Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / Leading a Church out of Casual Culture

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Leading a Church out of Casual Culture · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  We're back, and we're back into an online controversy of brew haha, as
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  it was called. Pastor John, in September thirtieth, you tweeted about coffee.
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  He posted Hebrews twelve twenty eight, which says, let us offer to
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  God acceptable worship with reverence and awe. And in light of this reverence all
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  filled vision for our worship, you posed this open question quote, can we
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  reassess whether Sunday coffee sipping in the sanctuary fits? End? Quote? As
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  I mentioned last time, the tweet was loved and hated and spread all over
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  the internet to the point that averages a couple of weeks. It had one
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  thousand retweets, fifteen hundred comments, three thousand likes, two point seven million
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  views on Twitter, and feature articles online from Fox News here in the States
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  and the Daily Mail in the United Kingdom, none of which he saw we
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  talked about last time on Monday. Now, there's a lot behind this,
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  a whole worldview, really, and so we are building out the context behind
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  it, and you are talking about how to build and shape a church with
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  this reverential vibe and everything that happens on Sunday morning. Last time you signaled
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  that you wanted to get into the nitty gritty of helping church leaders really move
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  their church away from casual worship towards something better and more fitting to what Hebrews
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  and really all of the Bible calls for. So get practical for us and
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  pick up the discussion at this point. Yeah, I argued last time that
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  sipping coffee in the holiest hour of congregational worship does not fit with reverence and
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  awe. That Hebrew's twelve twenty eight calls for let us offer to God acceptable
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  worship with reverence and awe, Hebrews says. But I argued, sipping coffee
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  is not the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter is that
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  people and leaders don't have a heart that resonates with what I mean by reverence
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  and awe and the holiness, the sacredness of that hour of congregational worship on
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  Sunday morning. Usually those realities are not prominent in their mind and heart,
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  those reverent realities. They know those words reverence all. They know the words,
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  but the words don't have compelling existential content with the kind of serious joy
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  that makes people eager for reverence and awe. They're just words and I argued
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  that you don't solve that problem by creating external rules, you solve it by
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  awakening internal, heartfelt reverence. So things that are unfitting don't get outlawed,
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  they just fall away. And I think that's the way I tried to do
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  it. I don't think I ever laid down rules for thirty three years of
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  preaching. So what I'd like to do here now is to point away a
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  possible way forward for pastors to lead the church gradually, say, over five
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  to ten years, can be patient from the atmosphere of casual chipper coffee sipping,
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  entertainment oriented gathering to a more seriously, joyful, reverent, deeply satisfying
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  encounter with God. So maybe in this episode, Tony, we could talk
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  just for a few minutes about the kind of preaching that would lead in that
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  direction. But maybe before I say that, the pastor's mindset overall is that
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  it's fitting for one hour a week or an hour and a half, it's
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  fitting that the people of God meet Him in a kind of radical God word
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  focus that has weightedness to it and seriousness to it, and that this weightiness
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  and seriousness of God's centeredness become the most satisfying experience in our people's lives.
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  That's the mindset we've got to have. I want to do this in a
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  way so they love this, They want this, They come for this.
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  This is not tolerated, it's desired. That's the mindset. We will never
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  out entertain the world. They just need to settle that. Will never out
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  entertain the world, nor should we try, because we have something infinitely better,
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  better, something our souls were made for. And most of our people
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  don't know this. They don't know what's better than the fun they have watching
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  videos and having other kinds of entertainment. They don't know they've never tasted the
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  real thing. Something profoundly stabilizing, strengthening, refining, satisfying at the depths
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  of our being is what people long for, and they don't know what they're
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  longing for until they're shown it over time. So here are five appeals to
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  pastors with regard to preaching. Number one, rivet the people's attention on the
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  Bible. The very words of the Bible deal in great realities, and show
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  them those realities from the text. Build trust in the Bible, in yourself,
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  build trust in yourself as a Bible man, we can trust him because
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  he's a Bible man. Some people will leave the church because of this orientation.
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  It's too frightening and threatening to submit to the Bible like this. Others
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  are hungry for this, and they're going to come over time. Seek to
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  bring into being a people whose mindset is self consciously and happily under under the
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  Bible's authority. Seek to create a people who measure everything by the Bible.
