The One Minute Sermon: Does this Really Honor God?

Aug 20, 2010

Posted by Pastor Todd Murphy in | Comments (35)

Ok this one is going around on Facebook like mono. In the video below, a young Christian woman comes up with a pithy rhyme about giving your life to God. I think on the one hand it is creative and cute, but I could not help coming away with an uneasy feeling about it. Take a look at it and see what you think.

To begin with it is a very distilled, if not the most distilled version of the Gospel I have every seen, and anyone who is following my current preaching series called "Unvangelism," knows that I have a big problem with oversimplifying the watering the Gospel down. However maybe she is really just trying to be entertaining here on a Sunday morning at her Church. So lets cut some slack Todd.
On the other hand, I cannot get away from the fact that she does believe the Gospel and even though playful, says the whole thing with a great deal of conviction. In other words, if she does in fact take her own faith seriously, this can never be just mere entertainment. I think that is evident in the tone, body language and mannerisms.

I have been plating Sacred Journey Church, I have become more and more aware of what Timothy Keller calls "Christian tribal language." By this he refers to when Christians speak and communicate as if non-Christians are not around and not listening. The problem is that we often become so ingrained in our Christian subculture and its tribal languages of "us vs. them" we often don't even know that we are doing it. So here is an exercise: Before reading further, watch the video again and imagine yourself as one of these three people. 1. A completely unchurched person who likes Leno, Paris, and Bono; 2. a person who has had a really tough and at risk life and knows that you do not have your act together. Maybe you know just enough about Jesus and Church to make you feel really ashamed about your life without being reminded, but you have no idea where to turn to really discover God's love; and 3. picture yourself as someone who grew up in a very fundamentalist or oppressively religious home and now you have completely abandoned the Church and faith out of frustration and feeling judged. Think of how you would feel as one of these individuals hearing the this sermonette. Listen again now.

So how do you feel about this now? Here are my thoughts. I feel that her voice intonation, hand movements and body language project a shaming tone. The whole thing would have been better to extol Jesus in particular in the 3rd person, but instead it is in the second person "you better this," and "you should that." Another element that really bothers me about it is a very snippy "we are right and you are wrong" tone to it. I think it personifies (maybe quite innocently) the stereo type that Christians always think they are right an look down on people who do not believe like them. For this reason I do not think it conveys a humble posture. Finally it throws rocks directly at the culture, and ironically mostly neutral things. She attacks TV shows and even worse, actual individuals BY NAME. Regardless of these people's life styles, attacking non-Christian's reputations and minimizing them as individuals in the name of Jesus just does not seem too much like Jesus to me at all. Never do we see him attacking individuals. Ironically she even goes after Bono who is a Christian and apparently takes it quite seriously. I think it would have been better to leave personal attacks out, and even things like TV shows that many non-Christians like, which just insults their personal tastes. I am not denying that there is a whole lot of idolatry in the world, but the Gospel calls me to focus my attention on the evil within me and my personal idols, not the world's. It is in the attacking of our own and the Church’s idols where we find the path to humility.

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Posted by Pastor Todd Murphy in | Comments (35)

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/20 at 01:24 PM

As if our lives are our’s to give God. We cant give or take away something from Him that was His the whole time. Choose Jesus, no commitment nessasary…uck

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/20 at 07:26 PM

To Todd. I had a question about Jesus attacking people. He does lean into the Pharisees pretty hard on certain issues in kind of an attacking way. As well as his anger at people selling in the temple. I’m not sure if these can be qualified as “attacks” in the same manner of that of the woman in the video, but I was wondering what you thought about how Jesus handled these different situations. I look at it as him displaying true righteous indignation because he was indeed righteous. Your comment just brought this line of thinking into my head, I’m probably on a rabbit trail…

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/20 at 08:19 PM

My sense is that i agree with Todd’s observations but also feel we need to watch our own heart attitudes in our critiques and to not spend too much time condemning things like this. We know nothing of this woman and how God views her. I know that we are called to care for her and not to disparage her attempts and we aren’t called to judge. She is presenting the gospel in a very kitschy, schmaltzy way that doesn’t resonate with me at all but I’d rather put my energy into being what we’re about and let the chips fall where they will. The best critique of the bad is the practice of the better?

