Proclaimer Blog
Preaching happy triggers
I sometimes catch a snippet of the Radio 4 Sunday Morning service and yesterday was one of those kind of days. The service came from Brooks Bar New Testament Church of God in Manchester. I caught only the reading and a small part of the sermon (the reading was Luke 4.14-21 and the sermon on leadership). Notwithstanding the fact that the preacher seemed to have completely missed the point of the passage (the sermon went something like – we’re all leaders, we’re all saved to lead one another and the Spirit has anointed us for this task, for which the proof is Jesus’ words in the synagogue), it got me thinking about preaching happy triggers. Let me explain.
When the pastor extolled clearly (as he did) that Christians were those justified by faith in Christ Jesus and therefore eternally saved, there was barely a murmur from the congregation. But when he then went on to say that Jesus sends his Spirit to make us anointed leaders, there was a loud chorus of hallelujahs. Now, I wasn’t there, so I’m not standing in judgement – but it got me thinking in my own ministry of how easy it is to touch the happy trigger, simply to get a positive response.
I once sat through a sermon series just like this. The preacher felt he needed congregational response and when he didn’t get it he fired off a few well-worn phrases that he knew would stir people up. Job done. We might not have the same blatant approach – but if we know what the happy triggers are in our congregations, it can be tempting to keep pulling them. Conversely, of course, we can avoid those things which cause disquiet. It’s very easy to preach a passage but to avoid something obvious if we know it is going to wind some people up.
The only antidote to all of this, of course, is faithful preaching of the text which, by the way, I commend to you.