3PM SBC pastors told to preach Christ, not selves

At the annual convention of the Southern Baptist Convention being held this week at the Phoenix Convention Center, Bob Pitman on Sunday encouraged pastors to preach Christ rather than themselves. I thought this was a very interesting message, in part because it’s so right but in part because it seems to miss something important. On the one hand, Pitman is absolutely right that church should not be about the pastor, and it all too often leans in that direction. The reminder that he is not the Messiah is an important caution. But what I think he may have had in mind is the sort of preaching these days which salts Biblical exegesis with personal examples of how God has worked in the pastor’s own life. Far from being an error, I think this is a fantastic tool for showing the Gospel embodied in a life and for the pastor to allow his own crucified life to point to the greater glory of Christ at work in him. As long as this sort of personalized content is the salt of the sermon and not the meat and potatoes, it’s not only effective but Biblical. Our theology is always an embodied one, and the letters of the Bible and the Gospels continually show this. And if we are to overcome the weird bias that religion is not relevant to our daily lives, this is certainly one way to do that.