David accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior in his teen years. Some time after that he makes Jesus Christ the Lord of his life. He senses a call by God to get a Christian education. He goes to a fine evangelical Bible College and Seminary, realizing that most churches require a pastor to have a Seminary education. He has a desire to be a good preacher, and to be a very knowledgeable Bible teacher. He takes a class in Hermeneutics, which is Bible interpretation and another class in Homiletics, which is the delivery of sermons. The rest of the classes are in Bible doctrine, Hebrew and Greek. He had classes in physiology and sociology. This will round out his education. He is dreaming of the day when he may have a Doctorate, too.

        David becomes a pastor, or I mean a preacher of a church. That is what He studied to be. He has become a very eloquent speaker. He spends hours and days on his sermons. There is a problem with David’s emphasis on preaching and not on being a pastor. First Corinthians 13: 1-2 speaks to this problem “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy (preaching), and understand all mysteries and all knowledge (doctor), and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”

        The people in our churches are made up from people in our society. I have read and been involved with many social problems. I will point them out from this young pastor’s congregation while he is preaching very eloquently.

        Here we have a young teenage boy and girl sitting holding hands. There is a worrisome look on the boy’s face while the young lady is beaming. Let us listen to their thoughts while the preacher is giving his sermon. The young man is worried that his girlfriend may be pregnant. He figured that they were only having a good time when they got into bed together while her parents had gone out to dinner. She is thinking how wonderful loving is. Mother and dad don’t love me.

        Here is a gentleman sitting on the aisle that has a very gloomy face. He looks like he doesn’t have the joy of the Lord. Let us listen to what he is thinking. I hate that man Fred. He said that the investment would be a sure thing, and I would make money on it. Yea, I sure did, by losing my ten thousand dollars. He calls himself a Christian and he is a deacon, too. He sits there on the front pew looking so smug. I hate that man and will till I die.

        Let us go across the isle from him. Here are two lovely ladies. They seem to be good friends. They seem like just normal folks. They are single and have their separate homes, but they love one another. More than you think. You see they are closet lesbians. Let us go a row or two back of them. Here we have smiling faces of a husband and wife. Underneath those smiles is anger. They had a verbal fight last night over finances. It has not been settled. In fact, he slept on the couch in the living room. There is a husband and wife sitting in the back of the room. She seems perfectly happy, but he has a frown on his face. You see he has a girlfriend. He wants to leave his wife of twenty years and take up with this younger lady.

        This is all going on while the preacher is sermonizing. There are other problems in the lives of his people. He is totally unaware of these problems, because he is not involved with individuals in his congregation. This young preacher is only interested in his accomplishments and his eloquence as a preacher. He has no conception of the people sitting before him.

        There are three more personal problems I want to bring out, too. There is an elderly gentleman sitting there with eyes that seem to be red as if he had been crying. His beloved wife of almost fifty-year is slowly dying in a state of dementia in a nursing home. There is also a very elderly lady. I see that her husband of sixty-years died a few weeks ago. She feels so abandoned and lonely without him even with all of the folks sitting around her.

        Abandoned and loneliness is felt by a recently divorced lady in this congregation. Many of her friends seem to have rejected her. It was her husband that left her for another woman.

        The cause of loneliness with singles in the church comes about because the whole push is for the family. That is good, but we must minister to those who have become single after the lost of a spouse. This should involve all the seniors, too.

        The gross problems in the congregation come out of the attitude of the pastor toward the people. He is to be shepherd over his people. Called and anointed by God to be pastor of a community of believers is more than preaching. It is a people to people vocation.