Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Money

A pastor pours his heart into many sermons, with varied response from the congregation. I am lucky to be a part of a church that is often very encouraging and excited about God's word. Praise God!

Have you noticed that topics like prayer, fasting, Bible reading, and worship seem pretty run of the mill to the congregation? I've talked with other pastors and they agree: start preaching on money and they REALLY start to talk! Why didn't I hear sermons on money growing up in the church?

I just started a 3 week series on money. The first sermon didn't step on too many toes, but I did get a lot of good conversation around it. Just wait until message #2 hits the scene (history of the tithe and if we should do it in 2009)!

Sermon #1:
http://www.switchpod.com/p20881.html

What do you think about money and sermons?

3 comments:

Ryan Carter said...

I think money is great sermon fodder. However, I think we walk a thin line when we preach on money. There seems to be a twin danger: 1) it is easy for a money sermon to turn into a "you really need to hear this" sermon. That is how every money sermon I have ever heard has sounded, more like a fatherly scolding than a textually significant sermon. 2) being completely supported by the congregation, we run the risk of looking like congress when they vote to raise their own salaries. This too has been real in my experience; people left a church I used to attend when the pastor preached on money, but came off as if he were preaching for the benefit of his own financial well being.
All that to say one must be very careful in approaching the topic.

Bill: In your series, how are you managing these dangers?

Darby said...

Bill did a whole series on the green stuff SMILE!
I don't know what Bill has to say, but the Bible speaks a lot about money. Where we spend our money can reveal our priorities. I digress. Good money talk has to be Bible driven & Holy Spirit lead!
Maybe we're unusual, but a group of folks & I were talking (on Fat Tuesday) & we agreed that we rarely hear about fasting.

Darby said...

WOW, I just noticed this is from almost exactly a year ago!