J.S. Park

Pastor: Six Types of Things You Should Stop Saying In The Pulpit Immediately

There’s always a cringe-worthy moment on Sundays when the preacher drops an anvil in the pulpit that suffocates the whole sermon. 

It’s a shrill phrase, nails on a chalkboard, subtle as a sledgehammer, insensitive, no tact, no grace, a lazy tactic that’s meant to stir up something but disregards actual human interaction. 

Pastors: don’t just describe the water that we’re drowning in.  That helps no one.  Show us how to swim.

I’m not above these things and have occasionally caught myself in the middle of a sermon to laugh at them.  Let’s be a little more self-aware and nip these at the bud.

1) Pack Your Bags, Time For a Guilt Trip

“Your sin is bad and here are nineteen reasons why.”

“God saw what you did last night.”

“Don’t you know you’re incurring the HOLY WRATH OF GOD?”

“With all that time on Facebook, why don’t you pray and read your Bible and do missions in Africa?”

“You’re an offense to God’s holiness.”

“Are you really worshiping sincerely from the bottom of your heart?”

“Stop talking, other people want to hear the sermon.”

“I don’t heeeear you, are you excited for Jesus or what?  Come on guys, that was weak.”

“If you’re not sharing Jesus, you must be ashamed of him.”

2) Not Scared?  Well YOU SHOULD BE

“If you’re not tithing, then you’re STEALING FROM THE LORD.”

“Porn will turn you into a SEX-CRAZED MONSTER.”

“If you have sex before marriage, you will be physically in bondage to that person FOREVER.”

“Here are twelve signs that YOU could be a Pharisee.”

“God only hears you if you have NO DOUBT.”

“Trust God, don’t EVER ask questions.”

“You’re either a real disciple or you’re a fake lukewarm hypocrite. PICK ONE.”

“If you don’t do ______, then the Devil is WINNING.”

“Don’t end up like Frank.  He slept around and got AIDS.  Do you really want herpes that bad?  You want warts on your genitals?  HUH?”

“Here’s a slideshow of what’s happening in Hell right now.”

3) Imma Let God Finish, But I Got The Best Opinion of All Time

“I’m not a very political person BUT —”

“I love all my homosexual friends BUT —”

“The gift of salvation is free BUT —”

“I’m not sexist BUT —”

“I’m not a scientist BUT —”

“God loves you unconditionally BUT —”

4) Cliches, Platitudes, and (Not) Witty Slogans

“It’s not a religion, it’s a ______.”

“I will now tell an irrelevant story about my family member (most likely my wife) whose permission I did not receive beforehand because I’m a jerk.”

“Here’s a long complicated semi-funny probably-true story to illustrate a point that I could say in two seconds, but seriously it’s worth it.”

“If you really believe God loves you, then your perfectly natural response is to love Him back.”

“Let’s piss off the religious folks.”

“If you’re an atheist, what stops you from eating a baby?”

“The cop pulled me over but let me go. Therefore, God is good.”

“The test results say I have stage 4 cancer, but praise God.”

“… and that’s why bad things happen.”

“God will never give you more than you can handle.”

5) Sophisticated Theology That No One Cares About

“Let me tell you why the Pretribulational Rapture is the correct view and why all the other ones are wrong.”

“Here’s how the Holy Trinity works.”

“Total depravity.”

“I’m a three and a half point Calvinist.”

“I’m a Calvinist.”

“I don’t like Calvinists.”

6) Everything Is Evil

“Don’t fill your heart with movies and music and sports and worldly things, fill it WITH GOD.”

“LIBERAL SECULARISM.”

“They’re ruining our country.”

“Look at that waterfall and the rainbow and the universe and other pretty stuff — how dare you believe in evolution.”

“Video games are the devil.”

“I’m going to use the word idolatry a LOT.”

“Sex is gross, evil, disgusting, horrible, and filthy.  So save it for marriage.”

Question: Favorite Sermons?

onewithchrist asked:

What are your top 5 favorite sermons?

