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When you hear people speak about how to grow a church, how to build a church, and how to build a great congregation, few and far between are those who say it comes essentially by the preaching of the Word. And we know why, because it comes by the preaching of the Word slowly; slowly, immeasurably, sometimes even invisibly, and hence we are back to our problem. If you want to see quick results, the preaching of the Word just might not be the way to go. If you are going to find results in terms of statistics, numbers, and visible response, it just might be that there are other mechanisms, other programs, and other means that will produce that faster. The question is whether it produces Christians.
Indeed, such techniques will not produce maturing and faithful believers in the Lord Jesus Christ because that is going to come only by the preaching of the Word.
- “The Primacy of Preaching,” in Feed My Sheep: A Passionate Plea for Preaching, ed. Don Kistler, p. 17-18
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Centrality of Preaching
Having just commented on people yearning for substantive preaching, I came back across this quote from Al Mohler which I read a few years back. He says it well- as usual. :)
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3 comments:
Dear Dr. VN,
God has definitely been convicting me along these lines over the past few years. Last week I interviewed with a pulpit committee. One of the dear men asked, "How long do you preach?" It was a great "teachable moment." I told him what I thought the effects are when a preacher spends little time in study and little time preaching. Then I told him that I intend to study longer than the members probably think is necessary, then preach longer than the members probably think is necessary, in order to feed the sheep sufficiently from the Word. This committee is still deliberating, but I think a lightbulb clicked on in their minds!
Love in Christ,
Jeff
Good answer Jeff.
The question is not whether we will grow big churches or build big buildings. The question is, will we be faithful to the word and trust God and His word. It scares me to look around the country and see churches like Lakewood that pander to what people want to hear.
-Joel
As Joel said, good answer, Jeff.
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