A pastor friend of mine, Chris Brauns, recently asked me a few questions about how to keep the centrality of the gospel at the forefront of a church’s search for a pastor. Chris has written a very helpful book called When the Word Leads Your Pastoral Search (Moody, 2011), and he has developed a Web site full of resources for churches looking for a pastor. Earlier this year, Chris and I had a blog conversation about his book.

Last week, Chris asked me some specific questions about the importance of a candidate’s view of the gospel. Our conversation is below:

Chris Brauns: Would you first give us a concise definition of the gospel?

Trevin Wax: People hear the question – “What is the gospel?” – in different ways, which may lead to different responses.

Some pastoral candidates will hear the question in terms of evangelism, How would I share the gospel with an unbeliever? Usually that will lead him to articulate a message that begins with God as Creator and Judge, articulates the reality of human sin and the brokenness of our world, climaxes with the announcement of Christ crucified and raised so that we might be justified before God, and then calls for the response of repentance (turning from sin) and faith (trusting in God’s mercy).

Other pastoral candidates will hear the question in terms of New Testament exegesis, How did the apostles define the word “gospel”? Usually that will lead to a Jesus-focused announcement: He fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies and promises through His perfect life, He died on the cross for our sins, conquered sin and Satan forever, and is now exalted as Lord over all.

I think it’s good to specify with a pastoral candidate what you mean by the question. If you ask, “What is the gospel?” and they answer exegetically, you might follow that up with a question about how they share the gospel with an unbeliever. If they answer evangelistically, you might follow up with a question about how the Scriptures define the word. Whichever direction you take, you’ll want to make sure that Christ’s death and resurrection is at the center of the candidate’s message.

CB: Do you think that it would be easy for churches looking for a pastor to assume his definition of the gospel?

TW: Absolutely. Too many times, pastoral search teams want to get to know a pastor on a superficial level, asking questions about ball teams or favorite foods rather than probing theological viewpoints to see how one’s methodology necessarily flows from one’s view of the gospel.

When listening to a pastor’s sermons, it’s important to see how Jesus is represented.

• Is He present in the sermon?
• Is He described as a helper or motivator?
• Or is He presented as the crucified King?

Churches often look to the superficial elements of a preacher (Was he funny? Did he keep me interested? Will our people like him?) rather than the core issues that flow from his view of the Bible’s storyline and the gospel announcement.

CB: I am very thankful for your book Counterfeit Gospels. It helped me think more clearly about a balanced view of the Gospel. How might it help churches looking for a pastor?

TW: Ideally, Counterfeit Gospels might alert pastoral search teams to ways in which we evangelicals can drift from the centrality of the gospel. The analysis of different counterfeits that are prevalent in society may help a search team distinguish between a candidate who proclaims the gospel clearly and biblically and a candidate whose thoughts on these matters are foggy and uncertain.

CB: Are there any interview questions you would suggest for pastoral search committees that would help them evaluate a candidate’s commitment to the gospel?

TW: The question of personal evangelism is a must. If everyone in your church was as committed to personal evangelism as is your pastoral candidate, what would that do to your church?

I don’t think commitment to the gospel can be measured only in one’s fidelity to ideas. Instead, we ought to measure one’s commitment to the gospel in terms of how prone we are to share this unbelievably good news that has transformed our lives.

Regardless of a pastor’s biblical knowledge, there is no such thing as “spiritual maturity” apart from living a Great Commission life.

CB: What in a candidate’s background might warn a church that a pastoral candidate does not really see the Gospel as of first importance?

TW: I’m not sure that background will determine this question. A better way forward is to look at the pastor’s preaching. Is he clearly relying on the gospel to bring about life change for his listeners? Or is he relying on something else to “deliver the goods” every Sunday? Does he see the power as residing in this message he’s been given? Or does he see the message as an add-on to his own skills, a more popular message, etc? These are issues that generally come out in public preaching and in personal conversations with the candidate.

CB: Do you have any other advice or suggestions for churches in the midst of a pastoral search?

TW: Don’t settle. Better to spend more time finding the right pastor than to settle for the wrong one. Keep the gospel in view as you search for a candidate. Look out for counterfeit messages that drift from biblical teaching. And pray, pray, pray for God’s direction.

This interview was first posted at PastorSearchResources.Com.

When President James Garfield was shot in a train station in the summer of 1881, Americans held their breath for 79 days, hoping against hope their president would survive. As the president’s condition worsened and the political process came to a grinding halt, many began to dread the thought of vice-president Chester Arthur becoming president.

