Deep Preaching: Surface - Preaching that Brings the Truth to the Top

Steven W. Smith is Dean of The College at Southwestern and author of Dying to Preach, winner of Preaching Today’s "Book of the Year" in 2009. He is married to Ashley. They have two daughters (Jewell and Sydney) and one son (Shepherd).

*Editor's Note: This post is the third in Dr. Smith's series, "Deep Preaching."

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If sinking to find the treasure is the translation of the text, surfacing is the communication of the text. We know we sank deep when we say, “I know what this text means.” We know we have surfaced when we can say, “Now I know how to say it."

In the last post we discussed going deep enough that we know what a text means. This is the preacher’s work in the study with linguistic and exegetical tools. However, there is a danger in going deep, namely staying so long wrestling with the meaning that we never surface to find a way to say what the text means. When people hear preaching and say, “He was so deep, I didn’t understand a thing!” that is not a compliment. It probably means that the preacher did not understand the text himself. Or, perhaps he did understand it, but he stayed so long in the deep murky waters of the study, he did not surface. His problem is never being shallow, but being so deep others cannot understand him. However, when you understand something thoroughly, you are generally able to make it clear.

It goes without saying that we are not advocating shallow preaching. We are advocating going as deep as we can and then coming to the surface in time.

Preaching at its core is the translation and communication of the text. The translation works the text into our hearts; the communication works it out. There are times that we are called upon to say speak before God has spoken to us in His word. Yet there are other times that when God has spoken to us through His word, we understand it, but we have not done the necessary work to find a way to work out what God has worked in. We may gravitate toward the translation side of things because we like the time in the study. Or, we may gravitate toward the communication side of things because we enjoy the preaching moment, the thrill of engaging communication. We all have our strengths. 

So when we sink deep enough to find out the meaning of the text, how do we surface in a way that people can understand the meaning?

OK, there are roughly one million things to say here which have been said in thousands of books.  However, this list represents some things that I struggle with and things that I don’t think we cover well enough in formal training; so not exhaustive, just a few diving strategies that will help you surface on time.

1. Repent

If a preacher is not willing to bend his will to the text, then it will never live in the pulpit.This may be the hardest part of the process.When we arrive at a text of Scripture and it calls us to change something about our character, confess a sin, right a wrong, we must do so immediately.What is at stake, of course, is our own sanctification.However, what is also at stake is the sanctification of others.This is a heavy thing to bear, but it is no less true.Procrastinated repentance is the foundation on which unprepared sermons are built.Meditate on I Timothy 4:16.

2. Look for a clear structure borrowed from the text.

When we sink to see the treasure of Scripture, a structure will emerge.The structure will be based on the genre.An epistle will have the feel of a lecture or a lesson.It may even be filled with commands like the 50+ exhortations found in James.However, a sermon on an Old Testament narrative does not need points.They simply are not there.The narrative is built around the scenes of the story.A parable will have scenes that are sometimes followed with Christ commentary on the parable, so in one sermon you have narrative (the parable proper), and exhortation (Christ’s commentary on the parable).We don’t have to scramble for a structure for the sermon; we simple borrow the one provided for us by the text.The reason for this is simple: there is meaning at the structural level.So mirroring the structure is actually a part of finding the meaning.

3. Emerge with the spirit of the text in mind.

Every text of Scripture has an embedded emotional design.When we preach we are not just communicating the substance, and borrowing the structure, we are finding out what about the emotional design of the text has meaning as well.Was it the beauty of poetry, the sting of a rebuke, or the rising tension of a narrative?All of those are embedded to help us with the meaning of the text.

Phillips Brooks says that preaching is “truth through personality."I agree with the spirit of this, but my job is not to front my personality.Rather, I can gladly borrow the personality of the Scripture that is imbedded in the genre.

4. Stop studying.

The best preachers know when to stop.They know when they are done with the exegetical process – what the text means, and can move to the communication process – how I say what it means.If God were to give you 100 hours to prepare, this would be a different sermon.But He hasn’t; you just have a few hours.In the few hours God has given you to steward, there comes a point when you are done - you just have to be wise enough to recognize when that is.

At some point you say, “I know what this text means to the best of my ability, now I have to spend time figuring out how to say it."

One encouragement is that every text is different.Some texts demand more exegetical work and others more communication work. For example, if you are preaching the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15, you will find the meaning pretty close to the surface.You will need less time on the exegetical side.However, that parable is so well known that you will need more time trying to figure out how to say it in a fresh way.

If you are preaching the rich man and Lazarus from Luke 16, you will need plenty of time on the exegetical side of things to read yourself clear in that text.The meaning of the text is not near the surface and it demands much more time in the study.

So, you sank deeply to find the treasure, you surfaced with a clear outline that reflects the structure and the spirit of the text.  All that remains is to show its beauty, which is the subject of the next post.

Deep Preaching: Sink - The Value of Sinking Before You Surface

Steven W. Smith is Dean of The College at Southwestern and author of Dying to Preach, winner of Preaching Today’s "Book of the Year" in 2009. He is married to Ashley. They have two daughters (Jewell and Sydney) and one son (Shepherd).

*Editor's Note: This post is the second in Dr. Smith's series, "Deep Preaching."

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Deep sea diving is dangerous. You can deplete yourself of oxygen, do permanent damage to your body, and of course die a slow painful death by drowning. These fears are very real to the deep sea diver, and they are no less real to the preacher.

So, why go deep into the meaning of a Scripture?

