Sermon Illustrations on the church

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Background

Christians & The Church

Whether we like it or not, the moment we confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, that is, from the time we become a Christian, we are at the same time a member of the Christian church … Our membership in the church is a corollary of our faith in Christ. We can no more be a Christian and have nothing to do with the church than we can be a person and not be in a family.

Membership in the church is a basic spiritual fact for those who confess Christ as Lord. It is not an option for those Christians who happen by nature to be more gregarious than others. It is part of the fabric of redemption. There are Christians, of course, who never put their names down on a membership list; there are Christians who refuse to respond to the call to worship each Sunday; there are Christians who say, “I love God but I hate the church.”

But they are members all the same, whether they like it or not, whether they acknowledge it or not. For God never makes private, secret salvation deals with people. His relationships with us are personal, true; intimate, yes; but private, no. We are a family in Christ. When we become Christians, we are among brothers and sisters in faith. No Christian is an only child.

Taken from A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society by Eugene Peterson Copyright (c) 1980, 2000 by Eugene Peterson. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com

The Church Does Exist Not Outside of Me

And here’s a further complication: the church is not an entity outside of me. I do not stand on the outside looking in. I am as much part of the church as (in the words of Paul) a hand is a part of a body. That means that when I see sin in the church, I am implicated in it. I contribute to the brokenness of the church.

I have dealt wounds to others; I have been unfaithful to the bridegroom. Every church leader and church member is, in no insignificant way, a failure. But here too we see God’s power because, in this body of Christ, we find a place where we can be gloriously and devastatingly human. We find a place where we can fail and repent and grow and receive grace and be made new. Like a family—but even closer than a family—we can learn to live together, weak and human, in the goodness and transformation of God.

Taken from Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life by Tish Harrison Warren. Copyright (c) 2016 by Tish Harrison Warren, p.123. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com

Collective Narcissism in Churches

In His book When Narcissism Comes to Church, Chuck DeGroat shares about a unique phenomenon that occurs in organizations: Collective Narcissism:

Churches are particularly susceptible to a phenomenon called “collective narcissism,” in which the charismatic leader/follower relationship is understood as a given. Sadly, in recent years we’ve witnessed too many instances of charismatic Christian leaders gaining a massive following, both within the church and on social media, only to be exposed as manipulative, abusive, and dictatorial. Jerrold Post argues that a mutually reinforcing relationship exists between leader and follower.

The leader relies on the adoration and respect of his followers; the follower is attracted to the omnipotence and charisma of the leader. The leader uses polarizing rhetoric that identifies an outside enemy, bringing together leader and followers on a grandiose mission. The followers feed off the leaders certainty in order to fill their own empty senses of self. Interestingly, in this mutually reinforcing relationship, both are prone to a form of narcissism.

Consumer Church

We live in a culture today where we are used to evaluating and giving our opinion on everything. Whether it’s the pizza we ate, our Uber driver, the movie we saw, or our friend’s picture on social media, everything is set up for us to be able to critique and compare.

So in the Church, rather than marveling at the incredible mystery that we are a part of God’s body, we critique the leadership, the music, the programs, and anything else we can think of. We point out the flaws in our pastor’s sermon with the same conviction we critique a movie star’s acting or our favorite team’s recent loss.

Taken from Francis Chan, Letters to the Church, David C. Cook.

Defining Ekklesia

The Greek term ekklesia, translated church over one hundred times in your English New Testament, is translated differently in this passage. Let’s see if you can find it:

So then, some were shouting one thing and some another, for the assembly was in confusion and the majority did not know for what reason they had come together.

Spot it? Here’s how the passage would read if ekklesia had been translated church.

As you probably guessed, ekklesia is translated assembly in the passage above. Why? That’s what the term means. Ekklesia was not, is not, a religious term. It does not mean church or house of the Lord. It certainly shouldn’t be associated with a temple. The term was used widely to describe a gathering or assembly, civic gatherings, or an assembly of soldiers. An ekklesia was a gathering of people for a specific purpose. Any specific purpose..

Andy Stanley Irresistible: Reclaiming the New that Jesus Unleashed for the World, Zondervan.

Fitting In

Today, the church in America seems to have traded in its mandate to be eccentric and aimed instead at an unconscious conventionality. Rural norms are too quaint, urban norms too dangerous, so the church finds a happy medium in a suburban spirituality.

It’s impolite to think of ourselves as rich and demoralizing to think of ourselves as poor, so we find a happy medium in the middle class. We are happy. We are medium. We fit in. And very often we baptize that conventionality by suggesting that God is primarily concerned with order, and with us living peaceably with our neighbors. I’m certainly not suggesting we shouldn’t be peaceable, but neither should we be indistinguishable from our fine, upstanding non-Christian neighbors.