In Philippians 1 Paul seems to be addressing the issue of criticizing someone for motive in preaching the gospel and he says: It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.

Sounds like Paul was dealing with a real mess of slander that may have been attempts to hijack his work while he was in jail but he didn’t loose any sleep over it and was just grateful to know that in one way or another the gospel was being preached. Given this, I’m not sure how we treat these things. This woman is speaking into a culture that idolizes celebrities. She is speaking to the People magazine culture and her training is to point out the error of finding a false sense of comfort that these entertainments provide. We don’t know who the audience is but she seems to be using entertainment to reach an entertainment driven audience. We have a different approach @ SJC. Our approach is to engage in the culture so that we have some common footing and segway. Our approach is to live out the gospel together and that is where we hope to reeducate and to have impact. I guess the bottom line for me is that I’d like to be about practicing the better rather than spending a lot of time criticizing or condemning other means and ways of others who are living up to what they have obtained. Hopefully in this way we can influence and lead by better practice.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 06:51 AM

Joan and Jean. Both of your comments are very thoughtful and much appreciated. I think both of your posts come down to the same issue, namely audience. Joan you said, “she seems to be using entertainment to reach an entertainment driven audience.” That is precisely my problem with it for two reasons. First, if that was her audience, they would feel judged and offended by her “shame on you” tone. But Second, and probably more important, that was not her audience. She is speaking at church to a group of people who all already think like her. What I know for sure is she is not reaching anyone at all, but she may reinforcing a sense of “we got it right” among many immature Christians which will lead them to think that her superior posture toward the world is the right one.

Jean I think your question comes down to audience too. When Jesus was forceful, it was not with broken people who need the Gospel like Paris or Brittany. He did not see them as a threat to his world view (as this woman does) but the object of his compassion. When Jesus was forceful, he was forceful with the religious who claimed to have the truth. So as an example, in keeping with Jesus’ pattern in the temple and synagogues, if he had stood up in this church, he would have preached the Gospel to them and rapped about how much the they were just like the world and equally idolatrous. He would have preached toward the beam in the church’s eye, and not the splinter in the world’s eye. And here is the final point. When he was finished, he would not have been met with applause but either indignation or repentance.

What this woman succeeded in doing was providing an opportunity for the Church to look at its “younger brother’s” sins rather than its own. Her message was essentially a celebration about how right us Christians have it and how wrong the world is. This is hypocrisy and Pharisaism. For my part, as a pastor, I think I have a duty to also reprove, rebuke with all long-suffering and doctrine to help us develop a repentant attitude in our Gospel witness. Ask yourselves this question: Where was her beating of her chest saying “God thank you for forgiving me a sinner?” Rather she was taking pride in the fact that she “chose” Jesus. Is that good theology?

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 06:57 AM

Todd,

Great comments again. I think the last line is where you got me the most. If you asked me to classify her as the tax collector or pharisee, it would certainly be the pharisee. She is a ke$hisee.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 07:12 AM

Yes, I googled her and the audience is a church and this woman is a professional motivational speaker. Thanks for your comments Todd. Self righteousness is a pervasive issue in the church. Thanks for continuing to bring this home…It’s a tremendously easy thing to fall into.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 07:23 AM

I don’t think anyone is saying her theology is good. Todd’s critique of her presentation is also spot on. However I feel where Joan is coming from. This video has been kicking around for some time. I actually posted it on my blog back in April, with a simple comment on her rhyming. I just don’t know if it’s worth it to break something like this down, where there is tons of material kicking around on the internets. I know it’s just one blog post but I’m wondering how critical should we be about others ministries? Especially one so far removed from our own.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 07:24 AM

I mean you broke is DOWN. All the way down.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 07:26 AM

He got me @ “Her message was essentially a celebration about how right us Christians have it and how wrong the world is. This is hypocrisy and Pharisaism.”
Ugh and dang!!....why do we do this??? There is a seed of this pride in everyone’s heart so the work is to continually and to our dying day recognize the temptation toward self righteousness and hammer that seed to death…oh how it does want to grow though!!

