Forgetting Sermons (And Why That's Okay)

Do you remember riding home from church as a kid on Sunday afternoon ready to gnaw on your arm because you slept until the last possible moment that morning, skipped breakfast, and now sat famished? Do you remember the regret of realizing that mom (or grand mom) still had to finish preparing lunch, and, for some reason, at that moment one of your parents decided that it was the perfect time to ask a question:
"So... what did you learn in church today?"

Uh.......... (Brain tries to compensate by re-routing energy to memory....... fail........ Time to fake it.)

"Uh... God loves us! Jesus died on the cross for our sins!" Or insert your own default, though nonetheless true and doctrinally sound, Sunday School answers.

Not a few years later, it's sad to say that I still struggle to remember the specifics of even the best of sermons. I even regularly forget the main points of some of my own messages after a few days pass. This used to bother me, but then I began to think about what biblical or spiritual learning should really be about.

We tend to think of spiritual learning with the same categories as any other type of learning, and no doubt there is significant overlap. Learning = knowledge accumulation, application, and regurgitation. We could liken this building up of knowledge to adding books to the shelf of our mind. "I've got the basic gist of the gospel down. Check. Add that book to my shelf." "I've got the basic story line of the Bible down. Check. Add another book to the shelf."

This way of thinking about biblical learning isn't necessarily bad; it's simply incomplete. The reason it is incomplete is because spiritual learning is about both growth in knowledge and formation of character, and it's impossible to separate the two here. Spiritual growth is not only like adding books to a shelf, it's also like placing a rough-edged stone into a river.

When I hear my pastor preach I want to listen intently for new knowledge, and I want to affirm the knowledge that I already recognize as true. Going even deeper though, I want to allow his convicting, challenging, and edifying words from God's Word to wash over my soul. This is why spiritual formation is so much richer than many other learning endeavors, and it's also why remembering the main points of every sermon may not only be impractical but unnecessary.

I don't believe we'll be Bible quizzing on the Day of Judgment. God's word does say however that Jesus will reward each according to what he has done (Mt. 16:27). We understand that only those works done "in God" (Jn. 3:21), while abiding in Christ (Jn. 15) and walking in the Spirit (Gal. 5) will be worthy of reward.

So as I listen to a sermon, I want to ask the Holy Spirit to smooth this rough-edge rock. I want to ask Christ to think and feel and live through me. I want to ask God to do faithful and obedient works through this weak vessel.

Therefore, if we forget the three points of Sunday's message, but were eternally changed by a holy moment in the midst of it, I do believe we can mark that up as a win!

For example, my pastor made, what seemed to me, a passing comment this past Sunday. It wasn't one of his main points, but it struck me... like a brief but powerful torrent over a particularly rough edge of my soul. He said (paraphrasing), "We forgive...Not because the other person has asked for it or even deserves it, but because Jesus forgave us when we neither asked for it nor deserved it."

To close the loop on the point of this post - six months from now, I will not be able to articulate what my pastor said this past Sunday nearly as well as I just did. But I can promise you that his statement changed me, and the heart of it will stick with me, not merely as another book to put on my shelf, but as a life-changing truth that imprinted on my soul.

In Christ,
Andy


PS: I hope that this post doesn't encourage any sort of laziness in regards to listening well to sermons. As I affirmed above, we should all be listening well. I think this involves good note taking and returning to the text and notes the following week. My point in this post is that we should not think it sufficient to simply accumulate knowledge when it is the changing of our hearts that our God is after! 

Music in New Covenant Worship

Over fifteen years ago, at the height of the worship wars in my part of the country, I began to think... to think a lot about music in the context of worship. Most of you know me well enough to know my preferences, so I hope you'll place that aside as you read this post.

It's long been my conviction that since Christ is our example, our duty and joy in meeting together with the body of Christ should be to lay aside our preferences in music for the sake of others. Much like in marriage, church should be a group of people resolutely determined to lay aside their own interests for the sake of others (Phil. 2:4). I'm so certain of this governing principle that I fear the judgment of Christ on our churches in the last Day will see much shame over the selfishness spilled out in worship wars over the past two decades in America (and beyond).

While I've held to these convictions for quite some time, I'm not sure that I could truly articulate the practical implications of my thinking until recently.

First of all, worship is not only for God, though we would all affirm that this is its primary aim.

Paul says in Col. 3:16, Eph. 5:19, and 1 Cor. 14:4, 12, 26 that our worship should be for the education and edification of other believers. So the next time you’re at church proclaiming the truths of the gospel or the trinity or some other great mystery of our God, look around. Look around, and then sing. Sing not only to God but to your brothers and sisters. Proclaim the gospel in song to them. They need to hear it from the preacher, and they need to hear it from you!

Second, to expand this idea of education and edification to a global scale by means of the New Covenant is where things really get fun! I'll explain.

Why do we have worship wars? That's easy. We have worship wars (particularly in America) because we have culture wars. If I were to take you to the heart of Africa or China or South America, and we were to experience the vast array of culturally specific worship styles in these contexts, it would nevercross your mind to try and force your church's style of worship into that context. Or it shouldn't.

Why? Because at the advent of the New Covenant, the Kingdom of God burst forth into all nations in a way that had never been seen before; and as this Kingdom advanced forcefully throughout the world, God's intent was not to mold every culture's expression of worship of Him into the Jewish/Middle Eastern forms. Rather, within the constraints of Scripture's commands for orderliness and doctrinal orthodoxy, each culture has the freedom to express worship to God in beautifully unique ways.

Enter the United States... the melting pot of the world. Is it any wonder that at the meeting point of hundreds of cultures and nations we find it difficult to settle into one prescribed musical expression? We war amongst ourselves because we are each absolutely convinced of the spiritual superiority of our own form of musical worship.

It seems that there are only a few possible solutions to this genuinely difficult situation in which we’ve found ourselves. One: we wait for the tide of "modern" music to overtake a church as the older generation dies out and the newer gains control. This may be pragmatic for some, but seems to me altogether unChristlike. Two: we choose to separate ourselves into different local churches based upon cultural preferences. I'm less opposed to this solution these days for the same reason I wouldn't ask an indigenous Chinese church to embrace an African form of worship. Perhaps we are just simply too diverse in our country to expect one form of “blended” worship to appeal to the heart of every single person. Three: everyone in the church could intentionally choose to “suffer” through various forms of worship that are not appealing to them for the sake of others. Of course, when I say "suffer," I'm being intentionally silly. It should be our joy to give up our preferences for the sake of others. I honestly believe that in some contexts option 2 is best. I also believe that in other contexts option 3 is favorable. Each church must discern God’s will for their particular setting.

The point of this post was not to try and fix the problem of conflicts over worship that we experience in this country. My hope is, rather, that we properly understand these conflicts in a biblical way. I pray that we’ll stop venerating musical styles and cultural expressions. I pray that we will love each other sacrificially, and I pray, most of all, that we’ll faithfully proclaim the gospel to ourselves and others through worship, preaching, and mission.

In Christ,

Andy