Are We Returning to Gospel Preaching?

I Kings 18: 41-45.

 And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain.”  So Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees.  “Go and look toward the sea,” he told his servant. And he went up and looked. “There is nothing there,” he said. Seven times Elijah said, “Go back.”   The seventh time the servant reported, “A cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea.”  So Elijah said, “Go and tell Ahab, ‘Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.’”  Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain started falling and Ahab rode off to Jezreel. 46 The power of the Lord came on Elijah and, tucking his cloak into his belt, he ran ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel.

For a number of years I’ve been concerned about the kind of preaching that was being done in our churches and major telecast. It appeared to me that there was a large movement toward a social gospel. By social gospel I don’t mean the classic social gospel of Reinhold Niebuhr but rather the health wealth and prosperity gospel is being preached by contemporary preachers.

It seems that there was hardly a place that you could go on television or the radio to hear preaching that you did not run into the health wealth and prosperity folks. As if that were not enough I began to notice that in our mainline churches particularly those who broadcast their Sunday services on television were also beginning to leave out the core of the gospel in favor of more popular themes of how to have a successful marriage, how to become financially free, how to raise your children, and other such themes.

Not only sell at the same time preachers were beginning to use all sorts of outlandish theatrics to present their messages. Everything from stage backdrops to riding motorcycles through the church. It seemed as though we were trying to re-create our worship services in the image of the Barnum and Bailey Circus. And one began to think that the leadership believed PT Barnum that there was a sucker born every minute.

When you began to realize that not only was the preaching taking on a circus atmosphere but the congregation was being little by little worked out of the active participation in the service. Hymns began to give way to choruses that went on ad nauseam. The performance atmosphere was doubled down on by eliminating choral groups in favor of worship teams and small group performers. Sermons began to be reduced in length from 30 minutes to 15 minutes with the music seemingly never stopping. Often it was played even while the preaching was taking place.

Personally I saw very little positive taking place in the way we worshiped. This feeling was exacerbated by the fact that we were now living in an age of mega-churches where members hardly knew each other and seldom interacted with one another.

This for me, a Baptist, was especially disheartening. I had grown up in a tradition in which at a very minimum we had three services a week. We had a Sunday morning worship service that was tailored toward a broad audience and was usually evangelistic in nature. That was followed later in the evening by an evening worship service that consisted of a smaller number of people but tailored especially for believers. Then at midweek on Wednesday evenings we had what we called a prayer service or prayer meeting. This gathering was for the purpose of having a short devotional thought, sharing the needs of the church members of the community and praying.

What bothered me about this trend from a local family oriented congregation to the large theatrical mega-church concept was the abandonment of the New Testament model for the church. The apostle Paul when speaking of the church often referred to it as a body. In a theological sense it was the body of Christ. In a practical sense it was all of the local believers as a unit. He often referred to the church as having Christ as its head and all the members the various parts of his body which taken together constitute the church.

Additionally when he spoke of the church he often referred to it by way of illustration using the family unit. In the family unit of his day the husband was the head of the household and the wife, the children and any servants or persons living with the house so constituted the family. The church was to be like that.

The local church that is modeled upon these principles will come more near producing a membership that is well grounded in doctrine and acts with ethical appropriateness. It will be more likely to be responsive to the needs of its individual members and its immediate community.

But as I began I was somewhat dismayed that in my lifetime I began to see slippage into a more casual and less biblical model for the church. I would live through the mega-church movement. I don’t believe that the mega-church movement came about because of bad intentions. Quite the contrary I think it came about as Wynn Arn promoted his view of church growth and missions. That is, the concept of the user-friendly church. It was an effort to remove all the obstacles that prevented people from attending worship. Hence the more relaxed atmosphere fewer restrictions and expectations the part of attendees. Services became more entertaining and last threatening. But like everything else it was the unintended consequences that bore the fruit. But that may be changed . . . . .

This is where I Kings 18:41-45 come in. I have looked time and time again for some sign that we might just be about to find relief. What I witnessed today all around the world was like that little cloud about the size of a man’s hand. May it continue to grow until we see the life giving rain in the form of a new birth of biblical preaching and worship.

I may be wrong but even before the Covid-19 pandemic I had notice what I think might be a trend within the church (body of Christ). I told Susan, in what seems like an eternity ago now, that I am hearing more and more of the "celebrity" (TV) preachers, even some of the "health and wealth" guys, adding a gospel appeal at the end of their sermons. 

Not only has that trend continued but some are returning to the "gospel message." Their sermons are actually intentionally designed and delivered to inform people of the fact that they are sinners and that their sin has separated them from God. They are pointing once again to Jesus as God's response to our sin through whom he offers us redemption and restoration.

I must tell you that I am not saddened to see all the theatrics and staged productions go by the wayside. We need to return to the concept of one hunger man telling another hungry man where to find bread.

I am also seeing television networks like TBN and CBN promote coming to Christ instead of becoming healthy, wealthy and wise . . . . . . .  to be saved from the effects of sin.

Susan, just mentioned one of the TV preachers she generally doesn't care much for brought a terrific Easter message. She said that it seemed as though he laid aside his performance personality and shared the resurrection story as it moved in his own heart. In short, he was authentic.

I do not believe there is a more powerful message than the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it is at its most powerful self when it comes through an authentic vessel . . . . . not a perfect vessel but an authentic one. So when it comes to the preaching of the gospel I am more optimistic than I have been in the last several years.

Another trend that I’m saying is the reintroduction of the hymn. All we are not all the way there yet but there are promising signs. Many of the chorus writers are beginning to incorporate old gospel hymns into their newer music. This is a good sign. Perhaps with time we will return to the hymns of the faith that inspired us, taught us the gospel, moved us in the spirit and the heart, and gave a strength only came to the end of life.

So I’m hopeful. I’m hopeful that we will move to a more Christ centered Bible-based worship. Where the pulpit which represents the preaching of the gospel is central in our building’s signifying to all those who come into that place the importance and primacy of preaching of the gospel. That the person who stands to preach from behind that pulled will see that not as a speaker stand in the sacred desk from which the word of God and the word of God only is to be proclaimed. It is not a prop for reading poetry; it is not a stand to hold music; it is not a post behind which to hide. It is the proper place to hold the sacred word of God as the man of God reads and proclaims its message.

I’m hopeful that the preaching in our churches and our broadcast will return to the preaching of the gospel. It is time to get back to the lifting of Jesus. After all it is not our preaching ability or style; it is not our singing ability or style; it is not our appearance with our dashing personality; it is Jesus who draws men to himself. It was he who said, “and I if I be lifted up will draw all men to me.”

Recognizing that when Jesus spoke this it was concerning his own death on the cross, I will say with out hesitation, that it includes the lifting him up before the people through preaching. For indeed the apostle is right when he says, “how shall they believe on him in whom they have not heard and how shall they hear except one be sent.”  Lifting Him up . . . that is what we are to be about.

That is what we should be doing and we should be doing it not perfectly but authentically. Not sharing what we don’t know but what we do know and this past Easter, as I sat att home in front of a computer watching live streaming from all around the word the gospel message I am encouraged as I heard preacher after preacher and saint after saint declaring through spoken words and with singing voices the one thing that authenticates our message . . . HE IS ALIVE!!