A Little Humility for the Preacher (Part 2)

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On why Steven Lamb quit going to church after growing up in a Fundamentalist Baptist Church in the South.

Frederick Buechner has said that the sermons that have the biggest impact on us are those that we preach to ourselves in between the lines of whatever is being said from the pulpit, and the consequence of being in church every time the doors opened for twenty-eight years meant that the number of bad sermons I’d heard, filled with poor logic and faulty reasoning – all purportedly straight from God – had added up.  The result being that the sermons I tried to hear “between the lines” were drowned out by other voices that were disagreeing with nearly everything being said.  Every sermon point given, every phrase uttered, brought to mind the echos of a thousand past sermons, bringing with them a scrutiny of each idea presented for consideration, every word weighted down with the complex history of their past usage and the implications of the resulting arguments, as given in the Fundamentalist world. 

Makes me wonder what voices are going on in the heads of my congregation as I preach.  I hope it's good.

Above quote was from a guest post of Steven Lamb over at Jesus Needs New PR.