The words “postmodernism” and “postmodernity” are words that arise when one may examine either sociological or ecclesiological circles.  I’ve heard these words many times over the past few years.  However, I came to the realization that I did not quite understand what postmodernity actually is.

When someone says a word of which they lack definition, it befuddles me.  For instance, if someone says the word, “hallelujah,” I wonder if they know what it actually means?  Hallelujah, hebraically, means, “to give praise to the LORD.”  Another word which people use, but I predict they may not have full comprehension of its definition, is the word postmodernism.

The reason this even came into question in my mind is because in my daily time of reading in the morning in my study, I came across an interesting listing of “Seven Values of Postmodernism” by Millard Erickson.  Please allow me to define the word, then give you the aforementioned list.

Postmodernism, succinctly put, is “that which comes after modernism.  Much of what defines postmodernism is a reaction against modernism.*

The following is Millard J. Erickson’s “Seven Values of Postmodernism”

1.    The denial of personal objectivity
2.    The uncertainty of knowledge
3.    The death of any all-inclusive knowledge
4.    The denial of the inherent goodness of knowledge
5.    The rejection of progress
6.    The supremacy of community-based knowledge
7.    The disbelief in objective inquiry**

I hope this little lesson on postmodernity better assists you not only in your interactions sociologically, but more importantly in your ecclesiological journey to be as effective as you can be missiologically to expand the Kingdom of God.

*Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 130.

**Millard J. Erickson, Postmodernizing the Faith: Evangelical Responses to the Challenge of Postmodernism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 19.

As a 26-year-old pastor, I read this and immediately knew I needed to re-post it.  This is from Dr. Jeff Crawford’s blog.

I read a report last week from the Barna Group examining the state of mainline protestant churches. Reports like this always have loads of interesting facts and tidbits about trends within the culture and church. One particular statistic struck me in this report:

In the last decade the median age of senior pastors has moved from 48 to 55 years of age. According to the report, this is a “shockingly fast increase” in just a ten year period.

This leads me to ask two questions:

1. Where have all the young pastors gone?

2. Are churches giving young pastors a chance?

Four years ago the Grand Avenue Baptist Church took a chance on a 36 year old pastor who was migrating over from the field of education. Grand has had 12 pastors in its 75 year history but I was the youngest at the time that they called me. Last month I turned 40. I think how we view age in our culture is a funny thing. I get comments all the time about how young I am to be pastoring such a fine church as Grand. But then you have a guy like Brett Favre who is also 40 and everybody calls him “old.” They’re amazed that he’s still playing football. Almost as amazed as some people that a 40 year old would be pastoring a church like GABC. Now I by no means am making a case that I’m old! In fact, 40 seems younger to me now than it ever has! But here is what I am saying: from my perspective, 40 isn’t young either. When I think of young guys in the ministry, I don’t think of guys like me, I think of guys in their 20s and 30s. And I am wondering where these pastors are?

In my four years pastoring Grand, I have made the rounds of Association meetings and State Conventions. You want to know what I see? LOTS of gray hair. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with gray hair (I’m getting a few of those myself these days), but man, the absence of youth is not just glaring, it is scary.

So I am praying for two things. I am praying that God will raise up a whole generation of new and young pastors. And I pray that churches around America will have the vision to call these pastors…to take a chance on them. It might just be the thing that a church needs to actually draw and attract younger people to church.

I am thankful that Grand took a chance on me. I am thankful that they have been patient with me. I had my annual job review by our Board last week and one comment I made to them was that after four years as their pastor, I finally feel like I am ready to begin. I do feel like I am a better pastor today than I was four years ago…and I hope to be better in the future. I am thankful the good people of Grand have stuck with me (most have anyway). And I feel like our best is just ahead.

The Barna Group report also noted that most pastors of mainline churches move on after four years. I think that’s sad. They might be leaving just as things are about to really get going!

Blessings,

Jeff

Over this past weekend, Charity and I visited one of our favorite places in the world: The Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC.  This estate is the largest personal residence in the USA.  Charity and I love to tour this beautiful home every Christmas season.  As we tour it, we observed the fine persian rugs, antiquitous tapestries, a lavish collection of first editions, and fine furniture.  The home is breathtaking.  At the conclusion of the tour, we peripatetically patrolled the multitudinous shops, but suffice it to say, we were a bit too parsimonious to purchase anything more than $20.  Finally, we meandered through the milieu of perturbed patrons of this pretty palace and I got a palatable latte while Charity consumed a tiny chocolate treat.

As we left, Charity put things into perspective.  She began extemporaneously pontificating of how the Biltmore Estate is a mere shack in comparison to our eternal home in Heaven with Jesus.  Amazingly, two days later, the Lord continued to remind me of the truth of what matters in life.

At the conclusion of a splendid service yesterday morning, a homeless man named “Daniel” arose from his pew and gave his testimony about how he received Christ as his Savior on his knees in a Waffle House restaurant the previous Friday.  He spoke of how he lived in a tent in the woods, but was happier than he’s ever been because he has the joy of Jesus beaming within him.

