Pandering Pulpits

Proclaim the message; persist in it whether convenient or not; rebuke, correct, and encourage with great patience and teaching. For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will accumulate teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear something new. They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths. - 2 Timothy 4:2-4 HCSB

Why do you attend your church? Is it because that is where your family has always gone? Perhaps you were raised in that particular denomination. However, denominations sometimes change: witness the Episcopalian crisis. Just because you were raised in a particular denomination doesn't mean that it shouldn't be periodically scrutinized to make sure that it is still following the revealed Word of God.

Perhaps you go to your church because you walk away feeling good week after week. The music is inspirational, the rituals comforting and the pastor's sermon...Ah, the pastor's sermon is simply so eloquent. He always has a way of saying just the right thing at the right time.

Tell me, what did the pastor preach on two weeks ago? What truth did you glean from the sermon a month ago that you are still trying to apply? Odds are, if you can't remember and you are consistently walking away merely comforted and comfortable, you are only getting soul-fattening, spiritual comfort food.

Church shouldn’t always be comfortable. At times, it should be challenging! Sure, you should not be constantly hit with a barrage of hell-fire, brimstone sermons but there should be times when the pastor stands in the pulpit and with great patience and careful teaching tells you when you are wrong and what you need to do.

Have you ever stopped to think about why a pastor would only pander to his people, never challenging or leading them into new ways of thinking? Maybe he is not thinking of his people at all! Maybe he simply doesn't like to deal with conflict and he tries to not "rock the boat" so that his own life is made easy. Perhaps he is just trying to make it to his retirement.

Would you go to a physical trainer who never corrected your posture? Would you pay him to always tell you how slim and trim you look as you gradually got more and more obese and struggled with diabetes and had a heart attack?

It could be that God is calling on you to evaluate your church this week and see whether you are actually growing spiritually there and worshipping, or if you are simply marking time. Don't put up with a pandering pulpit; someone who simply tickles your ears with delightful words that don't change you, challenge you, charge you up.