PREACHING AND PASTORAL CARE (2023)

As Jesus went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.” But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?” And he said to them, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.” When they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men. (Mark 6:34-44)

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

  • What is preaching?

Selah.

  • What is pastoral care?

Selah.

  • What is the relationship, if any, between preaching and pastoral care?

Selah.

  • Does anybody (except preachers) believe in preaching anymore?

Selah.

  • One might even ask, does anybody (except church) believe in church anymore?

Selah.

  • Are church and preaching pointless in our postmodern world?

Selah.

INTRODUCTION

In seeking to provide some kind of discussion around the above questions, I will consider what preaching is and what it is not, what pastoral care is and what it is not, and then I will look at the relationship, if any, between preaching and pastoral care. There is a lot of available material for this discussion, and without necessarily arriving at any firm answers!

The decline of church and the lack of effectiveness in preaching had come to the attention of Rob Warner, who noted that, as communication to the inhabitants of the television age, some of our Sunday services are absolutely pointless. Indeed, he put it somewhat stronger than that: “We are boring people to hell.” He further declared that “The modern world will not be reached effectively by traditional forms of church.”

Preaching is frequently seen as being boring and out-of-date, and Stott believed that “Whatever is dull, drab, dowdy, slow or monotonous cannot compete in the television age.” Let us then examine something of what preaching is and what it is not, and whether it has any relevance in the television age.

I WENT TO CHURCH TODAY – I NEEDED THE SLEEP

For some people, the sermon is that part of a church service where they get some sleep! Thou shalt not snore! So why is it that preaching is, or is regarded as being, boring? “Is preaching merely an out-of-date form of entertainment?” as Lloyd-Jones has asked. If so, it is a form of entertainment that is largely unpopular in the face of television and film. “However,” said Gibbs, “In whatever form it takes, entertainment is no substitute for participation.”

According to Stott, “Television challenges preachers to make our presentation of the truth attractive through variety, colour, illustration, humour, and fast-flowing movement.” Is that what those who attend church in these days experience in the sermon? Or is it that most people have no meaningful church connection and are therefore virtually unchurched people? According to Warner, “If we are serious about taking the good news of Christ to today’s world, we must face squarely the vast chasm of disconnectedness between the church and an unchurched society.”

Thus, the preacher is not in the pulpit merely to talk to the people, they are not there to entertain them; they are there to produce results of various kinds, they are there to influence people. They are there to deal with the whole person; and Lloyd-Jones maintained that “his [sic] preaching is meant to affect the whole person at the very centre of life.” They are there to make a difference, and preaching should make such a difference to a person who is truly listening that they would never the same again.

“Preaching is a transaction between the preacher and the listener,” said Lloyd-Jones. The transaction that takes place through preaching motivates Christians to grow, at least according to Prime, it prepares God’s people for works of service, and it encourages people to learn. But, as Gibbs has rightly pointed out, people learn best by being involved, not by a mere passive observation. Lloyd-Jones said that “The business of the Church, and the business of preaching, is to isolate the radical problems and to deal with them in a radical manner.”

Differentiation needs to be made between preaching and teaching. I would suggest that one difference is this: That preaching tells people what they ought to do, and teaching shows them how to do it. Is that a valid distinction?

There is no point in preaching at people to do something if they do not know that they need to do it, or they not even know that they should do it. Ability is of no value if is not translated into obedience, but those who do not know what they ought to do cannot obey, and mere education is no substitute.

Therefore, preaching is, “by its very nature a revelation, not an exhortation,” at least according to Stott. This preaching was “indispensable to Christianity,” Stott thought. Forsyth declared that “With its preaching Christianity stands or falls.” Really? Is preaching really that crucial to Christianity?

Milne said that “The public exposition of Scripture in the power of the Spirit has incalculable significance for the renewal and growth of the people of God.” He went on to say that “The church cannot live above the level of its expository preaching, preaching which is concerned essentially to lay bare the teaching of the Bible and apply it relevantly.” Is preaching really that crucial to Christianity?

Stott declared that “The preacher’s task is to enable God’s revealed truth to flow out of the Scriptures into the lives of the men and women of today.” Is that only way that truth can flow? Is it even the primary way for truth to flow? Is Christ and Christianity so dependent upon human preaching? Is preaching really that crucial to Christianity?

Stott seemed to think so: “When the Word of God is expounded in its fullness, and the congregation begin to glimpse the glory of the Living God, they bow down in solemn awe and joyful wonder before His throne. It is preaching which accomplishes this, the proclamation of the Word of God in the power of the Spirit of God.  That is why preaching is unique and irreplaceable.”

