An interesting question
 

My hubby and I were just having an interesting conversation about our recent church services which seem to be changing some.

The conversation got a little heated and I wound up asking:

"If you had two stopwatches, one in each hand, the left for the time the preacher spends talking to fill up space, the right for the time he spends teaching the Bible, how much time do you think would be on each at the end of a service?" (Dramatic hand gestures of clicking stopwatches removed :))

I guess it's obvious that I think there is a lot of joking, clowning, anecdotes, opinions, etc. going on... Certainly our pastor would never be accused of expository teaching... but my husband leans heavily on a scripture about the 'foolishness of preaching' being able to save. Well if that is the truth, we are certainly all good ;)

So I am just wondering what others find in their services... Feel free to use the question above and express in time total/time percentage, averages or just talk about what you think is going on and if you think it is good, bad, neither, both... or anything else you might want to say, if you would please.

TIA

Re: An interesting question
 

This is my issue with hard preaching in general. In most cases there is nothing said in 60-90 minutes that cannot be said in 5. I have a number of preaching sites book marked and while many are actually pretty good sermons there are more which are nothing but an hour plus scream fest with the title of the "message" repeated often and a liberal dose of catch versus designed to illicit "amen!"'s, shouts, and endless clapping.

Re: An interesting question
 

We have been very blessed. Our former pastor - (the one who went to Indonesia as a missionary) - did alot of expository preaching. He also taught Bible classes and Religion classes at the University of Toledo. So teaching was his strong point and he was VERY good at it. He preached an average of 20-25 minutes and every word he said was important. No fluff stuff.

Then after he left, we had a young man for a year. His preaching was good, but his life had some areas that needed serious work. So it made it hard to listen to his preaching, Know what I mean? I won't go into detail. But he is gone now.

And now we've had a man filling the pulpit while we search for a new pastor. He is another one whose sermons are pure food. He does use personal examples, but only when they fit with the message.

None of these have spent time from the pulpit chatting with the congregation or "connecting" or anything. They were all serious about preaching the Word of God.

Re: An interesting question
 

You are blessed!!!

Most preachers that I have sat under with the exception of a few would have the stopwatch going 95-99% of the time with the little bit of deepest thought, and true word teaching lasting just minutes to maybe even seconds.

Most of those "fluff and stuff" messages come from the NT without much regard to the OT other than maybe a Psalms or two thrown in sometimes. The OT was the Scripture for the early church, and IMO should be used more often, with so much for us to learn. However, much easier to scream about Acts 2:38, and the favorite passages they run to, then trying to get into the meat of the Word.

Good question T2W!!!

Re: An interesting question
 

I have no patience for this, so, while I am affiliated with several local churches thru the volunteering community, and have been to several services, I look elsewhere for a serious message (Shepherd's Chapel, currently). I don't discount the value of community found in a local church, tho. (You guys) should check out a Mennonite service! Eye-opening. I prolly won't become a Mennonite, but what a cool way to run a service.

Re: An interesting question
 

This is where a house church or even a small church might be interesting.

Sometimes it could be like a discussion format where the Pastor teaches on a subject then opens it up for discussion, comments, questions.

Then the pressure is not always on one person to preach/teach/entertain.

Re: An interesting question
 

I agree with your opinion about needing the OT more often in preaching. It's all they had for 200 plus years, not to mention that was the platform of the apostles.

Re: An interesting question
 

Don't remember where I heard this but the mind can only contain what the seat can endure. My pastor's pastor used to say that if you can't get across what you're trying to say in 45 minutes then you're taking too long.

Re: An interesting question
 

I wonder how long Paul preached when that fellow fell asleep on him. :lol

Re: An interesting question
 

ha, that's not fair tho, they had much less access then, and went to hear someone for a few days, a week.