Michael Frost, Keep Christianity Weird: Embracing the Discipline of Being Different, NavPress.

Just as I Ain’t

I grew up attending churches designed for church people. No one said it, but the assumption was that church was for church people. The unspoken message to the outside world was, “Once you start believing and behaving like us, you are welcome to join us.” The corollary of being a church for churched people was that we had a tendency to be against everything unchurched people were for. We were against just about everything at one time or another.

We were against certain genres of music, alcohol, the lottery, the equal rights amendment, gay people, and Democrats. Seemed like we were always looking for something or someone to boycott. As strange as all that sounds now, it didn’t seem strange at all back then. Funny how time does that. But our dilemma then is a dilemma the church has struggled with throughout its history. Who is the church for? Who gets to be part of the Jesus gathering?

Andy Stanley, Deep and Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend, Zondervan.

Stories

Are Churches Like Zoos?

A decade ago I spent an unforgettable week in the Galapagos Islands. This archipelago of islands off the coast of Ecuador hasn’t changed much since Charles Darwin sailed there on the HMS Beagle in December 1831 and studied fifteen species of finches. The Galapagos may be the closest thing to the Garden of Eden left on Earth!

My son and I saw a two-hundred-year-old turtle weighing in at nearly a thousand pounds. We came face-to-face with giant iguanas that weren’t the least bit intimidated by humankind. We watched pelicans that looked like prehistoric pterodactyls dive into the ocean and come back up with breakfast in their oversized beaks. And we went swimming with sea lions, which we later learned isn’t altogether safe!

A few weeks after returning home, our family went to the National Zoo in Washington, DC. The National Zoo is a great zoo, but zoos are ruined for me. Looking at caged animals isn’t nearly as exhilarating as witnessing a wild animal in its natural habitat—it’s too safe, it’s too tame, and it’s too predictable.

As we walked through the ape house, the four-hundredpound gorillas looked so bored, so emasculated, behind protecrive plexiglass. That’s when a thought fired across my synapses: I wonder if churches do to people what zoos do to animals.

I don’t think it’s intentional. In fact, it’s well-intentioned. But I wonder if our attempts to help people sometimes hurt them. We try to remove the danger, remove the risk. We attempt to tame people in the name of Christ, forgetting that Jesus didn’t die to keep us safe. Jesus died to make us dangerous.

I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

That doesn’t sound safe, does it? That’s because it’s not. The will of God isn’t an insurance plan. The will of God is a dangerous plan. It takes tons of testosterone, and it produces high levels of holy adrenaline.

Mark Batterson, Play the Man: Becoming the Man God Created You to Be, Baker Books, 2017.

The B.C.

This story deals with a rather old-fashioned lady, who was planning a couple of weeks vacation in Florida. She also was quite delicate and elegant with her language. She wrote a letter to a particular campground and asked for reservations. She wanted to make sure the campground was fully equipped but didn’t know quite how to ask about the “toilet” facilities.

She just couldn’t bring herself to write the word “toilet” in her letter. After much deliberation, she finally came up with the old-fashioned term “Bathroom Commode,” but when she wrote that down, she still thought she was being too forward. So she started all over again; rewrote the entire letter and referred to the “Bathroom Commode” simply as the “B.C.” Does the campground have its own “B.C.?” is what she actually wrote.

Well, the campground owner wasn’t old fashioned at all, and when he got the letter, he couldn’t figure out what the lady was talking about. That “B.C.” really stumped him. After worrying about it for several days, he showed the letter to other campers, but they couldn’t figure out what the lady meant either. The campground owner finally came to the conclusion that the lady was and must be asking about the location of the local Baptist Church.

So he sat down and wrote the following reply: “Dear Madam: I regret very much the delay in answering your letter, but I now take pleasure of informing in that the “B.C.” is located nine miles north of the camp site and is capable of seating 250 people at one time. I admit it is quite a distance away if you are in the habit of going regularly, but no doubt you will be pleased to know that a great number of people take their lunches along, and make a day of it…

They usually arrive early and stay late. The last time my wife and I went was six years ago, and it was so crowded we had to stand up the whole time we were there. It may interest you to know that right now, there is a supper planned to raise money to buy more seats…

They plan to hold the supper in the middle of the B.C., so everyone can watch and talk about this great event…..I would like to say it pains me very much, not to be able to go more regularly, but it is surely not for lack of desire on my part….As we grow older, it seems to be more and more of an effort, particularly in cold weather….. If you decide to come down to the campground, perhaps I could go with you the first time you go … sit with you … and introduce you to all the other folks. … This is really a very friendly community.

