BY BILL KNOTT
t is only 8:00 p.m. on a Friday evening, and he has fallen
asleep—again. His wife carefully extracts the yellow highlighter from his
curled fingers as he slumps in the tweedy armchair. With practiced gentleness,
she lifts and folds the bifocals perched precariously on his nose.
"Why don't you go to bed, dear?" she says as softly
as will wake him. "You can finish your sermon notes in the morning."
He nods in mute agreement, and trundles off to well-earned
sleep. The 60 hours spent in the machine shop this week have left their mark
on him—darkening circles beneath his eyes, tiny metal filings underneath
his fingernails, weariness in all his bones. There has been little time in the
past six days for theological reflection or nicely nuanced explorations of the
text. Tomorrow he will preach a sermon about balance in the Christian life—building
time for Bible study, prayer, witness, family, friends, and recreating experiences.
At 57 he wonders if such an equilibrium could still be possible for him, the
bringer of the message, the elder of the church.
On any given Sabbath in any Adventist church around the world,
the person behind the pulpit is more likely to be a local elder than the congregation's
pastor or even a visiting preacher. Even in affluent North America, half the
churches are smaller than 150 members: half of those boast fewer than 95. Almost
all small churches share a pastor with at least one other congregation, and
districts of three, four, or five churches are increasingly common as conference
leaders struggle to balance budgets and provide essential services. Willy-nilly,
answering the call of the nominating committee to serve as a local elder means
taking a frequent turn in the pulpit.
In Africa, Latin America, and many parts of Asia, local elders
have long been the vital preachers of the church. The pastor, often stretched
to serve as many as 15 or 20 congregations, may visit all the churches as infrequently
as once a quarter, conducting baptisms, performing marriages, celebrating Communion.
The Word is heard most Sabbaths, not from a trained and practiced homiletician,
but from a man or woman who may feel as awkward with the task as the pastor
would with the close tolerances of the machine shop.
There are those who lament this state of affairs, as though
a goal of Adventist mission ought to be a pastor in every pulpit, a professional
in every parish. They long for a time of full employment and fulsome theology
in which the church gets fully settled in the world—comfortable, mature,
consolidated—and in which all preaching is the role of those fortunate
enough to have obtained a seminary education. They can think of nothing finer
than a day when local elders preach little, or not at all.
Such snobbery deserves the disrespect it gets. Elitism—from
the pulpit or in the pew—has no place within a movement founded by men
and women who knew the smell of sweat and whose fingernails were usually clean
only on Sabbath. Lay preaching—simple, wise, authentic, heartfelt—has
ever been and ever should be the hallmark of this message, and it remains the
crucial test of all our best reflection: Can this be carried by the elder of
a church? Will this bring joy to those who hear it from an elder?
We will rue the day if Adventist theology grows so nuanced
that it provokes no gladness in the heart, no testimony of changed lives, no
passion for new witness. These are the finest contributions of lay preaching,
for they undergird the propositions of our faith with real-life and real-world
experience. Lay preaching makes the gospel walk among the wounded, through the
marketplace, between the tool grinders, across the rice paddies, and in so doing,
gives our doctrine credibility it could gain from nowhere else.
The Lord who was content to trust His Word to shepherds, tentmakers,
carpenters, and fishermen still makes it His special joy to put some wisdom
every Friday evening in the hearts of tens of thousands of lay preachers who
agree, and gratefully, to think His thoughts after Him.
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Bill Knott is an associate editor of the Adventist Review.
