Sunday, June 01, 2008

Sermons in Church

Sorry guys for the late update. Gosh….its a month already…:S Anyway, here is a short one first. Long one coming later. :P


‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' Mark 12:30 (NIV)

I was in church last Sunday morning listening to the sermon. The speaker (names are not important in this case) subtly diverted from his sermon to begin talking passionately about implementing a ‘Youth Academy’ thingy to have a formal structure to coordinate the teaching of biblical stuff among the youths in my church. This was to complement the adult version dubbed as the ‘Lay Training Institute’. He was telling the congregation about the importance of starting this academy thing. In my opinion, it’s a kind of a good concept and all but the qualm I have is the time he chose to speak his memorandum: during the main morning service!!

Worship is to focus on God; it’s a time where all our focus should be on God and not on ourselves or our stuff- and this includes the sermon. For me, the sermon should teach about God and his attributes as well as to teach about the bible and its doctrines. It is not and should not used as a platform for making proposal plans for our earthly plans. If I could use a metaphor: its like a politician presenting his memorandum to the public to gain their favor. Seems harsh but that was what went through my mind back then.

Another thing I noticed is how subtle he did this. He tied it to one of his sermon points and started from there. So, it will cause people to think, “ Wow. This idea sounds great and from what he said seems to be very biblical as well. We must support this!!!”. To me, this a very shrewd and cunning way to gain people’s support. This will set the people’s mindset and they will continue on that path of reason thinking it is definitely the correct path even though they themselves have not thought about it.

Like I said earlier, the concept is good and worth considering but when would be the best time to present the memo? After the service, of course! If the people are really and truly interested, they would stay back and hear what one has to say. As a expounder of the Word of God, stick to the task that has been entrusted: expound the Word of God!!! This is not the only instance that a speaker deviates away from the Word of God. There were many times where speakers tend to deviate away from expounding the Word of God to speaking about plans and the sort. Its kinda sad to see this happening. Remember people: pray for your pastors that they will keep on track and get their priorities right.

This write-up is about the timing at which the plan was proposed. I shall not go into what are my thoughts on this ‘Youth Academy’ thing. It will deviate from the topic at hand and will make this post too wordy. I’ll think more about it before posting. :P

5 Comments:

Blogger -Δορκας- said...

whoa... this one sounds a lil' harsh. But I have to say this: yes, giving personal opinions behind the pulpit is not right, but maybe he was just trying to tie the points in his sermon to real life application? I was not there, so I don't know how things were said, but this is just my thought.

10:27 AM  
Blogger child_of_God said...

hehe. i know when the speaker is tying it to really life application. this time he went a step too far. he was saying something like, "It should be done because bla bla bla" and "It is good for the church bla bla bla". Sounded more like a political memorandum to me. :P

6:18 AM  
Blogger Christopher Sam said...

isn't that him on a usual basis? Haha...He tends to go about that a lot...you should see the stuff he brings up in [elseaeeesea]

1:00 AM  
Blogger Law(u)rence Anyways said...

let's pray for those who preach!

3:23 AM  
Blogger Christopher Sam said...

yes..haha...lets

9:17 AM  

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I am created unique by God. I am God's child. God is my Father. A sinner but saved by the grace and mercy of God through the faith that he has given me.

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