Looking back on his preaching ministry before late 2019, Lakepointe Church pastor Josh Howerton said he has “a heart of repentance and sorrow for it.”
Yet the regret is not over any heretical theology and what he said from the pulpit – but rather what he didn’t say.
The popular Dallas preacher, who is responsible for shepherding a multi-site body of believers, said that when it came to weighing in on cultural hot-button issues, he used to “try to stay Switzerland” out of fear of alienating church members.
In other words, he sought to stay neutral.
But that all changed when he realized, “We actually have a moral responsibility as the church to oppose evil.”
Pastor Howerton is not referring to partisan politics but rather moral and biblical issues – the sanctity of life, the definition of marriage, the biblical understanding of two sexes, and the protection of children, to name a few of the most pressing cultural issues of the day.
Talking recently about his epiphany, Howerton likened his evolving cultural outreach to Jesus’ “Parable of the Great Banquet” (Luke 14:12-24). You will recall that in the story Jesus shared, a man prepares a sumptuous feast and sends out his servants to invite the well-heeled and established citizens of the area. Yet despite the generous invitation, they all begin making excuses about why they cannot attend.
The “master” then invites the commoners, who presumably flock to the feast with great enthusiasm and appreciation.
Pastor Howerton explained that he learned the hard way that pastors whose first goal is to not offend are like the master who invites the elites to his table.
“I honestly feel like that’s what happened to pastors in the last six to eight years,” he reflected. “We tried to tailor-make this missiology from this imagined, secular, progressive, elite person that was in our heads. We spent all these years going, ‘Hey, why don’t you come? Why don’t you come?’”
Pastor Howerton went on to say that while God desires everyone be saved, he felt called to speak to the everyman and that “fields are ripe for harvest” (John 4:35) for the pastor who isn’t worried about alienating someone by wading into cultural issues.
Nancy Murray of Colorado Springs agrees. While she didn’t invoke him by name in a letter to the editor in Thursday’s Colorado Springs Gazette, she praised her pastor at “Church For All Nations” for not shying away from his duty as leader of the flock. Murray correctly notes, “In the early days before the Revolutionary War, pastors were famous for preaching God’s Word on how faith should shape our politics.”
She then laments, “Today, many pastors falsely claim that they cannot dip their toes into politics due to ‘separation of church and state,’ but this is a false premise. There is no such statement in the founding documents.”
Nancy then goes on to note that churches and other nonprofit organizations “may still discuss public policy issues, engage in nonpartisan voter education, registration, and get-out-the-vote efforts and address moral or religious perspectives on political topics, as long as they do not cross into candidate endorsement or opposition.”
In Colorado, pastors have a unique and pressing opportunity to educate their congregants on several ballot initiatives that will protect children.
A “yes” vote on Proposition 133, the “Children Are Not for Sale Act,” will impose tougher penalties for child sex trafficking.
A “yes” vote on Proposition 134 will prevent boys from playing in girls’ sports.
A “yes” vote on Proposition 135 will ban mutilating surgeries on sexually confused minors.
But how many pastors will talk about these initiatives? Similar offerings are on ballots in states across the country. We pray that pastors will seize these remaining weeks to help educate their congregants on how their faith can help shape their decisions – and that Christians will turn out to cast their vote.
Pastor Howerton has urged pastors and congregants to demonstrate courage. He asks, “Are you right now in your life on a self-preservation mission fueled by fear, or are you on a God-glorifying mission fueled by faith?”
To those who may shrug and suggest that God’s sovereignty somehow relieves them of the responsibility to act, Howerton rightly reminds pastors and followers of Jesus, “Your job in society is to slow societal decay.”
Christians in America have an opportunity to do just that by voting in November.