As I think of the differences between the Biltmore Estate and the tent-dwelling-man, it causes me to reflect upon tents, mansions, and the difference thereof.  I’m not speaking of the differences between earthly residences, but the differences between people who have an eternal home with many rooms in the Father’s house (John 14:2) and those who have an eternal destiny much worse than the life of a tent-dwelling-person on Earth, eternal destiny in Hell (Luke 16).

I thank God that He has a home prepared for me that makes the Biltmore Estate look like a mere shack.  What a joy it will be to worship my Savior in His home forever!

Last April, Dr. Ronnie Floyd wrote a blog post entitled, “Change Must Happen in the Southern Baptist Convention.”  Pastor Floyd’s article has resonated in my heart since he posted it seven months ago.  The posting he released was surely a risky one for him.  He knew he would probably offend some people who were comfortable with the way things are, but Pastor Floyd saw that our current denominational set-up is resulting in decline.  I know with this blog post, it may frustrate some of my friends in the academic world, but I think it needs to be stated.

Lately, I have been increasingly thinking about how change must happen in the American seminary educational process.  This topic is one I have pondered for some time.  As I reflect upon this topic, there are just a few points, in particular, that I wonder about: clinical training, pastoral training from non-pastors, lengthiness, and a lack of change.

Clinical Training

My wife, Charity, is a Registered Nurse with a Bachelor of Science from Union University in Jackson, TN.  As Charity was an RN student, she engaged in clinical training.  She trained as a nurse at all different types of hospitals.  One semester she was trained at St. Jude’s children’s hospital in Memphis.  This is one of the biggest and most well-respected hospitals in the country with some famous doctors, and is in the heart of the downtown region of a large city.  She also trained at a mental hospital in Bolivar, TN.  This mental hospital is in the middle of nowhere, but is doing great work in healing mentally diseased people.  Then, she had the opportunity to be trained at a general hospital in Jackson, TN.

As Charity was clinically trained, she was learning in a hands-on way about how to care for patients.  She learned in a hands-on environment at all different types of hospitals.  I am so thankful she had these opportunities.  As I think about this, I also think of other jobs that require significant hands-on training: doctors, construction workers, plumbers, electricians, and the list goes on ad infinitum.

There is no way I would allow a surgeon to cut me open had he or she not been clinically trained in a surgical unit.  However, that is exactly what is done to young pastors.  We’re taught in a classroom, merely encouraged to get a position on staff at a church during academic training, and then we sit in a classroom for 97 credit hours (more on the lengthiness later).  Do you realize how little sense this makes?  I was taught in a classroom about the theological aspects of communion, but never served it until my second week as a pastor.  I was taught about preaching, but was only required to deliver one sermon in a classroom in my entire Master of Divinity program.  I was taught about counseling, but never counseled a single person until I was full-time in the pastorate.  It just blows my mind that clinical training is required for a medical professional, but for a vocational minister, it is largely theoretical and minutely practical.

Pastoral Training from Non-Pastors

Another area I find to be of significant interest is that a majority of the pastoral training I received in the seminary classroom came from people who have never been pastors, haven’t been pastors in multiple decades, or who pastored declining churches.  Can you imagine a Medical Doctor being taught by someone who had never been a Medical Doctor in a practice?  Can you imagine paying a plumber hundreds of dollars who had not been under a sink in multiple decades?  Can you imagine being taught how to develop a hedge fund financial firm from an advisor with consistently declining results?  All three of these points of imagination sound ridiculous, but for some reason many academicians do not see the ridiculousness of an analagous situation in the seminary classrooms around the USA.

Lengthiness

My brother, an MBA from University of Texas, asked me why I sounded surprised when I told him of the declining enrollment of many Southern Baptist seminaries.  He then went on to tell me of how odd it seemed to him to require so many credit hours for a Master of Divinity.  If you wanted to go through University of Texas’ dual degree program of an MBA and Master of Manufacturing and Decision Systems Engineering (MDSE), it is only 76 credit hours.  If you wanted to become a nurse anesthetist, with an MSN from Union University, it is only 73 credit hours.  However, where I went to seminary, they advertise it as a 91 credit hour degree with six additional hours required in elementary Greek courses.

The degree is way too lengthy, but it is expected to be the degree of pursuit for those who feel called to the senior pastorate.

Lack of Change

Besides the addition of internet courses, how has the seminary educational process changed since the 1950s?  People cheer in agreement when, at pastors’ conferences, a preacher will proclaim how if the 1950s come back, our American churches will be ready.  However, the same is true with the seminary educational process.  My Dad, a 1979 graduate of Southwestern Seminary, in comparison with me, a 2007 graduate of the same institution, found very little difference in the process of how we were trained.  Similarities are eery from his academic experiences to mine.  On a rather humorous note, even the same tables and chairs are still in a majority of the classrooms from his time in south Ft Worth, to mine nearly thirty years later.  Meanwhile, the world around us has changed dramatically.

