Quick note: So yesterday when I woke up, I had the bright idea to just throw on a white-T, jeans, and.......... a hounds-tooth scarf. A black and white one.Apparently hounds-tooth scarves are only "in" with the Islamic-extremist crowd, because I spent most of the day fielding questions and comments such as: "Is that Islamic?" "What country did you get that in? The Middle East?" and my all-time favorite - "Taliban. You. Taliban." Note to self: unless I want to be known as the 1st Muslim-extremist-Afghan-terrorist to attend an international Christian seminary, I guess I should leave the hounds-tooth at home. I'd hate for my shouts for the "fire of God" and for an "explosion" of revival to sound off alarms.
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Now that the humor is out of the way, haha... on to a more serious topic. God has been speaking to me a lot lately about the importance of preaching.
(I'm going to use an example here to protect the anonymity of those involved)
Check this out: Let's say you are the chairman of the Awesome Party (a political party). You believe in bringing about the prosperity and continued reign of America on the Earth, but you believe that it can only happen a particular way. For you, there's only one way for America to become prosperous and that is the way that you hold onto. That is what you believe. No other way but this particular way.
Every week you have your local party meeting, and each week you invite great "Awesomer" speakers to come in and encourage those in your party. They come, share about their experiences, how great it is to be an Awesomer, and how America can be changed, if people only know about how great the Awesome party truly is. This meeting is an amazing time, that really solidifies the political base, encourages future leaders, and rallies the troops around your common, Awesome cause.
Now let's say there is another party out there, that we will call "the opposition." No matter what they say or do, deep down, their goals are to subvert and destroy all of your efforts to make America prosperous. They would even steep so low at times to call themselves "Awesomers" just so that they can align themselves with your party, so that they will have greater strategic placement in order to destroy your party.
The Opposition knows that you have this weekly meeting, and they know that if they could just find a way to get into these meetings they would have a great means of planting seeds of deception. Suddenly, a door opens up. The Awesome party has been waning in publicity, and is in dire need of fresh faces to come in and make the Awesome party known to a wider base. While the Awesome party leaders and yourself would usually be very strict in terms of the ideological and political background of your weekly party speakers, your desperation to make Awesome even more awesome has made you a little desperate. The Opposition party realizes that this is their moment, and so they send one of their more flashier members, under the guise of being a newly-converted Awesomer.
You, being the party leader, meet this covert-Opposition party member and they mention how they would like to speak at your weekly meeting. You have some reservations about having this person speaking at your weekly meeting, due to the fact that your weekly meetings are vitally important to the health of your organization, but you let it slide because, well, you need the publicity. I mean, it's not that he may have any past tendencies or sympathies with the Opposition party. Or that he may actually be still a party member. He's a public figure! He's well known! Come on! And it won't hurt too much, right? It's just one weekly meeting, yet you get the benefit of having this big-name-new Awesomer come and speak. Win, win...right?
Or is it?
Replace Awesomer with Christian, or Christianity. Replace Opposition with Mormon, Muslim, Jehovah's Witness, whatever, you choose. Replace weekly meeting with church service. Doesn't sound so harmless now, does it?
Now think: This actually happened.
While I cannot give specifics, I must say this: preaching in and of itself is a holy matter. We are to approach speaking the Word of our God with fear and trembling, and it's not something that we can just cavalierly allow anyone to do. Especially when those people may not even be Christian! We can hide or try and stay politically correct by saying "only God knows that for sure," but no - that's not the case at all. It's not only God knows. We have been given a certain level of discernment to separate the sheep from the wolves, and the wheat from the tares. Effective leaders (whether you are a pastor, lay leader, seminary professor or otherwise) must be able to exercise the proper discernment in order to protect the sheep.
In this case the "party leader" failed because they placed title and prestige over the sanctity and health of their organization, and in doing so put the entire group in danger. That is what we do when we willingly allow the wolves in without discernment.
And not just that, but preaching is a holy task, if I must say it again. I cannot stand and preach about the word of God like it is just another story. No -- it is the actual story and testimony of the work and the Word of the Almighty God, and that time of preaching has been put there by God to be set apart and set above just any other public speaking.
God told Jeremiah (1:9-10): "Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "Now, I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant."
God viewed the work that Jeremiah did, proclaiming the word and judgment of God to be a task that He himself had appointed him for, and a task that Jeremiah was given the words for. When a preacher stands on the pulpit, he is in a place both spiritually and positionally of great authority, as someone speaking with the exact words of God in his mouth. That cannot be taken lightly.
--- So how should you, the party leader, respond?
Shun the "new-Awesomer"?
Apologize for the mistake you made in bringing the Awesomer in?
Or act like nothing happened?
--- Comment below. I'm interested to hear your views.
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