Preaching Family Amid Broken Homes
July 1, 2000
The word family is warm and inviting. Preaching on family matters can be quite the opposite. It can cause visceral, knee-jerk reactions. How can our preaching strengthen families without discouraging broken people? In this interview, from the PreachingToday.com online journal, editor Craig Brian Larson talks to Robert Russell, who has served since 1966 as pastor of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. With all sorts of family models in our culture today, it's not just two parents, two kids, and a dog. How do you help all of them? That's tough. There's a tendency, with few traditional families, to think it doesn't exist any more. We still need to hold high the ideal. At the same time, we must acknowledge failure, forgiveness, and a fresh start. Before I preach on the family, I talk with single parents and parents of blended families. I listen for a phrase or two I can draw into the sermon. "Maybe you're taking care of an elderly parent right now. You're still under God's umbrella of a family." It's amazing what that does. It says I know they're out there. It builds a bridge from my sermon to their situation. You're preaching to keep people together, and yet trying not to condemn those whose families have come apart. That's a real tightrope. How do you balance it? Two things: I address the tension head-on, and I bring more voices into the conversation. For example, a recent sermon on divorce opened with a dramatic sketch—several teenagers told how they felt when their parents broke up. Then I told how Indiana lawmakers were considering ways to stop the breakdown of the family. I pointed out a Barna poll that showed divorce is as much a problem for church people as for anyone else. So my sermon wasn't about the ...
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