Yesterday’s blog entry included some comments about C. H. Spurgeon’s practice of interviewing (usually on Tuesdays) those who were moved by one of the sermons he had preached on the previous Sunday. Those were the days when every Baptist congregation in the English-speaking world worshiped twice on Sundays, with the evening service in England being particularly devoted to evangelism. Spurgeon’s practice was to elicit responses from auditors to questions he asked during the Tuesday interview so that he could more certainly discern if what he meant to convey when he preached was what was heard by his audience. He correctly reasoned that what preachers say is not always what auditors think preachers mean and if you want to find out what people think you said in your sermon you should ask them. It is very simple for pastors who are not in such a hurry to get to lunch to engage in this practice. It would help preachers to get feedback who want feedback. Alas, many preachers want nothing of the kind from their audiences.
To my amusement, one among those pastors from different parts of the world who read my blog suggested, “It seems to me you are advocating for a kind of seeker friendly or felt needs approach preaching.” What makes the comment amusing is that I think it came from a pastor who led his congregation to remove the word Baptist from the name of the congregation he presides over (I have not), who I would imagine has also abandoned the more formal suit and tie attire that used to be the norm for Baptist pastors in favor of cowboy casual (I have not), and who has abandoned the classic view of Biblical counseling held by such as Richard Baxter, Jay E. Adams, and John MacArthur in favor of the medical model view held by Minerth & Meier and others that seeks to mix Scripture with secular psychology (I have not).[1]
The response to his intentional misread of my blog was, I assume, to confuse the hundreds of other readers who comprised the audience he wrote for and distract them. There is no way my responding critic believes that I am advocating anything like a seeker friendly or felt needs approach preaching. He knows enough about me and my ministry over the years to know that such a remark is disingenuous. As well, he knows perfectly well that a third party objective observer would be far more likely to conclude that his is a seeker friendly and felt needs approach to preaching than my own, based on the sermons we have each preached over the last ten years (see http://www.calvaryroadbaptist.church/sermon-archive.php for my Sunday morning and evening sermons). However, methinks his real reason for responding as he did was to subtly bolster the Free Grace position he advocates and I do not. I am far more in agreement with Wayne Grudem and his book “Free Grace Theology: 5 Ways it Diminishes the Gospel.”[2]
It was a nice try; the attempt to distract and divert attention from Spurgeon’s sound approach to obtaining feedback from his auditors as a means to decide what he would preach about the following Sunday prayerfully. But it didn’t work. C. H. Spurgeon was no precursor of anything like a seeker friendly or felt needs approach Gospel preacher, and neither am I. I am just a Gospel minister with occasional musings that are designed to express my views without attacking anyone.
