know hundreds of men and women who feel 'called' to their ministry in business, and who refer to that same sense of calling when they hire CEOs, managers or sales people.

Here's a digression: I recently spoke to a group of Christian multi-millionaires and billionaires. They told me two things: they're lonely (their friends want their money) and they have left the organized church (the church just sees them as walking ATM machines or, at best, a potential chair of a capital campaign).

They don't seem to be valued for their leadership skills or their spiritual needs.  When's the last time you appointed a very wealthy member to the Diaconate or used his/her gifts as Sunday school teacher?

It was something that Harry said that caught my eye: The need for a sunset clause on some of the ministries and/or committees.

I occasionally facilitate strategic planning sessions for Christian non-profits. One of the first questions I ask is: "If you had to begin this ministry from scratch, would you?"  That question caught one particular group off guard and the said that, no, other organizations do it better than they do. So they folded.

What about a sunset clause for every local church; especially every church plant. Are they effective in spreading the gospel to the community? Is there another church that can do ministry more effectively?

_______

And now a point about this most recent synod. It seems to have ended rather quickly, with very few substantive issues that required much debate.  Take away the bureaucratic appointments and the drivel over The Banner's editorial integrity, and there is nothing that couldn't be held over for another year or two. The CRCNA is one of a very few denominations to hold annual assemblies. The cost savings might fund an overseas missionary or two.

There was a time when CRC campus chaplains were seen as on-campus babysitters for our tender CRC teens who headed off to college or university. It was quickly discovered that the vast majority of CRC freshmen on the 'secular' campus simply wanted to discover life, perhaps even skip worship, and not become immediately connected to the campus chaplain's office.

Today's campus chaplain is, firstly, a Christian presence on campus for the broadly ecumenical student body. The campus chaplain's office is the place where students (re)discover their spiritual identity and become engaged in meaningful discussions as they try to connect their Sunday faith with their university campus setting.

You pose the question: Are CRC campus chaplains mostly ministers to Christians on campus or mostly evangelists on campus? The answer is Yes!  ;o)

I think that chaplains provide a nurturing environment for Christian students who want to continue to grow in the faith but they also provide a nurturing environment for not-yet Christian students who are searching their own spiritual direction.

Should chaplains be sidewalk evangelists on our university campuses? I certainly hope not. That's not our Reformed style.

Students expect to become engaged in an intellectual discourse ... whether it's their area of academic interest or their own spiritual journey.

I suspect that the campus minister's life is a very lonely one. It is my hope and prayer that he or she has a strong support group within the local church communities and among clergy peers.

I couldn't help but be struck by the fact that our CRC and RCA synodical delegates will be 'singing from the same hymn book' this summer in Pella.

I can't recall the last time that I picked up a hymn book. They sit, virtually new and unused, in our church pews. Most of the time we are gazing upwards at the overhead screen, trying to put music to the lyrics of the latest obscure praise ditty.

The hymn book used to be the symbol of all that is good and 'common' when it came to worship. Once could travel from city to city, and certainly from church to church within the same city, and sing from the hymns that we had in common.  That is no longer the case. Each congregation has developed its own selection of praise songs ... most of them with questionable (ie unReformed!) theology.

While I love the notion of having one common hymn book for CRC and RCA denominations, I suspect that it will have precious little impact upon local congregational singing. I almost long for the time -- almost -- when church councils will treat the hymn book as the approved 'menu' of hymns to be sung in worship. Period.

While the denomination celebrates the arrival of this new, joint Book of Praise, local congregations are still determined to sing anything but those wonderful, theologically correct psalms and hymns from the Book of Praise. Pity.

I appreciate Bev's comment about having an entire congregation 'covenant' to put filters on their computers to avoid the temptation to enter into pornography, and it would take a bold -- and innovative --  council to take the lead by declaring that the elders are concerned about the spiritual welfare of the entire congregation and it therefore agrees to place those filters on their own personal computers and on all church computers. It further urges every congregation member who has a computer to do the same.

Who is responsible for the pastor's spiritual wellbeing? The elders. And which pastor would object to the notion of having anti-pornography filters on his computer? The problem is, of course, that every person can choose to filter out those sites -- or not -- on their computer. There is the rub.

So, back to the question, to whom does the pastor turn when he/she has discovered an addiction to pornography and wants to do something about it? Perhaps, ideally, a support group of peers.

The following note was sent to me by email. This person's identity is protected but what he has to say is helpful to the discussion.

Dear Keith,

Thank you for bringing up this topic. The easy availability of pornography entraps so many men to seek it out as an escape or are already addicted. As a life-long Christian, who kept a portion of my life harbouring an addiction to porn that started with books and magazines as a teen, my addiction really grew with the secrecy, availability and taboo afforded by readily available and cheap porn online. After a drastic confrontation with my addiction, and a steady commitment to be clean, I am thankful the Lord has provided healing and removal of the great pull to act out, as well as nearly all the accumulated memories of words and images. The struggle continues, but freedom is acheivable. Having gone through this, here are my thoughts on this topic:

1) We need to do what you can to avoid shooting the wounded. Strict confidentiality is needed for healing, and should not be seen as hiding. No man wants to come out and admit a sin that means he might lose his job. The sin of pride keeps many sinners from confessing hidden sins, but for pastors we are dealing with an even stronger human nature: basic survival against a threat to employment and family. But it is much better to come clean than be caught. To that end, you need to offer a safe place for the pastor to turn to, and work on a personal specific plan, using both accountability and counselling. Remember, the push of discomfort brings an addict to his knees, and the pull of hope helps him up--both help him make the changes needed.

2) Attacking the problem: Start with a person plan, aggressively acting to help him dry up using filters, accountability software, and accountability partners. I can discuss the goods and bads of filters, including Covenant Eyes and Net Nanny. Remember that you can block the internet, but can't block DVDs and magazines, which is where some guys turn to to get their fix when online is blocked. Accompanying this should be concerted prayer, regular sessions with an addictions counsellor, and men walking beside the healing brother.

I am willing to get involved to help a pastor and council or classis that comes across a problem, within reasonable distance of course. And certainly, bringing another pastor along will help, but the addict needs to want to change, and it won't be easy. But the Lord can heal--His promises are true.