Dwight A. Moody
First, let me confess: I don’t know what I am doing.
Yes, I know some things: like how to lead a church, plan a worship service, and preach a sermon. I know how to do all that and have been doing it for fifty years.
But this: I don’t know what I am doing.
By “this” I mean my announced effort to launch a Sunday morning broadcast aimed at people who have quit church.
I’m not the right person for this because I am the most churched person ever. I like church and hymns and preaching and such. I miss it when I am doing something else on Sunday morning. I wonder if I could ever adjust to doing other things on Sunday.
I am accustomed to dealing with church people: the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good ones I like, and this is a perfect time to point out that Jimmy Carter was one of the good ones. He had all the reasons in the world to quit church, but he did not. He kept going, even when he was President; more than that he kept teaching his Sunday School class.
I was there one Sunday, like thousands of others, and I had my picture taken with him and Rosalynn. There were two or three hundred of us in the sanctuary in Plains, Georgia. I didn’t know any of them … except the preacher! He had been my student at Georgetown College, and I recall clearly when he called me to say, “I have been contacted by the pulpit committee at Maranatha Baptist in Plains, Georgia.” Jeremy Shoulta is his name, and I have listened to his interviews this week with BBC and NPR.
Nobody is like Jimmy Carter, though, and millions of people have quit going to church. One reason is that there are not enough people like Jimmy Carter sitting in the pews or even standing at a lectern (let alone swinging a hammer). People are people, even in church: unpredictable, inconsistent, irritating, and sometimes outright ugly. And I mean ugly in spirit or language.
So, people quit.
The pandemic did not help either. Churches started broadcasting services and people got accustomed to staying home and watching. Just like people got comfortable staying home from the office and working from home. Same thing.
Then the election didn’t help, with all the MAGA Christians falling all over themselves to endorse the Donald. But that is another story.
Whatever the reason, there are millions of people who used to attend public worship who are now at home. Many of them want to be Christians and follow Jesus, and that is where my new venture comes in. I want to host a Sunday morning program for them … for you!
But I don’t know quite what to do. I know what a worship service looks like but what kind of program should I put together for this audience. Music, prayer, and such? “I like the hymns” one interested person told me. But I don’t have capacity to do that. Or desire.
Another person wrote me: “Can a community of faith exist in cyberspace? I look forward to joining you at The Meetinghouse for your answer to my question.”
Answering questions might be a good thing to do during my program, if I have enough people sending in questions. I will start with this one this week, and my answer will be yes, because I have been a member of two such “communities” for several years.
Send me some other questions!
Yes, I will have a message (as we say in the Baptist tradition): not quite long enough, I suppose, to be a sermon (although I am aware that Francis, the bishop of Rome, urges his people (his priests) to limit their Sunday sermons to 8 minutes. I’ll shoot for that, but it will be hard!
Even harder will be managing the technology. All I know is smart phones and YouTube and my website, and I am not sure that is enough to make a good start. But a start there will be this coming Sunday, and you can watch and see how I do and then tell me how to do it better.
Because, like I say, I really don’t know what I am doing.
copyright Dwight A. Moody 2025
Dwight A. Moody
First, let me confess: I don’t know what I am doing.
Yes, I know some things: like how to lead a church, plan a worship service, and preach a sermon. I know how to do all that and have been doing it for fifty years.
But this: I don’t know what I am doing.
By “this” I mean my announced effort to launch a Sunday morning broadcast aimed at people who have quit church.
I’m not the right person for this because I am the most churched person ever. I like church and hymns and preaching and such. I miss it when I am doing something else on Sunday morning. I wonder if I could ever adjust to doing other things on Sunday.
I am accustomed to dealing with church people: the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good ones I like, and this is a perfect time to point out that Jimmy Carter was one of the good ones. He had all the reasons in the world to quit church, but he did not. He kept going, even when he was President; more than that he kept teaching his Sunday School class.
I was there one Sunday, like thousands of others, and I had my picture taken with him and Rosalynn. There were two or three hundred of us in the sanctuary in Plains, Georgia. I didn’t know any of them … except the preacher! He had been my student at Georgetown College, and I recall clearly when he called me to say, “I have been contacted by the pulpit committee at Maranatha Baptist in Plains, Georgia.” Jeremy Shoulta is his name, and I have listened to his interviews this week with BBC and NPR.
Nobody is like Jimmy Carter, though, and millions of people have quit going to church. One reason is that there are not enough people like Jimmy Carter sitting in the pews or even standing at a lectern (let alone swinging a hammer). People are people, even in church: unpredictable, inconsistent, irritating, and sometimes outright ugly. And I mean ugly in spirit or language.
So, people quit.
The pandemic did not help either. Churches started broadcasting services and people got accustomed to staying home and watching. Just like people got comfortable staying home from the office and working from home. Same thing.
Then the election didn’t help, with all the MAGA Christians falling all over themselves to endorse the Donald. But that is another story.
Whatever the reason, there are millions of people who used to attend public worship who are now at home. Many of them want to be Christians and follow Jesus, and that is where my new venture comes in. I want to host a Sunday morning program for them … for you!
But I don’t know quite what to do. I know what a worship service looks like but what kind of program should I put together for this audience. Music, prayer, and such? “I like the hymns” one interested person told me. But I don’t have capacity to do that. Or desire.
Another person wrote me: “Can a community of faith exist in cyberspace? I look forward to joining you at The Meetinghouse for your answer to my question.”
Answering questions might be a good thing to do during my program, if I have enough people sending in questions. I will start with this one this week, and my answer will be yes, because I have been a member of two such “communities” for several years.
Send me some other questions!
Yes, I will have a message (as we say in the Baptist tradition): not quite long enough, I suppose, to be a sermon (although I am aware that Francis, the bishop of Rome, urges his people (his priests) to limit their Sunday sermons to 8 minutes. I’ll shoot for that, but it will be hard!
Even harder will be managing the technology. All I know is smart phones and YouTube and my website, and I am not sure that is enough to make a good start. But a start there will be this coming Sunday, and you can watch and see how I do and then tell me how to do it better.
Because, like I say, I really don’t know what I am doing.
copyright Dwight A. Moody 2025
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