It’s quite possible, as a missionary who has just returned from his first term in another country, that the old bugbear of ‘reverse culture shock’ has made me just a little bit tetchy. On the other hand, as I’ve travelled to our twelve or so supporting churches (of various denominations) who support us in our work, I may have seen something of what many of us are prioritising as we meet week by week.
Usually I’m the guest preacher, and Revelation 7 (with John’s vision of a “great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language”) has been my text. And so, as Bible readings before the sermon, I’ve asked for Revelation 7 along with a few short paragraphs from the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. Now, these are not long passages. And they are certainly not boring! Yet, without blushing, one service leader politely asked me if the short Old Testament readings could be done away with, and Revelation 7 itself—not a long chapter!—be chopped in half.
The next weekend at a different church, and slotting in with the church’s current series through an Old Testament book, I asked for a couple of extra paragraphs from that excellent Old Testament explainer, the book of Hebrews. Yet the comments made by the service leaders immediately before the Bible readings were revealing: “brace yourselves!”, “bear with us!”, and so on — as though something distinctly unpleasant was about to happen!
In his first letter to Timothy, Paul says: “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching” (1 Tim 4:13). While we like to say that the Bible is important, the thing that stands out to me as I visit a range of churches week by week, is that the Bible is in fact not that important to us. We are certainly a long, long way from being congregations which are devoted to the reading of Scripture.
What on earth are we doing? Let me make three suggestions as to where we may be going astray.
We Think the Bible Is Boring
Have we decided that reading and listening to the Bible being read is boring? If that is what you think, I dare you to say it out loud! You may be thinking like that because you’ve never heard the Bible read well, but rather regularly butchered by unprepared congregation members who simply got rostered on.
Here’s a suggestion: don’t give the job to just anyone. Give it to people who can read clearly and read well. Let them know the Bible readings a few days in advance, so that they can familiarise themselves with the passage, and then read it aloud with meaning. Because you know what happens when a passage is read by someone who has reflected on the passage and has a grasp of what it means? Meaning is conveyed to the hearers!
We Think We Meet With God Better in Some Other Way
We sink an enormous amount of energy into the music in our church services. In some churches, the band practices well in advance of the service (as it should); the sound desk people know what every knob on that space-shuttle-like control panel does; the best of equipment is supplied; the animated backdrops on the projector screen are amazing feats of graphical design. And you can’t help but notice the sheer number of songs in some church services: at least five, but often seven or more.
Do we think it is more important that God hears from us via heavily organised musical sessions, rather than we hear from God in the Bible? Do we suppose somehow that here, in our singing, is where we really meet with God?
We Are Too Time-Sensitive
Have we decided that time matters more than anything else? Many church leaders live in fear of “running overtime”. Therefore they manage everything down to the very last minute or else that most fearful thing could happen: the congregation might get bored!
I’m very conscious of sparing the congregation the torture of missionary gasbags up the front driving the service overtime by half an hour. As a former pastor, I have endured my own share of these types, so I understand the danger and try to be self-controlled as a visiting missionary.
But surely there our tendency to curating every last second runs the risk of squeezing out the important for the efficient? Which brings me to my conclusion:
Renewing Our Focus
I suspect that we are starting to lose sight of the purpose of our gatherings. After all, we are not running a church service to save time (if that were the case, why have them at all?). No, what we are trying to do is build people up in their faith (Heb 10:24–25). This is all the harder to achieve, though, if everything we do is dragged through the same time-obsessed grid. Certainly, it’s hard to be “devoted to the public reading of Scripture” in under 2 minutes!
We need to renew our focus on the public reading of the Bible. After all, when we hear the Bible read, God is speaking (2 Tim 3:16). If that is true, and the “thorough equipping” for Christian service (2 Tim 3:17) is our aim, then why don’t we renew our devotion to Scripture being read well in our churches, and let the minutes fall where they may?
