Preaching without pulling punches is pivotal to bolster the health of a church, according to Harold Fanning, pastor of Shoal Creek Baptist Church, Decatur.
Speaking to the theme “Healthy Leaders, Healthy Churches,” he said the cure for unhealthy churches is to preach Christ crucified and raised from the dead, without compromise.
“It’s something we all strive for but many of us don’t know what it is,” he said, referring to what makes a healthy church. “The Word means the Word.
“Listen people, it does not mean a deified soapbox where the preacher can be persuasive on some issue. Preaching the Word of God is not an amateur psychology class.
“It is not a lecture of five ways to climb the corporate ladder or three ways to raise kids, and it’s not a seminary class on Greek and Hebrew so we can prove how academically astute we are.
“And I believe that it’s time that the pulpits of America stop avoiding talking about certain theology because we are afraid we are going to offend somebody in our congregation,” he said. A healthy ministry is the preaching of the Word so that there’s the exaltation of the powerful Savior who is the only answer to the sin problem in this world.”
Fanning said healthy churches are much more than baptisms, budgets and buildings and healthy leaders are more than admiration, academics and attitude.
Too often Baptists fall into the trap of going from one conference to another to find the quick fix that will make their churches healthy again.
Stepping from behind the pulpit he emphatically declared that emotion in worship should result from closeness with God.
Emotion should draw attention to God and not be something that we work up to to draw attention to ourselves.
Nowhere in Scripture does the Holy Spirit draw attention to Himself — every time He points people to the Lord Jesus Christ, he said.
“True worship is not an exhibition, but an examination,” Fanning said. “True worship is all about You, Jesus, it’s all about You.”
“True worship is not emotion, it’s an expression,” he said. “True worship must be motivated by love and must lead to obedient actions that glorify God,” he said.
“Worship is not measured by how high you jump or how fast you run. And unfortunately many churches today are nothing more than deified pep rallies with a lot of whooping and hollering, and I hope you understand that real worship is measured by how we manifest ourselves in the world,” he said.
“If you want a healthy church preacher, you set that pulpit on fire and people will come and watch you burn, but there will always be that bucket brigade that will try to put you out. Let ’em come, because, praise God, we have an awesome and holy God who will pick us up. God can ignite wet wood.
“We need to get back to a healthy, personal participation in worship of the almighty and holy God,” he said. “You want to help your church? It’s all about You, Jesus, all about You.”
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