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I didn’t hear about the events at Charlottesville until late Saturday night, not until I checked my social media feed.

“Every pastor in America should be preaching about this tomorrow!”
“If pastors do not deal with this tomorrow they can’t be true men of God.”
“I will leave my church if my pastor does not preach about this tomorrow.”

Passion and moral outrage rang through the Twitter sphere. After I saw the images for myself I understood why.

Nazis? White supremacists? Out in the open here in America? Is this a retrospective of the sixties that I’m watching here? The images made me sad. And they made me angry.

Then I thought about my pastor. And I thought about the calls (and threats) on social media for pastors to preach on the subject of racism. And do it now.

Or else.

I’m going to say something here that I know up front I’m going to be criticized for. But I have to say it.

Don’t back my pastor into a corner. And don’t tell him what to preach.

He answers to an audience of One when it comes to his delivery on Sunday. And that’s not you and me.

I trust my pastor.

If God leads him to speak on the sin of racism, then so be it. I need to hear that sermon. God will tell him when and where to preach it. But that’s not for me to decide. I see things in society that alarm and outrage me all the time.

I want my pastor to hear from the Father as he studies his Word and then tell me what God has taught him. I trust that what he preaches that day is what God intended for me to hear.

There’s a lot of pressure on pastors today. A lot of that pressure comes from people, their wants, their needs. Peter and John were feeling lots of pressure from folks about what to preach too. Acts 4:19 says, “But Peter and John replied, ‘Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges!’”