When the Preaching is Bad

What are we to do when we find the preaching to be deficient in the local church to which we belong? For some church members, that is a relatively easy question to answer–just leave! After all, many people will leave churches for all sorts of other illegitimate reasons: musical preference, children’s ministry, social expectations, etc. For others, this is an exceedingly difficult question to answer. There are godly men and women who find themselves torn over whether or not they should leave a church–even when they know that they are not being adequately fed by the ministry of the word. Add to this the fact that many will leave their spouses, change jobs and move to another country before leaving a church that they have belonged to for several decades. Affinity and investment often clouds objectivity. The difficultly of determining when to leave a church can also be due to the fact that the Scriptures do not seem to give us much by way of a clear answer to this question. After all, Jesus rebuked almost all of the seven churches in the book of Revelation for serious spiritual–and, at times, even doctrinal–errors, without telling the members of those particular local churches to leave them at that precise moment. These factors make it quite difficult for someone to give another person a definite and objective answer to the question. So, we are left to ask, “Are there any guiding principles to help someone in a situation in which he or she knows that the preaching at their church is deficient?” Read More