Brian Sauvé (@BrianSauve)

One of the things that might surprise those who don't attend my church or listen to my sermons is that I rarely—and I mean almost never—talk about online ephemera. My job in the pulpit is to herald the Word of God. That's the goal. Read it, teach it, proclaim it, apply it. Yes, application is important—and that does require a minister to know his people, the world they occupy, and what the eternal truths of Scripture demand of them today. All of my sermons have that. But they aren't ordered around the social media news cycle. That would be dumb. It would impoverish the flock. The Scriptures are timelessly relevant. God knows what we need. He gave it to us there. We are not wiser than he is. I'd encourage all ministers of the Word to be careful on this subject. If I think something is timely or pressing in light of our culture or time, I will occasionally preach a sermon or series of sermons on those issues. For example, I preached two sermons in light of our elections recently, and a 26-part series on the Christian household as well. This can be a fitting way to hit subjects that are pressing for our day without feeling like you need to shoehorn some relevant topic into whatever text you're in that Sunday. I've heard sermons that do that. They are often lame.