Proclaimer Blog
Sorry seems to be the hardest word
There are times when preachers need to say sorry.
- Sometimes, that's because they've simply got things wrong. We work hard at texts, doing our best to rightly divide the word of truth. But there is not infallability; we don't (thank goodness) speak ex cathedra. And when we get things wrong, we need to say that we have.
- Sometimes, that's because we say things the wrong way. This is easily done. We use a certain turn of phrase or expression that offends or upsets or simply doesn't convey what we're trying to convey.
- Sometimes, that's because things are taken the wrong way. We may have got things right, but we've not taken account of the weaker brother and we've sometimes preached as though Romans 14-15 didn't even exist. I'm not saying we should be so weak to give in on anything, but we can flog a hobby horse to death just to make a point, even when it doesn't have anything to do with the text.
In other words, there are times when it is right and meet to say sorry to a congregation. I'm not suggesting that this is a regular occurrence (at least, I hope not). But sometimes it's a necessary thing to do.
When those times come, how do you say sorry? I was thinking about this because of the story of Apple's being forced to apologise twice by a UK judge. The first time around (this was as a result of a court action with Samsung), they buried the apology so it could only be seen by scrolling down the page and they managed to turn the apology around into a defensive statement which ended up saying how cool Apple was. If you read the apology you'll see it's no apology at all.
The point is this: even when we do mess up (which we will from time to time), there's a way of saying sorry to our congregations which is no sorry at all. And if our people don't, from time to time, see appopriate, timely humble confession from us – how can we expect them to do likewise?