I have spent this week listening to some good old fashioned
preaching. This combined with two old fashioned Gospel Quartets was
inspirational and refreshing. It is good sometimes to hear the preaching and
singing I grew up with. After all, this is what led me to my belief and
salvation. Yes, you are waiting for the “but”, and of course I would not be
writing this if there were not one.
The first evening message was on our being a “help” to the
church. A very good image was presented that I would love to share but want to
use it some other time. I will share that it presented two different ways
people tend to be in the church and how we can be used in our church. The
second night was about our song and that we as “Christians” are able to sing
with Jesus as He did at the end of the Passover meal with His disciples before
heading off to the Mount of Olives. An interesting statement was said that we
Christians don’t sing because we can, but because we have a song inside of us.
There are times when our song is silenced due to circumstances but we never
lose our song. The important thing is that we are able to have our song
renewed. The third evening was our knowing that we know that we know we are
God’s. He has us and keeps us and we will always be His once we have accepted
Him. Through whatever times we are going through He has a plan for us and the
promises He has made to us are better than anything we can ever come up with
ourselves. Finally the fourth service was on life with or without the Lord.
There is devastation due to the Spirit of the Lord leaving us. Discovery when
we realize that He is not with us and we have to go back to where we left Him.
Then delight when we remember and worship Him for who He is. All the more we
need to remember that Satan will step up when we start to serve and worship the
Lord so we need to step up to a higher level in our service.
Now that I have shared the highlights of the messages there
was one thing that jumped out at me from this old fashioned preaching. Why do
these preachers downplay or preach against the new forms of technology? Yes, I understand that there can be a negative to many things, but it
does not make it all bad. One of the preachers brought up “Facebook” with a
negative connotation and it brought out a chorus of “amen”. I had to sit there
and just shake my head. Yes, at times people put way too much on “Facebook” and
it is used in ways that are very negative and destructive. I have many
“friends” on my list that use it in such positive ways that it is and can be
refreshing. Some of my “friends” are pastors, missionaries, wives of both,
workers in churches, counselors, or they are just like me, saved servants of a
risen Savior, who want to share some of the things we have learned in our
lifetime. I am sure that back in the 1950’s when television was starting to hit
its stride it was preached against, and it actually still is. I heard the other
day that a preacher said "you're basically going to hell if you listen to
contemporary Christian music". Does that mean only those from a different
era are able to write and preform music? I guess these old fashioned preachers
are the only ones that can preach the Word of God.
There comes a time when it is necessary to embrace the new
media that is before us and show how it can be used in ways that are uplifting.
After all there is live streaming of services to those that are unable to
attend a service for some reason or another. My current church posts links to
the message on “heaven forbid” Facebook. I look at how many times I have been
unable to attend a Sunday service and listen to the sermons there. I attend a
Journey Group that uses messages from a church web site for our lesson. We use
songs that are posted on YouTube.
My posting this is not to speak badly of “old fashioned
preachers” because as you can see they have much to share, but what I want to
say is that we have so much before us that can be used to further God that we
should embrace what He has allowed to be created. All things can and have been
used negatively but at the same time we have an opportunity to use them in the
correct way. The use by this pastor negatively concerning Facebook caused me to
forget the points he was trying to get across. I actually had to call a friend
and ask what he preached about. Let’s get with the program as we are all in
this together with the same goal. That is to further the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. Old fashioned singing and preaching combined with contemporary songs
and messages are there to bring us all to a saving knowledge of Christ. Using
the many different forms of communication in the proper way will help us to
spread the message to a larger audience as long as we do things in the correct
manner.