So I’m totally not about evaluating sermons in such a way that makes me an elitist wine-taster, as if sermons are the same as sitting down in a theater with oily popcorn waiting to be entertained. Though to be fair, a lot of preachers are moving their Sunday services in that direction.

But I do have some favorite sermons, so here you go.

1st disclaimer: I am a young-ish dude, so please don’t expect me to sound smarter than I am by naming a sermon from the 1800s or the first church at Corinth. 

2nd disclaimer: Also, please listen with both discernment and grace.  I don’t always agree with everything a pastor says and neither should you, but that doesn’t mean you entirely dismiss a pastor based on a few words.  I know how hard it is to write a sermon and to try to get every point just right: so please be kind about that.

5) Getting To The Bottom of Your Joy — John Piper

Anything by John Piper is pretty great, but his sermon at Passion 2011 (especially the second one in Ft. Worth) was incredible.  He also recently preached a sermon about God’s Holiness at a women’s conference which will wreck you.

4) Indescribable — Louie Giglio

I know, some people think Pastor Louie is “soft” or something.  But that’s because we naturally hate grace, and Louie Giglio is all grace.  This is his famous galaxy-stars-universe sermon that will blow your mind.

3) Getting Out — Timothy Keller

Tim Keller is always crazy good and this one is probably his best.  He gives a non-typical nuanced sermon on the struggle with sin, showing how our battle is a layered journey.  This is also a fascinating “preaching clinic” on how to preach directly from the Bible while remaining exciting.

2) Lukewarm and Loving It — Francis Chan

And so a random Chinese guy got up to preach one Sunday and demolished every single thing we know about American church.  Even though Pastor Francis occasionally uses some guilt tactics, he also lets us know he’s struggling just as much as we are: and that real humility is what makes him an awesome preacher.  He is also hilarious and has by far the best illustrations.

1) The Weight of Glory — C.S. Lewis

This is a series of sermon manuscripts that C.S. Lewis preached in his lifetime, and they are just as relevant today as they ever were.  He’s not what you’d call an “expository” preacher and he doesn’t care to be: he takes a simple human issue and unleashes the Christian faith on it with wit, candor, and undeniable persuasion.  

Also read:

- Five Incredible Sermons

- Favorite Authors

- Six Things Preached Against In Church — And Why We Can All Just Relax

- How To Encourage Your Pastor (They Really, Really Need It)

Unka Glen: Know How To Be: Volume 1

Stop!  Read.

unkaglen:

All of us have encountered Christians who just had a way of hitting all the wrong notes, bless them, and making everything worse. And you wish there was a guide that they could use to simply “know how to be”. Likewise, I think many of us want to go out in the world, but we want to avoid coming off like those other Christians. So the rest of us also need to “know how to be”.

Thus, I present to you, Know How To Be: Volume 1 (I invite you to make suggestions for items to place in future volumes)

1. Speak when it’s welcome. When there’s trouble and pain, heal the pain, and assist with the trouble. Then when the time comes to speak up, you will have earned that right. If nobody asked for your opinion, that probably means something.

2. Avoid prejudice against any one type of sin. There are no degrees of sin, and there is no sin that puts you in a category where Christians get to look down on you or treat you different. Non-christians know this to be the case, so when they see you single out one group for exclusion, they see you as judgmental people who violate the tenants of your own faith, and totally exclude you from being an influence on them. In a missions context, we call that “total failure”. Don’t be that guy.

3. Avoiding one type of sin doesn’t give you a special status. So you never had intercourse with anyone. Good. Well done. You’ll be glad you waited for your wedding day. But can you call that “purity”? Nope. Not even close. The biblical definition of purity is “like God in perfection”. That doesn’t apply to you, or me, cupcake. Use the right words, know how to be.

4. Don’t use fear to manipulate. People are afraid, and that seems like a really convenient point of manipulation that you can use to get them to do all kinds of things: read the Bible, go to church, put money in the plate, you name it. But fear is a tool the enemy uses, one you’re meant to de-fang and rob of it’s power. Courage is the Godly virtue you’re meant to be calling people to. 

