Truth or Therapy

The problem in the church today is that we have bought into a lie. We have transferred our allegiance from Truth to therapy. - Chuck Colson

I'm not going to lie - I wasn't looking forward to Colson's portion of the Leadership Summit. But he led with this quote, and I wanted to dance on the table.

This is an area of my passion, and an area in which I'm working hard to grow.

It seems like a ton of churches fall on one side of the Truth/Therapy Spectrum or the other. Some churches spend years going through a single book of the Bible verse-by-verse because they want to capture every nuance, and their people are lopsided as a result.

Other churches forgo expositional preaching altogether because they think it is conflict with "meeting people where they are." But those people aren't ever trained to go anywhere else because they need a pastor to hold their hand and help them through life-change. They can't discover that Scripture is relevant to their lives. Instead they need a pastor to help them take that step, which is horribly inefficient leadership.

I refuse to believe there has to be a dilemma. The Scriptures are alive and powerful (Hebrews 4:12). God's Word always accomplishes the purpose for which He sent it out (55:11). God's Word doesn't need to be made relevant... it already is relevant.

When we proclaim God's Word (2 Timothy 4:2) clearly, it is therapeutic. But enough of creativity for creativity's sake. Enough of motivational speeches designed to affect life change based on logic and anecdotes rather than on God's Words. Enough clever speeches and gimmicky stunts that are completely separated from helping people understand what God has said. That's therapy divorced from Truth and it's short-sighted at best, eternally futile at worst.

Application of a sermon and application of a Scripture are not the same thing. Godly leaders lead with Truth, and allow application to stem from that.