Today we are told in order to be relevant you must be on the internet, facebook "friendly", twitter ready, and of course, prepared to reduce the sermon message to what will fit on  a text message...one screen only, of course.  I wonder, however, how Jesus and the apostle Paul would have fared today?  They walked wherever they went and we know from the book of Acts that Paul preached, in some cases, for hours.

         There will be those that say our fast-paced information enabled lives that we live, leaving no time for lengthly discourse.  Fit in the the essence of your message in 12-20 minute intervals because that is how long television has conditioned us to stay focused.  At the first break we will switch to another program to see what that looks like.  This is the reason that not all programs go to commercial breaks at the same time.  The producers of the shows, the networks, and especially the advertisers, hope after you switch you will settle into their program.

         Our politicians have learned to speak in 30 second "sound bites" to fit nicely into the nightly news format.  When some speak of expanded debate formats to thoroughly explore an issue; would anyone listen?  After the first couple of minutes I suspect, that we would leave the elongated answers to the policy wonks, college professors, and the political pundits.

        Human nature has not changed.  The Hebrews complained about God's free food program in the wilderness.  They wanted Moses to go up to the mountain and meet with God and bring back "the law" in an abridged version.  Eutychus fell asleep while Paul preached in Acts 20 and fell out of a third story window to the pavement below...dead.  Even Jesus only trusted three of the twelve disciples with the deeper and more complex mysteries of His ministry.  Then, when the going got the toughest those three couldn't pray with Jesus one hour in the Garden of Gethsemane...and Peter would deny Jesus three times in one night!

        Yet despite the fact that human beings are just that...human, the gospel in that first century expanded and the church grew.  Why?  Was the preaching better?  No!  Was the content of the messages better?  No!  I know...it is because they served better food at their fellowship meetings.  No!  The reason is that the Holy Spirit grows a church.  People will be touched by the message that they hear...the one the Spirit seeks for them to hear at the moment they need to hear it.  And through the touch of the Holy Spirit the people will come to know Jesus.  It is a trick of the enemy that tells the churches today...shorten up...move faster...cut out the parts of the gospel that are controversial...we will deal with those later after they get saved.  As if the gospel of salvation is a cheap huckster's sales pitch meant to sell just another Ginsu knife or set of pots and pans.  Six months later, when we are disappointed with the product we can move on to something else.

        The church in the first century and the church in the twenty-first century grow the same way...by God's Holy Spirit.  Let's pray more and program less..."Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom they believed, as the Lord gave to each one?  I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.  So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase."  (1 Cor 3:5-7)                        
                                                                               
                                                           Sunday, January 15, 2012