Consider the risk: the preacher can spend so long in the icy black of commentaries, online resources, and exegetical nuance that he cripples himself by the fear of saying something wrong. He might spend so long there that he picks up words and phrases that do not translate well for surface-dwellers. And, then there is the greatest risk of all – he might not surface on time. Perhaps he is so enthralled in the depth of his study that when he finally looks at his watch, he realizes he does not have enough time to surface! It is Saturday night and he is still a hundred feet below the meaning of this text. He still does not know what this text means. He then enters the pulpit with a half-prepared alchemy of the collected thoughts of others, garnished with a compelling introduction and conclusion.

Besides, we have heard deep preachers before: boring, academic, exegetical – no thanks.

Even though the fears are real, if the preacher is going to dispense truth he must sink deep enough to find the truth, surface in time to present the truth, and polish it in a way that makes the truth accessible. He must sink to find the treasure and surface in time to make the truth shine.

If the Risk is So Great, Why Go Deep? 

The reason is clear: the meaning of a text is rarely on the surface. If what our people need was naturally on the surface, then Scripture would only need proclamation and not explanation. A few thousand years have passed since the writing of Scripture. A lot has changed. There has been a shift in the way we communicate and learn – from an oral tradition, to a written tradition, to a literate tradition, to an electronic tradition, and now to principally a visual tradition. The way we communicate, and thus the way we learn has radically changed. To borrow a phrase, these realities separate the modern listener from the ancient text.

Also, when God composed Scripture He imbedded it with meaning in its structure as well as its substance. The way sentences and clauses are shaped carry meaning. Yet, there is also meaning on the macro level as well as the micro level of Scripture; on the structural level of the cannon of Scripture. What superficial, cursory reading of Scripture will see that the Warrior Messiah image of Rev. 19 is directly lifted from Psalm 2? Will the most studious of our people see Psalm 78 is fulfilled in Matt 13? These textual relationships are real. They have meaning. They were meant to be seen. And, they are not on the surface. They must be mined from the bottom with the daunting slough of hard work.

It might be good to stop here and recognize that this metaphor may be offensive to some. After all it suggests that the people are on the surface, and that they are far separated from Scripture. Surely this line of thinking is suspect. Isn’t the word of God for all people? If all truth is God’s truth isn’t all truth for all people? Don’t we all have access to Scripture? Or are we so arrogant to think, as the character Mack bemoaned in The Shack, “God’s voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects.”[1]

I am not sure how wide reaching this line of thinking is, however, the objection is out there and we have to address it. So are we suggesting by this metaphor that understanding Scripture is only for the spiritually or cultural elite? Of course not. Perhaps two responses are needed.

First, we need not confuse God’s accessibility with His intricacy. God is accessible. I happen to believe that giving people a copy of God’s word is a wonderful way to share the faith. In fact, when I have the chance to share my faith I find that whatever text I am preparing or meditating on is a great entry point. This is especially true of the parables. What parable it is does not matter. All of them are about the kingdom and they all ultimately provide a way to share the Gospel. Why? Because God’s Word is accessible to all people at all times in an unlimited number of ways. We are all swimming in the tsunami of grace that was brought to us by the sweet simplicity of God’s accessibility.

This does not mean that Scripture is always easy to understand. There are a number of texts that do not make sense on the surface, or even after a few readings. The majority of these are actually easy to understand if someone has a basic understanding of how Scripture relates to itself or the cultural background in which it was written. In other words, a medium amount of training can equip one to understand most of Scripture. To deal with the other hard texts, one needs a little more training.

So again, God is both simple and complex. And since words reveal character, we anticipate that His word is both simple and complex. God is accessible – therefore His word is accessible. God is intricate, nuanced, and complex – His word reflects that as well.

God Expects Us to Go Deep

But, one might say, doesn’t it bother you that you are suggesting that the average person can’t get the meaning of certain passages at first blush? It really doesn’t. I don’t think it bothers the average person either. My experience is that they want to hear from someone who has thought about these things more deeply than they have to provide insight, wisdom, and counsel. And beyond this lay expectation, there is a divine expectation as well. Scripture is clear about the fact that pastor’s are to guard the sacred trust with their very lives (I Timothy 4:16; 6:20; II Timothy 1:13,14; 2:1-7; Titus 1:9). Nothing is clearer from Scripture than the fact that those held accountable for preaching have a dual stewardship: to protect God’s sheep and protect God’s Word. We keep the sheep safe by keeping the sword sharp. Both stewardships come from God.

So, when we mount the pulpit, God expects us to be deep. Our people should expect that we have gone deep. Not muddled or convoluted preaching, but preaching that demonstrates that we have wrestled with the text long enough that we are clear; we know the meaning to the best of our understanding. This is the objective. When it is clear to us, it has a chance to be clear to them. The greatest compliment one could pay a preacher is when they say, “Now I know what that text means."

We may think of this as a nice, but unattainable, goal for those who are really going to get into their preaching at a high level. But really, it’s what our people want.

People will excuse about any kind of preaching except boring preaching. But remember that there are two types of boredom – intellectual boredom and emotional boredom. Preachers often fear emotional boredom so we try to make people laugh and cry in the sermon. However, it is possible to be emotionally engaging and intellectually boring. This, in my opinion, is a chief reason why more college students are not engaged in church. Their pastor stimulated their emotions; he just did not make them think. He surfaced before he sank.

Deep diving is dangerous. However, the risk of sinking deep is no greater than the risk of staying on the surface. In the first you die, in the second your people die. And at the end of the day, if we have to tell our Dive Master that we almost died while trying to get people deep, He will understand. He’s made that dive before.

