Sermon Recaps

Steve is discussing this past Sunday's sermon at my church. It was good and very challenging. My senior pastor doesn't do that sort of sermon much. He prefers more of a broad scriptural exposition in his preaching. That isn't a bad thing, but generally I've shared a similar feeling to Steve. I ought to be doing something not just learning something. The missionary who spoke this week did a good job giving that sort of sermon.

My church has grown a lot over the last few years. This isn't a bad thing, but it isn't necessarily a good thing either. I keep getting the feeling that we are only growing in population, not in spiritual depth or ability. We have four services every Sunday. Services we struggle to sufficiently staff in terms of ushers, greeters, and nursery workers. Why should a church our size have trouble with that? It is a symptom. Everyone is coming to receive, not to give.

That said, I did have a few problems with the sermon. Some of the sermon seemed short sighted to me. You cannot live like a soldier forever. Sleeping in ditches and eating MREs is not sustainable. It wear soldiers down physically and emotionally. Eventually you have to rotate off the front line. The same thing happens with Christian missions and the pointy end of the spear in spiritual warfare. You can't do it forever and you need people to support you just to do it at all.

I also don't have a problem with making raising children a major focus of the church alongside missions and training adult disciples. The church's commitment to raising Christian children is essentially missions to the next generation. Christianity has taken 2000 years to get where we are. We don't know when Jesus is coming back. I would much rather plan for the long term.