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What do pastors do when Sunday morning is barreling down on them and they realize they have absolutely nothing to say from the pulpit? Women-in-the-pulpit theology aside, I’m awfully glad I will never be a pastor. The burden to create life-changing sermons week upon week must weigh on a man, especially if he is naturally a shepherd, a hand-on-the-shoulder guy, or just rhetorically average. Inspiration is a tricky cat. If you believe in the Holy Spirit—and I do—you want to believe that God can zap our intellect, give us supernatural insight, and use his Holy Scriptures to shape our teaching. Yet I’m pretty sure God didn’t deem sacred the seven-day cycle of insights, where the Holy Spirit punches his time clock at certain intervals just in time for the church secretary to print the sermon title every Wednesday for the church bulletin. Our church system seems to have nudged out the natural growth cycles of Inspiration and his sister crop Revelation. But here we are in a system where the vast majority of churches operate on the expectation of a sturdy Sabbath harvest, delivered by the local pastor / farmer right on cue. What if by Friday afternoon that farmer’s got nothin’ but rocks and weeds? Zadie Smith in her intellectually demanding collection of essays Changing My Mind, believes inspiration happens in two ways. The first comes from absorbing everything you can find—great novels, comic books, the daily news, essays, conversations—in an attempt to allow great thinkers to wash over you in some kind of intellectual marinade. This, many believe, is a legitimate way of boosting inspiration, and some go so far as to suggest that no insight ever happens in isolation. Even that burrito you ate last night shifted your midnight thoughts and led to a new conclusion in your grand idea. The other, fiercely independent, strategy is to shut yourself off from the world of ideas, fasting, as it were, from the rich foods of books and essays. In this way, you are assured that your inspiration comes from within (or in the case of pastors, from God himself), safe from the plagiaristic temptations of men. So what would God ask of our pastors and teachers? What would he ask of me, a writer? Should I be looking for objects on the ground from which to create a Found Poem, a musical cover, a refurbished engine? Or should I search only within myself to find the heart of God himself, the mystical union of mind and spirit? I have no great answer. But the man or woman who spends his life in both realms is better equipped, I think, to discover God’s spirit. God works within and without, using the supernatural and the mundane to push us toward elevated thoughts, both methods working like sun and water to bring a harvest of inspiration. If I were a pastor (and since I never will be, I find it easy to throw out such an audacious proposal), I would tell my congregation to go home some Sunday mornings. I got nothin’ I would tell them. Go home and write your own sermon today. And if salaries weren’t such a pesky detail, I might also gather ten teachers together, young and old, internet trollers and pensive thinkers, deep philosophers and rhetorical comedians—all wedded to sturdy doctrine—and I would say Let’s all teach this year. Whenever you get a crop, let the rest of know and we’ll let you show up on Sunday. The rest of us will enjoy your food and wait until our sprouts are green. Now I think I got something. |
Comments
Hi Caroline:
This is pretty funny/weird. I just finished posting my blog and then immediately yours caught my eye, so I read it. I think this is twice now that you and I coincidentally end up writing about the same thing! Well done, by the way...
Blessings in the new year,
Manuel
PS: I always razz our teaching pastors that in heaven, they'll be out of a job, but us worship pastors will be fully employed. In other words, heaven means never having to listen to another sermon...
Thanks for a great post. You nailed what I think may be one of the key issues: "The burden to create life-changing sermons week upon week." I may be cynical, but then again I've worked at several "mega-churches" and seen too many senior pastors who prefer to be the "life-changing" speaker, and gladly take that burden upon themselves (and ONLY themselves). The answer is exactly as you suggested: shared teaching responsibility, a team of teachers - both young and old (and I'll also leave aside the issue of women teachers). I think it's scriptural (let those who teach, teach) and good for the Body. But unfortunately, not many of today's talented & charismatic leaders would be willing to share the spotlight.
Interestingly, today's trend toward multi-site churches only underscores the issue, as many of them are video venues to further extend the teaching of the ONE speaker, when they would be such an ideal way to develop and train new speakers/leaders.
Good thoughts, here. I haven't been part of a multi-site campus, but I know many people who are. I agree with you that we should be developing and nurturing new leaders; perhaps we need to be less impressed by the charismatic one-man show? It's a tough call because clearly God has gifted some speakers. Hmm. . . lots to think about. Thanks for your insights.
Interesting, and I agree that I find God interweaving the supernatural and the mundane (like that phrase and thus I suppose will plagerize it into something).