Submitted by Chris Stroup, Source Unknown

Dunkirk: A Ragtag Armada

In his book, The Word and Power Church, Doug Banister writes:

The spring of 1940 found Hitler’s panzer divisions mopping up French troops and preparing for a siege of Great Britain. The Dutch had already surrendered, as had the Belgians. The British army foundered on the coast of France in the channel port of Dunkirk. Nearly a quarter million young British soldiers and over 100,000 allied troops faced capture or death.

The Furhrer’s troops, only a few miles away in the hills of France, closed in on an easy kill. The Royal Navy had enough ships to save barely 17,000 men, and the House of Commons was told to brace itself for “hard and heavy tidings.”

Then while a despairing world watched with fading hope, a bizarre fleet of ships appeared on the horizon of the English Channel. Trawlers, tugs, fishing sloops, lifeboats, sailboats, pleasure craft, an island ferry named Gracie Fields, and even the America’s Cup challenger Endeavor, all manned by civilian sailors, sped to the rescue. The ragtag armada eventually rescued 338,682 men and returned them home to the shores of England, as pilots of the Royal Air Force jockeyed with the German Luftwaffe in the skies above the channel. It was one of the most remarkable naval operations in history.

The church, likewise, is God’s ragtag armada. The church is a mix of flawed individuals on a rescue operation commissioned by God.

Submitted by Chris Stroup, Doug Banister, The Word and Power Church, pp. 33–34.

“I’m in the Secret Service”

Jim was leaving church after Christmas services when the pastor greeted him and said, “Jim, it’s time you joined the Army of the Lord. We need to see you every Sunday.”

“I’m already in the Army of the Lord, Pastor,” Jim replied.

“Then why do we only see you on Christmas and Easter?”

Jim looked to the right and to the left, and then leaned over to whisper, “I’m in the Secret Service.”

Source Unknown

Not Going to Church

As was the normal routine on a Sunday morning, a wife got ready for church. She got up, had breakfast, showered, got dressed, put on makeup and was ready to go. It was just as she was ready to leave that she noticed her husband was still in his robe and pajamas. She asks him what’s going on, “I’m not going to church” he says. “What do you mean, you’re not going to church?” Give me one good reason why you’re not going to church?“

The husband responds, “I’ll give you three good reasons why I’m not going to church. Reason number one, the church feels cold. Reason number two, no one likes me. And reason number three, I just don’t like it there. Is that good enough?” he concluded quite proudly.

“Well, what if I give you three reasons why you should go to church.” the wife answered. “Reason number one, the church is actually quite warm and friendly. Reason number two, there’s a few people there who like you. And reason number three, you’re the pastor sweetheart, so you better get dressed and get to church.”

Original Source Unknown, Stuart Strachan Jr.

The Motivation to Attend Church

Francois Fenelon was the court preacher for King Louis XIV of France in the 17th century. One Sunday when the king and his attendants arrived at the chapel for the regular service, no one else was there but the preacher.

King Louis demanded, “What does this mean?”

Fenelon replied, “I had published that you would not come to church today, in order that your Majesty might see who serves God in truth and who flatters the king.”

Submitted by Chris Stroup, Source Unknown

Analogies

Are Churches Like Zoos?

I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

Mark Batterson, Play the Man: Becoming the Man God Created You to Be, Baker Books, 2017.

Consumer Church

Taken from Francis Chan, Letters to the Church, David C. Cook.

Different Times Everywhere

William F. Allen, who in 1883 “pulled off a miracle.” What he did was to get not just an entire coast to pull in sync, but an entire nation. In [New Jersey Governor Tom] Kean’s words,

Until high noon on October 18, 1883, every rail line ran on its own time. Every train station set its own clocks by the sun. So when it was noon in New York, it was 11:58 in Trenton and 11:56 in Camden, and so on. Pure chaos. Allen was chosen to sort out this mess, and after eight years he convinced the nation co adopt the time zones that we have today.

The task the church faces is a lot like Allen’s, except we are trying to get people to adopt the time zone of eternity. As my mother, Mabel Boggs Sweet, used to put it, “God’s clock keeps perfect time.”

Leonard Sweet, The Bad Habits of Jesus: Showing us the Way to Live Right In a World Gone Wrong, Tyndale House Publishers.

Dunkirk: A Ragtag Armada

In his book, The Word and Power Church, Doug Banister writes:

The church, likewise, is God’s ragtag armada. The church is a mix of flawed individuals on a rescue operation commissioned by God.

