You've heard of "different strokes for different folks," but have you ever heard of different sermons for different shades? A recent experience brought that question to mind. One of the tools our church's website uses is Google Analytics. It is basically used to tell you who visited your website and how they got there. One of the features I enjoy is that it will tell you exactly what keywords someone entered to find your website.
While doing a recent study of our Analytics results, I noticed that someone from Oklahoma actually entered this phrase into the search engine: "2 Chronicles 20:1-30 black pastor sermons" (emphasis mine). I'll have to confess that I was taken back for a few minutes. Someone was not just searching for a sermon on that particular text - they were searching for a "black pastor" sermon on that text.
It caused me to wonder, "Does God's truth now come in different colors?" I mean, isn't it bad enough that our churches are already as segregated as they are? We're no longer satisfied with worshiping apart from one another based on categories of race, economics, etc. Apparently, even our messages need some semblance of segregation - one message for the white man, and yet another for the black man. What next? One message for the poor man and another for the rich man? One message for men and another for women? Why not one message for republicans and another for democrats?
My point is very simple: God's truth is universal. While there may be different applications for different audiences, I think we've got a problem when we start trying to discern and communicate God's truth through the filters of our own flawed preferences and categories. I'm certainly no super-Christian, but never once has it crossed my mind to do a search for a "white pastor" sermon. What would that even mean?
Rather than going to God with our biases, agendas, and preferences, perhaps we should go to God's Word as little children ready to receive what the Father has prepared for us. His truth requires no biases or subdivisions - not one set of truths for this audience and yet another set of truths for that audience. His truth transcends race, gender, economics, and any other category we'd like to throw over it. Rather than molding God's truth into our image, I hope we'll all allow His truth to mold our lives into the image of His Son. Maybe then our churches will look much less segregated and much more like heaven.
My question is, how did he end up finding your page based on that search? Haha
ReplyDeleteGood question! The only thing I can think of is that I was preaching a series through Kings and Chronicles at that time. I think he found our webpage because we post my sermons online. Don't know if it was the "black pastor sermon" he was looking for, but I hope it was what he needed.
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