Confrontational?

I ran into her at a local coffee shop. She and her family have been a delight. They came our way during the pandemic because the congregation she was at simply wasn’t doing anything. It’s a much much more progressive one. They have loved being with a church so committed to the Text and the Truth. She is kind and joyful, and her words shocked me. 

“I listened to your sermon last Sunday while we were on vacation. Thank you for how you preach. My daughter and I have never heard confrontational preaching before and it really helps us think about how we are living.” Yeah, you caught it, didn’t you. “Confrontational preaching.” That’s the first time anyone has ever described my preaching that way to my face. She explained that she had never heard homosexuality called sin, or that sin was, well sinful.  She also said that it seemed to her I had a bug in her house and was preaching right to her needs spiritually. She loves our congregation and meant this as a high compliment. 

But I don’t want to be controversial. Confrontational sounds harsh. Confrontational doesn’t sound kind and I want to be kind. And I simply am not mean, and that sounds mean.

Confrontational Preaching. The truth is all preaching is confrontational. We will confront truth or truth will confront our preaching. You are either in confrontation with satan, and evil, and sin, or with God, and good, and righteousness. So, I guess I do want my preaching to be in confrontation with all that is evil. Some will hear you as confrontational, but that’s actually a compliment. 

“But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life” (2 Corinthians 2:14-16).