'Pastor, Why Aren't You Preaching About What's Happening?' [Part 2]
In Part 1 of this article, I surfaced many of the thorny issues related to talking about current events on a Sunday morning, especially from the pulpit. In Part 2 I want to explain how and why our church tends to favor a “less is best” approach.
To begin, let me circle back to something Trevin Wax wrote in his article “When Should a Church Address a Current Event?” Wax believes the pastor-elder team at a church must evaluate whether their church is too driven by cultural events. It’s not a hypothetical situation—if you don’t ever ask the question, your church might be driven by the trends on CNN or Fox or Twitter more than you realize.
Some people, including some pastors, love to follow current events the way a sports fan follows his or her team; staying current is both an enjoyable and meaningful hobby. They consume their favorite media outlet because they feel cultural awareness is essential but also because, let’s be honest, it feels good to be in the know.
There’s nothing wrong with this, but the danger, as I see it, comes when Christians spiritualize interest in current events while not so subtly implying, “All good Christians do the same.” As Trevin Wax writes, “In a given week, there is news from all over the world that could, in theory, swamp the service.” Indeed in our church of four hundred adults, most weeks some personal tragedy among us of one kind or another could swamp the service.
FOR PASTORS, LESS IS BEST
To lay my cards on the table, I’m not going to spend an hour before church every Sunday checking online to see what happened around the world while I slept. My time before church on Sunday mornings is best set aside for prayer, study, practicing my sermon, and meeting with a few people involved in the service. I don’t have time (and don’t plan to make time) each week before church to scour Fox News, CNN, and local news sources. When I wake up on Sundays, I switch my phone off “airplane mode” and skim my texts, emails, and personal social media feeds for a minute or two just to make sure a member of our church didn’t die.
This intentional slowness is reinforced by another set of convictions at our church, namely, the commitment to expositional preaching. Most Sundays, we preach through one passage of Scripture. I won’t argue expositional preaching is the only way to preach, but it means our church members don’t arrive with the expectation we’ll address the latest cultural holiday, election result, hurricane, shooting, or some other tragedy.
“Most of the time when we address an event, we try to do it as naturally as possible, which means it needs to arise from the text.”
When the riots happened in Charlottesville that prompted Wax’s article—which feels like a long time ago now and highlights the ephemeral nature of many but not all current events—our worship leader led us in a corporate reading of a psalm of lament, and I weaved a few relevant comments into my sermon. But most of the time, when we address an event we try to do it as naturally as possible, which means it needs to arise from the text of Scripture we are preaching that week. And if it doesn’t, we don’t force it.
After Floyd’s death—which, for a host of reasons, captured public attention across the world—our church focused the whole Sunday service toward longing and lament, even adjusting the sermon text to better fit the occasion. Some complained we went too far and others that we didn’t say enough. This month, we have planned two nights of teaching and discussion at our church with our best leaders speaking to where the church, even in our particular church, has fallen short and what hope the gospel extends amid all the unrest.
If you’re the teaching pastor, you don’t have to make these calls alone. Send a group text to the other elders of your church the day before. Let them weigh in. Back in January our church acknowledged Sanctity of Human Life Sunday but only after the elders of our church vetted the flyer provided to us by the local Crises Pregnancy Center. Wording always matters, and a team of leaders looking over messaging, to use a marketing word, is especially important when gospel winsomeness on certain flash-point issues has been often overlooked, as with abortion.
AN OBJECTION TO ‘LESS IS MORE’
As culture becomes less and less familiar with Christianity and the Scriptures, the people in our churches will need more and more help connecting the events around them to a Christian worldview. I don’t want to underappreciate this critical aspect of discipleship. Elder-qualified teaching pastors are far more competent to interpret cultural events from a biblical worldview than any secular news outlet.
“Elder-qualified teaching pastors are far more competent to interpret cultural events from a biblical worldview than any secular news outlet.”
Therefore, I concede the point that no dichotomy exists between the superiority of Jesus and a discussion of current events. Paul writes of Christ’s preeminence as the head of the body and as the firstborn from the dead (Col. 1:18), so there must be a way of discipleship that can discuss current events while displaying the reign of King Jesus, not obscuring it. John Piper’s recent book Coronavirus and Christ is a good example of theological exposition that exalts the supremacy of Jesus and also engages with the questions of a cultural moment.
But still, if every drone strike, vote about minimum wage, or sexual abuse story must become a Sunday conversation in your local church, then I fear all our effort to make fully-formed disciples of Christ will remain reactive rather than proactive; what we preach about will be constantly dictated to us—sometimes on short notice—rather than prayerful pastors being carried along by the Holy Spirit.
THE GIFT OF BEHOLDING THE IMPORTANT AND LASTING
Undoubtedly, some in our church take our leadership’s lack of frequent and persistent addressing of current events as though we are just trying to avoid conflict, or that we are monks retreating from culture, or that we are ostriches with our heads in the sand.
I don’t think such criticisms are valid. Really, we’re trying to give people a gift—whether they see it that way or not. Fifty-two Sundays a year, we seek to remind our people of an easily forgotten truth.
In a world enamored with whatever seems most urgent, even Christians can lose sight of what’s truly important and lasting. The Word of God, while it speaks to every aspect of our lives in every moment of our lives, will also outlast every personal, local, national, or global crisis.
If the Lord does not come back beforehand, the blood spilled on Little Roundtop will one day be remembered the way we remember Caesar crossing the Rubicon. One day the monuments of Washington, D.C., will become ruins like the Roman Colosseum. And when pastors major on the urgent, we can inadvertently lead people to forget that “the word of our God will stand forever” (Isa. 40:8 ESV).
It’s this reminder above all else—the reminder of the endurance of the Word, the finitude of man, the transcendence of God, the assurance of a final judgment to right all wrongs, and the amazing grace of Jesus—that I want to give our people each Sunday. Those who know they stand upon a rock stand strongest in a storm.