5. Don’t use shame to manipulate. Shame is for people who aren’t forgiven and who have been rejected. That’s not us. We need to be exhorted in the opposite direction, to become more zealous and motivated to throw off the shackles of those sin areas of our lives and move forward. 

6. Don’t use guilt to manipulate. Guilt drives me further from God, it makes me feel as though I can’t approach Him. This creates the distance that keeps me sinning. If you try to make me feel more guilty about my sin, you’re basically throwing gasoline on a fire.

7. Don’t question my commitment. I’m committed to the Lord, okay? If you want me to be more committed, help me eliminate the things holding me back. Otherwise, quit beating a dead horse, and know how to be.

8. No more gimmicks. We all love the skits, and games, and fancy production values, but in the end, we all need to hear a good word that will set us free. Give us that, and we don’t care how low-tech it comes across. 

9. Don’t preach things that are actually meant for you. You know that fired up sermon on porn? We know that’s because you fell off and watched some porn last night. You know that bitter little Bible Study on betrayal, we know that’s because someone let you down. You know that talk you’re writing on politics? Don’t. Ministry isn’t about you, it’s about us. 

10. This sermon is for us. We’re all happy for you that you know a lot about the book of Amos, and we all appreciate that you want to share that with us, but we’re not here for you to talk about the things that excite you, we’re here because we’re trying to walk this Christian walk, and it isn’t going so well. We need you to start talking about Biblical stuff that relates to our broken lives, and helps us find spiritual healing. 

…Let’s face it, most of us have done at least one of these things on this list, so let’s all come together and make a commitment to pray, to stay in the Word, and know how to be.

Six Things Preached Against In Church — And Why We Can All Just Relax

There are things we hear in the pulpit that sound uber-deeply complex, but like a time travel movie, the more we think about it, the more likely our heads will explode from sheer absurdity. Here are some incomplete half-truths we hear in church that need more nuance.  Let’s be thoughtful.

1) “Happiness is only temporary fleeting emotion, but real joy is only found in God.”

I totally get this one, but I mean come on: no one is really jumping on the I-Hate-Happiness parade. We nod along with this “Joy Vs. Happiness” thing because it’s such a heavy theological thought that makes us feel smart, but a pint of Haagen Dazs vanilla bean ice cream makes us all dumb happy people. 

When you finally beat a video game or ace the test or finish a book or get fricking married, don’t yank those feelings out back and shoot them.  Truly happy moments are sporadic and rare — why resist them? Feel the feels, bro. That’s being human. 

While a whole life based on happiness is not a great idea, that doesn’t mean we can’t have human moments and let happy emotions rush through us. I’ve never heard of a guy respond reasonably when he won the lottery, and I’d say that’s an appropriate time to go insanely buck wild and flip a table or three. No one really controls the happy-meter, so when it redlines, let it redline. 

The Bible describes happiness just as much as joy.  Joy is what we shoot for, and no, happiness is not a good motive or fuel or measure, but if you’re blessed to get a happy moment, eat it up. 

2) ”Church isn’t just a place to fill up your spiritual gas tank for the week.”

If every Reformed Neo-Calvinist had his way, he’d make sure you exit church feeling the absolute holy holiness of our Great and Powerful God and the weight of your disgusting diseased deplorable total depravity.  We get it, Reformed guys: you want to appear doctrinally sound in front of your Doctrine Police buddies so they give you the Non-Heresy Thumbs Up.  Or maybe you’re just afraid of their blogging power and you want to be included in the ghetto subculture of Reformed nerd-dom.

Church should NOT be solely a place where we get inspired or positive feelings or psychological thought-rearrangement, but there is nothing bad about feeling good in church. 

Most pastors who never work with broken people don’t understand the hectic deadlines of monthly bills, the day-to-day stress of raising children and job-drama and crazy families, the temptation to old addictions, the harshness of non-Christian (and religiously pious) friends, and the stark reality of unanswered prayers.  They’re just out of touch, wanting to please the fake invisible Reformed Demigod of Am-I-Right Theology.  I love you, Reformed brothers, but please stop.

