I grew up in a “free church”. That’s a technical term used mostly by church nerds like me. It means we weren’t tied to any formal denominational structure. It also means that the preachers could preach about nearly anything they chose on any given Sunday.

I continue to serve in and among “free churches”. I’ve never preached through the church calendar, though I have friends who have and do. I’ve even toyed with the idea a few times. But I continue to plan out sermons based on the freedom granted by the churches I serve to preach what I think is best and not be bound by any external structures.

Of course, there are some Sundays when you know what you’re going to get. Easter, obviously, tops that list. If you show up on Easter Sunday, and the preacher says, “Now, turn in your Bibles to the Book of Nehemiah,” you’d wonder if you heard him correctly. Nehemiah is a good book in the Good Book, and it should be preached — but not on Easter Sunday.

I grew up in a church that stubbornly (and foolishly) refused to talk about Christmas on Christmas. It’s not that we didn’t celebrate it at home; we did. We simply did not believe Jesus was actually born on December 25, so we did not do Christmasy things in our church building. No carols. No decorations. Certainly no trees with lights and presents. And no sermons on the birth of Jesus. None of that. Historical accuracy was a higher priority for us than cultural relevance, so the Sunday nearest Christmas wasn’t any different from a Sunday in July.

Most of that kind of thinking has gone away, and only the most die-hard fundamentalists refuse to preach a Christmas sermon in late December. Therefore, you may add a Christmas sermon to the Easter sermon in the “must preach this” column.

So, a Christmas sermon and an Easter sermon. Those are sermons you just have to preach.

But are there others? This Sunday, for example, is Valentine’s Day. I wonder if other preachers out there feel any compulsion to talk about love and relationships and marriage and dating and romance and all that.

Likewise, this year Halloween will also fall on a Sunday. Any preachers planning to mention Martin Luther and the whole Reformation thing? Or will they talk about the masks we all wear? The “tricks” we play on each other if we don’t get what we want?

What about the 4th of July? That’s a Sunday this year. How many preachers will talk about freedom and the price that’s paid for freedom and then relate it back to Galatians and Paul and Jesus?

And let’s not forget about Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Personally, I don’t like the idea that people expect to hear a sermon thanking mothers and a sermon scolding fathers once a year. But you tell me: How would people react if they showed up on Mother’s Day and heard me say, “Now, turn in your Bibles to the Book of Nehemiah”?

National Day of Prayer.

National Right to Life Day.

Memorial Day Weekend.

Thanksgiving.

How many sermons are there now that you just “have” to preach?

I’ve been going to church for nearly 40 years now. Okay, so I took some time off there in the late 80s and early 90s, but, given the fact that I grew up hearing two sermons every Sunday, I figure I must have heard at least 2,000 sermons in my life. Oh, and throw in the fact that, as a preacher and a consultant, I listen to other guys’ sermons for fun or for educational purposes, I could probably up that number to somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,500.

That’s a lot of sermons.

Because I listen to so much of what’s being preached out there, I can spot trends. I remember when it seemed like everyone was doing a series on the Sermon on the Mount. That was right before everyone did a series on the 10 Commandments and just before a lot of guys got in some hot water doing a series on sex (the one where they challenged married couples to do it more). First John seems to be going around a little now.

I’ve noticed over the past decade or so that Nehemiah has been a mainstay of churches transitioning from a more traditional model to a more contemporary model. That makes sense, I guess. “We’re building something here, and there will be some who try to stop us. But we’re not going to let them keep us from doing what we know God has called us to do. We’ll defend what we’re doing. We’ll plan well and execute diligently and celebrate when we’re done.”

But no one preaches much from Ezra anymore (if they ever did). Ezra was a contemporary of Nehemiah, but his message is a little different. Ezra is less concerned about building structure (walls) and more concerned with building priorities (true worship of the one God). It’s less tangible, more difficult to apply to today’s business-savvy person.

One other thing I’ve noticed is how much we preachers love to come from the second half of one of Paul’s letters. Paul had a pretty predictable structure to his letters. He began with theology, unpacking what God has done and has promised to do. Then, somewhere in his letters, you’ll read the word “therefore”, and Paul switches into practical mode. It’s an intentional shift for him because one follows the other. It is because of what God has done and has promised to do that we are then to do this and stop doing that.

But it takes too long to exegete the first part of Paul’s letter AND also exegete the second part, so we just skip to the back half of the letters — the really practical stuff.

Personally, I don’t like that. If we don’t give folks a “why”, they’ll never really be motivated to do the “what”.

None of this is what I want to talk about, though. I’m guessing you’ve heard more than a few sermons in your lifetime, too, and I’m wondering this:

What’s that one thing you’ve always wished a preacher would talk about but you’ve never heard? Is there anything you think a preacher can say over and over without it getting old? What are you tired of hearing?

Greetings from Louisville, Kentucky — land of blue grass, horse farms, good restaurants, bad service. My wife and I drove up here Tuesday after dropping the kids off with my parents. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it here or not, but I’m sort of looking for a job, and I figured this North American Christian Convention up here in Louisville might be a good place to do some networking.

So far…not so much.

I know I’ve said it before, but I just don’t get the whole Christian Convention culture. Perhaps, if I were more connected, I would feel differently. It does appear that there are some who are having something akin to a homecoming here. Maybe that’s the whole rationale: have a big once-a-year gathering where you can see folks you haven’t seen in ages, sing some of the old songs, learn a few of the newer ones, sit in on a creative and energetic Bible class (that Jeff Walling is such a cut-up!), eat out in restaurants for every meal and stay in a nice hotel.