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[1] Young, William P. The Shack: where tragedy confronts eternity. Newbury Park, CA: Windlown Media, 2007.

Deep Preaching

Steven W. Smith is Dean of The College at Southwestern and author of Dying to Preach, winner of Preaching Today's "Book of the Year" in 2009. He is married to Ashley. They have two daughters (Jewell and Sydney) and one son (Shepherd).

*Editor's Note: This article was originally posted at Theological Matters. Dr. Smith will be writing three follow-up posts for Project TGM as a series entitled "Deep Preaching."

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There are days when the sermon just feels “on.”

The illustrations hit just right. The applications connect. Preacher and people ebb and flow in synchronized rhythm from opening words to closing illustration.

Dismounting the pulpit, you will be shocked if the people don’t hoist you on their shoulders hailing you as the greatest preacher in the world. In fact you’re a little surprised they didn’t interrupt you with shouts and applause like a political rally. (The humble tweet that follows: “God was really good today,” belies the fact that you killed it. Killed. It.)

Yet, in my experience, this is rare. It happens, but not often. Rarely is a sermon, from start to finish, exactly what we want it to be.

How Are We to Evaluate Our Own Preaching?

For those with a commitment to the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, we evaluate our preaching by one criterion: faithfulness. After all, we do not invent messages, we proclaim truth. So we measure our effectiveness by how faithful we are to the text. In fact, this is the only reason I preach. By God’s grace we may mount the pulpit free from any obligation to express our feeling on anything—much less eternal matters. Eternal truth is settled. We are in the business of delivering the message not inventing it. Therefore, we must be faithful.

And yet, this being true, why is it that so many times my best attempt at faithfulness to Scripture falls flat? I really did try to say what the Scripture said and say it the way the Scripture said it, but it just did not work. I am not suggesting there is more than faithfulness; I am suggesting that we who are faithful must constantly re-examine what we mean by that.

If by “faithful” we mean simply getting the text correct, then we have failed. If you’re passionate about preaching, then that last sentence may seem disconcerting, so let me clarify. We know that there is a glut of preaching today that has precious little to do with a text of Scripture. This breaks our hearts. Scripture alone is enough! In reaction to this, it’s possible to swim against the tide of shallow, light, trivial, entertaining preaching by countering it with preaching that is boring, mundane, passionless, and disengaging. Some of us who love Scripture the most are profoundly boring. Just to be clear, I am not saying this as a reformer but a penitent. This might be my biggest homiletic challenge. I want to be so clear about what the text says that often I can be dry. People are disengaged and bored. Of course when I realize this, I justify my ineffective preaching with an internal monologue that says, “Well, at least I got the text right. Those other guys, sure they were engaging, but they never dealt with the text.”

A light, trivial, man-centered sermon is a mix of God’s Word and man’s hubris. But isn’t there as much hubris in preaching that is academic boredom as there is in preaching that is folksy banter? Let’s be honest. We can’t excuse boring sermons because we parsed our verbs correctly any more than we can excuse light fluffy sermons because we entertained.

Scripture is not boring. Therefore, if I preach a boring sermon, then that was not in the text. I brought that. I imposed boredom on the text in the same way those “other” preachers imposed their own ideas on the text.

The entertaining preacher excuses his sin because he made people laugh. The boring preacher excuses his sin because he made people yawn. Neither one has really preached. I know, because I have been both.

So, again, how are we to evaluate our preaching?

Well, first let’s crush the mental metaphor of “balance.” This metaphor gives the idea that we can be too faithful, too expositional, too exegetical, too deep, too textual, too engaging, or too funny—we just need a little of all of it. But that’s unhelpful. Can we really be too faithful to Scripture?

Maybe a better metaphor than striving for balance is embracing the tension. There is a tension in all of us—it pulls us to engage the text while engaging people. This tension does not need to be suppressed; it needs to be embraced. We are called to go deep into the text, and then bring the text to the people. If our exegesis is shallow, we have nothing to give people on Sunday. If when going deep I wait too long to surface, then I give people a dry exegetical exercise that does not help them. After I find the meaning of a text, when do I surface? In other words, when I study a text, how long do I spend on its meaning, and how long do I spend on how to say what it means? This is the tension. And, it will not go away.

Deep-Sea Divers

Now we have backed into a helpful metaphor: a deep-sea diver. The treasure that he wants is not buoyant. It’s not even at 25 ft. If he wants the real treasure, he must sink deep. However, if he stays in the depths too long, he will not have the oxygen needed to bring the treasure to the surface. Even when he does, he has to polish it off so people can see the original beauty of the treasure. If he wants to access the treasure, bring it to the surface, and have people appreciate the treasure the way it was appreciated before it sank, then he must sink, surface, and shine. And here is our task. We must spend time on what the text means, what we are to say about what the text means, and how to say it.

So while there are a thousand preaching rubrics out there, lets at least answer three questions:

1. Did I sink?

Did I go deep enough to find the treasure?

2. Did I surface?

Did I bring the treasure to the surface with illustration, application, and the force of imagination?

3. Did I shine?

Since the truth is beautiful, did I show its beauty or lazily offer it unpolished?

May God give us grace to go deep and be so overwhelmed with what we find that we want to surface in time and show the rich beauty of the treasure, which will exalt Christ and call us to joyful obedience.

