“You gonna die when God tell you to die,” says the preacher in the above clip. That’s an exact quote.

And then he proceeds to tell the female members of his congregation to stop worrying about the lumps in their breasts and to resist letting a doctor remove the lumps in their breasts. It’s a ridiculous rant.

While this pastor’s sermon is an extreme example of the “b.s. sermon,” many of us (or perhaps most of us) have sat in church and listened to a pastor say something or do something or imply something that makes you think, “He (or she) is full of crap this morning!”

There’s varying kinds of “sermon crap” (and too, varying levels of severity). Some of what I’ve heard over the years includes…

• Sermons including “bad theology” or “biased theology”
• Sermons including “biblical passages taken out of context”
• Sermons offering “bad advice” on a non-spiritual issue
• Sermons including stories that are “too personal”
• Sermons that include passive aggressiveness toward church member, deacon, elder, etc…
• Sermons that mention politics

When I was a kid, I knew when the pastor at my church would say something stupid, because my Mom would poke Dad in the side. He’d look at her. “That’s the biggest bunch of crap I’ve ever heard,” Mom would mouth to my father. If Dad agreed, he’d smile or nod. If he disagreed, he’d shrug his shoulders.

It was always more fun when Dad agreed. Because that meant on the ride home Mom and Dad would discuss the pastor’s crap and debate whether or not it was worth their time, energy, patience, and life expectancy to challenge him. Eighty percent of the time my parents kept their mouths shut. Why? Because of what happened during those twenty-percent times when they did challenge the pastor.

If you talked with my parents, they would openly admit that they didn’t always handle those “interactions with pastor” correctly or kindly or with grace. They sometimes did it with too much passion or with too much anger or (fill in the blank). Sometimes they walked into those meeting  assuming that the pastor was going to fight them or insult them or make them out to be troublemakers. And the majority of the time, they were right. HERE’S WHY I’M POSTING THIS DISCUSSION. More than most of the junk that I experienced in my childhood church, I’m pretty sure it was those interactions between my pastor and my parents that hurt me the most.

Why?

Because I’d watch my mother and my father hold hands and pray for guidance and wisdom before walking into those meetings and then come out of those meetings crying, angry, hurt.

Because how a pastor reacts to “challenge”–even the ridiculous kind of challenge–affects the entire family. And too, how a church challenges a pastor affects his or her entire family.

Because my childhood pastor always became defensive and always defended his words as “biblical.”

Because reconciliation didn’t happen.

Because it eventually led to my family leaving a church that we had been members of for 14 years–my first of THREE church splits. And each one of them felt like a divorce.

Because it took years for me to once again trust a pastor.

So…

Have you ever challenged your pastor? Did it go well?

What would you do if your pastor preached nonsense from the pulpit? (Of course, I realize there are varying levels of “nonsense.”)

Do you trust the elder or deacon board to handle “pastoral accountability”?

Would you feel comfortable kindly challenging him or her (<-your pastor)?

Do you have a personal relationship with your pastor? (<-no pun intended.)

How do you think your current pastor would respond to such a challenge?

Would you call one of your church friends and see if they had a problem with what was said?

Would you leave the church quietly?

I ask because I think your answers are important. And not just for you. For your family. Your pastor. Your church. And for the kingdom of God.

The above video was found at Unreasonable Faith.