On Pandemic Preaching

Throughout the history of Karis Church, we’ve prided ourselves on being serious about our preaching. It’s not like we think we’re the greatest preachers out there. Hear me: we’re not. But we worship a great God who has revealed Himself kindly to us in His word. And we want to soak up those words together. For that reason, we take much care in how we proclaim His word and the great hope of the gospel found therein.

Pandemic preaching brings some significant challenges. It requires that we alter slightly how we’ve approached gathering together, as well as how we’ve preached the gospel. The main difficulty is that we, at least in the short-term, can’t offer Karis Kids. As we want all families to have an opportunity to gather with us, we’ve needed to temporarily change how we come together, as well as how we preach. This impacts our sermons in a couple of ways. It necessitates shorter sermons and sensitive sermons.

First, our sermons will be shorter. We have two main goals as we open God’s word and proclaim it to the gathered saints. We first commit to faithfully preach what the passage says. We second commit to preaching the gospel of Jesus there. And that takes time, at least to do it well. 

Historically, our sermons have been at least 40 minutes in length. However, to make our gatherings family-friendly, we need to gather for around an hour, as opposed to an hour and a half as we’ve done in the past, and that requires more of a twenty to twenty-five minute sermon. 

To be frank, this is difficult for me. It’s hard emotionally, as I don’t feel like I’m serving the meal our family needs. It’s hard practically, as any preacher will tell you that accomplishing those two goals in that amount of time is hard. However, our goal right now is that everyone gets to eat. And although livestreams have been a blessing during this season, we’ve certainly learned they’re not enough. We want everyone - kids included - to join us on Sundays for corporate worship.

Second, our sermons will be sensitive. We’ve never shied away from talking about the tough subjects in Karis. To be very clear, it’s not like we’re suddenly going to serve Bible-lite to our church family. But having children in the room means that we need to handle certain subjects more sensitively.

My wife and I have always spoken very freely and openly with our children about a whole range of subjects. We’ve preferred they learn about the difficult subjects of our day from us, and not their peers. We’d certainly commend that approach to you. However, parents need to make their own decisions and go at their own pace in how they approach subjects like sex, for example. I once witnessed a sermon where a man took it upon himself to inform all the children that Santa Claus did not exist. You don’t have to fear that on future Sundays in Karis. 

Let me be clear: we won’t refrain talking about sin. That’s not what I mean about being sensitive. We may just not address sexual assault. However, as Karis Kids reopens, Lord willing, this summer, we’ll freely take up our responsibility to address subjects such as that.  

This has been our approach over the last year during our summer gatherings, but as we come back inside 606 Ridgeway this Sunday, these are things to keep in mind. If we were serving a meal just for adults, it might look different from one tailored just for children, while a meal prepared for both adults and kids would look different from both. However, in each of those scenarios, nutritious, healthy food should be served.

That’s our goal for this season. It may be difficult (for preachers like me), but it’s possible. It’s beneficial - even critical - for believers to be with the family of God, in-person, hearing the gospel proclaimed. Please do everything you can to join us this Sunday in Karis Church as a family.