Catch-all

I'm feeling pretty terrible today. Currently I'm watching Rudy hoping I don't throw up. Not sure what brought it on, but here's hoping it's just a one day thing.

Last night was fun. Melissas mom and dad came down to babysit Noah for a few hours and then we all had dinner. Melissa and I went to watch the new transformers movie, which we really liked; action the whole time. Melissa cooked stuffed peppers and man were they amazing. Maybe I'm ill because I ate to much? Did i mention we went out for ice cream afterwards?

Last Saturday I weighed in at 221. My goal is to be 190 by January 1st. I'm not a bit ashamed to admit that I've been doing Jillian Michael's 30 day shred. It totally kicked my rear the first few days, but I'm starting to get in a bit better shape already. I was so sore i was having trouble walking those first couple days. Working on around a 2000 calorie diet also, nothing special, just limiting the calorie intake.

God brought so much to my heart at CSU. Staff conference really was quite awesome. It had its trouble traveling with a 10 month old, but we really connected with the Lord and the Body a great deal. Hopefully in the next few days I'll talk about some of the stuff Tim Keller, Larry Crabb et al brought before me.

part 2

Apparently, for me, "I'll blog tomorrow" means give me a few days. If that. My apologies.

Hopefully that last post made sense. Re-reading it I feel maybe I failed a bit at explaining my ideas, and the writing was a bit poor. Regardless, I'm moving on; my major objection for non-exegetical sermons (sermons that do not study, in depth, a particular passage of scripture):

My understanding of Sunday morning messages is that they are to teach. They are to mentor, or disciple, the attendees in the ways of faithfulness and Godliness. They are als to be wise in the way they do this.

Most messages these days are essentially pep-talks, or simple exhortations. By simple exhortation I mean a basic piece of advice. The pastor has essentially one point and then he rambles for 25-30 minutes about it:

"We should read our Bibles! Look at 2 Timothy 3:16 - The Word is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training.... Let's read our Bibles! If you have been struggling with reading your Bible lately, repent now and come to the altar. Today can be the day you change. Ok now, with every head bowed and eye closed... who here could use more Bible reading in their lives?"

Messages like this have one point, in this case to read your Bible. Why not just say it and move on?

Here's my problem. Why? Because the pastor gave me one random verse I'm supposed to just jump in? Besides, I have no idea how to read my Bible. Where do I begin? What about when struggles come? What are good resources? Why is it important?

I'm rehashing that I hate being told what to do; and to be honest I have a general distrust in a great deal of pastors these days. I've failed to move to my point I think, here is attempt number two.

A pastor's role, and I believe the role of the church, should be to grow the congregation. Seeker friendly churches and stuff like that just seem a bit off to me. The church should be about teaching and growing it's members, not watering things down so that the messages come in catchy topics. Bring the meat! Non-exegetical sermons fail to bring the meat. Pastors that do this fail horribly at equipping the congregation in it's knowledge and skill in using the Bible, and deciphering true and health exegesis. They are just dumbing things down to simple nuggets. No wonder we are so apathetic to things of God; it's for unintelligent robots that like being told what to do.

The outreach should be left to the members of the church, not for Sunday mornings. Let's leave the analogies and the catchy word-plays to the members of the church trying to reach the people that need such things (the unchurched). Let's bring the depth of knowledge and meat to those members of Sundays.

Exegesis

I love Biblical exegesis. From Wikipedia: "Biblical exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of the Bible. The goal of Biblical exegesis is to find the meaning of the text which then leads to discovering its significance or relevance."

And I struggle with 95% of sermons these days because we just don't get that. We get alliteration and catchy topics, but leave the Bible almost wholly out of it. Melissa and I have listened to a great deal of sermons that are essentially:

"Today we're going to talk about getting fired up for God! Jesus was fired up for God! Here is a passage where Jesus heals someone and look at his reaction, he's fired up for God! Whoo!"

Then the pastor will tell a thousand other analogies of people or whathaveyou that talk about that topic, while leaving Biblical exegesis on the sideline. Can God move through these messages? Sure, but I'm just not a big fan.

Here's why. The pastor is essentially telling me what to do. I hate that. Partly because i'm a "pastor" of sorts and I hate telling people what to do. I would (and Jesus did this also) much rather bring people to the foot of God and allow them to see their own sin and need for change. I just don't care that much about what John Smith or Jane Doe pastor has to say about world issues or even how I should live. It's not motivating to me at all; afterall, I'm not living to please them, I'm living to please the King of Kings. Show me what He has to say.

Another reasons I have issues with non-exegetical sermons is that the pastor may be totally misunderstood.

I have heard two or three messages essentially saying, "don't doubt, just believe." Misunderstanding people have taken this to the extreme and just checked every healthy skeptical thought they've ever had. A healthy skepticism is often good for our faith. Where would we be without CS Lewis, or Francis Schaeffer, or Tim Keller? These are people with honest questions that brought them to God. God doesn't want us to check our curious minds and just believe; He does want us to bring them before Him though. --- Now, I don't think those pastors would disagree with me, but because they failed badly to exegete the text they were trying to preach from, the message was all jambled. Bad theology follows. Apathy has followed that, at least in the American church.

One other issue I have with non-exegetical sermons I'll discuss tomorrow. Perhaps I'll flesh out those ideas more too.