I Have a Serious Problem With This:
Over at Ed Stetzer's blog, there is some interesting conversation taking place regarding an influential pastor from one of the mega-churches in America. Stetzer interviews Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Community Church in Atlanta, Ga. Here's one thing that was asked and the answer follows:"Question: What do you think about preaching verse-by-verse messages through books of the Bible?
Andy: Guys that preach verse-by-verse through books of the Bible-- that is just cheating. It's cheating because that would be easy, first of all. That isn't how you grow people. No one in the Scripture modeled that. There's not one example of that.
All Scripture is equally inspired, but not all Scripture is equally applicable or relevant to every stage of life. My challenge is to read culture and to read an audience and ask: What is the felt need? Or perhaps what is more important, what is an unfelt need they need to feel that I can address? Because if they don't feel it, then they won't address it.
So how can I make them feel an unfelt need and then make them feel like they need to do something about it? But when you do that, people are like, "Man, that is amazing. You're brilliant." No, all you have done is unearthed a need and you talked about it. "I have never heard anyone talk about that before." Probably, no one has ever made you feel that before. So they talked about it, but it didn't register because they didn't make you feel like you needed to hear about it to start with."
Frankly, I'm a little shocked. I have heard Stanley several times in person, in Atlanta, at Northpoint. I was always impressed, challenged, and thought he was on the right page. Sure, I wouldn't do things quite like he does them, but I didn't think he was saying/doing anything that was cause for question. Maybe I was a little "wet behind the ears" then . . . I don't know.
I marked out the specific places in which I am most concerned with Stanley's words.
posted by Bryan Laramore @ 10:31 PM
6 Addendums:
I don't know too much about Andy Stanley(other than the fact that he is a gifted communicator), but I do know that when you become a big-time pastor of a mega-church you face a lot of pressures to compromise, which it seems in this case, Stanley certainly did.
So maybe I am playing devil's advocate, but what is wrong with saying that all scripture is inspired but the relevance of a passage depends upon the situation. I mean, a family that just lost of child would not be comforted and encouraged by the pastoral qualifications in 1 Tim 3, right? I DO NOT think we should preach by felt needs, but it seems like many pastors preach the word and preach expositional and topical messages who would (at least in practice) agree with this point.
Anonymous, know upfront that I am not attempting to pick a bone with you in this response, rather I'm just trying to figure out what my "gut" is struggling with regarding Andy's comments . . .
Throughout this day, I have remained thouroughly bothered by Andy's comments, but mostly with the one about preaching Scripture verse-by-verse being "cheating." Anyhow, at the moment of writing my post, I was highlighting any and everything he said that did not sit well with me (even though I probably left at least one thing out).
But as I have processed it a bit more, part of me agrees wants to agree with your comment, but I'm still hung up specifically on the thought, "the relevance of a passage depends upon the situation." I don't think I'm comfortable with that type of hermeneutic. This interpretive approach seems to start with the "me" aspect, not with Scripture.
You'd probably agree that the authors of Scripture didn't have my "situation" in mind when they penned their writings.
The goal, both for preachers and hearers of God's Word, is to understand what the author, carried by the Holy Spirit, was intending to teach, explain, prove, etc. From this comes the neccessary relevance of a passage.
To summarize my thoughts, there isn't a problem in the world with, when a situation occurs, running to Scripture in order to seek out some type of counsel from the Lord. But "counsel" is not what Andy was talking about, right? It was preaching. Its all about the starting point. He seems to have as his starting point a felt need, or a need in which he feels his hearers should feel.
When a pastor prepares to preach "the whole counsel of God" to his flock, should his starting point be the felt needs of his audience, or Scripture itself? It seems to me that if one begins with Scripture, God will make relevancy obvious to the hearer where He sees fit, not neccessarily where the preacher sees fit.
I don't know, what do you think about that? I seem to be having trouble getting my thoughts out, I'll pray for my thoughts to become more concrete.
Here's an interpretation on Stanley's statement: Simply preaching through books verse-by-verse to bring understanding of thoses books is cheating.
If this is what he is trying to say, then there may be some merit to it. Preaching God's Word has to be more than simply applied hermaneutics to each passage; it has to be applied to the folks to hear it. I have heard folks who simply explain the Scriptures as a lecturer in a school (or seminary). Preaching should be approached differently.
I think a responsible approach is to start with Scripture in the study, then move to application. Then, when presenting, actually begin with the felt needs that the Scripture speaks to and closely weave together the explaination and application. At least that's what I attempt.
Douglas
". . . actually begin with the felt needs that the Scripture speaks to . . ."
The emphasis here in your comment, as my feeble mind understands it, is still putting Scripture ahead of the person (and his/her felt need), which is the point on which Andy is diverging, am I right or wrong on that?
I totally agree with you, Doug, that preaching cannot simply be a stale, fragmented lecture on all the cool things I can haphazardly pull out of Osborne's 'Hermeneutical Spiral,' then shove it on top of a scripture passage [you know, a lot of what happens 'down the street ;)].
I believe, based on Sunday, that you do exactly as you say: Begin with Scripture, address the need, apply the lesson, end with Scripture (to put it in my own words).
I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt in my interpreting his statement. I must concede, however, that I feel like I'm being a little generous in doing so.
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