The Plight of Sermon-Addicted Evangelicalism

1 Timothy 4:13: Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.

The older I get, the more I wonder how faithfully the North American church has followed this charge. I’m not saying we haven’t. I’m just wavering in my once firm belief that we have.

The only way I know to walk through this (in hopefully a non-judgmental way) is to take you on a bit of the journey I’ve been on.

And to be fair to the article, I should probably disclose my biases.

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Several years ago, I watched a close friend lose his teaching role in a local church. He was more of a teacher than a preacher. He loved helping people understand the grand narrative of Scripture. He is gifted at it. But church leadership wanted something different. They wanted a stronger, prophetic voice on Sunday. Someone they perceived as more bold, attractional, dynamic and compelling. That’s certainly their prerogative.

At roughly the same time, I watched a startling number of prominent preachers in just the DFW area experience moral failure (two at my former church). In many of those situations, there seemed to be tremendous pressure to restore the preacher to the pulpit as quickly as possible.

Now, to be clear, I’m not throwing stones. I know all too well the journey of falling woefully short of God’s standards. I also know the beauty of slow, private healing before public repentance and a restoration to a role with moral authority.

Many of us attend churches where we love to say the church isn’t the building or even a personality. Yet we continue to build churches that clearly revolve around our preachers. We thrust them upon public platforms. We fill our church social media accounts primarily with soundbites from their sermons. We often attach the health of an entire ministry or church to the gifts of a single person. We borderline deify them, priding ourselves on attending so-and-so’s church. We stroke their egos in a way few can handle. As a former preacher myself, it can become a dangerous drug where somehow preachers equate the praise of people with a relationship with God. But as the soul deteriorates within, the lack of relationship with God bears fruit.

Now, I know I am over-simplifying the above and making broad-sweeping generalizations. I also know every moral failing is unique and not easily lumped together.

But, these real events in my own church and in the greater DFW area began to wake me up to the plight of sermon-addicted evangelicalism. Our love of the preaching gift was making us turn a blind eye to so much unhealthy fruit in both the preacher and the church.

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Before going further, consider Paul’s instruction to Timothy: “Devote yourselves to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching” (1 Tim 4:13).

Maybe the most fascinating observation is the order.

Read. Exhort. Teach.

The church was devoted not merely to hearing sermons about Scripture, but to hearing Scripture itself.

We see this pattern repeatedly in both the Old and New Testaments. In both ancient Judaism and the early church:

• The Law publicly read before Israel (Deut. 31)

• Joshua reading the Law aloud (Josh. 8)

• Ezra reading Torah before the people (Neh. 8)

• The synagogue reading of the Law and Prophets (Acts 13)

• Paul's letters being read aloud to congregations (Col. 4; 1 Thess. 5)

• Blessing upon the one who reads Revelation aloud and those who hear it (Rev. 1)

Without pressing the point too far, I think there is a more than fair argument that 30 seconds of Scripture reading followed by 40 minutes of sermonizing should be the exception rather than the norm.

At minimum, it should cause us to ask whether our churches devote more attention to commentary on Scripture than to Scripture itself.

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Around this same season of disorientation in my own relationship with the North American church, the Lord introduced me to a different stream of teachers. I began listening to Messianic Jewish rabbis.

What struck me wasn’t merely their knowledge. It was their posture.

They asked questions that lingered. They seemed comfortable with mystery. They seemed deeply aware that God is inscrutable and inexhaustible. And so they approached the text with a humility that left room for discovery. They were much more willing to shy away from definitive takeaways and sit in the tension that comes from wrestling with the text.

Speaking of the Text, they treated the Word with profound reverence. They spent as much time reading Scripture as they did talking about it.

Studying the text was communal. I loved how interactive it felt. How often they invited others into the conversation. They valued variety of insight and perspectives.

Ultimately, they were eager to direct attention back to the Spirit and the Scriptures rather than themselves.

They felt like shepherds, not platform builders seeking large audiences.

And somewhere along the way, the Lord began gently reshaping my understanding of discipleship and the role of teaching in it.

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I know my journey is my journey. I’m not trying to force it upon others. I’m not suggesting we eliminate Western preaching and move to the desert of Qumran and start over.

I’m grateful for faithful teachers. Some of the most formative moments of my life have come through the preached Word. But I have begun wondering whether we have unintentionally asked sermons to do what shepherding and discipleship was designed to do.

The New Testament vision of the church was never simply attendance with the primary discipleship tool being the sermon. It was about being together around scripture, prayer, meals, confession, service. Eastern discipleship is almost always interactive, participatory and communal. Formation together into the likeness of Christ.

The challenge, of course, is that shepherding is much slower than preaching. Preaching can reach hundreds yet shepherding often happens one person at a time.

Shepherding happens around tables, in living rooms, over coffee, through prayer, questions, tears, encouragement, correction, meals, and shared life. It is the patient work of helping people discern God's voice, walk through suffering, obey Jesus, and grow into maturity. Sure, sermons may be able to inspire and equip that work. But sermons were never designed to replace the slow (inefficient) work of shepherding.

In light of that, here are a few observations I’ve been wrestling with from our sermon-centric (and I fear, our sermon-addicted) evangelical church culture.

• We consume truth faster than we can possibly embody it, seeking out a new sermon before living out the last one.

• We spend more time hearing about Scripture rather than listening to Scripture itself.

• We are less practiced at discerning God’s voice for ourselves, exchanging His voice for our favorite preacher’s thoughts.

• Hearers are all too often spectators of truth and not participants with it.

• Public Scripture reading is often just an introduction to a sermon as opposed to a formative practice.

• Long teaching has replaced more contemplative practices such as silence, prayer, discernment and communal reflection.

• We know we no longer need a priest mediator between God and man, but today’s church has too easily become dependent upon hearing God through someone else.

• The average church is drowning in content while starving for contemplation.

• We have access to more biblical teaching than any generation in history, yet spiritual maturity remains elusive.

• We have become remarkably good at producing teachers and remarkably poor at producing shepherds.

• We equate good communication skills with godliness.

• We value the preaching gift more than the person and are prone to overlook character flaws and moral deficiencies much longer than we should.

• We have made the gathering of God’s people isolating, non-participatory, lonely.

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If I can encourage you further, take 30 minutes and watch Godspeed: The Pace of Being Known.

One moment in particular stayed with me (around the 10:30 mark). A pastor spoke about preparing an excellent sermon because his congregation deserved his best on Sunday.

Yet, his overseer responded: "Maybe they deserve more from you on Monday."

That observation has lingered with me.

I’m convinced the deepest need of the modern church is not another sermon. I think it is deeper, more intimate shepherding and discipleship.

We value platforms, but God seems deeply committed to shepherding. We value large audiences, but Jesus repeatedly left the crowds to pursue the one. Yes, Jesus preached to crowds but He spent far more time forming disciples through relationship.

Maybe we need more Scripture and less commentary. Maybe we need more space for silent contemplation and not more words. Maybe we need more participation and less consumption.

Then, maybe sermons can return to their place – not as a substitute for discipleship, but as a gift within it.