To Preach or Not to Preach

Each week pastor’s stand before churches all over the world and preach.  So what is it that they are trying to accomplish?  I can only speak for myself, but I want to share what it is that I believe I am called to do when I preach from God’s Word.  First of all, I am not trying to add to or modify God’s Word, we are told clearly in scripture that God’s Word is a, “lamp to my feet and a light for my path,” (Psalm 119:105) and that God’s Word is, “Sharper than any double-edged sword, it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

As a parent, you are faced with a significant challenge, teach and mold your child so that one day they can grow up and live on their own as an informed and mature adult.  But you also know that as parents you can not prepare you child for each and every specific situation.  Instead as a parent you work from an early age to teach your child a number of foundational principles and thoughts to guide their life by.  That way when they encounter a situation they have a foundation to stand on as they make decisions.  Parents who have prepared their children to be adults well have children who have learned to maturely think and process, and to make their own thoughtful decisions.

For the message to be a place for the pastor to shed light and give all the answers about anything scripturally related is just not accurate.  As a pastor I have been given lots of training, and spent plenty of time studying God’s Word, but there is still a lot that I don’t know, and don’t have the answers to.  But what I do know is that each week we open God’s Word, and that can change our lives.

There is no way that we can cover every topic and answer every question in church.  But instead the hope is that each week in the message I take time to bring a deeper understanding of the bible, the language it was written in, and the context it came out of to everyone listening.  Each week the message is meant to be a place to allow you grow in your biblical foundations, so that you have firm ground to stand on as you make decisions and figure our living a Christian life looks like.  I hope through preaching I can help to prepare you to see the world through a mature, developed biblical worldview.  I hope you can reflect each week on God’s word in a new and deeper manner than the week before.  And I pray that together we might spur one another on to keep learning and keep growing in our knowledge of scripture, and our relationships with God.  So next time you wonder, what is he doing up there during the message, you have a little glimpse into what I pray is happening.