Preaching Today: A Discussion with Jared Wilson and Tony Merida

I have asked a couple of friends to answer a few questions in hopes of providing a resource and encouragement to men entrusted with preaching the Word of God in our culture. The Panel:

Jared Wilson is the lead pastor of Middletown Springs Community Church in Middletown Springs, Vermont and the author of Your Jesus is Too Safe and Gospel Wakefulness, and the forthcoming Gospel Deeps. He also blogs at the popular Gospel-Driven Church and has written Bible study material for LifeWay.

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Tony Merida is the founding pastor of Imago Dei Church in Raleigh, North Carolina and Associate Professor of Preaching at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also the author of Faithful Preaching and Orphanology.

BRANDON: In light of the many aspects of church life (i.e. Bible studies, small groups, age-specific classes/ministries, evangelism, worship through music, etc.), is preaching to the group-at-large from the stage/pulpit the most important? Why or why not?

JARED: I don't know if I would classify it as "most" important, but I'd certainly classify it as indispensable, necessary, and vitally important. The Bible prescribes and we need the Scriptures proclamationally delivered -- with authority, with exposition, with prophetic strength. This can be done one-on-one or in smaller group settings, of course, but we see both under the old covenant and the new covenant the people of God gathered to hear the word of God. Think of Moses' addressing of the people after hearing from God all the way through to Ezra preaching to those gathered in Nehemiah to Jesus' sermons and the addresses of the apostles in the church's court-gatherings. The pattern is not either/or in terms of how the word of God is delivered to believers but both/and, and we have plenty of Scriptural examples of proclamational preaching from one person to a large group, enough to see it as biblically normative and therefore contemporarily necessary.

We have always needed the word of God delivered to us this way, but I think culturally speaking today we need in a peculiar way a pastoral voice under the mantle of God's authority delivering "thus saith the Lord" to us. We are very much drenched in a "did God really say?" society, and some of the ways churches today downplay preaching or turn it into conversational sharing or what-have-you lose the gospel-shape of preaching, which is proclamational and one-directional.

Mark Driscoll has some helpful to things to say on this subject in relation to proclamational pulpit preaching as the "air war" and the day-to-day matters of personal discipleship, fellowship, counseling, and the all-encompassing participation in the mission of God as the "ground war."

TONY: I agree with Jared. We should work to do both “the air war” and “ground war” well. It seems that some (extreme) groups pay little attention to one of these two.

For some, preaching has no place in church life. They think the church should just have dialogue, or groups, or meet in a bar and talk theology. I want to see more emphasis on public proclamation, practicing 1 Tim. 4:13. Public proclamation is patterned for us in Scripture, and public proclamation has the “life-changing-on-the-spot” potential because God saves people through the preaching of the gospel.

On the other hand, there is a group that has such a high view of preaching that they give very little thought to how to do the ground war: how to disciple, train elders, plant churches, reach unreached people groups, care for orphans and widows, etc. Ideally, the church is led from the pulpit with faithful exposition and application of biblical texts, and then ministries are developed and deployed to live out these truths. To do both, public proclamation and practical ministry well, serious attention must be given to both.

BRANDON: Over the course of your ministry, what has been your most consistent focus in regards to how you prepare and ultimately preach a sermon?

TONY: My main focus is that that I want to take the listeners for a swim in the text. I want us to immerse ourselves in Scripture, and my desire is particularly to exalt Jesus as the hero of the Bible – and by extension as the hero of every sermon. I want people to walk away every week and say, “What a great Savior” not “What a great sermon.”

To do this, I use a five step method for preparation that is articulated in Faithful Preaching: (1) study the text, (2) unify the redemptive theme, (3) construct an outline that supports the theme, (4) add the functional elements within each point (explanation, application, illustration), and (5) add an introduction and response.

In terms of mechanics, I want to make sure every sermon is a coherent whole, built around one dominant (redemptive) idea, and then drive that idea through the body of the sermon, pointing people to Jesus.

JARED: I find this very helpful. I think you're right on the money. In particular, I think what is often missing in a lot of preaching and missing in a lot of instruction or shepherding of preaching is the ability to "feel" Scripture. So I like your words on immersion and swimming.

Preaching ought to be exultational, an act of worship on the preacher's part. Many preachers have already discovered that their congregations don't get excited about what their preacher tells them to get excited about but instead about what their preacher is evidently and obviously himself excited about. Our people will start to see how God's proclamational initiative in saving us through Jesus Christ provokes doxological astonishment.

BRANDON: Tony, you are in a unique position in that you teach on preaching in the academic arena. Are there significant benefits to studying preaching academically, or is more of a "born with it or not" gift?

TONY: I begin the first day of Bible Exposition class (the basic preaching class) with a brief talk on “The Making of a Preacher.” I tell them that there seem to be about seven things that shape guys into effective preachers. Most of them involve the work of God and human responsibility, but there are a few important things to learn in an “academic setting.”

