I have now listened to the mp3 of the talk given by Al Mohler at Together for the Gospel. During the introduction, I learnt two things about Al Mohler that I didn’t know. The first was that despite his prolific online writings, it seems he is not leaving a corpus of books for those who are not “switched on”. I would love to know more about his reasoning for that, but suffice it to say, it does seem to say something about his belief in the power of the Internet which if current trends continue, may eventually overtake the book in its influence on Christian readers.

Mohler spoke eloquently about the need to engage the culture, and I was pleased to hear that a session at this conference had been given to this vital subject. His message was very much in keeping with the oft-repeated injunction to be “in but not of” the world which I actually don’t think he used. All too often Christians have a reputation for being “of but not in” the world in that our beliefs and practices of real life issues are not very different from the world whilst we remain socially separate from it.

It is vital that we as Christian preachers prepare our people for the workplace, and that we interact with the people who live around us in the multi-cultural environment. Sadly, precious little preaching focuses on this perhaps in part because in so many churches the only preachers are full-time “professionals it has to be harder for them to really engage with what it’s like for those with secular jobs. I think people like Mohler who are able to engage with the culture whilst not having a job out in the marketplace are few and far between! I, for one, am glad to be a regular preacher with no plans to give up my daytime job!

We have to learn the language and values of the culture in which we live in order to preach the timeless unchanging message of the Gospel to that culture in a way that can be understood. I thought the latter half of Mohler’s talk, focusing as it did on our culture’s preoccupation with self, was especially enlight­ening. His masterful comment that unless we are very careful in our communication, the Gospel will be perceived as just one more form of therapy or self-help was very useful and insightful. We would do well to think long and hard about the implications for our preaching of this comment and the rest of Mohler’s most helpful talk.