Not so long ago my wife and I and our three teenage children attended the evening worship service of a church in a neighboring community. We were disappointed as we walked into the church building to notice that there were scarcely fifty worshipers seated in an auditorium built to accommodate several hundred. I became uneasy when the minister stepped down from the pulpit to station himself amid the pews so that, as he said, he, and hopefully the congregation also, might be “more comfortable.”
After the service we left the church and made our way across the parking lot to our car. As we did so one of my children asked, “Dad, what did you think of the message tonight?” Before I had an opportunity to answer the question another of my children responded by asking, ‘“What message?” Those questions following a Sunday evening worship service have troubled me. The questions were legitimate because there had been no authoritative preaching of the Word that evening. The Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ had not been proclaimed. The call to repentance and faith was missing. Indeed what message had we heard in church that evening?
As we drove home we talked about the evening’s experience. We discussed what should be found in every sermon. I haven’t been able to dismiss the conversation of that evening. As I reflect upon it I recall an experience related to me by a friend whom I respect highly. A member of a neighboring church had come to see my colleague in the ministry. The visitor was greatly disturbed. He was concerned because his pastor was not preaching the full counsel of God. He was burdened because his children were not hearing the Word of God proclaimed. He was wondering what he should do. My friend said to his caller, “You can’t leave the church just because of the minister. After all the minister won’t always be there.” The troubled father replied, “But neither will I always have my teenagers with me.” That statement has weighed heavily upon me in recent weeks, especially as I have experienced regret at having taken my family to a service where they did not hear the Word proclaimed, although, let me hasten to say, the church which we attended was of Reformed persuasion, so that we had the right to expect that we would hear a biblical message.
The experience has reminded me forcefully of two things. First, the great responsibility which is mine as a minister ofthe Word to be faithful in the proclamation of that Word. Secondly, 1 was reminded afresh of the duty which is mine as a father and the spiritual head of my home to make sure that wherever we worship the Word is proclaimed so that when we leave the service the question won’t be “What message?” but rather “How shall we respond to what God has spoken to us?”
Arthur Besreman, Zeeland, MI