1. Love for Scripture. I think the Word should drive us to the pulpit, instead of the pulpit driving us to the Word. Good preaching is overflow … an overflow of love for God’s Gospel. Hopefully, in class I can stir up a love for Scripture by the way I handle the Word and speak of the Word, but ultimately, this is a personal dynamic between the student and God.
2. Gifts. Obviously, “I can’t put in what God has left out!” Not everyone is gifted to preach. That’s okay; we need guys who are gifted in other areas as well in more priestly and kingly positions.
3. Experience. I can’t give students this either, with the exception of a few reps in preaching class. Guys need to be preaching a lot to be effective. Driscoll says in Vintage Church that a guy needs 200-300 sermons before he’s a decent preacher.
4. Mentor. I can’t do this either, with the exception of the nine or ten guys that I try to mentor in our elder training program. For some students, these mentors may be from a distance, and for some, they may be a “dead mentor” (ala John Piper and Jonathan Edwards). Preferably, in my opinion, you have all three: life on life mentor, a mentor from a distance, and a dead mentor.
5. Models. I really can’t do this in class either, with the exception of showing some sermon videos in class. But I do try to help guide students toward pastoral-theologians that they can learn from, like Jared Wilson.
6. Character. This goes with #1, but is a bit different. Here, I’m talking about having a life that reflects a love for Scripture. People need to see the pastor exemplifying his teaching. I can help cultivate love and holiness by emphasizing spiritual disciplines in class, but once again, students must accept responsibility for pursuing God and exemplifying Christ.
7. Instruction. Here’s where I try to be of most help to aspiring preachers in class. There are things that students need to learn like: how to exegete a passage of Scripture, how to incorporate biblical theology into expository preaching, how to apply the text in a Gospel-centered manner instead of a moralistic manner, how to preach Christ from the Old Testament, how to prepare a sermon manuscript, prepare a series, look for sermon helps, and on and on. While a seminary is not the only place one could learn these things, it is one place.

With this list, it’s evident that one can’t simply take my preaching class and believe that they’ll become a great preacher. Nope. I can’t promise that at all. I work hard at #7, and help with some of the others, but it’s certainly not all about the classroom. Beyond these matters, I also begin with the caveat that a lot in preaching is “mysterious” and that I can’t explain all the spiritual dynamics involved in preaching. But this list is my humble stab at trying to articulate some of the key things that seem to be present in the lives of effective preachers.

JARED: Tony, you're too kind, but I think I can be extremely helpful especially in providing examples of what *not* to do. ;-)

Love the stuff on "mysterious." We've all heard guys who've been preaching for multiple decades who sound like they're reading a toaster manual. So I think giftedness and personal investment in the text play as big a role in preaching as technical and exegetical know-how. Of course, excellent preachers don't start out excellent and we are all improving over time. But guys with the gift find that muscle getting stronger with use and having better reflexes.

The other side to this, however, is that the power of the gospel that works through the preacher also works in spite of the preacher. And I'm sure we've all experienced examples of our weak, foolish, tired sermon being no hindrance to God's word stirring or changing or convicting or comforting our hearers. We have the privilege of getting better at preaching as we go, but we also have the freedom to know it doesn't ultimately depend on our ability, rhetorical or otherwise.

BRANDON: With the Internet and media outlets that consume our world today, people have more access than ever before to various worldviews and areas of thought. Should apologetics be a large part of preaching in the 21st century?

JARED: I suppose it depends on what you mean by "large part." I think apologetics is important, and some preachers/teachers are more gifted in this area than others. For my part, I don't do a lot of apologetics in my preaching and find it more at home in personal conversations and small group settings. I make some exceptions in sermons -- for instance, I preach the resurrection quite often, but when I preach on it at Easter time, I typically include some historical and logical evidences for Jesus' bodily resurrection, not just to encourage believers in their faith but also because we are more likely to have unbelieving visitors at that time who might find the evidences challenging.

But in general I don't deal in apologetics in my preaching because -- again, speaking *personally* here -- I find myself being led by that into a "let me convince you" kind of mode that I don't find is the primary focus of preaching. I want to proclaim the truth and let the Spirit convince.

But, again, I find apologetics generally helpful and we have used materials from Josh McDowell, Ravi Zacharias, and others in our church and found them helpful. Most recently we had a group studying Tim Keller's *The Reason for God* and they found it both helpful toward their conversations with skeptics and critics -- who can be quite hostile and tenacious in our neck of the woods -- and strengthening of their own faith.

TONY: I think it is very important for preachers to consider the presence of competing worldviews in the audience as they preach. As Keller says, we tend to answer the questions of the people with whom we are talking. And if we are only talking to believers, our preaching will become “ghettoized,” that is, the preacher will tend to address “insiders” only. Few outsiders will show up. But if people hear that a pastor is addressing the questions of skeptics, doubters, and atheists, then they will come – either because they themselves are interested, or because their believing friends will bring them. Keller has really challenged me on this. It doesn’t mean we can’t preach through books of the Bible, or even that we can’t focus on believers; it simply means we need to address some “outsider questions” weekly in our preaching. This requires reading very widely and also intentionally talking with non-believers. Keller says most sermons prepared by seminary students are not any good because they are aimed at other seminary students. I would agree with this, with the exception of those students who are out in the culture talking with people.

The way this works is basically to ask questions as you are working through your text, “what part of this passage would a non-believer reject?” Perhaps this would include something about the presence of warfare in the OT, the idea of wrath, or the exclusivity of the gospel. I think it is very important to address these issues as they appear in the weekly sermon text. Too many pastors (and I am guilty of this) never stop to ask, “What would [insert the skeptic at the coffee shop] not understand or believe about this passage?” Another tip I would give is to address the skeptic in the introduction of the sermon, and to let them know that you are aware of their objections and questions. Mark Dever does this really well. A final note would be to remember to argue appropriately. If you are going to challenge a worldview, you can’t just throw bombs at it. You need to get inside it, understand it, sympathize with it, and then show how it falls flat, and that the gospel is the only answer. You will not connect with the skeptic by misrepresenting their view and spouting “hater-aid.”

None of these ideas require that you totally re-vamp your preaching to do “apologetic preaching,” as much as it means that you prepare your sermon with competing worldviews in mind every week.

