Is That How Jesus Would Do It?

I did not grow up in church, per se, even though I did attend a few mainline church services along the way. I did some hard time in Sunday School, but got released early, when I was 11, for bad behavior. ;-) Occasionally in those years, a televangelist popped into view while flicking the TV dial through its rotation. The, well, "unique" techniques of communicating employed by those televangelists struck me as weird and distracting. If folk talked the way they did anywhere else, they'd never be taken seriously, but laughed to scorn.

For the hecklers of such it wouldn't be a content issue driving them to scorn, but a technique issue. The behavior of the messenger distracted from the message, and understandably so. So what lesson, from all that, do I think I can pass on to communicators of the gospel today? "Stop being a clown!" Church is not a carnival, preaching the Gospel isn't a performance, and the "anointing" doesn't have any biblical, behavioral signs or tics! 

Enough with huffing and puffing, the added "ahees" in between words, the eyes rolling back in their sockets, sudden shudders, profuse, self-inflicted sweating, hanky waving, and on, and on, and on. I'm reminded of a car manufacturing anomaly from the 70's: the Chevette SS. Stripes and chrome, and a bigger engine package could never hide the reality-- it was still just a Chevette! Rather than the example of Christ, these "demonstrative" preachers emulate the illusionist's art-- distracting the audience's attention away from the truth they should be zeroed in on.

Maybe it's just cultural, maybe it's blatant, faithless, manipulation... could it be doing the Devil a favor?

WWJD. I think it's germane to the preaching "craft." If Jesus didn't do it, should we? Who better knows how to communicate eternal, life-giving truth than he? It's alright to be a fool for Christ, and it's OK to preach foolishness as the world sees it, but it's not acceptable to diminish the majesty and importance of the message of Christ through affected tomfoolery. So, the next time you're preaching, or even the next time you're going to see a preacher, do everyone a favor, especially the Lord of glory: ask yourself, "Is that how Jesus would do it?"