SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE:

I recently returned from a residency in Chicago, where I am working on a doctorate in preaching.

While there I learned from some of the most well-known preachers in the nation. One of them is the Rev. Dr. H. Beecher Hicks, senior pastor of Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington D.C.

Hicks delivered an address on the challenges facing black preachers today. As I listened to his words, I realized he described the challenge for “The Church” today, not simply the black church.

He observed that church has become watered down, and our culture prefers prosperity theology to the high demands of the cross. He reminded us, that for those of us who claim Christianity, the flag is not higher than the cross.

Sadly, he says, “authentic preaching tends to speak in a language that is offensive to the culture.” And yet, even as it offends, he argues that speaking the prophetic voice is an imperative from God.

I wonder then, how will the church respond? Can Christians become the Church community that Jesus had intended us to be? How can we live counter-culturally in a society that urges us to spend to stimulate the economy, to avoid tough issues because we’re uncomfortable, to turn our eyes from a neighbor in need? Can we resist what Hicks calls the “bully pulpit newscasters?” Or will we see, in our own lifetimes, the demise of the church, as so many nations before us have already witnessed?

Hicks reminds us that our God is a God of liberation. As people of faith, we are then called to liberate, both our neighbors and ourselves, from the confines of society that we might live in the realm of God.

Those of us who have chosen the Christian path know it is not an easy one, but I hope we will remain faithful to the life of Jesus and his prophetic message that continues to speak to us today.

SARAH HALVERSON is the senior pastor at Fairview Community Church in Costa Mesa.