Spiritual obesity and logging on to church

The following is a post by Matt Finn (see credit below) that I felt helpful and may help others.

Two posts I read recently helped me crystallize some thoughts I'd been having about Church and the Internet.


1. Thabiti Anyabwile was interviewed about his latest book "What Is a Healthy Church Member?" and answered this question: What would you say to a twenty something (or thirty, or forty, or fifty...ed.) who is convinced that her routine of watching online sermons and occasionally attending area church bible studies is her "church"?


2. Martin Downes (www.against-heresies.blogspot.com) wrote about the interplay of Global ministries and the local church particularly when it comes to listening to sermons from churches and conferences.

As someone who listens to his fair share of sermons from the web as one part of my spiritual diet I've been seeking to reflect on how I've benefitted from this and also to think about if there are ways in which is it actually unhelpful, even harmful. Of course, one thing to say up front is the issue of content and discernment. Are those preaching those who "contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints"? Of course, for all of the rubbish there is some great stuff out there too. Let's focus on that for now.

Laid out for us is a fine feast of biblical exposition from across the globe. (Let's not forget as Downes reminds us that this isn't new - for example people distributed Spurgeon's sermons all over the place.) Yet, reading sermons and hearing them preached is to my mind genuinely different in that the medium is significant and listening to one preacher on the Internet invites a direct comparison with the preaching in the local church. Three points come to mind:


1. Loving the local church and its leaders

There is a danger of pride, frustration and criticism that comes from a false expectation that the person preaching should be like the person I listen to on mp3. The danger to sin is that I look down on, am unmoved by the Spirit's work through and am not thankful to God for the gifts He has given his people. It's a bit like the "conference effect" where people come back from participating in sung worship with large numbers of people with music lead by highly skilled musicians and the experience back at home is simply not the same. Will I love the local church in its weakness and strength, immaturity and maturity and keep in mind God plan for the church (check out Ephesians!)?


2. The danger of spiritual obesity

There is a danger that I hear but do not obey, especially if it is related to a command which is corporate in its perspective. Jesus tells the story of two people both of whom build houses. One of them builds on the rock and one on the sand. Some have wrongly assumed that this is talking about building our lives on Jesus the rock but look again. Both of the two are said to be like those who hear the words of Jesus. The difference is that one put them into practice and the other did not. We might have a great spiritual diet but if we do not exercise our spiritual muscles we will become spiritual obese: full but flabby!


3. Hearing together

Finally in hearing together we come under the preaching of those God calls to care for us. Knowing that one day we will give an account to God we practice accountability to one another for our thinking, feeling, acting and more. We seek to be wise in what we watch and recognize that isolated and independent consumption of sermons (about which - in being immature - we might be highly undiscerning) we can genuinely fall subject to false teachings. Church community is not about controlling our input and cutting off all other sources of knowledge but a matter of wisdom in that we are not to be ignorant of the Satan's schemes and recognize that "the Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons." (1 Timothy 4:1). This is not to provoke fear but to recognize the value of God-given fellowship.


Downes says it this way:


Preaching is a corporate act. Going to church is not like a trip to the movie theater where I can listen in as an individual with no meaningful connection to the people around me…

There is an obligation to hear the Word, respond to the Word, and to apply the Word together, that downloadable preaching cannot even begin to touch. It actually fails miserably at this point, because it can never do what the ministry of the local church, ordained by God, is designed to do.

Am I making downloadable sermons the primary means of my growth to the neglect of listening to, believing and obeying, God's Word together with his assembled people? Am I dishonoring God and his church through bypassing the ministry of the local church in my pursuit of maturity?

Posted on blogsite www.undercovertheologian.wordpress.com by Matt on August 24, 2008.