Pastor, you're going to have to hammer it home
It shows up in the hot topic issues when, for example, suddenly we realise that the church council/board/elders or whatever aren't with you on issues of sexuality. They have friends who don't like your view and it seems unloving and not very like Jesus to them. It shows up in the youth group when, for example, two leaders start living together. For what it's worth, I suspect it shows up in all sorts of other ways in less controversial issues, but I think it is most pointed on these hot topic issues because we're not addressing them enough.
One of the things you know if you've spent any time teaching, let alone in church ministry, is that if you want someone to get something you need to teach it and teach it and teach it and then, well teach it again. I don't mean it needs to be the application of every sermon, I mean it needs to get an airing in 1-1 Bible studies and youth groups and Sunday School and home group and quiet and private chats. It needs to come up in leaders' meetings, not only so they hear it but so they will teach it. It needs to come up with parents so they'll teach it to their children. It needs to be detailled, from different angles and Bible passage, we need to undertand how to live it, in what contexts and so on. If we want people to believe and act on something we will need to teach and model it - a lot! We have to hammer it home.
In your own heart and life you know why. It's simply that in the midst of busy days and busy lives, a little application here and the odd mention there tend to drop out of your mind and don't really shape you and your faith. It takes more than that to drive something home.
For many conservative evangelical churches this has meant a razor sharp focus on 'the gospel'. We want people to believe in Jesus - who he is, what he's done for us and why that needed to be done. If you like, we've taken Christianity Explored and we want to make sure that every time we speak, teach etc. then there is some application along the lines of a Christianity Explored session (or you might rather insert Two Ways to Live for Christianity Explored!).
The growth of Biblical theology, the focus on being Christ-centred, Gospel-centred and Missional have all pushed us in that direction. And, as far as it goes, that is a good thing. Paul could, after all, write in 1 Coritnhians 2:2:
"For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." (ESV)And so we want to keep the gospel, centred on the cross, the main thing.
This is good, but can seriously risk being reductionist. Biblically let me suggest a couple of things. First, that verse in 1 Corinthians is near the start of a letter that goes on to address a whole host of what we might call discipleship issues. Issues that we don't seem to address with quite the same urgency. For Paul, they're not separated from being cross-centred! Second, the mission that Jesus calls us to in Matthew 28:19-20a is:
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." (ESV)There is more here than preaching Christianity Explored applications. We are making disciples, which is more than just teaching them Christianity Explored. We have to teach them everything Jesus taught - including the full variety of doctrinal and ethical things. The risk is that we separate out justification and sanctification or evangelism and discipleship and make the former the main thing to the expense of the latter.
Now I don't think this is what any of us think we are doing or plan to do. However, it really shows up in the hot topic issues because we too often realise that we have not really taught people about them. At most we might have made a 2 minute application in a sermon once that touched on the issue. It might have come up as a denominational issue and so we decided to have a special mid-week topical session which people could come to, which would help the understand.
We then think we've covered it. But we wouldn't do that with more central gospel issues. Can you imagine thinking that the whole congregation would understand who Jesus was from a 2 minute application in a sermon last year and a mid-week special that about a quarter of them came to! The reality is that for most people, if that's all you've done, then they have either ignored it or at most you've flagged what your opinion on a given issue is. That will not be enough to disciple them, persuade them or take them with you in any given action.
It's at this point where I think many pastors find themselves struggling. The know what they and their church should be doing with respect to a particular issue, they feel like they've raised the issue, but the reality is that the only way to move forward is by using their personal capital with people rather than people actually being with them.
That is going to mean that church pastors are going to need to be much more intentional. It may be that you need to address a significant pastoral issue in the church with respect to a culture of gossip. Well a couple of minutes in a sermon might make people sit up, but it probably won't change the culture. You're going to need to persistently teach it and model it to properly disciple your people.
Similarly, you might find that views of, sexuality, divorce, abortion or some other hot ethical topic, are varied and broadly unbiblical in your congregation. Setting up a mid-week special with a guest speaker to address the issue will be a good start, but it will only be a start.
Now I guess this is where our fears come in. For what it's worth, I think these often come under the guise of "keeping the main thing the main thing" or focusing on 'the gospel'. But for the brief reasons given above I think that's probably a red herring if we realise that the main thing is making disciples.
However, I do think we have some legitimate fears. For example, we don't want to drift into legalism. Many of us will have seen or been part of churches like that. Perhaps you grew up in the church youth group where the only application you can remember was "don't...". I think this is fair enough, but doesn't require us to stop teaching the whole counsel of God right? It requires us to teach it within the right (grace-filled) framework.
Second, I think we fear letting our hobby horses into every sermon. If there's an application about holiness we will find a way to lever in the particular concern we have. Again this is a legitimate fear, but we mustn't use it as an excuse and we mustn't leave people untaught. So we will want to plan how we teach and in sensible proprotion and that will stop us levering things in.
Third, and I wonder if most significant, is that we fear relational fall out. If I teach X, people won't like it/people might leave/people might not like me. We dress this up in smarter clothes (because we wouldn't have the courage to say this?) along the lines of issue X isn't the first thing we need to address with people/we need to get people sorted on Y first/it isn't sensitive to raise X in this context and so on. There may be some wisdom in those things (although I have to admit on the whole I think not on the basis that transparency is always best), but the truth is that teaching the truth faithfully is the only way to build a healthy church. Avoid teaching truth leads to pockets within the church and individual Christians which will be likely to one day destroy them.
So pastor, you're going to have to hammer it home - even when it's awkward, even when you don't want to and even when it's unpopular. If you can't do that, then you can't do the job.
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