The Reluctant Listener

A friend of mine recently told me about an article that Mark Driscoll wrote for 9Marks. At first my reaction was "Oh, no.", but after reading the article, I may have a different opinion. In this article, Mr. Driscoll talks about the pros and cons of narrative preaching. He makes some really good points about modern preachers, their sermons and the lack of the mention of Jesus and connecting Him to the sermon.

Let me submit this to you, preacher: your sermons are supposed to be about Jesus. When you preach about victory, do you preach about Jesus’ victory or the
congregation’s? One of our Acts 29 church planters recently visited a very large
church and sat through the sermon. He wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. But in a 25-minute sermon, the preacher never once said the name of Jesus, and never once gave anything that was close to the gospel. And at the end, the preacher said, "If you would like to go to heaven and have a better life, come forward now." He didn’t tell them about sin, Jesus, the cross, and the resurrection. He just asked them to come forward and then told them that they are all Christians. That is not biblical preaching.

Have you found a way to connect every sermon to Jesus? Are you presenting him as Savior? Biblical preaching is teaching people that Jesus is the hero, and that they don’t have to be.

Now, I'm still a little leary of Mark Driscoll, but articles like this have me listening.