Questioner
When I was in college almost 60 years ago, one day in our economics class,
we had a substitute teacher. The teacher we usually had was dry as a bone. He
was a real sleep inducer. The substitute had the class laughing a lot of the
time. He taught us more economics in that hour than the regular teacher taught
us in the whole semester. The substitute told me his theory of teaching was, "I
get them laughing and then, while their mouths are open, I ram it down their
throats."
If The Purpose Driven Church and The Purpose Driven Life are used together and
if the sermons are lively, if the people smile, laugh, and cry and if the
preacher has made his ONE point of the day a number of times without a lot of
extraneous hot air, the congregation, believers and unchurched will hear the
message. The rest is up to God. Throughout The Purpose Driven Life warren makes
clear that it is not about me, it is about God. It is not about what I want but
rather what God wants. The idea is that the purposes are God's purposes, not
ours.
My church, is an Episcopal Church that is between permanent rectors. The vestry
is trying to figure out what they want our church to be. I am trying to get them
answer a different question. "What does God want our church to be?" My effort is
based on reading Warren's books. You could do Christianity a service by removing
http://www.biblebb.com/files/pdc.htm from the web. In my view the author is
dead wrong.
Answer
The Word of God is not an Economics class. The material we present is the
Living Word and it is never boring if preached with boldness and authority by
men called and gifted to preach. Charles Spurgeon said, "If you have to give a
carnival to get people to come to church, then you will keep having to give
carnivals to keep them coming." If we have to get people laughing to hear the
Word then we are preaching to the non-elect, for the Holy Spirit will draw and
open the hearts of the elect to receive the Word.
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "Tony Capoccia's Questions and
Answers" by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
Box 119
Columbus, New Jersey, USA, 08022
Our websites: www.biblebb.com and www.gospelgems.com
Email: tony@biblebb.com
Online since 1986