Drano for your Sermon [part 2]

What is our primary responsibility in communicating the gospel?

I believe it is to get out of the way! Our role is to drink Spiritual Drano to get out of the way of God's word getting to the hearts of those who listen. Our attention should be on removing more than adding.

You see we can hinder the gospel in two major ways.
1. We can blame God for our garbage.
2. We can steal God's glory in the name of 'preaching the gospel'.

Take out the Trash:
We can blame God for our garbage means that we proclaim that what we teach/preach/talk/share/discuss each week comes from God's word to the listener's heart. We are Christ's representation for many people so it's important that we represent Him well.

God's word is most effective when we as Pastors know two things:
1. God
2. Our people

Knowing God- Our messages are best when they come from the overflow in our lives. Rob Bell says that he lets a message live with him for a year or more before teaching the biblical truth. He challenges us to only speak from what is a part of our fabric. I'm not there by any stretch but his challenge is one I hope to be able to take up some day. We must know God and the truth applied to our lives before we teach it. Pastors are infamous for teaching about the family while their wife and children never see them or only see them when the Pastor is in a bad mood.

John 17:3 is my favorite verse in the bible because it simply defines eternity (past, present, future) as 'to know God'.

Knowing Our people:
Andy Stanley has been quoted saying: "We are answering questions the world is not asking." This can become a major problem in ministry if we're not careful. Please don't assume that we 'up and coming' Jesus Christ Superstars are immune from this... we can just as well answer questions not being asked by our community.

Here's what I mean:
Sermon resource providers around the country are doing messages that directly tie into their congregation's needs. After the message is completed, edited, mastered and packaged it becomes available online. The provider shouts a key word that is too often overlooked... CONTEXTUALIZE.

I was in Dallas in January for C3 and had the opportunity to meet up with my friend Mitch. We talked about the people and culture of North Dallas. I remember saying to Mitch "Fellowship HAS to be upscale. It's a must here." To reach this culture Fellowship has to be at the other end of the pole what Mother Teresa was by simplifying to reach the poor of Calcutta.

Each of us however can find ourselves being irrelevant if we copy the target demographic of another church without realizing it. There are places where high-class is a turn off. There are places where simple just won't get it done. We have to be aware of that.

What does that have to do with blaming God? Everything. If God has you in an area and you want to 'Bloom where you're planted', you have to do everything you can to KNOW your area. Gary provided this insight in his post on Terry's blog not too long ago. You have to know who you are going after so that you can adjust any programming to fit that culture. Don't blame God because you tried to be Ed Young in a Mother Theresa town or vise versa.

A few other things not to blame God for:
1. Mismanagement of church funds.
2. Lack of preparation for a message.
3. Your attitude and people skills. (not numchuk skills or drawing skills)
4. Poor use of the English language that hinders your ability to communicate.
5. Any thing else.

Okay, moving on to the one I got email about:

Stealing from the King?
We can steal God's glory in the name of 'preaching the gospel'.

It seems that we have a delicate balance to strike when it comes to leading our people.

People can get in the habit of following your personality first, your vision second and your God third. If we aren't aware of this we will fall into the trap of stealing God's glory.

I've often said that we church planters have to 1. Understand this and 2. Embrace it as a fact.

What I want to remind all Pastors today however is 3. You must move people along in the path toward Christ and away from yourself.

This concept is NOT NEW.
Children of God have constantly had a problem with following an invisible God. His children have a tendency to drift toward wanting something more 'tangible'. We should recall the scene Moses was faced with after coming down out of his meeting with the Lord. The 'golden calf' was supposed to be something tangible taking the place of the Living God. Then again in Samuel we need to remember that the people of God wanted a king. The bible even points out that God was cool with Samuel because God knew it was the people of God who wanted to replace the true King with an earthly king.

I believe we are fooling ourselves if we ignore this human symptom and say that it's not happening in many churches (big AND SMALL). This post has nothing to do with the 10 people you're immediately attaching to the words. It has to do with all of us.

I've recently heard more than one Pastor tell me about his church where the people fold when challenged to follow the Lord. We as Pastors find that (when we press our people) they are really a part of the body of Christ for social functions or because 'they like the Pastor or music'. I believe that is a fine reason to have someone come through the doors in the initial stages but for a discipled Christian it's a weak approach to the throne of God. The veil was torn from the top down at the cross of Christ.

Jesus called people to follow Him with phrases like:
"Let the dead bury their dead"
"He who loves his mother and father more than me is not worthy of the Kingdom."
"He who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God."

Christ called his people to follow HIM.

The Pastors who fall into moral sin tend to be those who 'believe their own press releases' (in political speak) or believe that they are above every other sinner on the planet who has a tendency to deny the love of God.

Paul mentioned the key for us to keep in mind as we lead our churches:
1 Corinthians 3:7
So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.

In conclusion... keep aware of your people in the discipling process. It's EASY for people to follow you before following Christ. If you lead someone to the Lord they will view you as their spiritual father. If you are a charismatic personality you will undoubtedly attract a fan club. It's important for you and I to remember what Paul said: We are nothing, God is everything.
Take on the heart of John the Baptist (John 3:30)

"He must become greater, I must become less."

There's your Spiritual Drano... Get out of God's way.