Changing Lives Through Preaching and Worship

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One reason the modern world ignores our preaching is because it rarely hears anything from us it cannot hear from Dear Abby or Leo Buscaglia.
—William Willimon

A Christian fraternity and sorority group wanted me to talk on being a Christian on Duke's campus.

"For starters," I said, "I expect that by this weekend some of you will be in bed with somebody you're not married to, maybe with somebody in this group. What could I say to you tonight to give you the resources to refuse to do that?"

They got mad. Some of them said, "Wait. We're a Christian group. How dare you say something like that!"

"You look normal to me," I replied, "and I know the statistics, that few college students remain virgins any longer. I'm not doing this to attack you; I'm a preacher, and I'm supposed to be giving you what you need to live a Christian life."

After the group calmed down, one student said, "But why do preachers always act like sex is the biggest sin in the world?"

"That's a good question," I said. "Sounds like you know your Bible, because sex isn't the biggest problem according to the Bible. Still, we assume that if we can just get you to say no to this, a relatively little thing, there's no telling where we could go from here."

We live and minister in a culture that scoffs, gets riled, or worse, patronizes with polite interest the truths we preach. An important role of today's pastor is preaching truth to a disinclined world, to unbelievers who don't take us seriously, to nominal Christians who don't want to "overdo religion." How do we convince such people that there is something better, deeper, more significant they can give their lives to?

Let me begin with a caution: let's not start feeling sorry for ourselves, as if ...

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