“and that his sermon might actually be the catalyst for action instead of a tickling of the ears.”

You have borrowed from Ken. Some of us offered a perspective – other than yours – and you became offended. I often preach from the gospels, and your self serving misrepresentation of my doctrinal perspective is pitiful. How often have you accused PB of doing the exact same thing with Bell?

Rick, this might come as a surprise to you, but you are not the only person in the world who knows how to listen and interpret what is heard. You said from the get-go that a link was missing which only goes to show that you didn’t listen to the sermon preached by Allender. Either that or you are just terrified to admit that someone from Mars Hill’s pulpit actually preached a Christ-centered sermon which was designed to uproot Christians from the safety of their lethargy.

How can a link be missing when the very sermon preached is from the very words of Jesus Christ? If Allender had preached from, say, the communist manifesto then, sure, a link would have been missing. But the passage he spoke from is the very words of Jesus Messiah. You can’t be much more gospel than that. Seriously.

No link was missing. It is simply your prejudice against anyone who doesn’t ‘preach the right Rick Frueh way.’ Which, ironically, is the same problem John Chisham has. You can stand up and talk about the cross all day long, and have a morbid obsession with the death of Jesus, but if you never talk about the Resurrection and how that forces us to re-examine our lives, well, then you end up with nothing more than a horror film where nothing ever changes.

Are any of the sermons you have preached available on line? I’d seriously like to listen to a few of them and do some posts about them and criticize them for content? Let’s listen to some Rick Frueh sermons and see if he always, always, always, offered an invitation and talked about ‘the Gospel.’

Interact with what I wrote about all the elements that are included in the sermon instead of telling all of us that ‘different perspectives either do or don’t matter.’ That’s a cop out.

Do you think Christians never need to hear about how to be salt and light? We are not salt and light apart from Jesus, apart from the Words of Jesus, apart from the death of Jesus–salt and light is meaningless. So how is the link missing, sir?

Fact is, aside from your snarky comments about self-righteousness you have no solid argument against the points I have made in defense of Allender’s sermon. Your only argument is ‘Jerry is self righteous and lacks perspective.’ Oh. OK.

I remember Jesus preaching a sermon to the so-called woman at the well one day. Never once mentioned his death–but did expose her darkness and talked about marriage, worship, himself, her sin, water, but never mentioned his death. In fact, all he really did was enter into her darkness and expose it.

Did you see the cross in the Sermon on the Mount where Allender’s text was? I sure didn’t. But I guess the only way for a sermon to be valid is for it to introduce elements into the Biblical text that are not already there.

Maybe, just maybe, the folks at Mars Hill needed to hear that sermon because they have grown lazy and complacent and needed a new vision of how dark the world is and why they need to get out into it? Maybe their pastor discerned that Allender could say something to them that would be that Holy Spirit spark to motivate them to action?

Probably the real problem you have is that he preached from the Gospels instead of Paul, at Mars Hill instead of Coral Ridge, and that his sermon might actually be the catalyst for action instead of a tickling of the ears.

“No, it’s YOU that doesn’t have ears to hear!”

“I can’t heeeear you.”

I can’t heeeear you more”.

WARNING: Any disagreement may result in suggestions that your perspective is due to an auditory system challenge. Besides being self righteous and disrespectful, that is a comfortable detour apparently used as a subjective addition to your position.

Then again, it wasn’t that kind of sermon either was it? It was a sermon that was saying to x-tians, “What are you doing to BE salt and light in the world? Are you going into the dark, dark places of the world and being light?”

You see, for those of you who are not preachers…sometimes we preachers preach sermons to CHRISTIANS who need to be taught what it means to be a Christian–or, in Mars Hill parlance, to Christians who need to be converted or ’saved.’

You see, sometimes it is the people of God who need the challenge. I know in White Horse Inn circles we are not allowed to assume the Gospel, but sometimes the Gospel is assumed. Furthermore, we only heard the sermon. We don’t know what was said leading up to the sermon, or after the sermon, or during the worship, or during the announcements, or was printed in the bulletin or posted on a powerpoint above his head.

And, to be sure brother Rick, if the ear-plugs fit…but I’m willing to bet that when you were preaching you took an occasion every now and again to preach to Christians about what it means to be a Christian and that you assumed the Gospel as you did.

Every time I’ve preached people always come away with several different perspectives. In most cases it’s the Holy Spirit but in some cases I suspect that it’s the baggage/criteria people bring to the table.

The truth is, it was a good sermon with lots of questions, good illustrations, but still no answer.

if i thought you had the least bit of interest in discussing this, as opposed to just expressing what you think are the faults and failings, i’d answer.

as it is, i hold no such illusions, so i will not.