I did go to a really solid workshop yesterday. Tim Woodroof talked to a room full of preachers about preaching as architecture. Using the guys who designed the Parthenon in Athens (Greece) and comparing them with the Apostle Paul’s instructions in 1 Corinthians 3, Tim talked about how preachers really need to elevate their game. “Build a Parthenon,” he exhorted the room. “Don’t settle for a squat, dull Soviet housing structure with no beauty.”

Everything was great until the Q&A session after Tim was done presenting his material. Why, oh, why can’t preachers just ask questions? Why, oh, why must they feel the need to show everyone in the room how smart they are and that they probably should have been asked to lead this workshop?

One guy — who is probably a nice guy — said, “I don’t think 80% of my congregation could tell the difference between a bad sermon and a good one.”

Was he trying to justify his rationale for having settled into “a squat, dull Soviet housing structure with no beauty”? I don’t know; I’ve never heard him preach. I can’t judge.

I can say his comment was offensive to me — not in a thin-skinned “I’m going to talk to the board of elders about this” sort of way. It was offensive to me because that guy gets paid to do something I love to do and believe in so powerfully that I’ve done it for free when I had to. To suggest that the listeners can’t tell when you’re really trying and when you’re just “phoning it in” is…well…it’s offensive to me.

I have high hopes when I preach. I actually believe words have power, and I affirm Tim when he said that preaching is nothing less than partnering with God in the process of spiritually transforming the lives of individual Christians, a corporate body and the entire world.

What about you? Do you still believe a sermon can change your life, the life of a church and the course of human history in our world? Or was that guy right when he said that people don’t know a bad sermon from a good one?

I’ve been thinking about sin a lot lately. Mostly, I’ve been thinking about why we sin, and by “we” I mean me. Why do I sin?

Here’s what I’ve come up with: When I sin, it’s because I don’t trust God. That’s it. Not very profound, I know. But it’s true.

When I choose to do something that I know is wrong, it’s because I mistakenly believe one or more of the following:

1. God does not really know what’s best for me.
2. God does not really want what’s best for me.
3. God cannot really cause what’s best for me to come to pass.

I doubt God’s wisdom, God’s kindness and/or God’s ability.

If I ever get to preach for a group of people on a regular basis again, I think I’ll spend more time focusing on these three things.

In this sermon series I’m doing at River Park Community Church (which you can find here), I talked yesterday about a story from Mark 9. But before I got into the story, I set it up with some basic observations about the nature of faith.

The first observation I made is that there is a fundamental difference between conviction and commitment.

Conviction is something I think and feel to be true. It’s largely a matter of intellect and emotion. Convictions are settled in my heart and in my mind (and I realize I’m probably drawing a false distinction between those two — what we refer to as your “heart” is really part of your “mind” — and all of that is assuming you believe you actually have a “mind” and are more than simply a series of neurons firing randomly).

Commitment is an act of the will. Commitment is a matter of choice.

So, which is faith? Is faith a matter of conviction? Or is faith a matter of commitment? Or is faith some sort of secret blend of the two?

I’m starting a new sermon series this Sunday at River Park Community Church. It’s called “I Doubt It” (a title I stole outright from my friend Carey Nieuwhoff). In this series I plan to address the doubts that plague so many of us.

We doubt God can be both good and all-powerful. We doubt Christianity and Science can ever be allies. We doubt whether or not we can ever know anything for certain. Part of being a finite human with a limited IQ is that we’ll always have doubts, and we’ll always find ourselves having to live by faith.

The real issue isn’t whether or not you have faith. The real issue is where you place your faith. And why.

We’re going to try to look at this as honestly as I can. But I’m wondering about your doubts today. What are some things you doubt? And what are some doubts you’d like to hear addressed in this series?

In a comment to yesterday’s post about the differences between preaching and teaching, Brian said:

“When I hear that preaching is to be inspirational, that can be interpreted to mean ‘inspiring the church to action’, but I think inspirational can imply that the audience leaves feeling good, and I think if that is the extent of inspiration that takes place, the church loses momentum.”

I’m pretty sure I know what Brian’s talking about. I think he’s speaking out against messages that are often called “feel good” messages — sermons and/or lessons designed to make the listeners feel good about themselves, about their beliefs, about their lives, etc. Critics will say that these messages do nothing, they have no teeth, they don’t challenge the audience to any kind of change.

And yet….

I wonder if we could say that about, say, some of the sermons of MLK, Jr. His sermons seem to have been aimed at helping the immediate audience make sense of life and feel better about things. But he also knew that there would be an audience outside of those immediately gathered who would read or hear his words and be greatly challenged, even disturbed.

There are times when life is hard, and the last thing a person needs is to go to church and get kicked in the shins. Now…don’t get me wrong. Sometimes a good kick is precisely what a person needs. But sometimes a person needs gentle words. Sometimes a person needs to feel good, right?

That’s not a rhetorical question. It’s an actual question for you to answer:

Should preaching make you feel good?

Darin suggested that the main difference between “teaching” and “preaching” may be in the way a “sermon” is perceived.

Teaching, says Darin, seems to be more practical and instructional.

Preaching is more inspirational.

Does that ring true for you? And, if so, do you prefer one to the other for a Sunday morning assembly in church?

My post yesterday was…uh…a little heavy. I’m planning to return to it, but a was just thinking about something a few minutes ago and wanted to get your input.

When I get up on the platform every Sunday for 35 minutes, am I preaching or teaching? Is there a difference? Is one better than the other? Does it even matter, or can we just use the two terms interchangeably?

River Park Community Church — where I am privileged to serve as Lead Communicator — has begun podcasting our Sunday sermons. There are a couple of different ways you can access it.

You can visit our website and listen in streaming audio. You’re also given the chance to download the messages to your computer as .mp3 files.

Or you can find us on iTunes by searching “RPCC podcast”.