Your pastor is boring. Now what?

Imagine visiting a church for the first time and during the sermon, the pastor clings to his manuscript like a drowning child to a life preserver.

Imagine that when the pastor at last does look up from his papers he stares at the back wall as he drones on in a painful monotony.

Imagine his rigid hands never rising from the papers, no gestures to be seen.

Imagine a pastoral professional assessing this delivery as perhaps the “most mediocre the Church has ever known.”

Would it matter to you that he handled God’s word with care, preached it with accuracy and drew applications relevant to your lot in life, or would you leave never to return?

In a culture nursed on the shaky-cam and bingeing any program at any time in any location, the average Christian will look for a pastor to grab their attention and compel them with stories and anecdotes. The pastor must have a flare for theatrics, for mastering the pregnant pause, and convicting the soul with mere vocal inflection or eyebrow twitch.

And thus, most Christians would have passed on Jonathan Edwards, one of the greatest preachers history has known. All of the above descriptors of the desperately dull pastor are descriptors of Edwards' manner of preaching.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with a pastor having compelling oratory and being able to command an audience with gesture and expression, but have these become paramount? If so, we would have passed on the apostle Paul, too.

PAUL

Paul told the Corinthian church that he thought little of his speaking skills (2 Corinthians 11:6), and he thought his preaching to them to be dull of speech, weak, and missing the persuasion and nuance the Greeks had come to expect (1 Corinthians 2:1-5). Paul! His power was not in his manner but his message. The power of the gospel.

Consider how the Berean church received this middling orator. Luke tells us, “They received the word with all eagerness.” Picture a puppy when its master approaches with his dog dish. Tail a-wag, bounding its front paws off of the floor. Why did the Berean’s receive the word in this manner? Luke explained, “They were more noble” than the Thessalonians..

THE NOBLE CHRISTIAN

Someone who is noble is thoughtful and discerning, not rash in their conclusions, and sober and temperate with their emotions and attitudes.

When we are about to hear a sermon on Sunday, are we expectant and eager knowing that we are about to feed upon the good food of God’s word? Or do we sit like a movie critic, pen in hand, waiting to shred the the actor? What we glean from the Berean example is that how God's preached word affects us depends upon us. Jesus said the same thing in the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23). The problem lies not with the seed (the word of God) nor with the sowing of the farmer (the delivery of the good word), but the reason the seed does not take root is a problem in the heart of the hearer.

WHAT CAN I DO?

How do I prepare myself to hear the word? Here are a few suggestions.

Repent of a critical heart. Through the internet we can hear great preachers preach great sermons 24/7, and then on Sunday, we expect our pastor to live up to MacArthur, Piper, Chandler, and Evans? That’s like a husband expecting his wife to look like a super model after three children and thirty years of marriage. Such expectations are unfair. God will use the weakest vessels to most exalt his word and himself. Such a critical heart has no place in the Christian.

Rejoice in the pastor God’s provided. If your pastor strives to teach what God’s word says with accuracy and to apply that truth to the situations of our day, and if God is glorified and Christ is manifest within the preaching, you have much for which to be thankful. Praise God for such a man.

Pray for your pastor. Preparing for a sermon is a rigorous endeavor. God suggests that many ought not desire to do it because of the great responsibility to not dishonor God and his word (James 3:1). 

• Pray for him throughout the week during his time of preparation that such times would be fruitful for him and that he would be free from distraction. 
• Pray for him on the morning of the sermon that he might honor God with the delivery of his word.

Be expectant. If a pastor does nothing more than read God’s word, what a great feast you will find therein. If he goes on to explain and apply that word, he has set for you a rich table indeed. The Christian who listens to God’s word proclaimed with a Berean eagerness and expectation will find much for which to glorify God and much to apply to their lives.

Be biblical. The Bereans scoured Scripture. Liking or not liking a sermon can be equally shallow if you have no idea if it corresponded to God’s word. Open your Bible. Follow along. Take notes. Go back later in the day or during the next week to rethink on the teaching and track down some of the cross references or things that came to mind to compare and contrast within God’s word. This is part of discernment and spiritual nobility.

Provide feedback. “Great sermon, pastor,” will bounce off of him on Sunday morning like the buzz of the fluorescent lights. It’s expected. A note during the week on how God used his preaching in your life will be like a cup of cold water after toiling in the yard on an August afternoon. There may even be a time to bring up something you did not understand or that you felt was unclear in the message. Most pastors worth their salt would like to know if they erred or were hazy on a particular point. Please, be gracious here. Consistently critical feedback from you will wear upon him like the blows of a boxer.

Perhaps if we do these things, we will be considered “noble” Christians as well, the kind of church member to which any pastor would love to preach.