I was disappointed

I visited a new church this past Sunday. I was really blessed at some points, but as thought about it all, I was disappointed. You could say offended. I felt betrayed. I’ve been searching for the right word: troubled, disturbed ...

What in the world could’ve happened that would cause me such distress? The pastor is teaching through the book of Acts (I had checked out their website) and Sunday we were to look at 11:19-30. I was looking forward to it. He read the passage, then explained that we could look at several parts but, “We aren’t.” Finally, he announced we would focus on “And the hand of the Lord was with them” and off we went, exploring how we can all have the hand of the Lord with us.

What’s wrong with that? Why would this distress me? First, he promised a feast, only to give us a convenience store hot dog. Second, this portion is an important one in the progress of the gospel – the gospel jumps a big fence and Paul begins to rise to prominence - and he jumped over it like it was a mud puddle. Third, the passage itself contains plenty of nuggets (And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch or Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judaea), there was no need to go running off like that. After I got home and thought about this, I read Chrysostom’s homily on the same passage – I needed some edifying!

Now, this wasn’t merely a matter of disagreeing with his interpretation. I know that happens from time to time. Even though I can’t imagine why, I’m sure people occasionally disagreed with me! No, here was an important and rich passage and he passed on it!

This wasn’t the first time I’ve encountered this. When we were looking for a church a few years ago, I visited a church just around the corner from us. I looked at their web site and saw the pastor would be preaching from Romans 9-11 (it looked like he was preaching through Romans). These three chapters in one study? That’s a tall order, but I was intrigued. When the time for the sermon arrived, he said something like, “This is a difficult passage. I don’t think I can really contribute anything so...” and he took some fragment of a verse and spent the next 30-40 minutes telling us the importance of inviting people to church!!!

I know this kind of thing happens every Sunday in “liberal” churches. The disappointment and distress is because both these churches would say they believe and teach the Bible. In the most recent case he would say he did “preach the Word”, but he passed on his own announced text, and I’m not too sure about his handling of “and the hand of the Lord was with them” (but that's really a minor point). I hope and pray this sermon was an aberration, an anomaly; in other words, a departure from the norm.

As I was saying, I visited a church this past Sunday and was sore distressed.