Lesson Goal
I hope to encourage the preaching of a spiritual diagnosis and an appropriate remedy.
Lesson Intro
One of the most dangerous sermons a preacher/pastor/priest can give is, when he goes from preachin' to meddlin' by telling people that Houston, "we" have a problem and how to fix it. This is definitely not for faint hearted people-pleasers, tactless bulls in a china closet, nor for the immature. It needs the wisdom of Solomon, the tact of a French diplomat, the trust of the congregation and the maturity of a tenured preacher. How do we maintain the responsibility Christ has given us to the flock, yet not lose people because we have offended them when analyzing a problem and suggesting a cure?
Lesson Plan
We will look at the two steps of diagnosis and remedy from an agricultural, sheep-management perspective, analyze the need for diplomatic inclusive language, looking at the problem as the problem rather than the people involved, put it all into the context of the whole problem management process, and the preparation of a diagnosis-remedy or problem-solution sermon.
Lesson Body
Sheep Farming
Sheep farming is among the most difficult jobs of animal husbandry. Any sheep farmer knows his job involves feeding, watering, culling, crutching, wigging, shearing, vaccinations, parasite control, drenching, stocking rates, and a host of other responsibilities. The ability to diagnose health problems caused by worms, fluke, lice, fly-strike, foot rot, and so on is a vital skill. For each diagnosis there is a different set of remedies.
Christ's Sheep
All pastors/priests must remember that the flock is a mob of Christ's sheep. We too are Christ's sheep. We are not the Great Shepherd. Every flock has natural leaders among the sheep, the bossy alpha male ram, or sometimes a cranky old ewe. So too, as sheep we are of the flock, lead sheep yes, but still sheep. This should give us a clue as to who is ultimately responsible. Jesus is the head of the church, not us. Sometimes church leaders give the distinct impression that it is their empire being built, rather than Christ's kingdom, their leadership and vision, not Christ's. The notice outside the church building may say Rev., or some other high, holy, religious-sounding title which really means to the man on the street the "big cheese" or "grand poobah," and then a name, maybe your name. However, we ought to have clearly in our minds that the active head of our church is still Jesus Christ. He has not retired.
Inclusive (1st Person Plural) Language
Whenever we notice a problem then, it is best to place ourselves clearly in the flock as one of the sheep, being addressed by the Great Shepherd, rather than above the flock as a substitute shepherd. That means that we do not say that it is "your" problem as a church, but rather we say that it is "our" problem as Christ's sheep. Using the inclusive first person plural means we use we/us/our language, not you/your language. For instance, we ought to use language like, "We need to hear what Christ is saying to us," and NOT give the impression that we are saying anything like, "You need to hear what I am saying to you."
Include the Whole Human Race
It may be the local church's specific problem, but it is not the first church in the world to ever have this particular problem, nor is the only one at this moment in time. It is a problem common to humanity. So, don't make the local church feel like they are the worst people on the planet or that you disdain even being in their presence. Help them realize that you are also involved in this problem as part of the flock, and that they are part of a problem that is really rather common. They are not particularly weird, or weirder than any other group of human beings on the planet.
Make the Problem the Problem, not the People
It is the problem that we want to remove and not the church, the flies, ticks, or worms and not the sheep. At some point in their career, most pastors look for that perfect church to serve. Transfers are often requested, not so much because they are bored but because they want to escape certain people. Sometimes pastors intentionally preach certain problem people right out of the church. Most pastors eventually realize that every single church has its gossiping Gail or Gary, its know-it-all Noel or Nora, its promiscuous Pete or Penelope, its critical Clara or Carl, its judgmental Jane or Jim. If you solve the problem by getting rid of them, sooner or later, their clone will show up. The problem is not people, but sin. As is often said, church would be a wonderful place if it weren't for the people. But the people are the church. So, exorcise the problem demons (figuratively or literally) and keep the people, unless of course there is a sin going on that is heinous enough to warrant a form of disfellowship or excommunication, of course. That however, is a very rare necessity in most healthy churches.
The Whole Problem Management Process
If we are to understand the diagnosis-remedy sermon better, we need to understand the whole process of problem management, including those issues that are not addressed in a sermon, or otherwise ought to be kept private. The whole process may include steps like:
Define what the problem is. e.g. Bitter gossip.
Diagnose the problem. e.g. The gossip is caused by the discontent with the music.
Remedy the problem. e.g. Discuss with certain people in private, discuss with the music team, preach on the problem describing biblical criteria for acceptable worship music and the need to include a variety of selections that are relevant to several generations.
Bypass the problem during recovery. e.g. Avoid potentially offensive music until people have time to digest the sermon and/or grow spiritually. Work with musicians.
Resolve the problem. Complete removal of some problems may be possible. Removal of all human problems is an impossible ideal. Certain church problems like defamation and a critical or know-it-all spirit will be with us until the day we die. We can manage them, minimize them, but never completely eradicate them from human hearts. e.g. The problem of music is resolved for now, use forgiveness, move on.
Monitor the problem. e.g. After recovery, lovingly check up on all parties to make sure they know they are still included in the music choice, and monitor the music selection process.
Preparing the Diagnosis-Remedy Sermon
This is also called the problem-solution sermon. Now that you have the overview of the local church problem, from early definition through to post-recovery monitoring, we can see the diagnosis-remedy sermon in perspective. It is only part of a more complete process, which may take days, weeks, months, decades or generations to solve. This is a simple two-point sermon. Don't be overly simplistic in your remedy. For instance you and I have probably heard too many sermons along the lines of, "The answers to all life's problems is more prayer and fasting," or, "The answer to all your financial problems is tithing." Hogwash! Some of life's problems are only solved when we get off our knees after we have prayed for strength and wisdom and then do the right thing. Some financial problems are solved by budgeting or curtailing materialistic overspending.
