Love this quote ...

Thomas Merton, in 1967, pronounced that the great crisis in the church is a crisis of authority precipitated because the church, as institution and organization, has overshadowed the reality of the church as a community of persons united in love and in Christ. He now charged that obedience and conformity with the impersonal corporation-church are a fact in the life of Christians. “The Church is preached as a communion, but is run in fact as a collectivity, and even as a totalitarian collectivity.

~ George Kilcourse, ACE OF FREEDOMS: Thomas Merton’s Christ, Notre Dame Press, 1993

Ecclesiastical Meanderings

In a recent online discussion, I found myself surrounded by burned-out Christians with a languorous disposition toward church life.  The bludgeoning these fellow sojourners received from the local church had left them duct-taping chunks of their very own souls. I had to admit that the  tattered cordage of their wills made lean the joy I was experiencing from having had found an amalgamated forum of Christ-lovers and theological enthusiasts. Yet, their complaints were nothing new. Our world has been experiencing a seismic-shift of disillusionment with the local church for quite some time. 

Here is a snapshot of the flag of their disposition in regards to the local church:

Leadership is in disarray. The pomposity of pastoral staff is reeking at an all time high. Greed, self-preservation, secrecy, and manipulation, have left an ineffable imprint upon the very psyche of those who have become burned-out from the local church. The church either suffers from an inward-focused culture that cherishes sin-management programs coupled with a “wearing of masks”, that portray a feckless apparition of their true self, or they are so outward-focused that they forget the simple call to make disciples, not marketing and production crews spawned from a factory of over-hyped, media-driven automatons watermarked with depthless worship encounters. 

People, I believe, are hungering for spiritual change and thirsting for authentic community. The ostensible theater of playing Church has become a pharisaical vessel of squalor on a waveless future. Christians, finding their souls in a bivouac of despair, are desperately seeking, re-envisioning, and hoping for a new wave of churches to arise or, at least, for some healthy reform to ensue. 

In the quest of creating a new church adventure, there is the danger that they may become experimental theaters of emergent illuminations, or embittered reactions that flounce between unrealistic ideals and rainbows of pure spiritual nonsense. My prayer is that they will be birthed in the theological DNA that translates the hints of God into a Christ-centered community of faith, hope, and love. However, none of this will matter unless true leadership appears.

The Frustration of Presumed Mediocrity and Superfluous Babbling

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I've just been subjected to a endless foray of psycho-babble.  No, I wasn't caught talking to myself. Rather, I have had to endure several sessions of bumper sticker preaching, that has been soaked in miniscule theology, and served with a heavy dose of salesmanship. I'm oozing with disdain.  Unfortunately, there are not many people who care to discuss these type of subjects. A good grip of people around me have a "eat-the-meat-and-spit-out-the-bones" kind of listening style when subjected to a “tasering” of preaching. I do, too, but I have to vent.  Ergo, I am venting via this media form.  It's therapeutic.  Anyway, I digress ... 

As a preacher, I know it is a very difficult thing to produce a palatable message for the Google infected audiences that surround us.  The Internet can provide a vast array of preaching styles within moments.  This is great for the listener but not so wondrous for the local preacher.  It's sort of like being a local band that's, at least, live compared to the packaged digital music onslaught of the internet/cable/whatever.  So, with that said, my hat off to the local preachers.  

However, I still find myself incredibly agitated by manipulative sermons, pompous windbags, hipster theology, archaic proliferations, fudgy glossalalia, and speculative meanderings that rob the thinking person of, well, thinking.  I just heard a pastor that spoke so fast that once his listener might realize that something he just said was not up to theological snuff, he was already three sentences into his next point. This is not a style problem. I know many preachers that preach that way and are very effective.  Regardless, it was very apparent that he was controlling his audience and hindering their growth.  I was tempted to raise my hand and ask him, with the love of Jesus in my heart, just what in the Hades he was talking about.  Utter nonsense.  

Herein lies my hope for would be preachers:  

1. Think:  Use your mind ... your God given mind ... to realize that not everyone who comes through your door is a simpleton.  Intelligence is not a sin. Freethinking is not a sin. People who don't agree with you are not, necessarily, wrong.    

2. Train: Seminary, teamwork, Internet, listen to other pastors, watch yourself on video, ... READ, etc. PRAY ... 

3. Test: Develop a healthy network or team of people who will lovingly, and with wisdom/skill, present constructive criticism. Also, if your style is filled with prophecies and outrageous statements ... those should be tested as well. 

Alright. I'm done. I still am thankful for those pastors.  We need everyone to rise up and answer the call that the Lord has placed on their hearts.  They just need to allow that "iron-sharpens-iron" mentality to permeate their being a bit more.