As for locking myself in a closet to prevent any type of plagiaristic inspiration, I find that a bit odd and impossible to live with. I think God intend for us to live in a way where we are living and watching the everyday parables that ultimately create inspiration for new words and music.
Rarely are there any NEW ideas after thousands of years...rather things become "fresh" from the gathers that put it into a “fresh” piece of art.
I loved your thoughts on this. While I am not a pastor or teacher either, I write occasionally and certainly tweet (which is interesting to see how God uses 140 characters to speak volumes to others) about God, who He is, and what He is doing in my life and the lives of others. More often than not, I feel as if I've got nothing that can truly be of any help or insight to anyone, so a majority of what I write I never publish or even have recorded for that matter. It ends up in my trash can only to be permanently deleted later. What I've found, however, is that when I do take the time to work on either of those strategies you mentioned above (exploring/secluding self from culture), those are the times I've been blessed with the insights I've had.
Certainly, God has blessed you also with various insights that you may share them with those who read your writing here @ ConversantLife. You might not be teaching from a pulpit, but God will use you know matter who you are or where you sit.
Thanks, Caroline!
- Staci
I so appreciate your reading this and commenting, Staci! As for your own writing, keep at it because I've always believed that even solitary writing is important--even if no one sees it but you and God. (I wrote about this earlier in the year: http://www.conversantlife.com/creative-arts/the-blogger%E2%80%99s-lament...)
Your tweet comment is interesting, too. Like many things, it can be used for inspiration or narcisissm--depends on the day and the person :) Blessings to you.
Thanks for your thoughts here Caroline. I am a pastor (and a bivocational one) and feel the rigor of that weekly roll of expectations and the fact that you have to earn your job every week. This difficulty is magnified during times of discouragement or trials. John Piper has a great biographical sketch of this in the life of CH Spurgeon found here: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/biographies/charles-spurgeon...
I struggle with knowing what to say, but often find that knowing my people well is very helpful. It helps to release me from the insane idea that I am going to preach a classic sermon and just apply the grace of Christ to their needs. It is much like teaching children. They need to be instructed and by watching them we find that they often need information, correction, encouragement, etc. And in the church the billows of life expose our immaturity, self reliance, sin and ongoing need of grace. Sometimes I stop and think of our people and what they need to grow up into Christ, and how to be equipped to serve where God has called them, and attempt to apply the truth in those spots. Never easy, but keeping one eye on God and the other eye on them helps me to avoid the temptation to "create" masterpiece sermons- as if I could anyway. Thanks!
Thanks for your thoughts here Caroline. I am a pastor (and a bivocational one) and feel the rigor of that weekly roll of expectations and the fact that you have to earn your job every week. This difficulty is magnified during times of discouragement or trials. John Piper has a great biographical sketch of this in the life of CH Spurgeon found here: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/biographies/charles-spurgeon...
I struggle with knowing what to say, but often find that knowing my people well is very helpful. It helps to release me from the insane idea that I am going to preach a classic sermon and just apply the grace of Christ to their needs. It is much like teaching children. They need to be instructed and by watching them we find that they often need information, correction, encouragement, etc. And in the church the billows of life expose our immaturity, self reliance, sin and ongoing need of grace. Sometimes I stop and think of our people and what they need to grow up into Christ, and how to be equipped to serve where God has called them, and attempt to apply the truth in those spots. Never easy, but keeping one eye on God and the other eye on them helps me to avoid the temptation to "create" masterpiece sermons- as if I could anyway. Thanks!
Thanks for your thoughts here Caroline. I am a pastor (and a bivocational one) and feel the rigor of that weekly roll of expectations and the fact that you have to earn your job every week. This difficulty is magnified during times of discouragement or trials. John Piper has a great biographical sketch of this in the life of CH Spurgeon found here: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/biographies/charles-spurgeon...
I struggle with knowing what to say, but often find that knowing my people well is very helpful. It helps to release me from the insane idea that I am going to preach a classic sermon and just apply the grace of Christ to their needs. It is much like teaching children. They need to be instructed and by watching them we find that they often need information, correction, encouragement, etc. And in the church the billows of life expose our immaturity, self reliance, sin and ongoing need of grace. Sometimes I stop and think of our people and what they need to grow up into Christ, and how to be equipped to serve where God has called them, and attempt to apply the truth in those spots. Never easy, but keeping one eye on God and the other eye on them helps me to avoid the temptation to "create" masterpiece sermons- as if I could anyway. Thanks!