The Bible has “organic moral relevancy to the conscience of humanity,” according to Forsyth. Lloyd-Jones pointed out a danger he saw: “We have become such experts, as we think, in psychological understanding, at dividing people up into groups, and at adopting modern psychological theories that we have forgotten the Holy Spirit and his [sic] power.” Goldingay maintained that “The Spirit who indwells the preacher and works through him or her is also the Spirit who indwells the congregation and works in them. Preaching needs to relate to the spirituality of the congregation.”

John Stott lamented that “We are so decorous, we are so controlled, we do everything with such decency and order that there is no life, there is no warmth, there is no power! But that is not New Testament Christianity. Does your faith melt and move your heart? Does it get rid of the ice that is in you, the coldness in your heart, and the stiffness? The essence of New Testament Christianity is this warmth that is invariably the result of the presence of the Spirit.”

DOES ANYONE CARE ABOUT PASTORAL CARE?

Pastoral care is caring for people and caring about people. It is not as black and white as those who are ‘in sin’ need pastoral care, and those who are not ‘in sin’ do not. Pastoral care is surely much bigger than just addressing sin in people’s lives, though all too often this seems to be the starting point and the main focus. It certainly was for Pattison, who said that pastoral care was “directed towards the elimination and relief of sin.”

Neither is it that those who are ‘sick’ need pastoral care and that those who are ‘well’ do not. Everyone needs to be loved and cared for, and any concise definition of pastoral care is often too rigid for comfort. Pastoral care is caring for people in the same way that Jesus did, is it not?

According to Stott, “A good shepherd’s care of his sheep is four-fold: feeding, guiding (because sheep easily go astray), guarding (against predatory wolves), and healing (binding up the wounds of the injured). And all four of these activities are aspects of the ministry of the Word.”

With Stott, my personal plea for the church is that we treat people as real people with real questions; that we grapple in our sermons with real issues; that we build bridges into the real world in which they live and love, work and play, laugh and weep, struggle and suffer, grow old, and die. As Stott said, “We have to provoke them to think about their life in all its moods, to challenge them to make Jesus Christ the Lord of every area of it, and to demonstrate His contemporary relevance.”

Here, then, is the cornerstone of pastoral care: making Jesus relevant to his people. Prime maintained that “The call to shepherd God’s people and to teach them his Word is a special calling because of its strategic and unique importance for the spiritual well-being of Christ’s flock.” Forsyth said that “It is that word that the preacher must bring to the people; it is in that word that he [sic] himself must live.”

All too often Evangelicals pride themselves on a ‘right’ understanding of the gospel, yet what they preach and how they live are often in contradiction, according to Tidball. Gibbs agreed and said that “Those who turn to Christianity and churches seeking truth and meaning have left empty-handed, confused by the apparent inability of Christians themselves to implement the principles they profess.” True pastoral care requires a life of Godly integrity. Stronger than that, it demands it.

True preaching presupposes that the Church is not merely a public institution; and whenever the Church ideal fades into that of being a mere religious club or association you have a decay in preaching, according to Forsyth. Thus, if preaching is no longer considered relevant or helpful by the world, the problem lies with the church – not the world. To focus on the world’s reaction to preaching is to focus only on the symptom, for the illness is in the church.

THE MARRIAGE OF PREACHING AND PASTORAL CARE

Stott said that “Preaching and pastoral care go together like a right and left hand, or a right and left foot. One without the other is an imbalance. When we proclaim the Gospel, we must go on to unfold its ethical implications, and when we teach Christian behaviour we must lay its Gospel foundations.” He continued: “The most effective preaching comes from those who embody the things they are saying. They are their message. Christians need to look like what they are talking about. It is people who communicate primarily, not words or ideas.”

Gibbs addressed the issue of how and why Christians expect people to ‘come to church’ thus: “Churches cannot stand apart from society and invite people come to them on their terms. Rather, churches must go to people where they are and communicate in terms that will make sense to them, addressing the issues that shape their lives and speaking their language.”

Stott said that “We who are called to be Christian preachers today should do all we can to help the congregation to grow out of dependence on borrowed slogans and ill-considered clichés, and instead to develop their ability to distinguish between truth and error, good and evil.”

According to Prime, preaching and pastoral care belong together. “Preaching and pastoral care help each other. When we preach to those we know well, and whose situations we understand, we apply God’s truth more relevantly, almost unconsciously.”

Dr John Goldingay wrote that he was increasingly struck by the way Scripture itself related its message to the lives of those to whom it was addressed; and by the diversity in the ways in which it did so. Scripture itself? On its own? The apostle Paul characteristically addressed specific congregations with specific needs, and made the concrete application of the message quite explicit.

The New Testament uses more than thirty verbs to denote the activity of preaching, according to Runia, “Yet preaching is not a simple repetition of the message of Scripture,” he said, but “It must be addressed to people in their concrete historical situation. Without relevance there is no sermon, for a sermon is God’s relevant word for his church today.”

