Can I Get An Amen?

I began thinking today about what comprises a good message. Between the two recent lecture series at school and my Exposition class, I've been thinking about this a lot. Is it a certain format? Do you have to alliterate? Is a topical or textual sermon better?

I think different people have different ideas of "good messages". But a message should not be deemed good because we enjoy it. It should be deemed good because it helps us grow. 

The most obvious example of an enjoyable but fruitless message is the more liberal concept of a charismatic speaker telling some health and wealth gospel. It is clear to most conservatives that this profits nothing. But fundamentals have their own version of this. Yes, even conservatives can like a message simply because it is entertaining.

Granted, we are entertained by different things. But think of the messages we so often laud--an hour of denouncing liberalism, declaring the authority of the Bible, and standing fast on the doctrine of inspiration. 

All of these are good points, the type of points that call for an "amen" (though I do not think the speaker should ask for one). But when we leave, how much have we grown? If I leave a message that stressed the importance of biblical preaching and talked about nothing else, what have I taken out of it? I know the Bible is important. I know all about inspiration. Almost everyone listening to the message already knows everything he talked about.

Yet these are the messages we come out of raving about, and shout "Amen" throughout. Isn't this its own form of entertainment? We are hearing what we already know but want to hear more. We even have our own version of the charismatic liberal preacher. He alliterates, ends with a poem, and uses words like "propensity" and "equanimity" and basically anything that ends with "ity". His words sound like they came straight out of Spurgeon or Tozer, except sounding more artificial since people don't talk like that anymore!

But I digress. My point is not presentation. My point is that even conservative Christians have their own type of entertaining sermon with no meat.

And then I began to think about something. We say Amen because we agree. If we agree, we already know it. If we already know something, we aren't growing. Rarely do we say Amen when a preacher brings up an issue with which we still struggle. In fact, we are most silent when we are truly challenged.

So I submit--maybe the sermons that call for Amens are not the best ones. Maybe a valuable sermon is instead one that makes us say, "Hmm." One that we do not rave about afterwards, but are instead lost in thought as we see an area we need to work in. Is a good sermon one we enjoy? We are certainly gratified to hear a preacher say something we've been "saying all along", but have we grown?

May we all be prepared to tell people, not what they already know, but what they most need to hear.