Are Sermons A Waste Of Time?

Was reading an article recently which talked about how much the church spends on sermons each week. So i did the maths myself. They say there's 300,000 congregations in the USA (american article) and that the average pastor (on $40,000) spends at least 20 hours a week on the sermon.

So, for the USA alone...
Weekly total: $115 million
Annual expenditure: $6 billion

Why do we do this? Particularly with many churches following a lectionary. Why do we have hundreds of thousands of pastors spending half a week coming up with a sermon practically identical to that of the pastor in the next suburb?

I'm sure it was important in the 1800s and early 1900s to have a local theologian in every village - when the only forms of communication were talking and letter writing. But in this day and age, it's surely a luxury that is looking more and more self-indulgent.

I've been fortunate enough to be in worship times that use various material from DVDs, youtube and Christian media websites (eg WHM). Some of these people spend maybe a week putting together something that goes for 5-10 minutes.

At first glance it seems time-consuming, but if one 10 minute clip gets played in just 1% of those 300,000 congregations, that's the equivalent of 500 hours of sermons (ie. 25 years of one pastor preaching). There's other advantages too - including production quality and capacity for repeat viewing.

So why don't we do it? Why don't we take greater advantage of technology? Why do we lock our pastors in their study for days? Why do we prevent them from being able to spend more time leading Jesus' mission in their local communities?

The "god" of Personal Debt

A facebook friend (with spouse) decided to purchase a home. As the various stages of the process were completed, updates were posted on facebook. No problem with that. But here are two of the updates.


I think you know where i'm going with this. Aside from the massive over-punctuation, i really do wonder about the theology of it all. Is this god who is being praised, the same God that warned against storing up treasures on earth? The same God to whom we might pray "lead us not into temptation".(Temptations like historically low interest rates which are going nowhere but up).

Having said that, if it was just "God wants us to buy a house" i would have let it slide. But to praise God for this outcome - let alone to suggest it occured through his direct intervention - i think is a very big (and perhaps dodgy) call.

But I think what gets me most is the effect on people who are on a spiritual quest. People who are earnestly looking for answers - looking for an alternative to the fake lifestyle peddled by advertisers - looking for someone to transcend the selfishness of this world. Reading a portrayal of God as some kind of genie-in-a-bottle who grants us three wishes (or more if we want) isn't incredibly helpful for that person.

Sure, following Jesus can be very rewarding, but if we think that God's rewards are as superficial as succesful home loan applications, sunny weather when we're planning a picnic, and the occassional free carspace at the shops; then we're selling God short - by a long long way.
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ps. some other day i'll address the implication that world hunger, poverty, climate change, war, and oppression all continue to exist because this alleged god is too busy finalising a suburban mortgage.

Tips for Tweeting

There's a human temptation to stick to "learned knowledge" rather than to encounter new ideas and concepts. The church is a great example of this.

However, the other day, i had the good fortune of talking to a pastor who is keen to have a go at these new things - even if they are a little 'frightening' at first.

To help him out, i passed on some ideas on using twitter for ministry. In case you are in the same frame of mind, these are the links:

Twitter for post-sunday communication (including actual tweets of a Sydney church)

15 ways for churches to use twitter

The Natwivity (not a spelling error - it's nativity themed tweets prior to Christmas 09)

The Problem With Communion

Eucharist. Communion. The Lord's Supper. Call it what you will - but I reckon there's a problem.

I first spotted it when a friend invited herself to check out this whole "church thing". Only upon arrival did I realise this was 'communion sunday'. On first view, a ceremony that includes drinking "blood" could seem a little cult-ish. So right then I invented an impromptu 30-second 'beginner's guide to communion'. As I did so, I realised my friend would be faced with 2 options:

1. Don't take part
Though we say participation isn't compulsory, there's a social pressure to take part. Abstaining from something that everyone else in the room is doing has the look of a boycott - a slap in the face to everyone else's religious beliefs.

2. Take part
It's a ceremony that proclaims a desire to be connected to Jesus. "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood shall remain in me and I in him" (Jesus). Clearly for the first time visitor, who has not yet commited to Jesus, this is complete hypocrisy.

"Social faux-pas or religious hypocrisy - take your choice" is our message.

I struggled with this for a while before finding an answer in the bible. Acts 2'46 describes the actions of the members of the early church.

They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord's Supper

How about that? The Lord's supper in homes? Presumably more than 3-min bitesize church communion - and it doesn't put church visitors in a nasty Catch-22 situation.

Social Media Stats

This clip on social media was seems targetted towards business, but it also says a lot about the way we communicate now. Fittingly, i read about it on a blog.


So can churches heed the message? There are still churches that don't even have a facebook presence. There are still churches that don't tweet.

For all the churches that advertise christmas and easter services in the local print newspaper, has anyone seen a church advertise on facebook?

Relics of the Past

The other day i was contrasting wikipedia and old-fashioned encyclopedias. Since then, the people at Soul City have done a piece on 4 thing that mattered to our parents - things like phonebooks, home phones and printed newspapers.


The challenge is to let go of the entrenched things that once mattered - but are irrelevant to the current world we live in.

Jesus Good... Church Not-So-Much

That's pretty much the conclusion of the people at Hungry Beast. When the Bible Society and the churches launched their Jesus campaign last year, this was the segment on the ABC's news/satire programme.


Clearly they're bagging out the Catholic church, but the quote about Jesus was interesting...

What's not like about the message of Jesus: compassion, tolerance, good deeds?

Do you reckon churches could learn from this, and quit banging on about how great their denomination is? Any collection of mere human beings is (by definition) not perfect - and is bound to make mistakes, poor decisions, and fall short of the ideals it hopes for.

Perhaps there's a case for being a bit more humble when it comes to ourselves (and our organisations) and leaving the focus on Jesus and his message.

Apart from being less self-righteous, it's also much more credible.