Do Not Preach Pre-Fab Packages of Frustration
I’m not a fan of “pre-fab furniture,” what we in Australia call “flat-packs.” You know them, right?
You’ve browsed the carefully staged sets of designer furniture carefully constructed to help you envisage this beautiful piece in your own home. You excitedly make the purchase, pay for shipping, then wait expectantly for your newest acquisition.
Then it arrives—not delivered in a moving van nor carried in by craftsman. Your bulky new piece of furniture arrives in a series of manageable boxes.
I’m not a fan of pre-fabs. With a large family and a small budget, I’ve put together more than a few of these in my day. Inevitably I seem to get two-thirds of the way through the build only to discover a key component is missing or broken, and that not only has all my time and effort been wasted, but I also still don’t have the wardrobe I wanted in the first place! Why can’t it be some inconsequential piece that always goes missing? Why does it have to be the one pivotal piece around which the entire functional design hangs? So frustrating!
Preaching Pre-Fab Promises
Now, I may not put together pre-fabs for a living, but I am a preacher, and here’s where my frustrations overlap—I’ve seen an alarming trend toward pre-fab preaching.
You’ve heard these sermons, haven’t you?
A carefully crafted image of what your life could look like if you would only apply this key idea or discipline in your daily life—click-bait sermons designed to get you coming back for more. These sermons are bound together in a convenient package and delivered with a not-so-subtle disclaimer that some assembly will be required.
“6 Things You Need for A Happier Marriage”
“Unlocking the Secrets of an Overcomer”
“How the Kingdom Unlocks the Prosperous Life”
Most of us can see through the ruse of sermon titles like these, happily sidestepping the “handy hints” approach to preaching, but the problem dives a little deeper and cuts a little closer than those cliches suggest.
Of course, some of the suppliers of these pre-fab sermons are dubious, at best, so we learn to steer clear of these. But what about the reputable outlets? Aren’t their pre-fabs better quality? They certainly seem so in the catalog—all shiny and well lit.
And if I’m honest, shouldn’t I be asking the question of my own? What about the neat pre-fabs I’ve delivered to the masses? Are they any better just because they are a little more bespoke? What if all the pieces are of good quality and responsibly sourced from the supplier? Shouldn’t that make a difference?
I’ll turn 45 this year, and I preached my first sermon at 18, which means I’ve lost count of how many bad sermons I’ve preached. The ones I most wish I could go back and change were the ones where I pointed people in the wrong direction, toward gospel-less works righteousness. “You can be like David,” I’d say. “You can take down your Goliath. What stones are you carrying to battle?”
“I’ll turn 45 this year, and I preached my first sermon at 18, which means I’ve lost count of how many bad sermons I’ve preached.”
The problem is, I’m not David and neither are you. If we’re anybody in the story, let’s be honest: we’re the scared brothers hiding on the sidelines desperate for a rescuer who can fight the battle we were destined to lose. So every time I point people toward courage like David or Esther—or dare people to be like Daniel—without pointing past these biblical characters toward Christ, I’m neatly packaging up a sermon that offers much and delivers little apart from little boxes of big pre-fab frustration.
Preach the Crucified King, not just His Kingdom
I’m not going to push this metaphor much further. After all, any metaphor stretched too far will eventually snap. But I do need to point out one last observation. Even the best pre-fabs fail when they’re missing the key component.
We pray the kingdom come, we yearn for revival, we hold special prayer meetings, we lobby, picket, and wring our hands when the wrong people hold office, but are we missing something? We long for the kingdom, but what about the king? We stand in pulpits and offer our people a pathway to the victorious life, but what if we’re offering a crown without the cross?
For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. (1 Cor. 1:22–25, CSB)
Submission to the lordship of Christ is the key component that can be easily missed in our preaching. All the other components may be sound, valid considerations for any believer to grapple with and implement, but without this single reality—Christ crucified—the rest will ultimately fall. If in our preaching we present an empty throne, we invite an insurrection of the human will. When we preach the crown without the cross, the kingdom without the king, we equip the masses to be usurpers not disciples. The kingdom becomes about us, our kingdom usurping his.
“We stand in pulpits and offer our people a pathway to the victorious life, but what if we’re offering a crown without the cross?”
Dear Christian, if God has called you to open his oracles and proclaim the earth-shattering realities of his grace, then please, I beg you, leave behind the pre-fab sermon of frustration. Take the old tools of the Master and craft a better message. The end result may not look as shiny or professional; it may not be as convenient or quick to pull together. Your sermon will probably seem odd to those looking for quick solutions or profound insight for life. But for others, that rickety old sermon you lovingly build under the watchful eye of your Bible will be the portal to a power they had never imagined, an inconspicuous wardrobe to a better world. Why? Because in it they will encounter Christ crucified—a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Your people will see that God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
God will be honored, your people will be blessed, and you will be glad.
Chris Thomas serves as a Teaching Pastor in a rural church on the East Coast of Australia, just a few hours north of Sydney. Gratefully married, he’s a father of 5. He sometimes writes at his blog, The Ploughman’s Rest and serves GCD as the Director of the GCD Writers’ Guild.