Sundays should leave you feeling free, recharged and ready to go, recomposed for daily challenges, re-energized for your spiritual walk.  Sundays shouldn’t be spiritual compensation for our active disobedience, but it also shouldn’t be a dreary time of regret and remorse.  We come to God for both who He is and what He does in us: and part of that is approaching the Infinite Well of His strength.  Those who really encounter Jesus will not only have their tank filled, but a whole transplant of the soul.

3) “If you don’t talk about Jesus, it just shows you’re ashamed of him.”

I’ve never heard a level-headed sermon on evangelism.  It’s always a verbal beatdown of our spiritual incompetence and more shrill than cat claws on a chalkboard.  It also gives birth to wild evangelism techniques like the Cube and the Colors and Closing The Sale.  The pastor doesn’t do these either.

For once I’d like to hear, “I know how hard it is to talk about Jesus.  It’s the most awkward conversation you’ll ever have.  If you even say the whole Gospel out loud right now, it sounds like the craziest thing you’ve ever heard.  But the Gospel isn’t some ‘speech’ you unload on people and then ‘leave it in God’s hands.’  Blasting people with theology is like serving icing for dessert.  Evangelism is your whole life, it’s sharing your home, it’s enduring patiently, it’s being a human being, it’s availability, it’s sharing Jesus through who you are; not perfectly, but passionately.  Yes, invite them to church and to that revival and talk about your faith and your testimony, but once you dare to go there, just know you might be rejected immediately, a lot, and aggressively.  Except secretly they can’t deny there must be something to it, because you’re not just a billboard: you’re an overflow of a barely containable supernatural miracle.”

4) “The more you date and break up, the more you give away your soul / you’re practicing for divorce.”

Yep, so screw all those people who have a traumatic past of dating because they’re obviously evil serial daters and life is black-and-white and there’s no hope for people who have given away pieces of their purity.  Just line up all your ex’s in a room and look at how dirty you are.  Jesus can restore broken people to a brand new life, except if you dated some loser who played your innocence and stole your childhood when you didn’t know any better since Freud says that’s subconsciously all your fault.  Sorry, Jesus saves — his salvation-juice for only the good people.    /end of snarky sarcasm/.

5) “God doesn’t hear your prayers if you’re sinning behind his back.”

This one has biblical grounding but is widely abused to mean: “If you’re not doing exactly what God says, don’t even bother asking Him anything.”  To some extent, this is biblically true for a completely non-repentant, conscience-less, sociopathic criminal.  But people are generally not one-dimensional cartoons with absolute motives, and most of us struggle sincerely with striving.

Logically, this “Ask Only If” doesn’t even make sense.  We can’t begin to do what God says unless we ask Him for a completely renewed heart to follow Him; we need His merciful grace to approach Him at all.  And God is gracious to hear your contrite prayers even if you spent your whole life wallowing in self-seeking paganism; that’s a little biblical thing we call repentance.

Don’t let an insensitive pastor shut down your prayer life.  Don’t feel like you need to be 100% clean with pure-white motives to approach God.  None of us are there.  Our best days are ivory; our worst days are stained with distractions and a divided heart.  But God is absolutely ready to hear you.  He draws near the brokenhearted; He hears your heart’s cry (Psalm 34:18, Exodus 3:7).  He will answer the best He knows how, which is always for the best.

6) “Don’t become the next headline in the news.”

I understand the heart in this one because I’ve used it before.  It means: You’re part of a story right now, so step wisely.  It’s true.  It only becomes a prejudiced threat when you’re really saying: Don’t be like those other people.

Using others as a Cautionary Horror Story is a very shallow technique of warning others without pointing in the right direction.  The truth is: many people in our churches are already living through the consequences that we’re being warned against.  It’s like throwing sand to the thirsty or describing the water you’re drowning in.  It does nothing but lower heads in guilt, confusion, and self-condemnation. 

