A Plea for Booring Preaching

Thabiti Anyabwile at Pure Church has an interestingly titled post-"Be Careful How You Build: A Plea for Boring Preaching." Taking off from the whole Dr. Jeremiah Wright controversy in the presidential campaign, he commented on the dangers of preaching to entertain a congregation and building a church on the preacher's personality. He is particularly focusing on the African-American church environment.

First, it traps the preacher in the entertainment expectations of so many churchgoers. If we entertain rather than edify, we're not far from becoming the little monkey in the red suit that does tricks on the street corner for his owner. And it's awfully difficult to escape that arrangement once you start building the pulpit on an exaggerated personality like that. The pressure to "perform" is already great in many African American contexts. A man can "preach" if he can excite emotion and response. But if he calmly and clearly opens the text, then he is "a good teacher." Culturally, African Americans have always placed great value in oratory. So much so, emotional oratory has become to litmus test for preaching.

Another danger he mentions is teaching congregations that feelings are the end of worship.

And a congregation accustomed to being entertained will be a spiritually lazy congregation. Entertainment increasingly puts the cookies on the bottom shelf (actually the floor). It makes everything easy to reach, requires little/nothing of the one entertained, and encourages comfort and ease. In short, today's entertainment generally makes people lazy. The same is true in a church if entertainment is the dominant philosophy. People are not made into Bereans, searching the Scripture to verify the truth. They're reduced to blank-faced popcorn and goober eating moviegoers, taking in whatever glimmers on the silver screen. Except the silver screen is increasingly the church service.

So here's a plea. Please, please Lord build your church on "boring" preaching and "regular" personalities owned and fired by your Holy Spirit, so that your people will find excitement and emotion that comes from the truth and their affections will rest on You rather than the earthen vessel that proclaims your Name.

And please, please brothers, let us be "weak" in the pulpit that Christ might be seen as strong. Let us preach in the personality the Lord gave us, only careful not to build the church on it.

Good words for all of us -not just the African-American churches. My great hope in ministry is to combine Spirit and truth- good doctrinal teaching and Scripture exposition combined with experience of God's presence and joy in the Spirit. But joy does not equal entertainment.