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  Every thought, every emotion, every word, every action put through the sieve
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  of Bible teaching what the Bible really teaches about everything. The way you handle
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  the Bible and the glories you see in it will bring about this kind of
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  congregation. They're not their own. They belong to Christ and His word is
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  their life and their law. That's what needs to come into being through your
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  Bible saturated preaching. Number two, Make the glory of God and all that
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  He is for us in Jesus the main reality. People's sense over years as
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  they hear you preach week in and week out. God is the main reality
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  here. God is big, God is weighty, God is precious. God
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  is satisfying. God is near. Don't mess with God. God loves us.
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  I mean just a massive, weighty vision of God. Make the greatness
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  and beauty and worth of God the dominant reality. Be amazed, pastor be
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  amazed at God continually that God simply is that He just his without beginning.
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  This blows the mind of every four year old right who made God Daddy?
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  Nobody may God who has get big? He just always was there absolute reality.
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  All else, from galaxies to subatomic particles, is secondary. Everything we
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  see is secondary. God is the primary reality. Help your people see this
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  and feel this, that God relates to everything in their lives all the time
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  as the main thing. He is the main thing in their lives. He's
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  the supreme treasure, the main value, the brightest hope, the one they
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  are all willing to live for and die for. Number three, Make sure
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  that the ugliness of the disease of sin in us and in the world,
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  and the fury of the wrath of God against that disease are felt by your
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  people. God's grace, precious grace, will never be amazing, not the
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  way it should be. If our people do not tremble at the majesty of
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  God's transcendent purity and holy wrath against sin. If they do not feel the
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  fitness of the outpouring of the cup, of the fury of His wrath against
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  sin. They will never be amazed that they're saved. This is one of
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  the main contributors to the happiness of serious reverence. It's paradoxical. I know
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  that you would have a high, holy, trembling view of God's wrath would
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  be the main contributor to the happiness of the seriousness of reverence. But it
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  is so. The fifteen hundred degree fire of the building from which we have
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  just been snatched by the fireman can still be seen. We see it,
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  we feel it, We see the smoke, we hear the crackle, and
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  the trembling of our unspeakably happy thankfulness is anything but casual. Number four.
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  Exalt Christ in his majesty and lowliness, and in suffering and resurrection, and
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  in the unimaginable riches of what he purchased for us Romans eight thirty two.
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  He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us
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  all, how would he not with him freely give us all things. Every
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  single good that God's elect receive from now to eternity is owing to the blood
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  of Jesus Christ. Knowing that I don't deserve this and what it cost him
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  makes me tremble in my ecstasy. And finally, number five, teach you
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  people the miracle of their own conversion. Nobody knows from experience the glory of
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  the miracle of new birth. We only know the wonder of the new birth
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  from scripture. When we were dead in our trespasses, God made us alive
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  together with Christ and raised us up with Him and seated us in the heavenly
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  places in Christ Jesus. Nobody knows this. Nobody knows this stupendous reality from
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  experience. We know it because God tells us it is so we have to
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  teach our people that they are supernatural beings. Most people come into the sanctuary
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  feeling very natural. Right, we have to help them feel You're a miracle,
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  You're a walking resurrection from the dead. You're not merely natural anymore.
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  This is not a moment of gathering of natural people. Our faith, which
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  is our life, is a miracle. God created it. It is trust.
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  Our saving faith is trust in a supremely treasured Savior and Lord. So
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  may I venture to say that preaching like this will over time, creating your
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  people an eagerness to encounter God in his word in a way that will make
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  coffee sipping seem out of place. Yeah, powerful appeals to preachers here,
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  thank you Bestor John, will never out entertain the world, nor should we
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  try, because we have something infinitely better. And most of our people don't
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  know this. They don't know what's better than the fun they have watching videos
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  and other kinds of entertainment. They just don't know. They've never tasted the
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  real thing. That's sobering and relevant to all Christians and churches who want to
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  cultivate this climate of authentic reverence. We all have a role to play here,
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  down to the coffee that we bring or don't bring with us into the
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  sanctuary. Right, that's the point now we see of that tweet, thank
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  you Bestor John. So those appeals were mainly to preachers, But what about
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  other cultural changes that can be made on Sundays to shape the reverence of our
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  gatherings. We've talked coffee, we've talked preaching, but now what about dress
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  codes, music, announcements, and all the other factors at play on Sunday
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  mornings. Pastor John will take the discussion up from this point next time,
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  I'm your host, Tony Ranky. I'll see you on Monday.