Who cares? Greg Boyd, professor for 16 years at Bethel University and now Senior Pastor at Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul writes at Random Reflections on March 22nd, 2008.-
Well, I barely made it out of the hospital in time for the service. And when I got there, I was a wee bit buzzed from the Valium, combined with some Vicodin they’d given me earlier for pain. I drank a quadruple espresso on the way to church to “sober up.” At the same time, I was putting the finishing touches on my sermon (which I had hardly gotten to since I’d been hospitalized for a couple of days).
Bottom line: The service went great! I certainly enjoyed it — though I don’t know how much of this was due to the Valium and Vicodin and how much it was the result of the Holy Spirit. Who cares? And somehow I managed to give a semi-coherent message that seemed to impact people.
Granted it’s not an easy task to preach while still medicated, but reread this last paragraph Greg wrote. Does he really believe this? When someone speaks (I Peter 4:10-12) is he not speaking the very words of God? Surely God cares – a great deal! How sad if this represents the pulse of one of America’s megachurches?
Surely God’s people care – One of the saddest comments I have received over the past year is “Thanks for preaching the word.” That may not seem a sad comment until I asked further questions and discovered that the Bible is no longer being preached – in some of our “solid” evangelical Baptist churches. Is this the “new wave” of church leadership? Is this progress? Those of us who are entrusted with the sacred task of preaching must heed again the instruction given to one of the first century preachers – PREACH THE WORD!