Two more potential difficulties are worthy of continual reminder: diplomacy and confidentiality. Diplomacy can be aided by the use of 1st person plural, we-us-our wording. Sometimes a brave preacher will take all the blame for a problem himself, and blame no one else. I highly respect people who gladly do that. Confidentiality is easily handled by good preparation that eliminates unnecessary, private details from your sermon notes.
Example Sermon
Title: "Music for All"
Goal
To encourage people that worship includes including everybody.
Intro
How would you like to go to a party only to be told or given strong vibes that you are not welcomed? What if you were invited to a meal where the host knew that you could not eat a single item of food on the table? What if you were on a team where everything was done one person's way and that person's way only and that none of your opinions counted? How would you feel? That is how some people feel about the music when they go to church.
Plan
Let's discuss the selection of music for church, what the theological criteria are, the cultural criteria, the love criteria and how that affects our congregation.
Body
1. Problem
Churches sometimes split over music. I know of a church near where we used to live, that lost over 100 people when they introduced an additional, contemporary worship service. Those in the other service were not even required to attend the alternate service. We too need to address this issue and see how we are going to handle it. Will it split us? Will we take our bat and ball and go home? Or, will we rise to the occasion and tackle the changing culture around us and continue spreading the same unchangeable gospel, but in some new ways.
2. Solution
The solution to our dilemma is to look at worship music history and Bible guidelines about theology, culture and finally the Greatest Commandment of all, to see what love demands of us.
a. History of Worship Music
A brief history overview is in order. In the Bible all kinds of musical instruments are mentioned. Bells, flutes, pipes, cymbals, gongs, horns, trumpets, lyres, harps, lutes, rattlers, tambourines, and an instrument of ten strings are all legitimized. So we have all parts of the orchestra mentioned, the wind instruments, percussion, strings, etc. The Bible nowhere, I mean nowhere, contains a list of banned instruments. Also, the Bible nowhere, I mean nowhere, bans worship music as some churches do.
Hundreds of years ago, stringed instruments were popular in the churches, but Protestants began using a more popular instrument that had been commonly found in the pubs and bars, an organ. The immediate reaction was negative, of course. Some church hymn writers even took popular bar songs that spoke about immorality and debauchery and "converted" them, by giving them Christian words. This too upset a lot of people, but some of the most loved hymns were converted in this manner. Today, the same thing is happening but in reverse musically, we are moving from the organ back to the strings, and yet we are still taking popular styles of music and putting good words to it.
What are some of the criteria we should use to judge?
b. Theological Criteria
The Psalms are the Bible's song book. There are also other songs recorded in other books. However, no place in the Bible gives the beat, rhythm, or orchestration of a song. A wide variety of ancient musical instruments are mentioned in the Bible, but we do not find a list of banned instruments. What are some of the theological criteria for psalms, hymns and other spiritual songs?
We notice that songs in the Bible are sometimes speaking about I/me/my/we/us/our in the first person, sometimes about you/your in the second person and sometimes about he/she/they in the third person. So, those who say that spiritual songs must always be about God and never about us are mistaken. We also notice that some songs are sung to God, some are sung to encourage fellow believers, and some are even sung to enemies. So, those who say that spiritual songs must always be sung to God are likewise mistaken.
c. Cultural Criteria
Paul said that he would be a Jew to the Jew and a Greek to the Greek, meaning that he would be culturally sensitive to win them to Christ (1 Corinthians 9:20-22). Yet, we Christians are notoriously culturally insensitive. Some Christians even go so far as to dress culturally different than their neighbors, but what about music culture? Would we ever consider being a rocker to the rockers, a hymnodist to the hymn lovers, a gospel singer to gospel music lovers, or a contemporary of contemporary Christian music lovers?
d. Love Criteria
Can we have congregations who are willing to grow up to full spiritual maturity and show love to all generations, by having what is called a blended music service? Would a hymn for grandpa, a country-gospel song for mother and father, and a contemporary piece for the young, ever be an acceptable format for our church services?
Love includes doing things that personally revile us. I don't know of one mother in the world that really loves changing a baby's soiled behind. I mean, you'd have to be a few sandwiches short of a picnic to say that you really revel in that unpleasant task, wouldn't you? How then does a mother do it? She does not focus on the baby's rear, but on the baby's face. So, God is not asking anyone to love all styles of music, nor enjoy every single piece of worship music. He does ask us to be a loving people. So, even while that particular style of music we hate is being played, ignore the thing we despise, and look at the faces of those who are worshipping God through the music they love, and then offer up a silent prayer of thanks to God for them.
Outro
We discussed the selection of music for church, what the theological criteria are, the cultural criteria, the love criteria and how that affects our congregation. What will be our decision, to love and unite or to hate and divide?
Suggested Assignment
Prepare a sermon on a common church problem. Go through the whole problem management process so as to get an overview. Imagine how you would address each point in the process and especially the diagnosis-remedy steps. This will be a tough assignment if your topic is a particularly sensitive one. This will test your tact and diplomacy and may test your ability to keep confidential things confidential. It will test your willingness to preach what God wants you to preach no matter whether or not you are persecuted for it, even by fellow Christians.
Lesson Outro
We looked at the two steps of diagnosis and remedy from an agricultural, sheep-management perspective, analyzed the need for diplomatic inclusive language, and looked at the problem as the problem rather than the people involved; put it all into the context of the whole problem management process, and the preparation of a diagnosis-remedy sermon. Pray for wisdom.
