The preacher

I'm going to share something that might be a "just me" issue. When I attend a church, I listen to the man delivering sermons every week as if he were delivering a message from God to me. I have attended church my entire adult life, and I haven't always respected the person in the pulpit. However, each Sunday, I assume that the Bible is being opened, and God can speak to me (and the believers gathered together) through this man.

That's a lot of weight to put on one guy.

And get this...because I listen so carefully to this man, somehow I start to think I need to explain myself to him. If I'm not on board with whatever his action point is, I have this discussion with him in my head, so he knows why I am where I am. Sometimes I'm really enthusiastic about the sermon, and I tell him that in my head as well.

Rarely do I have a friendship with the preacher. And yet he speaks these God-words every week, which I feel compelled to respond to. Some kind of weird intimacy builds up between me and a virtual stranger.

I suppose this is the celebrity phenomenon. Young girls scream how they "love" so and so, the big name singer. Or we "love" our favorite actor. In the first century AD, there might have a been a small, swooning group who just "loved" Peter. He's so dreamy. And righteous. Squeee!!

I often wonder if my "church" experience is anything like the hallowed "early church." Paul, Apollos, Barnabus, those guys traveled around, teaching and correcting. But when they weren't at your little house meeting, the group just shared, right? Maybe read one of the letters written by the Big Guys, and then talked about what they were going through.

If I feel accountable to the preacher, because he's talking to me about my life, but I don't have a relationship with him, something artificial builds up. The anecdote? Talk to real people. The best churches that I have been a part of have had community that talks about spiritual things.

"Hey, the pastor said something hard this morning."

"I really like when he said..."

"I didn't understand what he meant..."

Real people, face to face, talking about the Word and life. Something in me wants to venerate the preacher, and so all the time, I have to pull back and seek real people, who will walk and talk with me about truth.