Most people have a tendency to think in black and white categories.  Something is either right or wrong, good or bad.  In order to get from the complex world of reality to the comfortable world of clear categories, we tend to bifurcate inappropriately and end up with inconsistent dichotomies.  For example?

Well, consider the two issues of communication style and biblical content.  These are two issues.  Yet for many people they seem to have been melded into a one or the other dichotomy.  So if a preacher has an engaging and natural style, then the content must be weak and lightweight.  Equally, if I am to preach biblically, then my style must needs be less than connecting.  The apparent truth of this thinking is seen in so many preachers, but there is real fallacy here.

I just listened to a series of messages that could be labeled as seeker friendly in style, certainly very natural and engaging.  Therefore biblically lightweight?  Not a bit of it.  Actually I found a couple of them stunningly effective in how they handled the text and communicated it to the listeners.  That’s not to say that all such messages are biblically solid, but it’s equally wrong to assume all are not.

Natural engaging style that is connecting with the unchurched is one issue.  Biblically solid and rich content is another issue.  One doesn’t mitigate against the other.  Let’s not be too quick to dismiss.  Equally I listened to an older message that was biblically solid, but wouldn’t qualify as contemporary in style.  Stodgy, boring, irrelevant, cold?  Not at all.  It was deeply moving and highly helpful.

Let’s be careful not to combine and confuse categories in order to create clear categories for ourselves.  Life, and ministry, is lived not in many blacks and whites, but in numerous complex layers of grey.  That statement does not in any way argue against objective truth, as it could so easily be misquoted.  Rather it urges us to engage the complexity of life, of ministry, of preaching.  And on the example given in this post – let’s be both biblically solid and communicatively natural for the sake of ministerial effectiveness.