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This originally appeared at Brandon's former blog, Modern March.

Revival: Ways and Means

Timothy Keller is pastor and founder of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. He received his bachelor’s degree from Bucknell University, Master of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and Doctor of Ministry from Westminster Theological Seminary. Keller has helped start more than 100 churches throughout the world and is the author of several books, including The Reason for God.  

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How do seasons of revival come? One set of answers comes from Charles Finney, who turned revivals into a "science." Finney insisted that any group could have a revival any time or place, as long as they applied the right methods in the right way. Finney's distortions, I think, led to much of the weakness in modern evangelicalism today, as has been well argued by Michael Horton over the years. Especially under Finney's influence, revivalism undermined the more traditional way of doing Christian formation. That traditional way of Christian growth was gradual – whole family catechetical instruction – and church-centric. Revivalism under Finney, however, shifted the emphasis to seasons of crisis. Preaching became less oriented to long-term teaching and more directed to stirring up the affections of the heart toward decision. Not surprisingly, these emphases demoted the importance of the church in general and of careful, sound doctrine and put all the weight on an individual's personal, subjective experience. And this is one of the reasons (though not the only reason) that we have the highly individualistic, consumerist evangelicalism of today.

There has been a withering critique of revivalism going on now for twenty years within evangelical circles. Most of it is fair, but it often goes beyond the criticism of the technique-driven revivalism of Finney to insist that even Edwards and the Puritans were badly mistaken about how people should embrace and grow in Christ. In this limited space I can't respond to that here other than to say I think that goes way too far. However, this critique trend explains why there is so much less enthusiasm for revival than when I was a young minister. It also explains why someone like D.M. Lloyd-Jones was so loathe to say that there was anything that we can do to bring about revivals (other than pray.) He knew that Finney-esque revivalism led to many spiritual pathologies.

Nevertheless, I think we can carefully talk about some factors that, when present, often become associated with revival by God's blessing. My favorite book on this (highly recommended by Lloyd-Jones) is William B. Sprague's Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1832). Sprague studied under both Timothy Dwight, Edwards' grandson, at Yale and also Archibald Alexander at Princeton. The Princetonians – the Alexanders, Samuel Miller, and Charles Hodge – did a good job of combining the basics of revivalism with a healthy emphasis on doctrine and the importance of the church. Sprague's lectures include a chapter on "General Means" for promoting revivals, and his chapters on counseling seekers and new converts are particularly helpful.

The primary means-of-revival that everyone agrees upon is extraordinary prayer. That's the clearest of all and so I won't spend time on it. The second means is a recovery of the grace-gospel. One of the main vehicles sparking the first awakening in Northampton, Massachusetts was Edwards' two sermons on Romans 4:5, "Justification by Faith Alone," in November, 1734. For both John Wesley and George Whitefield, the main leaders of the British Great Awakening, it was an understanding of salvation by grace rather than moral effort that touched off personal renewal and made them agents of revival. Lloyd-Jones taught that the gospel of justification could be lost at two levels. A church might simply become heterodox and lose the very belief in justification by faith alone. But just as deadly, it might keep the doctrine "on the shelf" as it were and not preach it publicly in such a way that connects to people's hearts and lives.

The third factor I would mention is renewed individuals. Sprague points out how certain church leaders can be characterized by the infectious marks of spiritual revival – a joyful, affectionate seriousness, and "unction" – a sense of God's presence. In addition, often several visible, dramatic life-turnarounds ("surprising conversions") may cause others to do deep self-examination and create a sense of spiritual longing and expectation in the community. The personal revivals going on in these individuals spread informally to others through conversation and relationship. More and more people begin to look at themselves and seek God.

A fourth factor I will call the use of the gospel on the heart in counseling. Sprague and John Newton in his letters do a good job of showing how the gospel must be used on both seekers, new believers, and non-growing Christians. The gospel must cut away both the moralism and the licentiousness that destroys real spiritual life and power. There must be venues and meetings and settings in which this is done, both one-on-one and in groups. See William Williams, The Experience Meeting, a leaders' manual for revival-promoting small group meetings in Wales during the first great awakening.

Finally I would add a fifth factor. Sprague rightly points out that revivals occur mainly through the ordinary, "instituted means of grace" – preaching, pastoring, worship, prayer. It is a mistake to identify some specific programmatic method (e.g. Billy Graham-like mass evangelism) too closely with revivals. Lloyd-Jones points to some sad cases where people who came through the Welsh revival of 1904-05 became wedded to particular ways of holding meetings and hymn-singing as the way God brings revival. Nevertheless, Sprague grants that sometimes God will temporarily use some new method to propagate the gospel and spark revival. For example, under Wesley and Whitefield, outdoor preaching was a new, galvanizing method. Mid-day public prayer meetings were important to the Fulton Street revival in downtown NYC in 1857-58. I'm ready to say that creativity might be one of the marks of revival, because so often some new way of communicating the gospel has been part of the mix that God used to bring a mighty revival.

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Originally posted and permitted for use by Timothy Keller and Redeemer City to City.

3 Reasons I Moved to a Sermon Manuscript

  Jeff Medders is the Lead Pastor of Redeemer Church in Tomball, TX. He is pursuing his M.Div at Southern Seminary. He and Natalie have one precious little girl, Ivy.  Jeff digs caffeinated drinks, books, and the Triune God. He blogs at www.jeffmedders.org and tweets from @jeffmedders.

*Editor's Note: This was #9 on our Top Posts of 2012.

