The Christian Diet

There comes a time in most peoples’ lives when they consider the kind of food that they take into their body. We’re not designed to run as peak performance on fast food and little fruit and vegetables. There seems to be a renewed push towards considering what you consume with more adverts, health related news reports and Netflix shows about a healthy diet. The desire to consume nutritious foods and to have a balanced diet is good, but it’s a lifestyle not a shock fix before you jump back in cue at the drive through again. So, what about the Christian diet?

This is where it takes a bit of a turn because I’m not referring to physical food that we consume with our mouths. Christians should strive to have a balanced diet in the spiritual food that we take in.

Last week, at the church where I serve as Pastor, I preached a topical sermon on intercessory prayer. Topical sermons are not my cup of tea, they certainly have their place, but I’m an exegetical preacher so topical preaching is tricky for me. The sermons take longer to write, it takes me longer to find a passage, basically I am more comfortable in a single biblical text.

But it got me thinking, what should a balanced Christian diet, in terms of Sunday services look like? This is not prescriptive, what I find helpful you might not, but I hope it might make us all think about the teaching we consume.

For a balanced Christian diet I have always said that the Sunday teaching should be 80% exegetical and 20% topical. That was you’re mostly walking through books of the Bible, as they were written, whilst also touching on topics that may be particularly relevant to you and your life as a church.

Another split could be 80% exegetical, 10% biblical theology and 10% topical.

Basically I think that exegetical preaching should be the norm in every church. It’s a wonder to see the Spirit work in people after they have been taught one book and really feel comfortable to pick it up and use it for themselves and with others for the glory of God.

But there is a place for teaching biblical theology, taking one Bible theme or concept and tracing it throughout the whole of the Bible. This approach can give people more confidence in the consistent story of Scripture and how it all fits together, among other things.

There’s also a place for thematic sermons. Personally, I would still try to root them in a passage rather that reference jumping and running the risk of taking verses out of context.

Taking this approach 80/10/10 let’s God’s Word set the agenda for what the church will hear and grow in their understanding of, whilst giving you the freedom to touch on other things where necessary. It would be that your church family go through a specific trial and hearing teaching on suffering can be helpful. It could be that due to the make up of the church more thematic teaching on relationships would be beneficial, or tracing the theology of God’s image through Scripture.

All of that to say – if we want to have Christians who have a balanced diet and maturity we need to serve that balanced diet in church services. Obviously there’s more to the picture as well (small groups, person devotions and holiness, ‘Sunday school’, basic theology training, etc) but that’s for another post.