Teaching
Central Things
Grab a blank sheet of paper, not lined or graphed… no cheaters, and make two short parallel lines a couple of inches apart. Now make a dot halfway between the lines; don’t measure it, eyeball it and make your best guess. Now use a ruler to see how you did. My guess is you will be within a sixteenth of an inch of the true center. Our eyes, it seems, are naturally drawn to the center of things.
For Calvary Chapel churches the center of faith is the Bible. Now don’t fly off the handle; yes Jesus Christ crucified and risen is their Lord and Savior and they worship God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They gather to worship and pray and serve but at their core they are a learning community.
Chuck Smith founded Calvary Chapel back in the 1960’s. He left the Four Square church because he saw it as too experiential and not focused enough on the word of God. He avoided all other denominations for the same reason; they’re focus seemed to be on a system and not on the scriptures. His preaching style reflected this as he gave expositional rather than topical sermons and taught sequentially through the Bible rather than picking out bits here and there.
This thorough and in depth preaching style that takes into account the meaning of the original language and historical context is a self identifying feature of all Calvary Chapel pastors and churches. There seems to be a sort of pride in how thorough these sermons are as the guest preacher yesterday described taking nearly half a year to preach through 1 Corinthians at his home church and weeks to just get through the last chapter of Colossians.
The service was not all talk. It opened with song and prayer meant to prepare the congregation to receive God’s word. Some of Calvary Chapel’s roots are found in the 1960-70’s hippie Jesus Movement with it’s legacy of contemporary worship music and informal worship service. Most Protestant churches have adopted these practices to some extent.
After all this talk about how sermons are in-depth teaching opportunities yesterday’s sermon was topical and not expository. This was by necessity because the preacher was a guest giving a single sermon and so did not have the leisure to take months to expound on one book of the Bible. His topic was on a believer’s need to “Live Relationally” within the church. His main text came from the last chapter of Colossians where Paul lists several people with whom he has a vital spiritual relationship.
I appreciate the pastor’s emphasis on how church is our spiritual family. It is not a business relationship where we choose who we deal with based on what they can do for us. A church is a family and you don’t pick your family based on self serving reasons. My favorite line in the sermon, which I can’t wait to use, came as he listed all the ways people at church can be less than perfect and downright irritating; he said:
Welcome to the family!
Calvary Chapel believes it has struck the right balance in theology by staying centered on the Bible as a teaching church but my eye saw something else yesterday. This is something I have only half noticed over the last several weeks. The physical look of a church shouldn’t matter since there are innumerable architectural styles and locations vary from living rooms to school gyms. But once inside a worship space the eye picks out the center without even trying.
The center of the churches I have been attending of late has been the pulpit.
The center has not been the cross or the altar; one or both of which have been absent from most of the churches. There is no prominent visual reminder of sacrifice in these places.
What is the center, the identity, the definition of Christianity?
Is it the sacrifice or the sermon?
The sermon points us to and explains God’s word and TELLS us all about His love. The sacrifice SHOWS us God’s love. We need to see reminders that God defined love for us by showing us how to put others before ourselves. That God did this for his rebellious children shows us what it means to be family. By all means churches, preach to me and teach me but don’t forget to SHOW me who God is and why He matters and should be the center of my life.
What draws your eye when you walk into church? What does that say about God?
The Sect Tourist 