Thus says the Lord: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.
But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'" --Jeremiah 6:16

 

7 February, 2008   comments: (0) Today's Worship   JOB OPENING: Pastor With a Great Sense of Humor These are postmodern times, and if we really want to fill our churches, we need to appeal to what's most important. Let's face it, nobody is going to care about how much 'bible' the speaker knows, they are going to relate to how funny his stories are. That's why a good sense of humor is kind of like the new 'doctrine' of the old days; it's what your church falls or stands on, right? So maybe you can help our church fill this job opening; we are looking for a very special candidate, to lead us into the future, somebody who is funny. Did I mention that he (or she) also has to be funny? Well those aren't really my words, but it appears by the looks of this job opening on PastorFinder.com that it's what somebody is thinking. Since when does "humor and comedy bring people to Christ"? And, do you see anything on there about bible knowledge, doctrine, or beliefs? No, apparently they don't even care if the pastor has any experience or training, even though this is a Senior Pastor position. What I do see is - things like humor, yikes - new age, and growth. In fact, unlike the church in the early chapters of Acts that the Lord grew, in this case they are PLANNING their own growth, even saying they are intending to be a megachurch. I wonder if they are trusting God to give them this growth, or whether they are instead - trusting their humor and church growth methods to make them a megachurch. Ok, so maybe this is an extreme example, after all - they are planning to call their church "Comedy Hour". But humor seems to be a big deal nowadays, too big of a deal in my opinion. You might remember a post we ran a while ago entitled "If They Call Worship Fun, Then It's Time To Run", in which we ran through so many church Google listings saying "our worship is fun". One of the examples was a church with a female pastor who promised to make you laugh every week. They usually try to force fit these concepts under one of the bible's "joy" scriptures, but as we discussed in the comments of that post, it just doesn't fit. A mother in childbirth, for example, may be full of joy, but I doubt she finds the process fun (as someone suggested) or funny for that matter. Some of you might remember the Ergun Caner sermon that James White posted, that was nothing short of an all out comedy routine. That is so far removed from the reverence of God that you would find at James White's church on any given Sunday. That post was part of a bigger debate that was going on between Caner and White, but when that comedy sermon came out I remember this excellent Charles Spurgeon quote floating around the blogosphere: "Natural humor may possibly be consecrated and made to wear the yoke of Christ, but he who apes it is no true man. If you find us a man who has any object in this world in what he says but the glory of God, and the winning of souls, he is the man who is out of center, and into his secret may we never come. And furthermore, if you discover a preacher who is indelicate, and causes the cheek of modesty to tingle, let him be cast out of the pulpit, and the door locked against him. We have known men of the Slop-dash order who would have been nothing if they had not been outrageous, and of these it may be said that they were worse than nothing when they followed their own style. There was nothing in their absurdities to excuse them, for they were not carried away by zeal, nor did the excellence of their matter make up for the ridiculousness of their manner. Of such men we will neither be defender nor judge." Spurgeon was a pastor who could make you laugh, even from the pulpit, but that was a natural part of his personality, and his humor was always restrained and bridled to make a point. Today what we are seeing however, is something altogether different; it's often more of a "planned comedy attack". There are megachurch pastors that meet with their creative teams during the week to plan "this Sunday's jokes" (amongst other things). So what about you? What is the proper role of humor in the pulpit? Before you answer, take a moment to consider what 'worship' is, and how Isaiah and others felt undone in the presence of the Lord. Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.568   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism