part one: preaching
*in this article, I refer to preachers as “he”. However, this subject is applicable to all preachers, male & female. I am referring to preachers in the general sense. Even the written in singular form, no part of this article is written based on a single preacher.*
[ It’s nearly impossible to fit everything that could be said on this topic into one single article. But the conversation has to start somewhere! ]
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My Personal Experience:
When I was little, I would always feel extremely uncomfortable every time a preacher kept yelling for everyone to “raise their hands” or “shout” or “say amen” or “clap”.
Part of this was immaturity in Christ because of my age and not yet truly understanding worship.
Part of this was the shyness in me that struggled and still struggles with outward displays of worship in public.
But the biggest part of this was the little bit of discernment that God had planted deep down inside my heart
When preachers got angry or offended when people weren’t shouting in agreement to their message as loudly or as often as they thought they should, I felt uneasy. Like I couldn’t do anything right. I felt as though they were asking of me something that should be between me & God. I didn’t like the feeling of someone else to trying to push how they thought I should be worshipping and responding.
I have always felt that how I worship God and how I respond to a sermon is between me & God. I even got bitter when preachers were always coaching the congregation on how they should be acting. It was something I had to learn to forgive; I had to learn to attempt at blocking out those phrases that came across as demands and instead focus on the good the preacher was saying.
>>>It was later when I put together that there is nothing directly wrong with these types of phrases...it is more the motive & intention behind the phrases and the tone in which they are spoken that makes me uncomfortable.
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I have sat under preachers who blatantly guilt-tripped the congregation from behind the pulpit for things such as mentioned previously: not praising loud enough, not voicing their agreement with his points as frequent enough, not jumping up and down or running the aisles, not raising and/or clapping their hands enough, not answering the altar call fast enough, not worshipping enough during the music, etc..
~Essentially, preachers who talked down to everyone for not doing what they thought they should doing during the service.
They would make a good point, only to ruin it by harping on how everyone must be offended by what they said, hammering the congregation with guilt and sarcasm.
Some of the Reasons Why the Congregation is Quiet:
•Sometimes, the crowd really is dead, and they are almost being rude for being so unresponsive. Preachers can most definitely sense when the congregation is not paying attention.
•Sometimes the crowd disagrees with the preacher, and sensing this, he will get nervous and repeat over & over things like, “Since y’all aren’t hollerin’, I must be stepping on some toes!” or “I know I’m preaching good cause no one’s shouting! C’mon and shout!” He feels the need to defend His message with sarcastic quips about the congregation’s spiritual state. The obvious response to these kind of remarks is almost always defensiveness. The congregation feels like they need to suddenly voice their agreement (whether they really agree or not) in order to prove to everyone else that the preacher “can’t step on their toes” because they’re “100% right with God”, therefore “nothing can possibly offend them”. The focus shifts from the gospel to a competition over who is offended and who is not.
NOTE: (While there are times when these types of phrases are meant harmlessly & lightheartedly, I am referring to the times that the motives for these phrases are selfish or rude, or the tone of voice in which they are presented is demeaning or prideful. The times when they are repeated and harped on excessively to the point where it drowns out the point of the message God gave.)
•Sometimes the crowd is really trying to listen, to absorb the content of the preacher’s message, and he misunderstands this as disagreement or them being offended. Preachers are human, so this is understandable. However, it is important how the preacher responds. If he reacts with sarcastic quips and tries to coach the people in the congregation to worship or respond how HE thinks they should, he is not lead by God or the Holy Spirit. He is lead by hype, tradition (ex: “our congregation normally shouts and jumps during the sermons, so if they are not doing this now then they are quenching the Spirit…”), flesh, pride, and selfishness.
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Let’s Get Down to The Hype:
What exactly do I mean by hype? the action of working up a certain atmosphere of adrenaline; hyperactive, frenzied, & emotion driven; can often resemble a highly spiritual atmosphere whether it be by the filling of “the Holy Spirit” (which in this case is a false filling), or by the worship, and so on. [never apart of the true Holy Spirit.]
I have always had a problem with preachers making demands on the congregation to “shout” (or else they must be getting their toes stepped on, right?) or how they need to be praising God (constantly telling them to raise their hands, clap, say this phrase and that phrase, etc....key word being “constantly”).
Why? Because of the motive to hype-up/work-up a certain atmosphere to help the service or the preacher to “really get going”.
Are these kinds of phrases always wrong?
The short answer is: No.
Every preacher has things they may say as fillers, or when they get nervous, or even just out of habit. For some it’s simply “Amen,” for others it’s, “Raise your hands and praise Him if your’e with me,” and so on. Sometimes the preacher will feel the drawing of the Holy Spirit and will ask the congregation to stop and praise the Lord for a moment. When directed by the Holy Spirit, these kinds of phrases are not wrong.
>>>However, when the bulk of the sermon is spent crowded with demands to do this or that, or by the preacher coaching the audience on how they need to be worshiping and responding, the atmosphere shifts.
One of the biggest issue in some Pentecostal and/or holiness churches is that we are so used to hearing these phrases. They are so engrained into our culture and traditions that most of the time we think nothing of them. We barely even recognize them, much less question the motive behind them.
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Some of the Different Types of Reactions to These Phrases:
•You have some that either feed off of the preacher’s high energy and only start to worship louder because they preacher worked them up to do so. These are the same kinds that find themselves crying harder when the worship music is soft and sad, and getting up and shouting and jumping when the beat picks up during the altar service.
•You have some that do what the preacher says out of habit. There is no worship in the uplifting of their hands. It is not being done necessarily in an intentionally disrespectful way, but it is not sincere worship either. Because it is not intentional or sincere, it is not honored or blessed by God, and they get nothing out of it. They do it because they don’t want to be the odd one out.
•You have some that feel uncomfortable because they can sense the demand in the preacher’s voice. They don’t want to raise their hands or shout “hallelujah” simply because the preacher told them too, but they also feel awkward if they don’t. They question whether they are quenching the Spirit by not following along, but they still don’t feel right doing it if it’s not sincere and they can tell the preacher telling them too is only desperate for a big reaction from the congregation.
>>>When hype and flesh are brought into the mix, the atmosphere shifts from that of worship to God and listening to what the preacher is saying, to more of a concert or pep rally type.
Call me bold, call me stiff, call me picky. Tell me I read too much into things, that I’m too young to be talking about things I “know nothing about”.
But when the message of the Word is overshadowed by the preacher’s constant need to have a crowd egging him on and working up an atmosphere, something is very, very wrong.
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Why the Desire for a Response in the First Place?
On one hand, whether you are a preacher, a teacher, or just someone trying to tell a story to a friend, we all want others to not only listen to us but to actively listen to us.
We all know that feeling when we’re trying to have a conversation with someone and they have absolutely no response or reaction to what we are telling them.
Therefore, we can surely understand the preacher’s desire to have people acknowledge and agree with what he is saying, especially when it’s something he has spent great amounts of time studying and praying over. There is no doubt I’m sure it can get nervewracking when you are vulnerable, delivering something God has laid on your heart, and you’re left with blank, unresponsive faces staring back at you.
>>> KEY POINT: However, this desire to be acknowledged can sometimes take a fleshly turn if not kept in check.
I believe the line is drawn between wanting others to agree with what you are saying, and desperately needing and demanding that people do certain things to either ease your mind or hype you up.
The church platform is not a stage for a pep rally!
The congregation is not a concert crowd that should be manipulated or coached on how to act.
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Charisma + Hype:
The charisma does not make the preacher. The hype does not make the preacher.
The Holy Spirit does.
>>>A preacher can do all the shouting, all the running, all the story telling, all the “prophesying”, all the joking, and all the jumping around he wants, and have all the charisma in the world, but without the Holy Spirit guiding every word, thought, motive, & action, it all amounts to absolutely nothing.
So many of our holiness and/or Pentecostal churches (and others) have turned into hype houses and pep rallies, where it’s all hype and no Holy Spirit.
GOD IS NOT IN THIS.
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How Should We Define a “Good Church Service”?
It has always saddened me, as I’m sure it has many others, to hear others define a good church service by how loud it was, how fast the music was, how much the women’s hair had fallen down during worship, how much the preacher yelled & jumped around, or how many people fell out during an altar service.
>>>Why is the quality of a church service instead not defined by the Word preached in the sermon, or the Holy Spirit-inspired lyrics of the songs, or the move of God felt all across the room when the music stopped (whether the room be loud or dead silent), or the tears that fell down one’s face as they surrendered during the altar service?
What is happening to our churches? Why are we all hype & emotion and no real gospel or Holy Spirit?
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Take a Step Back and Let the Holy Spirit Move
I wonder what some of our services would look like if the preacher simply preached the Word. No need to have great charisma or loud shouting to give the message substance. No pressure to be loud or have a congregation that shouts so much they can barely even hear much less comprehend what he is saying.
Only reliance on it being given by the divine Holy Spirit.
Again, I want to emphasize that there is nothing inherently wrong with jumping, shouting, having charisma, story-telling, joking (in the right way), running, or prophesying...AS LONG AS it is under the influence of the true Holy Spirit.
When the Holy Spirit is not the only thing directing these things, that means flesh is. Hence, this is where hype comes from. THAT, is when these things become unimportant, inappropriate, tradition-centered, disrespectful, and even sinful in some cases.
We must ultimately use discernment given by the Holy Spirit Himself to decipher what is hype versus what is God.
Conclusion:
Know that I write these words out of love for the Church. I love the churches I have grown up going to and visiting. My desire for this article is not to discourage, to provoke, to accuse, or to throw rocks. I simply believe that it is important we talk about things such as these. I pray that these words I have written will not provoke anger, but instead provoke thoughts in minds that may have never considered these things.
*There are many different things in the church that could take on a fleshly “hype” that I would love to take the time to cover in a few more articles (the false filling of the Holy Spirit, outward worship, music, altar services...)
Allyson Million
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