It also causes judgmental division and hyper-religiosity when people can brag, “I’m not like that guy, thank God.”  This goes on a crash-course with the very grain of the Gospel, and if you need any more proof of God’s grace, look at His Son.  Jesus went to the poor and the aristocrats, the demon-possessed and synagogue leaders, government officials and Samaritans, the blind and beggars, the barely living and the already dead.  He loved Pharisees enough to bring the hard rebuke.  In Jesus there was no one beyond hope, because grace is always the size of God.  His vision far surpasses ours: He loves you past your past.  Let’s ask for God to chisel that sort of heart in us too.

Question: Isn’t Real Grace Supposed To Be Costly?

Anonymous asked:

In light of your blog posts about grace and your anti-guilt preachers, what do you think about videos like these? (Youtube: It will cost you everything)

Thanks for sharing the video.  It was actually pretty good preaching, very passionate, clear, truthful.  It’s true: obeying God will be extremely costly. 

That also paints about half the picture.  I was reminded of that game you play where you start with a zoomed-in image that shows you maybe 5% of the total object, and you have to guess what it is as the picture zooms out. Some of us can guess the whole picture quickly; other people get stuck on seeing the tiny little pixelated image.

A lot of these fiery preachers get stuck on the tiny image.

The balanced gospel of grace is described aptly by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his awesome work The Cost of Discipleship, where he says:

“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son.”

See: if following Jesus costs us everything, we still need his grace to pursue him.  It does nothing to rabidly scream, “Count the cost!” when you don’t know how or why or what you’re pursuing. 

I’ve said it before: When you start following Jesus, you give up things you didn’t really need anyway.  To follow Jesus costs your pride, arrogance, lust, jealousy, insecurity, deception, and worldly attachments — for Jesus to love us, it cost his own life.  In return, we get eternal life, endless joy, infinite peace, and reckless energy to serve.  That’s a pretty good deal.

It feels like most fire-and-brimstone preaching, while speaking the truth, is really a lot of insecure inner-projection to compensate for fear of looking lukewarm.  This is why we come up with myths like “The Gospel Must Be Offensive,” because it’s just trying to look tough in front of the big bad doctrine-police. That creates the false dichotomy of grace vs. law, and deep inside, all Christians hate the self-competition of catch-up.

I’ll also say: these preachers who spit shrieking fire are hardly ready to give up on things themselves.  These videos of “fearless preaching” show dudes all dressed up with huge congregations in giant megachurches, and while I have nothing (much) against big churches, I wonder if the pastor is even following his own one-sided message.  I wonder if he’s in the trenches, serving really messed up people, going to uncomfortable places and loving the broken.  If he is — I don’t know if he’d still preach like that.

Try to imagine: If I sat down with this preacher, one on one with two chairs pulled up, face to face with each other, and I told him about my own messed up former life, full of porn addiction and alcohol and streetfights and womanizing and painful brokenness, how would this preacher talk to me?  How would he talk to real broken human beings with real life problems? 

Because he could either 1) yell like he does in his pulpit and get nowhere, or 2) ask questions, get to know them, love on them, and share the Jesus of the Bible. 

When I practice my sermons, I sometimes pull up a chair right in front of me.  I picture the 15 year old kid whose parents are divorced and who wants to kill himself everyday and hates everyone at school.  I picture the single mom who lost custody of her children because she can’t hold down a job in this economy and drinks herself to sleep every night.  I picture the hard-hearted religious hypocrite who sings loudly every Sunday at his church but goes home to beat his kids.  I think of my future wife, my future children, I think of the historical figures in the Bible sitting there hearing my preaching.  I’m not about to yell in someone’s face who has real issues that need real help.

It’s great to sound passionate.  But what does real passion sound like?

It sounds like a man nailed to a cross whispering forgiveness over his own murderers.  It sounds like a man raised to life calling for the disciple who betrayed him so he could reinstate him back to fruitful ministry.  It sounds like Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, angry at a temple for turning God’s house into a consumer’s playground, raising a young girl to life with the words, “It’s time to wake up now, honey.” 

I’m fine with loud preaching, but what are we loud about? 

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. — John 3:17