Jamin Bradley

Sermons are a heavy thing to create. The teachings of Jesus are generally well received by Christians, but if the pastor tries to make them applicable (especially to modern issues), there’s a decent chance of backlash. The pastor has to deal with the weight of such possibilities: Goodbye friends. Goodbye finances. Goodbye church.

My friend had a vision once that captured this dynamic well. They saw a pastor preaching passionately and a congregant in the front row threatening to hurt themselves if the pastor continued. Seeing the congregant’s reaction, the pastor set aside his passion, and the congregant returned to normal. When the pastor’s passion returned, the congregant returned to the threat, attempting to hold the pastor’s message hostage.

Fear and threats drive pastors to become unprovocative and silent. Instead of writing our messages around what we sense Jesus wants to tell our congregation, we tailor them to what we sense people will accept. We don’t disciple our people to the pace of Jesus, but to the pace of the unhealthy congregant who’s threatening to hurt themselves if we keep talking.

We sell out on our messages just like any politician, as our churches become echo chambers rather than prophetic. Then one day, we wake up to find that our churches are miles behind where they should be in spiritual growth. Forget about understanding new hot topics—sometimes it seems like we’re still trying to understand that racism is bad.

Pastors are afraid to do the spiritual warfare of calling out the other gods that have infiltrated the church. This fear drives us into silence, leading congregants to assume the other gods are right. In time, we’re left with a faith that doesn’t challenge or renew minds. Christianity becomes nothing more than a movement built around a cheap grace that allows us to get worse than we were before we got saved, rather than an invitation toward transformation, transfiguration, and metamorphosis. We raise up spiritual infants who are incapable of moving from milk to meat because the effort to chew is too much, and the sophisticated taste is too bold.

Jesus remains faithful to his bride, but admittedly, his marriage is dysfunctional. He’s been begging her to go to counseling with him, but she has no interest. Maybe she’s fine living in the grace that her sweet husband has shown her. Maybe she thinks he’s the one who needs to do the changing. Or maybe she’s still trying to get him to buy into the idea of polyamory, hoping that the other gods can stay the night.

Pastors, we have to preach.

I get it. No pastor went into ministry thinking, “Man, I can’t wait for people to hate me.” We literally took this job because we love people, and we want to see them thrive. We are here because our hearts are for others. We want them to like us. They’re our friends and our family. We don’t want to lose anyone. We obsess over such losses for days, months—even years! All pastors know the depressing spirals that come around preaching well, just as the prophets of old did.

But many of the American church’s modern-day problems stem from pastors cultivating a culture of saying nothing at all. We have sacrificed the passion of our pastoral messages to protect our unhealthiest congregants from their biggest threat: themselves.

Pastors, be faithful to Jesus first. That is where your health and your congregant’s health lie.