Prayer-saturated preaching

The Seventh-day Adventist Church for many decades has used technology as one way of carrying out its mission. Hope Channel is an important tool for pastors and congregations. During a recent interview with the editors, Hope Channel president Brad Thorp and vice president Gary Gibbs shared some of the latest developments of this television ministry.

In his book The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Philip Jenkins, a distinguished professor of history at Penn State, notes that the most significant changes in the world during the last portion of the twentieth century were not secular trends like fascism, communism, feminism, or environmentalism. According to Jenkins, “it is precisely religious changes that are the most significant, and even the most revolutionary, in the contemporary world. . . . We are currently living through one of the transforming movements in the history of religion worldwide.” According to Jenkins, the church is exploding at unprecedented rates in the so-called Third World.

Having been in ministry for more than 25 years, I have had my share of hospital visits. The majority of these visits was simply to provide a word of encouragement to a parishioner who was in for a brief stay. But then there have been the other times that brought tears not only to my eyes but also to my soul. You know the ones where the physician comes to share the prognosis with the family, and it isn’t good news. These are the moments that leave you feeling completely helpless and at a loss for words—in spite of what you may have learned in pastoral ministry class. I have discovered that during these times, the most effective form of ministry that a pastor can render is simply the ministry of presence. Although visiting the sick and the suffering becomes, in most cases, trying at best, years spent in ministry have taught me to handle it with a certain degree of professionalism and grace.

Living in the so-called “Bible Belt” of the United States for several years now, I am accustomed to the large lighted signs churches there use to draw attention to their services. Some signs even offer a concise message—a saying—to prod thought and promote faith. One church sign I saw stated, “Satan Subtracts and Divides, God Adds and Multiplies.” Another sign warned, “Forbidden Fruit Creates Many Jams.” Another sign promised, “God Answers Knee- Mail.” Still another sign advised: “Read the Bible: Prevent Truth Decay.” What a worthy message when so many unbiblical notions are widely voiced and steadily promoted in our syncretistic and religiously muddled society. Our textual passage, 1 Timothy 1:12–17, shares a saying first century Christians joyously voiced as they worshiped, and it was their word of witness as they evangelized. Paul has preserved that saying here, and he commended it as "sure and worthy of full acceptance … Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (v. 15).