Practical Theology: The Needed Diet

It is easy to see that in this day and age there exists a vast disconnect between believers' faith and believers' practice. What has caused this and more importantly, why has this happened? There are a number of reasons for this occurrence.

It's easy to blame the usual suspects of modernism, liberalism, and feminism infecting the church. The effects of these human institutions are no doubt strongly felt in our churches. However, ultimately, pastors, preachers, and teachers of the Gospel are to blame. By accepting the role as shepherd of a flock, pastors also accept the responsibility of the actions of their flock. The flock is going to follow the pastor's lead and practice. Now, there will be the occasional wanderer who strays from the flock but even then it is the pastor's (and the church's) responsibility to rebuke, love, and reconcile the stray lamb.

The first way to begin mending this break the church has suffered of our faith and practice is for proper preaching from the pulpit to take place. Preaching is a combination of explaining, convincing, illustrating, exhorting, convicting, and applying the Word of God into every soul. It's easy for pastors to choose one of the above and focus on that one aspect of preaching. The result can be disastrous. Some preaching is all condemnation and no love. Some preaching is all application and no meat from the text. Some preaching is all explanation and no application leaving the person in the pew to wonder "What can I do about what you're telling me?"

It is the job of the pastor to feed his flock and then instruct them on how to eat correctly and, more importantly, how to eat healthily and how to exercise properly. It is not healthy for sheep to eat all day and then lay around all day and get fat. No, they have to graze here and there in order to work off what they have eaten. Christians are much the same way as they cannot just listen to sermons and "amen" them without putting their faith into practice or they will likewise get fat and lazy. Also, preachers who don't feed their flock text-driven sermons will have a flock that is thin and weak and not willing to exercise because they havent been given the needed food to exercise. It's up to the pastor to make sure their flock has proper food, a good diet, and a work out plan (spiritual disciplines like prayer, fasting, reading the Bible) and detailed instructions on how to do them. Following this work out plan will lead to a closing of the gap between theology and practice. More to come soon about how to carry out these practices...