This is the marriage of preaching and pastoral care. The love that preaches values other persons as worthy in themselves, according to Baker, and the pattern and inspiration for the marriage of preaching and pastoral care are found in Jesus Christ.

CONCLUSION: PREACHING AND REACHING

Forsyth said that “Not all that is said from a pulpit is preaching. If we are to preach with Gospel effect to our time we must give up the idea of dragging men back to the dogmas of Scholastic Protestantism.” He declared that “It is fruitless to offer to the public the precise modes of thought which were so fresh and powerful with the Reformers.” Preaching, then, is the today word of YHWH given to people today, not the old word given in an old way in old language with old expectations.

  • Does the gospel preach itself through us with power?

Selah.

  • Are our sermons “action-sermons”?

Selah.

“The preacher’s power lies in appropriation, and his [sic] work is largely to assist the Church to a fresh appropriation of its own gospel,” said Forsyth. If preaching cannot be relevant and real to YHWH’s own people, how will it ever be relevant, real, prophetic, or meaningful, to the world outside?

Jesus’ own ‘preaching’ and ‘pastoral care’ were united and in harmony, and it was a happy marriage. That assumes that we call what Jesus did as ‘preaching’, of course. Did Jesus do our modern-day idea of ‘pastoral care’? In the passage from Mark which began this paper, Jesus taught the crowds; but his teaching flowed without interruption into pastoral care as he concerned himself with the physical needs of the people.

It is interesting how often Jesus taught his disciples about caring and loving people, yet he did not seem as burdened to train them in preaching! Those who reach must also preach, and those who preach must also reach. “Will the 21st-century church dare to recover the Christ-centred radicalism of the first Christian generation?” asked Warner.

Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke’s mass evangelistic crusades in Nigeria (as in Africa generally) attracted vast crowds to hear him and receive from YHWH. Let me quote from a report on the Nigerian crusades that highlighted the people’s desperate situation, the good news preached by Bonnke, and the pastoral care that followed:

Seven degrees above the equator, where children in the brutal African sun forage in fields of rotting garbage, great expectations were building: Reinhard Bonnke, the larger-than-life evangelist from Germany, had come to town again. That evening, 550,000 people gathered on 80 acres of bare ground to listen to Bonnke, a pastor’s son with an unquenchable thirst for Africa’s lost souls. Spiritually hungry Nigerians — whose lives are bounded by poverty, violence, and an unforgiving climate — could hardly wait to feast on the good news the preacher promised to bring.

Bonnke completed his gospel message and then prayed for the sick who had come seeking a miracle. In a country where basic healthcare is available only to the very few who can afford it, medical needs are an unending concern. Although many of Bonnke’s critics doubt that his crusade will have a lasting effect on Lagos, most agree that if it does happen, it will be because of the strength that local churches exhibit by discipling new believers in their faith. The majority of this responsibility will fall on the 2,000-plus churches that worked with CFAN to host the Lagos crusade last fall.

Those who preach must surely preach to the whole person. Those who care must surely care for the whole person. Those who love must surely love as Jesus loved. With privilege comes responsibility. With the greatest privilege comes the greatest responsibility.

  • Can peaching and pastoral care be divorced without serious damage to both?

Selah.

  • What YHWH has joined together let no-one separate; has YHWH joined preaching and pastoral care together?

Selah.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Editors: Sinclair B Freguson and David F Wright, New Dictionary Of Theology, (Leicester, Inter-Varsity Press, 1988)

Editors: Joel B Green and Scot McKnight, Dictionary Of Jesus And The Gospels, (Leicester, Inter-Varisity Press, 1992)

Corrie Cutrer , ‘Come and Receive Your Miracle’, Christianity Today Online on the Internet at: http://ChristianityToday.com

PT Forsyth, Positive Preaching And The Modern Mind, (Carlisle, Paternoster Publishing, 1998)

Eddie Gibbs, Church Next, (Illinois, InterVarsity Press, 2000)

Dr John Goldingay, ‘The Spirituality Of Preaching’, The Expository Times, Vol 98, No. 7, April 1987

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching And Preachers, (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1998)

Bruce Milne, Know The Truth, (Leicester, Inter-Varsity Press, 1982)

S Pattison, A Critique Of Pastoral Care, (London, SCM, 1988)

Derek Prime, Pastors And Teachers, (Surrey, Highland Books, 1989)

John Stott, I Believe In Preaching, (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1982)
Derek J Tidball, Skilful Shepherds, (Leicester, Apollos, 1997)

Rob Warner, 21st-Century Church, (Revised & Expanded Edition), Eastbourne, Kingsway Publications, 1999