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Preaching to God’s people is a massive honor. Glacial. Shepherding through the proclaimed word is one of my greatest joys and challenges. I am humbled that people at Redeemer Church actually come back — that anyone comes back.

I used to always enter the pulpit with outline in hand; but no longer. I now preach from a full manuscript — 2,500 words or so.

Why did I make the change? Three reasons.

1) Humility

It all began with a blog series by Josh Harris where he posted sermon notes/manuscripts from various preachers.

Some of the great preachers of our day use manuscripts. I had no idea. Mark Dever, Ray Ortlund, C.J. Mahaney, John Piper — all of them are manuscript guys. [click their names for samples]

It seemed that the preachers with thousands of miles on their tires, typically wrote a manuscript.

This left me scratching my head and thinking, “Why don’t I manuscript? These guys are heroes of mine. They must know something I don’t.”

I then noticed that the hyper-gifted pastors of our day and of old: Spurgeon, Driscoll, and Chandler — are outline guys. Again, I began to think, “I’m most definitely not at their level of gifting. Why in the world am I outlining?”

I came to the conclusion — I need a manuscript.

Outlining was I all knew. I didn’t know there was another reputable way. If am I honest, I sneered at the idea of a manuscript. It seemed like a crutch.

A crutch that I needed.

Here’s the deal, this may not be true of you, but it was of me, I was outlining because I subtly thought I might be as gifted as my heroes — but I was in the embryo stage. “Just give me time. Trust me.” Or maybe I knew I wasn’t as gifted, but hey — maybe I’ll turn out to be. Both are stinky.

I had to confess my pride and be “ok” with manuscripting. It didn’t mean I would be less of a preacher. Nor was it going to stifle the work of the Spirit. Rubbish. Have you been blessed by the preaching of Piper or Ortlund? Duh.

I was writing an outline from pride and avoiding a manuscript because of pride. Solution? Repent — and write a manuscript.

And boy — I’m glad I made the switch.

The first descent from the stage, after breaking the manuscript in, my wife leaned over and said, “Do that every week.”

Done deal.

And that leads to the second reason why I ditched the outline and stayed with a manuscript.

2) Sermons with Pop and Bite

This discipline — I assure you, it is a discipline! — improved my preaching.

Writing a manuscript allows me to play with sentences and words — days before I preach — not seconds, like an outline. Preparing a manuscript lets me retool and fortify sentences for their maximum human delivery. Manuscripting lets me work with fresh and new ways to say the same thing; as opposed to saying the same thing in the same way — over and over and over.

Outline preaching, from a shallow well of knowledge, will scrape for words in the preaching moment. And this can tend to many “umms” and “uhhhs”, or you’ll repeat yourself — often. But this can be lessened, nearly eliminated, with a manuscript.

Instead of trying to figure out how to say something in the moment, manuscripting enables me to think of many ways to say a phrase, point, or story, etc.

“Dog Story” in an outline, can turn into a powerful anecdote with exact language to weave throughout the sermon.

Preaching from an outline provides guides and cues; but I will wander from the path, chase something, and maybe wind up in trouble. Been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt. No bueno.

A manuscript helps me know exactly where I am headed, how I’m getting there, and what I plan to say on the way there. All the verses I want to reference are there and won’t be forgotten. I’ll think of others while preaching, and I’ll quote those too.

The manuscript is your friend, not the Gestapo.

Writing a manuscript has improved my preaching — especially my desired time frame.

I’m not captivating enough — if at all — to hold a crowd for fifty minutes to an hour. Forty minutes is my goal. Thirty-five would be butter. Writing a manuscript provides a word count. And by trial and error, I know my ‘word count to sermon length’ ratio. 3,000 words is too long. For this reason alone, I’m sure Redeemer Church is grateful for the manuscript!

If you think that a manuscript will hurt your delivery; don’t let it. Pretty simple.

Be familiar with your manuscript. Read it multiple times. By the time to preach, I have probably read my sermon five times. I’ve labored in the writing, editing, formatting (bolding, highlighting, etc.), and preparing my Keynote slides. By Sunday, I know my manuscript pretty well.

Be so familiar with your manuscript that you could preach without it — but won’t.

3) Readily Transferable

I don’t know how many times someone has asked for my sermon notes and until I had a manuscript, with every reply I felt like a dunce.

“Well, I guess I could give them to you. Though they wouldn’t help you much — it’s just an outline.”

Wow. That’s helpful. *Facepalm*

But by having a manuscript I can provide a helpful resource. And now we are able to post my manuscript along side the sermon audio on our church website.

Say you get invited to preach somewhere on the book of Jonah. Hey — lookie there! — you already have sermons ready. You’ve already spent the hours in exegesis, reading, illustrating, and applying the text. You’re ready to rock-n’-roll.

So. . . What Are You Waiting For?

When I have a busy week, sure — I regret being committed to writing a manuscript — but I don’t regret it Sunday afternoon. I’m glad I made the switch.

What do you think? What do you use and why?

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Cross-posted from Jeff's personal blog.

What is a Missional Community?

This is the question that the Verge Network has been asking a number of leaders on their website, this is the question that many churches around the country and world are asking, and this is the question I deal with on a daily basis as someone who oversees community groups, which we view as gospel communities on mission. It’s a vital question for the church, which is typically seen as a Sunday event and maybe a small group bible study or Sunday school. Somewhere along the way, the common understanding of church became a place to go instead of a people who are going. A place to attend, instead of a people with a message to extend. The gospel was never to be kept inside of a church building, but was meant to define all of a Christian’s life and then lived out in a community that seeks to love and care for others.

