JOHNNY ONE NOTE

"Johnny One Note" was a show tune about a singer named Johnny who could only sing one note. The opening lines of the song go like this: "Johnny could only sing one note/ And the note he sang was this. /Ah, poor Johnny one note sang out with gusto And just overlorded the place. /Poor Johnny one note, yelled willy nilly /Until he was blue in the face. /For holding one note was his ace. 'Couldn't hear the brass, Couldn't hear the drum . . ."

There are Bible teachers, Sunday school teachers, authors and others like Johnny One Note. They sing just one note; they talk about just one subject with jack-hammer repetition. Every sermon is one note; every Sunday school lesson is one note. And, woe upon woe, the older Johnny One Note gets, the more he sings the one note.

THE FIRST JOHNNY ONE NOTE

Johnny One Note steps behind the lectern to teach about the key to a healthy spiritual church and the key to the spiritual life of each member. He tells the congregation that Bible study is the key to their spiritual life. "If there's one thing we need, it's more Bible study, more Bible study, more Bible study. He preaches this over and over and over.

THE SECOND JOHNNY ONE NOTE

The second Johnny One Note and tells the congregation that the key to the spiritual life is prayer. "We need to meet more for prayer," he admonishes his congregation, "so our board will meet each Saturday night for prayer, our Sunday school teachers will meet to pray, and then we'll have our Wednesday night service devoted only to prayer." He repeats this over and over again.

THE THIRD JOHNNY ONE NOTE

This Johnny One Note tells his flock, "The key to the spiritual life is evangelism. We must be involved in reaching out with the gospel. We need more training in evangelism and more fishing expeditions to cast the net into the waters of the unsaved."

THE FOURTH JOHNNY ONE NOTE

Across town, the fourth Johnny One Note harps on what makes a healthy church: "The Holy Spirit is the key to the spiritual life. This church needs more emphasis on the Person and work of the Holy Spirit."

THE FIFTH JOHNNY ONE NOTE

The fifth pastor hits his one note as he teaches his 75th sermon in the series, "Fellowship is the Key to a Healthy Church." His sermons can be condensed into one sentence, "What we need around here is more fellowship." For the 75th consecutive week, the congregation knows what he's going to say before he says it.

WHICH PASTOR IS RIGHT?

Each pastor is right and each pastor is wrong. The reason they're all wrong is because each pastor is using the wrong word--the word "The," when they should be using the article, "A." "A key to the spiritual life is prayer." "A key to the spiritual life is fellowship." "A key to the spiritual life is the Holy Spirit." Etc.

I knew a pastor who was obsessed with I John 1:9. Somehow, in some way, he would teach the truth of I John 1:9every time the church met. Every sermon. World without end. Amen. Over and over and over again. Nothing wrong with what he taught, but it became his one note, even to the extent that his associate pastor made it his license plate.

The Johnny One Notes are unbalanced, imprecise, and lazy. They're deaf; they can't hear the brass and the drums of the Bible. They're not listening to all the Scriptures on the subject. They need to use one thing: a concordance.