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 07:33 AM

Great discussion. To your question Jean about whether or not it is worth breaking this down with so much out there like it. This is why I chose it, because it is so subtle and seemingly cute at first. I have seen it on so man FB posts by Christian brothers and sisters. My intention was to use it as an example of how easily our self-righteousness and hypocrisy slips right past us without notice as Joan just said. What is important to me is that non-Christians notice and if we are not careful we will be perceived as judgmental. We are the face of Jesus in the here and now.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 07:39 AM

Nice, I can get behind that. Being exposed to the Christian Hip Hop scene, I see and hear stuff like this all the time. Great discussion everyone.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 07:41 AM

Jean: I think it’s the subtle heart attitude Todd is speaking to. Well maybe not even subtle..seems pretty blatant in light of Todd’s comments but since she is speaking ‘truths’ it confuses the issue. There are examples in Acts of people proclaiming Jesus but the manner in which it was done was not acceptable and the fruit bore out. I guess the important thing to consider is what we want to be about…not this. The weak theology is what drives this mentality. I have a feeling that her motivational speaking is all to do with what YOU can do and is self focused, bootstrap stuff…IDK but my sense is that I won’t be advocating her mission. Thanks for putting this up Todd..now I can post this to Facebook with some back up dialogue…

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 07:43 AM

A great thing to do is put this out on FB and ask your non-Christian friends what they think about how it comes off. Could be a really helpful exercise.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 08:06 AM

Todd,

Good thoughts…expressed well. I find the challenge for me is to challenge things like this video in a loving yet firm way. You did that well here.

(I hope I’m not intruding on an SJ conversation.)

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 08:08 AM

No not at all. We are honored to have you in on the dialogue Brian. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. Your thoughts are greatly appreciated. Feel free to fire away.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 11:44 AM

Great thoughts.

The discussion on the woman’s motives reminds me of Philippians 1:15-18 “18 But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.”

So on one hand I rejoice that the Gospel is being spread by sharing the video on facebook. On the other hand understand the apprehension and think reflection about our motives and methods is a good thing.

I feel the video was very entertaining and I have been thinking a lot about entertainment and the church lately.

It seems christians are all too comfortable to sit and be entertained by the world and expect the church to provide them the same things. I don’t see the church in Acts providing any entertainment. I see them being bold in speech, praying together, sacrificing, and giving.

What are your thoughts on this?

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 12:33 PM

I love this post and the dialogue that has followed.

What Todd is attacking here is the subtle pride in our flesh that will attach itself to the gospel and then exalt itself. Our flesh is so corrupt that it will even take the gospel and hold it up as a banner of self-righteousness. The gospel springs from God’s grace, period. We are worthy of judgement yet recipients of grace. If we do not aggressively and continually imposed this posture upon ourselves (by a life of perpetual repentance and faith) our flesh will very quickly take pride in the fact that we’re on God’s team and everyone else better get their act together like we have.

Non-Christians can see this ugly hypocrisy a mile away and are rightly disgusted by it.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 12:50 PM

Michael Howarth’s comment took the words out of my mouth.
Non-Christians can see this ugly hypocrisy a mile away and are rightly disgusted by it.
at first i wasn’t offended by it but the more i listened to it and imagined being a unchurched person i would be really pissed.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 02:37 PM

Wow Mike. You expressed what I have been aiming at so well. Alex I think your comment is extremely material to what I have been saying, namely no non-Christian is going to see this as cute, but pompous and and affirmation of everything they are saying about the Church. I find that when I watch it I begin to blush with embarrassment because it comes off so credulous and sophomoric.