Submitted by Chris Stroup, Doug Banister, The Word and Power Church, pp. 33–34.

Humor

Bat Infestation

Three pastors got together for coffee one day and found all their churches had bat-infestation problems.

“I got so mad,” said one, “I took a shotgun and fired at them. It made holes in the ceiling, but did nothing to the bats.”

“I tried trapping them alive,” said the second. “Then I drove 50 miles before releasing them, but they beat me back to the church.”

“I haven’t had any more problems,” said the third.

“What did you do?” asked the others, amazed.

“I simply baptized and confirmed them,” he replied. “I haven’t seen them since.”

Reader’s Digest, July, 1994, p. 64.

The B.C.

She just couldn’t bring herself to write the word “toilet” in her letter. After much deliberation, she finally came up with the old-fashioned term “Bathroom Commode,” but when she wrote that down, she still thought she was being too forward. So she started all over again; rewrote the entire letter and referred to the “Bathroom Commode” simply as the “B.C.”. Does the campground have its own “B.C.?” is what she actually wrote.

Submitted by Chris Stroup, Source Unknown

The Church Split Over… What, Precisely?

Presbyterian minister Michael Lindvall begins his fictional story about a pastor in the Midwest in The Good News from North Haven like this:

I am the pastor of Second Presbyterian Church. There is no first Presbyterian Church in town and there hasn’t been for years. More than a century ago, the newly founded First – and then only – Presbyterian Church enjoyed a fine church fight. Folks still tell the story of the Sunday in June when half the congregation walked out during the sermon and founded Second Presbyterian.

All memories agree as to what the fight was about: whether young women ought to lead discussions at Christian Endeavor meetings or keep a low profile and ask questions when they got home, as St. Paul seems to have counseled. What memories do not agree on is who was on what side. Some people now say that the Second Presbyterian group that left was in favor of women speaking at meetings, some say they were against it. Whatever the truth, everyone agrees that Second Presbyterian Church was squarely established on the firm foundation of an important principle, even if no one is quite sure what that principle was.

First Church’s building burned to the ground a few years after the split, and most folks assumed that this was a sign…Most First Church folks switched over to Second Church after the fire. But a handful of stalwarts refused to yield on a matter of Presbyterian principle and became Methodists.

Michael L. Lindvall, The Good News from North Haven, pp. 2-3. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.

Don’t Let the Church Keep You from Being a Perfect Christian

In this satirical excerpt from How to be a Perfect Christian by the Babylon Bee, the point becomes clear that our often-consumeristic approach to church leaves much to be desired:

You want to be a perfect Christian, and that is a noble goal indeed. But first things first. It’s impossible to get to the maximum level of holiness if you’re currently attending a church that is focused on the wrong things, namely, on anything other than you.

Paul David Tripp once wrote that church is a place “where flawed people place their faith in Christ, gather to know and love him better, and learn to love others as he designed.” It’s a nice sentiment, but its also completely wrong. Flawed people? Excuse us, Paul, but we’re trying to become absolutely perfect here, not hang out with a bunch of messed-up folks. We don’t need that kind of negativity in our lives.

We know you may have feelings of loyalty or attachment to the humble, local expression of the body of Christ that you’ve been a part of for years. You need to rid yourself of these unholy emotions. It’s time to step back and objectively evaluate whether or not your church is properly equipped to encourage you on your sacred quest to become the ultimate manifestation of impeccable spirituality.

So open your eyes and start looking for the red flags that indicate your church isn’t a spiritually fulfilling congregation.

Some of the most common warning signs that your church isn’t conducive to your personal growth into a perfect Christian include a pastor who preaches sermons that make you feel uncomfortable, a worship experience that centers your attention more on God than on your own feelings, and a church staff who refuse to incorporate the advice from the thousands of helpful comment cards you’ve left over the years. These kinds of churches are dangerous. If you find yourself treading water in a similar spiritual wasteland, its time for your very first step toward spiritual awesomeness: church shopping.

Taken from The Babylon Bee, How to Be a Perfect Christian: Your Comprehensive Guide to Flawless Spiritual Living, Multnomah, 2018, pp.11-12.

“I’m in the Secret Service”

Jim was leaving church after Christmas services when the pastor greeted him and said, “Jim, it’s time you joined the Army of the Lord. We need to see you every Sunday.”

“I’m already in the Army of the Lord, Pastor,” Jim replied.

“Then why do we only see you on Christmas and Easter?”

Jim looked to the right and to the left, and then leaned over to whisper, “I’m in the Secret Service.”

Source Unknown