There is just no other way of saying it. I hate church speakers. They so cripple the church its amazing to me that God does not come down and just strike them dead like Nadab and Abihu.

Excerpt:
[Jeremiah 3:15] "Central to the theme and point of the passage is the need for godly "œfeeders"� in the midst of the restoration. These "œfeeders"� (the literal usage of the term "œshepherd"�) would come in, following the desires of God´s heart, to feed the people with knowledge and understanding... In the age of the contemporary church, there is new breed of speakers that have arrived on the scene. In all actually they are not "œso new"� but more trendy today than ever. If a spectrum was to be made, false teachers are far to the left, shepherds are far to the right on the other extreme and somewhere about midway, but still leaning left, is what would be called the "œchurch speaker."�

More here:

http://www.apuritansmind.com/Pastora...chSpeakers.htm

The Uselessness of Church Speakers
By Dr. C. Matthew McMahon

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C. Matthew McMahon, Ph.D. (Pot hole Digger)
John 5:39, "...search the Scriptures..."

Dr. C. Matthew McMahon.com, www.apuritansmind.com and www.puritanpublications.com
Member - Christ Presbyterian Church

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Excellent job. I've been wanting to write something like this myself for a while. You've explained it well.

May I have the honor of putting this on my site as well ?
( http://www.theologicallycorrect.com/studycenter/ )

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K. Joel Gilliard, Husband of Danielle since 7/11/09 (I married up!)
Theologically Correct dot Com
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How else are we going to amplify microphones?

Thanks again.
Your thoughts/writings on preaching always challenge me. Mark Dever told the story where he had to sit through a preacher preaching on the text where Christ wept in Gethsemena and the title of the sermon was
"Christ dealt with his stress and so can you!"

Dever said that it must have been one of the worst sermons he had ever heard.

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J. B. Atken
John Knox PCA
Layman, M.A. student at Louisiana College

When can we cross the stoning "line"?

Thanks for the the article. I was trying to covey to a relative the other week that I understood why they felt so unsatisfied at their church, having been to visit on the Lord's Day with them. The "pastor" of the church said nothing you could disagree with outright, primarily because although he managed to speak for 40 minutes, he virtually offered no insight into God's word at all. Your article sums describes this "church speaking" so well! To think that my relative sits under that "church speaking" week by week is so saddening & frustrating.

Matt

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Matthew Glover
Reformed Presbyterian Church of Australia

Maybe I missed it but what would be the working definition of a "Church speaker" as in a practicle sense? The article sparks interest but I do not want to read into what is not there. Is 'Church speaker' a term in common use in the US? Are they people that go around or can they also be pastors? (I assume so because of content).

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Fraser,
Trinity Reformed Baptist Church
Hamilton, New Zealand.

3rd worst sermon I ever heard (and I heard it at least twice--same speaker, same message)

on "perseverance" from Mt. 26:39 (or Mk. 14:35), this single phrase (from the KJV) "And he went a little farther..."

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Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


When posting friends, kindly bear those words of earthly wisdom in mind:
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To see ourselves as others see us.
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You laugh...

If I took the time to write about the worst (its a better story in person) you'd laugh at the horror in spite of yourself!

I stand corrected

'tsokay. I laugh at it myself, its so absurd.

Please!

Its a term I made up. Church speakers are pastors who just "speak in church" but do not preach in church. Thus, church speakers seem to fit well.

I too thought this was a techincal question about amplification......I figured the speakers at your church crackled or something. In one church I attended the speakers picked up CB radio chatter from truckers on the interstate a few feet away from the building.....

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Pastor Phillip M. Way
[url=http://www.timeintheword.org][color=blue] Maranatha Community Church of Central Texas[/color][/url]
A Reformed Baptist Congregation and Member Church of the
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When all souls are saved and all mourners comforted we may venture to discuss recondite theories, but not while graveyards are filling with those who know not God. -- CH Spurgeon

[b]The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.
Luke 18:27[/b]

now thats funny PW!!