The origins of the missional community idea are found in Acts chapter 2 in the scriptures that show a community responding to the good news of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection by being devoted to God, devoted to one another, and devoted to including their friends and neighbors in the good news. Church history shows us St. Patrick who lived this out in a community that eventually evangelized all of Ireland this way.

So now the church is asking, what happened? How do we return to being a people that extend the message and mercy of Jesus Christ, the good news of a good Savior to the world around us? How does missions become normal and local instead of being seen as only an overseas endeavor?

In comes missional community. The name spells it out, a community of people that live on mission together. But as the Verge Network has proved with their question, every church and leader has their own way of living it out.

Ultimately, a missional community is about principles more than it is about exact practicals. The various definitions and forms that happen all over the country and world all carry the same principles but are practically lived out differently depending on leadership and context.

Those primary principles appear to be:

1. Gospel Identity: Everyone in the world lives defined by a certain identity. For the church & those in missional communities, that identity is found as someone saved by Jesus Christ’s work, not our efforts, and then sent as missionaries into the world. We’re not just blessed by God in Christ, we are also meant to be a blessing to others. We are missionaries because God is a missionary and we get to represent what He is like.
2. Community on Mission: Missional Communities is an acknowledgement that our salvation is not an individual, “me & my God” thing, but we are saved into a family or community that cares for one another and serves others together. When a community receives good news, it shares good news.
3. Gather around Mission: The missional community gathers around a specific evangelistic mission. Whether that’s a specific affinity group that everyone cares for or a geographic area where they live, each community has a specific group of people they want to extend the love of Christ to & serve them with the deeds of Christ. I’ve recently seen a greater emphasis on proximity rather than affinity.
4. Discipleship is the key to sustainability: In the past, churches relied on a singular dynamic leader & in some instances that is still the case, but missional communities focuses on enabling every person to be a missionary & minister (or leader) in serving other people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Missional communities will only be as missional as their discipleship. Are they creating & enabling more people to be leaders? Are they making it simple & transferable? If not, it won’t last.
5. Multiplication: The goal of a missional community is not to grow large in numbers of people, but to create new expressions of community & compassionate mission. They see as their end, multiplying into many communities and spreading the gracious message of Jesus to as many people as possible.

As I mentioned earlier, various churches and leaders do it differently and summarize it in a variety of ways. It typically focuses on core values as they define their practice.

The Austin Stone has God, Gospel, Mission. Austin City Life, Soma Communities, Kaleo San Diego, and The Crowded House, from England, have formed the GCM Collective to share resources centered around Gospel, Community, and Mission.

3DM, originally from England, has Up, In, Out. Neil Cole says Divine Truth, Nurturing Relationships, Apostolic Mission. JR Woodward lists 5 things. Felicity Dale summarizes it as a multiplying family that shares life together on mission. Christian Community Church in Chicago, which puts on Exponential which is centered around the idea of missional communities this year uses the terms Grow, Connect, Expand.

If I understood what Alan Hirsch was saying half the time, I might be able to summarize it similarly, but his accent entrances me. I know he is saying profound and great things, I just have trouble summarizing it. His latest book, Right Here, Right Now, is fantastic and summarizes the movements of a missional community as Move Out, Move In, Move Alongside, Move From.

The practicals of all of these leaders in this idea vary, but the principles do not. Practicals range from size, house church or megachurch, content, location, discipleship methods, and on and on, but the principles are the necessary components for each individual church and leader to wrestle with and define in their context. The message and principles must be contextualized rather than merely adopting the practicals.

The non-negotiable is that to be a career missionary alongside a community and missional community, or whatever you call it, has become to most effective means for churches to live out this truth to our world.

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Cross-posted from Gentrified.

Church Discipline Wasn't Just a New Testament Thing

Oddly enough, I've been doing a lot of research and reading on church discipline lately. Don't worry though, I was researching a blog post for one of my bosses, and there was also a new B&H release on the subject—Those Who Must Give an Account. That was all last week. Then this morning's Bible reading (using the 4+1 plan from Read the Bible for Life) dropped me into Numbers 5.

The Lord instructed Moses: “Command the Israelites to send away anyone from the camp who is afflicted with a skin disease, anyone who has a bodily discharge, or anyone who is defiled because of a corpse. You must send away both male or female; send them outside the camp, so that they will not defile their camps where I dwell among them.” The Israelites did this, sending them outside the camp. The Israelites did as the Lord instructed Moses.

Sure does look familiar. Those who were members of God's family were put out of the flock when they were found to be unclean.

Leprosy, now specifically known as Hansen's disease, was akin to death in Biblical times. There was no way back into fellowship with God's people unless you had been cleansed by God and inspected by the priest (see Leviticus 13). If one had leprosy, one was basically living as though dead.

While interesting to study and debate at times, Church discipline is never enjoyable in its application. For if one takes joy in exercising discipline over unrepentant sin, there are greater issues at hand.

The same could be said for those cast out due to leprosy. Family members and friends would no doubt be devastated by the news. They would likely cry out in desperation for healing.

Our response to Church discipline should be similar. It should be marked with brokenness for those who are unrepentant. We should cry out for their spiritual healing. And if/when they return, we should welcome them with open arms, ecstatic that they are once again in fellowship with the community.

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Jonathan Howe serves as Director of Strategic Initiatives at LifeWay Christian Resources, the host and producer of Rainer on Leadership and SBC This Week. Jonathan writes weekly at ThomRainer.com on topics ranging from social media to websites and church communications.