How to Preach...

For those of you who are paying attention, I added a couple of blogs to my list of blogging friends on the sidebar.  One of them (secretariat) belongs to a friend of mine.  The other, Kingdom Musings, is my official "Pastor's Blog" for May Avenue Wesleyan Church in Oklahoma City.  I'll still be writing on here, but the Fool of God may turn into a more theological/deep thought blog.  Just a fair warning.  Now on to my topic for this post.

Ever since I was at Olivet studying to be a pastor, I've been a fan of series preaching - you know, picking a series of sermons that has a creative title and that will appeal to the congregation.  You theme them around Advent and Easter and other church weeks, or you do a "family" sermon series and and a "back to school" series, etc.  There are benefits to this style of preaching - pastors can tailor a preaching schedule that meets the understood needs of the congregation.  Since I was a student, I have believed that this is an acceptable way to preach, perhaps even the favored way.

The other alternative I learned about was centered around what is called the lectionary - a group of four readings - Old Testament, Psalm, Gospel, Epistle - that is chosen for each Sunday by the church.  There are two generally accepted lectionaries - Catholic and Anglican.  All Catholic priest select their sermon text from one of the week's lectionary readings, so the text is pretty constant all throughout the world.  Further, the lectionary is set up on a three year cycle and designed so that, each three years, the priest or pastor will have preached on all the significant doctrines or passages of Scripture.

I always thought that preaching the lectionary was dangerous - what is a pastor to do when the passages from the lectionary are "irrelevant" to her people?  People will be bored and will quit coming because the preaching "doesn't apply" to them.  Because of that concern, I have always planned on being a series preacher when I pastor.

That is, until I got to praying and thinking and reading about preaching in series.  When a pastor preaches only in series, she risks avoiding - whether intentionally or unintentionally - avoiding the hard texts and the hard topics in favor of staying relevant or keeping the congregation happy.  At least with the lectionary, the pastor cannot avoid certain passages of Scripture or certain doctrinal issues.

All that to say that I am officially in a quandary.  I can't decide what God wants me to do as pastor of May Avenue Wesleyan Church.  I have a responsibility as pastor to preach the whole of Scripture and to do so in a way that the people will understand and will come to believe and follow its teachings.  Can I do that as a series preacher?  Can I do it by preaching the lectionary?This may be the most critical decision I have to make, and I have no idea...

In the end, I guess it won't matter too much, as long as I continually take the time to place myself before God's throne and humbly ask Him what I need to be preaching.  Unfortunately, that doesn't make the decision for me.