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Learning from a Bad Sermon


The sermon was "not good," or at least that was my impression.

The message based on Genesis 32:1-4 was titled “Going Before” (走在前头). The pastor began by examining the many instances in Jacob’s life where he strove to put himself first, and then admonished the congregation to follow his example: get right out in front and seek out God’s blessings. She then explained that being in front also means you won’t be tempted to judge others since they will be behind you where you can’t see them.

Most of the rest of the pastor’s time and energy was then devoted to making observations about relative birth order and the advantages of being first born, tied up in a neat bow at the end with some truisms about the importance of children honoring their father and mother, alongside the enjoinder that parents ought not to provoke their children to anger. Admittedly, the sermon wasn’t full of lies, but it was hard to say what it actually was full of—apart from the fact that it contained a fair amount of “right doctrine from the wrong text.”

I was shaking my head in confusion as the pastor began her closing summary. It is too bad, I thought to myself, that she wasn’t able to do a better job bringing God’s word to these people. How could she miss the major biblical theological themes of the Jacob narrative, skipping over God’s repeated decisions to choose the lesser in order to demonstrate his own power? And why produce this stream of consciousness ramble when a simple organizational structure would have made her lengthy message so much easier for the congregation to follow? I was already outlining in my head a “sermon prep” training program for some of the local church leaders.

And then, as the pastor ended her sermon, the congregation burst into applause, something I’ve never seen happen in this church. Immediately, she bowed her head and began her closing prayer; a few seats away from me, I heard the plaintive sobs of a middle-aged woman deeply moved by her experience in church on that Sunday morning. What had I missed?

 In hindsight, I suppose that is the point: even after all these years there is still so much that I miss. I cannot claim that I perfectly understood 100% of what the pastor said during her one hour-long sermon. And something about what she said or how she said it clearly touched off certain cultural resonances that I could not feel. More troubling still, it is possible that on that particular Sunday morning the Spirit of God was simply moving in a way that I could/would not see. And so, once again, I am reminded of the limitations of all the theological training we expatriates are doing in China.

For those of you on the front lines, be careful! Let’s not kid ourselves about how much we “understand” China. Rather, let’s work hard to stay humble, position ourselves as learners rather than leaders, and pray that in the midst of all our good intentions the Holy Spirit will protect the people we work with from our ignorance.

Image credit: 20150309_143846 by Brian Kelley via Flickr.

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Swells in the Middle Kingdom

"Swells in the Middle Kingdom" began his life in China as a student back in 1990 and still, to this day, is fascinated by the challenges and blessings of living and working in China.View Full Bio


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