Conclusion

While I have offered the reasons for needed change in the American seminary educational process, I will offer my proposed solutions to these problems in a future blog post.  Stay tuned . . .

For nearly three years, I served as the pastor’s intern at Prestonwood Baptist Church in my hometown of Plano, Texas.  My pastor, Dr. Jack Graham, took me to lunch my last week as his assistant and taught me four life lessons that I should always apply to my ministry.  I hope you can apply these to your life, too:

(1) That I will be faithful to obey God’s Word, and be strong against temptations that would pull me away from intimacy with God.

(2) That my relationship with my wife would continue to grow and that it would emulate the biblical example of a marital relationship.

(3) The health and well-being of my family would be more important than that of the church.

(4) That I will follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit in my preaching and other opportunities to minister.

As a young preacher, I have worked through my processes of homiletical styles, approaches, preparatory processes, and delivery over the last six years.  With this, a choice of what approach to preaching I would choose: expository, topical, or a combination thereof (depending upon the respective series being preached).

At the outset of this blog post, please allow me to define, in my own words, along with a brief explanation of what “expository” and “topical” approaches to homiletics actually are.

• EXPOSITORY PREACHING is an approach that begins with the Lord leading the preacher to a text that needs to be taught to a congregation.  By text, I mean a verse, passage, chapter, or book that will be taught.  It involves taking the text and exposing it to the audience.  With the exposing of this text, it is then illustrated with stories (both biblical and non-biblical anecdotes), applied to the lives of the context of the audience, and it concludes by always pointing people to the cross of Jesus Christ.
• TOPICAL PREACHING is an approach that begins with the Lord leading the preacher to a topic that needs to be taught to a congregation.  By topic, I’m referring to an issue with which people must cope, and finding verses throughout the Bible to explain how to cope with the respective issue(s).  A common approach to topical preaching is from Andy Stanley’s book, “Communicating for Change,” where Stanley describes his approach of “Me–We–God–You–Us.”  Click here to read an interesting interview with Andy Stanley on Dr. Ed Stetzer’s blog.  Examples of topics preached include: Sadness, Hope, Love, Parenting, etc.

I was raised listening to pastors whom preached with both styles, but from what I remember, it was predominantly more topical than it was expository.  Over the last (nearly) two years I have served as Pleasant Hill Baptist Church’s Senior Pastor, I have developed a strong inclination toward preaching predominantly-expository messages.  My reasoning behind this is that apart from God’s Word, I have very little to say in front of a congregation.

I recently heard Dr. Johnny Hunt explain the reason why he expositorally preaches when he explained the idea of reading a letter.  Imagine you just read one paragraph from the third page of a letter, then a paragraph from the second page, then read one sentence from the last page, and tried to tell me what the letter said.  You would be explaining the letter out-of-context.  This reminds me of how a news reporter may interview someone for thirty minutes, edit the video down to two minutes, and make it look like the interviewee is saying whatever is desired to be reported.

My job is not to teach people “how to” do anything.  My job is to serve as a mouthpiece for God’s Word and it naturally teaches “how to” live your life.

As I preach, my approach is to give contextual background historically, linguistically, and geographically.  As an aside, my father-in-law, Dr. Tony Crisp, leads a ministry, TLC Ministries, Inc., that has a sole purpose of teaching people the Bible historically, linguistically, and geographically.  After giving a background, I read the text, and outline the natural flow of the passage based upon its grammatical makeup.  Sometimes, that is one point, sometimes three, and sometimes six.  Throughout each point I glean from the text, I creatively illustrate it and apply it.  Throughout the sermon, I attempt to summarize at the beginning of every new point to keep the audience on-track with that which is being proclaimed.  At the conclusion, I usually attempt to tell a story to draw the audience back into my attention, and re-state the points once more in order to hammer home that which I am trying to teach.  So, I guess you could call my typical structure “BACKGROUND–TEXT–OUTLINE–STORY.”

I am not saying that others whom use completely different approaches are ungodly or unbiblical preachers, I am just seeking to explain my approach to preaching, and why I have chosen this approach.  May God’s people be equipped more effectively through the preaching of His sacred Word.

I thought I’d share with you about some simple ways to invite people to “Friend Day” at Pleasant Hill this Sunday:

(1) Facebook: I’ve created an event invitation for you to use to invite your friends to “Friend Day” via Facebook.  Click here to check it out.

(2) Telephone: Whether its through an old-school phone call or a new-school text message, invite people via the telephone.

(3) Straight Up Ask’em: Just walk up to a friend and say, “Will you please come to church with me this Sunday?  We’re having a Friend Day, and I need to bring a friend.  I’d love for you to come!”

Don’t forget to tell people you invite that they will get an extra hour of sleep this Sunday, so there is no better time to check out church than on a day when they get an extra hour of sleep.  Telling them about the time change eliminates an excuse for people to not come.

Also, check out day 30 of the My Friendship Connection devotional here.  It’s awesome!

Get out there and invite people to Friend Day!

Reaching East TN, America, & the World for Christ,

Dr. Jeremy P. Roberts, Pastor