by Sandy » Thu Jul 19, 2012 10:45 am
In the exclusively CBF church I attended for more than a decade, a solid, Biblically-based sermon with excellent application was an every-Sunday experience. That was under two pastors. The worship was high church, which you would expect in a congregation with a choir made up largely of music professionals and a pipe organ that could double as a cooling system in the summer.
I would agree that the state of preaching in Southern Baptist churches these days does leave a lot to be desired, though I don't think that's exclusively a Southern Baptist problem. I have visited CBF congregations where the pastor lost me in his first paragraph with a sermon that attempted to tie together a series of quotations from obscure people he seemed to be impressed with, but which had little to do with Christianity. In one particular church I visited several years ago (in Georgia), co-pastored by a husband and wife, it was the wife's turn to preach. I spent the time looking around a large, ornate sanctuary at the mostly grey heads scattered here and there among yards and yards and yards of empty pews trying to stay awake by seeing if I could tell how many of the older men had already nodded off. She was trying to do some kind of creative, trendy thing, but most of her congregation was obviously there to do their Sunday morning time and get on to the cafeteria. But I've seen many similar scenes in SBC churches, not with a female preacher, but the same general atmosphere.
I don't think William is going to tell us which church he visited. I might venture a guess. There are only a few "exclusively" CBF churches in the Atlanta area, though he might have gone outside his turf. But among those exclusively affiliated, the one I would think would be the most likely location to meet his description of a "Biblical Sermon" would be First Baptist Church of Marietta.