A preacher was in a convenience store needing a candy bar desperately. He found one for $.50 and went to the cashier to pay. He reached in his pocket but did not have two quarters. He joked with the cashier, “Well, you could come hear me preach but I don’t have a 50-cent sermon.” The quick-witted woman responded, “That’s okay. I could come hear you twice!”
There are a lot of jokes about preachers and preaching that I have heard or read over the years. In a Gallup poll from 2013, Americans responded to the question: “Do you trust your preacher?” and 47% said they do. That was nearly half of the number who trusted their nurse. In fact, pharmacists, elementary teachers, doctors, soldiers, and police officers were all trusted more than preachers. That speaks very well for those professions but it is a sad commentary on how people view preachers.
I am thankful that I have not heard, in twenty years of preaching, very many jokes about preaching directed at me personally. I heard many of them directed at my dad but not very many about me. As a preacher, perhaps I can say that many of those directed at preachers may very well be deserved. Thom Rainer has done a lot of study and writing in the area of church growth and he wrote an article on why preachers are not trusted. He gave 11 reasons; I’ll share just a few:
1. The moral failures of some preachers.
2. Christianity itself has become marginalized.
3. Preachers don’t spend enough time at a local congregation.
4. Social media allows criticism of a preacher without face-to-face contact.
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5. Some preachers have a poor work ethic.
6. Some preachers do not have good leadership skills nor good “people skills.”
The danger in preachers enabling the congregation to have a low opinion of them as preachers is that it is too easy to also have a low opinion of the content of preaching. Few people would actively encourage their sons to be preachers, even in the Lord’s church, because we, as Christians, do not hold preaching in high regard or we’re afraid other Christians will not hold preachers in high regard. I have always been well respected as a preacher by the elderships I have served, including this one, and the congregations where I have served, including Swartz Creek. So, this is not a lesson about me or whining about not being respected.
But the fact of the matter is, God put preaching the cross of Christ at the very center of His plan to save man. Yes, the cross is the heart of salvation but preaching about the cross is just as indispensable to save man from sin.
Those are preliminary thoughts to our examination tomorrow of 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 – “The Foolishness of Preaching.”
–Paul Holland
