Chapel...?

A stand-up comedian held an audience of students and faculty close with a brilliant comedy routine which also happened to include a basic message of salvation. The routine would have been appropriate on a street corner or another secular environment. Instead the comedian spoke at Shorter College, during the weekly worship service in chapel. Making matters worse, the speaker was the President of the Georgia Baptist Convention.

Hebrews 5:11-14
11We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. 12In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

Two problems exist with what occurred in chapel yesterday. The first is that the congregation showed its inability to distinguish between good preaching and entertainment. If the measure of a good sermon is how life-changing it is, then the sermon delivered yesterday is of questionable value at best. If the church is the body of Christ, and the body accepted the preaching as sound and worthwhile, then we can conclude that the body is not ready for “solid food.” I share in the author of Hebrew’s disappointment.

The second problem is that the GBC President has little more to offer the body of Christ than a small drop of milk in the midst of an entertaining half-hour. The example this type of preaching gives is that entertainment is our first goal, and spiritual insight and growth is a secondary goal… at best.

If the body of Christ does not expect life-changing preaching, and we continue to call pastors and elect leadership who will not provide it, we set up a vicious cycle of spiritual depravity and we resign ourselves to the very fate the author of Hebrews is warning against.