Derf
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- Aug 8, 2021
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What I think is going on is that your pastor is an evangelist more than a pastor. I had a pastor like that before he retired. He even said so himself. There was very little exhortation in his sermons.Hello all,
Recently as I've learned more theological concepts and ways of thought, I've come to the realization that my church embraces a biblical theology that prioritizes the gospel above all else. Now that's obviously not a bad thing, but what I mean is that everything stems around Jesus saying after his resurrection that everything in the old testament was talking about Him. This results in every single sermon, and every single sermon series having the main point being making a Christ connection. The preacher will spend 40 minutes explaining how any given passage points to Christ. Nothing else will be gleaned from said passage. So take the fall in the garden for instance. Instead of touching on temptation and how to deal with it, or how a marriage structure aught to work, you're only going to see how this passage calls for Christ, and points forward to Him. In fact people in the church tend to dislike pastors or be wary of preaching that isn't like this.
I'm curious what people's reactions are to this. Do you think this is a good thing? Is this healthy?
It usually makes sense in a seeker-friendly church, where there are a lot of unsaved people. The problem is that those who are saved don't grow much in their faith, which is what is happening to you, and is why you are noticing--you are growing and yearning to grow more.
I think a more normal church circumstance would be for an evangelist to reach out to the unsaved outside of the church, and a pastor to minister to their needs when they come into the body (through the evangelist's work). As Paul tells Timothy to "do the work of an evangelist", he's not telling him to forsake the work of a pastor.
So, here's my suggestion(s):
Tell your pastor what you've told us here. Explain that you think you need more growing sermons and less seed planting sermons, but encourage him to evangelize outside the church, and help him to do that by taking up some of the exhorting work in the church (others can help with this, too).
Maybe even send him on missionary journeys to more inner city areas or some such. Do all this with honor toward him.
And let us know how it goes.
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