Matt I really appreciate your thoughts on entertainment. I think the modern church has been lulled into this quite a bit, and the author of the Wall Street Journal article that I previously blogged on made a good point about this (though my post was to take issue with his article for other reasons. (See: http://sjchurch.org/blog/details/thoughs-on-an-article-in-wsj-called-the-perils-of-wannabe-cool-christianity/) What you said about preaching the Gospel, praying and sacrificing was huge. I personally think that the main reason why we look to entertainment, fancy music productions and really slick professionalized ministries and sermons is because we are looking for real substance. I think real substance is only found in the community that is centered on the Gospel. Unfortunately, many of my church experiences lacked the kind of community through which preaching, prayer and service can actually have their most powerful effect. I think I am going to have to ponder a post about “entertainment” and the church. I have found one axiom entertainment that is universally true: When the show is over, everyone goes home!” In other words, when a church or youth program builds itself on entertainment, that is what people come for, and when the entertainment stops, they will stop coming back. So a healthy ministry need to build itself on love and community otherwise it will find itself constantly chasing its tail to keep the crowd entertained.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 02:59 PM

I would love to see a post that addresses entertainment in the church.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 04:13 PM

With regard to entertainment, Rob Bell once made the distinction between amusing people and engaging them. He said he’s not interested in amusing anyone, pointing out that amuse is “a=without + muse =thought or thinking, thus ‘without thinking’.” He then went on to say that he is very interested in engaging people because he has something worth sharing, i.e. the gospel.

I find this distinction very helpful. Churches and preachers ought to engage people. In some ways, it also speaks to the importance of community. A community, almost by definition, engages people. (Of course a community can become ingrown and engage only it’s own, but my point remains.)

When does engagement drift toward amusement or mere entertainment? I think it happens when the focus is directed away from Christ and to the “performer” (for lack of a better term.) A subtle thing perhaps, and maybe there are other ways too, but that’s all I got for now.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 04:24 PM

There is still a HUGE part of me that says, let’s just be done with this and move on to doing what we know to be the thing to do rather than spending too much time criticizing what we feel is wrong. Are we maybe becoming ‘scoffers’ which is just as condemned as many other sins? If we want to hold up the teachings of Paul for other ways and means of developing church then shouldn’t we listen to his lesson on letting go of these things? We can easily fall into the trap of being self righteous about our ‘rightness’ of thinking. What would happen if for a minute we turned Michael’s words back on ourselves: “Our flesh is so corrupt that it will even take the gospel and hold it up as a banner of self-righteousness” and replace ‘gospel’ with something that would describe SJC. Are we being so very right here and ‘they’ are being so very wrong. It’s starting to feel a little icky. These are the things that divide us. I’m ashamed to say that for a time I was looking down on this woman that I don’t even know and judging her. My attitude should be rather be I’d love to have lunch with this person and see what makes her tick. What are our common bonds? What is the bridge that would bring us together in our differences? I’d love to get back to Jesus and what he said and let his words be our teacher. Jesus might have done the things that Todd described in that church because he truly knows the hearts involved and is rather perfect in these things. We don’t have that vantage point. We will never know until that day who is who and what is what. My sense is that we are in an era of grace and not of judgement. That day will come so lets let go, move on and focus on the good news. My two pennies..and certainly appreciate the freedom to speak my heart.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 04:35 PM

I am offended by this or any woman “preaching a sermon”.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 04:39 PM

Just to clarify for Joan…I wasn’t addressing the video in my last post. I felt like the comments had morphed into a more general discussion of local churches and entertainment via Matt’s comment and questions and Todd’s response.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 05:45 PM

Right Brian, this conversation has morphed into entertainment, and I am quite enjoying it. I think your comment from rob Bell is an outstanding way to put it. I also really like what you said about the community being the place of real engagement and keeping the focus on Christ and the Gospel and not on performers and performance. One thing that I have noticed is that it is the Christians who visit SJC from other churches that criticize and critique how we do things, whether we have Sunday school, whether we are organized, what kind of music we have, instrumentation, liturgy ad nauseum. The non-Christians always seem naturally predisposed to the content of what is being communicated rather than the form. It reminds me of a lecture I listened to by Keller where he said he made a conscious choice when planting Redeemer to purposely avoid being “overly polished” in his sermons and services.

So what do some of your guys who have been participating in and enjoying the fantastic discussion think are some of the ways in which we can “engage” the uncurched effectively with the Gospel? Can we brains storm some ideas?

Thanks for joining in the forum Lori!

