Generations Apart, Same Observation

Perhaps this will sound self-serving.

Not meant to be, as well as I know my own (deceitful) heart...

Within two days I heard the same assessment  from a herd of junior highers (with whom I just completed a week at Crescent Lake Bible Camp in Rhinelander, Wi; during which I took the photo whilst on a funyack) and a woman in her late seventies or early eighties...

The teens said something like, "Thanks, Jack, for speaking so clearly about what I needed to hear. I can't understand my pastor/youth pastor/etc but you are so 'in-my-face' that I have to pay attention. I didn't like some of what I heard, but God worked in me..."

After I preached in a local church many folks gave the typical thanks etc (what Howard Hendricks calls the evangelical "glorification of the worm ceremony") on their way out...

But the elderly woman (at my age can I call someone else elderly?) enveloped my right hand in both of hers and said, with tears, "I haven't heard preaching like that for a long, long time. Keep preaching the truth, and preach it hard, young man." (no matter what she said, the last two words endeared her to me!)

I've learned to bounce praise to the One who is worthy (and, by the way, I usually bounce criticism the same way).

But I hear those sentiments so often...

Why are all too many Christians...to include "professionals"...notorious for almost saying something?