Maybe it was God speaking to them LOL jk

If have to sit through schuller every sunday with my parents and they have at least two speakers and to many ads to support them and then a 10 minute sermon that seems like its two hours.

blade

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Nathan Olaf Brandal

"Man is nothing: he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God worketh in him to will and to do his good pleasure"
GEORGE WHITEFIELD TO JOHN WESLEY

My Blog

I think church speakers can be divided between 'woofers' and 'tweeters'!

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Andrew

in my house the woofers eat tweeters.......

My dog hate's church speakers with KJV only scofield bibles and their keen sense of middle east current news and prophecy teaching ability.

blade

I remember in my dispy sbc church growing up, there was some static and "cb noise" picked up in our church speakers during the service, and people were saying it was "demons speaking" or something.

Awful.

The worst sermon I ever heard was from a Pentecostal lay preacher who delivered a talk to maximum state security prison inmates. His text was Exodus 3:3: "Then Moses said, 'I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.'" The 'I will' part of the text was stressed in order to show us that we must exercise our wills to do what God wants us to do: namely believe that the Lord will deliver us from prison and it will be so. Name it and un-frame it?????????

I had to follow up with a sermon on John 2:13-22. Needless to say I was in anguish as to whether or not I should address his serious error or simply cover it with a Christ centered sermon. I chose the latter approach and I pray that it was not in vain.

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Rev. Daniel Kok
Pastor of Grace Reformed Church (URCNA)
Leduc, Alberta CANADA

"What sort of pledge and how great is this of love towards us! Christ lives for us not for himself!"
John Calvin, Commentary on the Hebrews (7:25)

It a difference without a distinction, both types of speakers emit a lot of static and both pick up cb chatter from the interstate...

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How often have you wondered why Christ should set His heart upon such a one as you! --Octavius Winslow

Lon Wadkins (Jesup, Iowa)
New Covenant Fellowship, OPC
Independence, Iowa

But Daniel,

Moses did exercise his will.

What the preacher forgot, that it was in the context of a sovereign work of God, inexorably drawing aside Moses. The Hebrew is actually, "I must" (NASB) because it is a cohortative. God is the initiator.

But you already knew that!

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Fred Greco
Senior Pastor, Christ Church PCA (Katy, TX)
Christ Church Blog

"The heart is the main thing in true religion...It is the hinge and turning-point in the condition of man's soul. If the heart is alive to God and quickened by the Spirit, the man is a living Christian. If the heart is dead and has not the Spirit, the man is dead before God." (J.C. Ryle)

For Mother's Day I went with my mom to her church (BIG mistake) and I noticed a lady sitting up there beside what seemed to be the Pastor. When it came time to preach, the LADY took the microphone and began the LAMEST "talk" that I've ever heard. The title of the "sermon" was "That Monster-Mother Thing!"
Boy, what a cute title! ...Not!

It was about how mothers can be so overprotective of their kids...
It started nowhere, went nowhere, and ended nowhere; just a bunch of stupid stories about hers and other peoples lives! I cannot stress enough just how bad and lame it was!

To top it off, they had the kids sing "Amazing Grace." Well, sort of... you see, the tune was Amazing Grace, but they changed the whole song so that it was now called.... "Amazing MOM"!

I kid you not!

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Christopher Hinton
Northland, A Church Distributed;
Altamonte Springs, FL

I think I would have grabbed Mom and left.

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[i]Since it is incomparably the greatest dignity to be introduced into the company of angels, nay, to be made the associates of Christ, he who estimates this favor of God aright, will regard all other things as worthless. Then neither poverty, nor contempt, nor nakedness, nor famine nor thirst, will make his mind so anxious, but that he will sustain himself with this consolation. "Since the Lord has conferred on me the principal thing, it behooves me patiently to bear the loss of other things, which are inferior."[/i]--John Calvin

Granted. But to give false hope that if we do or say what God wants that He will give us everything we desire is monstrous and inexcusable.