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 06:29 PM

Oh no worries Brian…!! I didn’t see your comment when I wrote mine. Perhaps I wasn’t in synch with the flow of the conversation.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/21 at 07:01 PM

Joan, I concur, we can swing easily into the same error we’re calling out. Humility is essential when dealing with topics like this. Grace must be extended by us to people universally. There is a balance…when something is posted publicly by a Christian we can and should discuss its tone and how it lines up biblically. The fact that it sometimes devolves into heckling and mockery only betrays our residual wickedness. I don’t think the comments here have gone really even close to that far but the “icky” feeling you talk about I believe probably comes from the fear that our hearts are judging this woman and exalting ourselves. Any time humans are involved that fear is merited.

For Christians, the truth simply spoken is insufficient, it must be spoken in love. It comes down to a heart issue. Would we say these same comments to this woman’s face?

I am not ashamed of her, she is a sister in Christ. By all appearances, she loves God and is trying, however flawed we may think, to proclaim his truth. Any criticism towards her efforts should be given in the light of the FACT that we are all worthy of criticism and probably made the same errors we’re criticizing…twenty minutes ago. We’re all stumbling towards grace. Its a group effort and we will never make it without His mercy.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/22 at 04:55 PM

As a former Christian and now one of Rhode Island’s leading Atheist I love this video because if you listen to the words to find the message to tease out the point made you discover, like most religious (not just Christian) literature there is no real message here, no real meaning. A lot of cool sounding words with out any context or meaning, it might be entertaining, but says NOTHING! I now use this in my work as I help people come out of the religious world in in to a more secular reasonable world. (Think of me as an atheist evangelist) I would love to thank this women personally for giving me such a wonderful example of how the church is full of folks who utter a lot of words and say NOTHING

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/22 at 06:04 PM

Hi Paul, I think you make a great point. Many Christians (myself included) have tried to boil the Gospel down to bumper sticker slogans that lack any discernible meaning to anyone but themselves.

Todd is actually talking about this error in his sermon series right now called “unvangelism”
Here’s the latest:
http://sjchurch.org/media-library/details/making-disciples-proclaiming-and-shaping-a-world-view/

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/22 at 06:11 PM

Hi Paul. We are honored to have you participate. Mitch speaks highly of you. As you can tell, in spite of our differences of world view, I find myself in a place of agreement with you as to some of the content of this video, particularly its presentation. From my own perspective, I find it portrays a very poppy and trite articulation of my world view. I would be curious to hear what your thoughts are about the tone, mannerisms, body language and what your think it overall communicates about what she thinks of people like you who do not share her world view. We would appreciate your honest thoughts about it. Regards.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/22 at 07:06 PM

Todd, I think one way we can engage the unchurched is by being honest about our faults and our doubts. I think all Christians recoil at this idea to some degree because we think we should have neither.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/23 at 09:44 AM

Thank you Michael! You’ve hit the nail on the head. I appreciate you taking the time to fetter that out. You so schmaht!

Hi Paul! Your comments certainly do highlight the fact that this type of thing is a very easy target for critics…A really good book that deals with this very thing is ReJesus by Alan Hirsch. It deals with how the church needs to continually reJesus church and our mindset as we can so easily loose our way. He compares this need to rebooting a computer when it’s files become corrupted. The book starts off with a story about how the KKK will begin it’s evening of hate invoking the very name that would never support the activities that follow. Claiming Jesus does not mean he dwells there! Paul thank you so much for weighing in. Your response was very helpful to me. Love to know what you think of Todd’s critique!!

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/23 at 02:00 PM

Just wanted to point out the fact that while the church is full of a lot of folks who utter a lot of words and say nothing testifies to the truth that we are imperfect people with faults and flaws like everyone else, but these people are also usually the first to bend over backward to help other people in need.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/23 at 02:16 PM

Well Said Julie. And it is our actions that carry much more value than our words, no matter how imperfect or eloquent.

Pastor Todd Murphy

08/23 at 02:48 PM

Very true Julie!

Before you post that comment, give it a ponder.

Sacred Journey Church is located in Providence, Rhode Island

The One Minute Sermon: Does this Really Honor God?

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