When one person monopolizes a church mic every week that’s a sermonoply. Giving a pastor mic control causes him to be seen as a college style teacher more than as an approachable, listening, and caring shepherd. The greatest sermon falls far short of the simplest encounter with the living Jesus!

True preaching isn’t a religious professional’s Sunday morning performance. It’s the risen Jesus overflowing from anyone’s heart. I find it sad when the presence of the living Jesus is overshadowed in church by the sound of a sleepy, one-speaker sermon.

Giving one-person an every-Sunday sermonopoly is stressful for them. Adding a title to their name increases their stress. When few people could read and books were rare, giving an educated person a sermonoply made a lot of sense, but not so much today.

I believe that the Sunday sermonopoly prevents us from experiencing much that Jesus wants to do when we meet in His name. The Sunday sermonopoly rarely allows time for Q&A, testimonies, comments, or gifts of the Spirit. It tends to crowd them out.

I’ve always been bored by a sermonopoly. I don’t like hearing the same person speak every week for years. It’s always seemed odd to me that churches full of intelligent people hire one person to monopolize the mic on Sunday morning. If you don’t encounter and interact with the living Jesus, hearing a sermon is just sitting through a religious talk.

Preacher, pass the mic around. Give Christ the opportunity to speak thru other members of His body. When church trains people to just listen to sermonopolies it doesn’t do them a service. The church focus on a sermonopoly proclaims that only one person in a congregation is qualified to speak about God.

Church created a sermonoply controlled by the pastor who often unintentionally trains ordinary people to sit and be silent about Jesus. If Jesus is truly alive and omnipresent, then He can take control of the church mic and lead people to stand up and speak as He prompts them.

If we would break up the preachers’ sermon monopoly, the members of the body of Christ would begin to awaken to their ability to speak for Jesus. Ekklesia (a Spirit-directed meeting of the body of Christ) goes beyond the preacher’s sermonopoly by letting anyone present speak as they are led by God’s Spirit.

If you won’t listen to your conscience, it doesn’t do much good to listen to a preacher. Jesus first! Give Jesus the monopoly in your heart!

I think this quote explains why so many sermons seem lifeless. “My aim is that every sermon series I preach is prepared as though I am teaching a college level course.” –Adam Hamilton

Here’s my tiny part of today’s sermon. For Christ-followers closed doors aren’t disappointments. They’re God’s protection.

When Christians gather
To worship God
Perhaps the words
That are said
Can be Spirit-led,
More than just read
From study notes
Or religious quotes
Or simply said
From the head
But flow from the heart
With great passion
And joyous expression
As prompted
By the living present Jesus.

God is everywhere
No matter where
You go today
He’s already there.