What was wrong with Chester Arthur? For one, Arthur was perceived to be a loyal parrot in the political pocket of one of Garfield’s fiercest critics, senator Roscoe Conkling. Arthur was perceived as a man without his own beliefs and convictions. He simply parroted the views of his political hero.

Secondly, many thought Arthur had no depth of insight. Harriet Blaine, wife of Garfield’s Secretary of State, described him this way:

“I do not think he knows anything… He can quote a verse of poetry or a page from Dickens or Thackery, but these are only leaves springing from a root out of dry ground. His vital forces are not fed, and very soon he has given out his all.” (Source)

Chester Arthur did become president, and he eventually exceeded the low expectations that Americans had of him. But those of us who preach and teach can learn a couple of lessons from Arthur.

Hero-Worship

The first concerns hero-worship. Do we simply parrot the views of our pastor-heroes? Or do we dig into the Scriptures to find treasure on our own?

A couple years ago, an elderly woman in our church asked me a theological question I hadn’t considered before. Rather than going to the Bible, I went straight to the Internet, where I began searching for a respected pastor’s views on the subject. Before I found his answer, I was struck by how wrongheaded and dangerous my approach was. I had rushed to hear the preacher before I had slowed down to hear the text. How backwards! I should have approached it the other way around: search the Scriptures first and then look for verification from respected pastors and commentaries. Had the Holy Spirit not convicted me, I would have gone back to my sister in Christ and parroted an answer from another pastor who had studied the issue more intently. And I would have missed the joy of carefully handling the Word myself.

Good Soil

The second lesson we can learn from Arthur is the importance of heart-cultivation. Harriet Blaine’s disdain for Chester Arthur did not concern his speaking abilities. She admitted that he could quote poetry. But notice how she described his speech: These are only leaves springing from a root out of dry ground. His vital forces are not fed, and very soon he has given out his all. In other words, once you got past the flowery leaf, you were left with dry ground. He had nothing else to offer.

I wonder how many of us would fit that description. We can keep the attention of a crowd. We can throw in some rhetorical flourishes here and there, and we can quote famous pastors and commentators. But all the while, our hearts are dry. Our lips are parched. “Our vital forces are not fed.” We go to the Scriptures looking for a three-point outline, not for life and sustenance.

It’s easy to repeat a few one-liners and rile up a crowd. But the best preaching contains depth of insight that only comes from lengthy meditation upon the Word. There are no shortcuts.

It’s no wonder we sometimes feel burned out. The only possible way that a pastor could say, “I don’t have anything left to preach,” is if the ground of his heart is dry and the leaves of his Bible study from years past have withered.

Ezra

I don’t want to parrot the views of the pastors I respect. I also don’t want my preaching to be “leaves springing from a root out of dry ground.” Instead, I want to be like Ezra, who determined in his heart to study the law of the Lord, obey it, and teach its statutes and ordinances in Israel (Ezra 7:10).

Too many of us settle for the “teaching” aspect of ministry without having passed through the “study” and “obey” parts. So our theology becomes incoherent, and our exhortations no longer originate in a heartfelt passion that mirrors God’s passion for His people. Others jump from “studying” to “teaching” without the “obedience” part. So our intellectual muscle may be robust and admirable, but our feet of obedience are shriveled and useless.

Here is a great quote from Charles Spurgeon, who challenged his ministerial students to always be “full to overflowing,” to the point that they should be able to preach spontaneously:

If a man would speak without any present study, he must usually study much. This is a paradox perhaps, but its explanation lies upon the surface.

If I am a miller, and I have a sack brought to my door, and am asked to fill that sack with good fine flour within the next five minutes, the only way in which I can do it, is by keeping the flour-bin of my mill always full, so that I can at once open the mouth of the sack, fill it, and deliver it. I do not happen to be grinding at that time, and so far the delivery is extemporary; but I have been grinding before, and so have the flour to serve out to the customer. So, brethren, you must have been grinding, or you will not have the flour.

You will not be able to extemporize good thinking unless you have been in the habit of thinking and feeding your mind with abundant and nourishing food. Work hard at every available moment. Store your minds very richly, and then, like merchants with crowded warehouses, you will have goods ready for your customers, and having arranged your good things upon the shelves of your mind, you will be able to hand them down at any time without the laborious process of going to market, sorting, folding, and preparing…  Take it as a rule without exception, that to be able to overflow spontaneously you must be full.

Yesterday, I wondered out loud about the role of September 11 in the rise of New Calvinism. Today, I’ve invited several well-known pastors to reflect on doing ministry in a post 9/11 world. The question I posed to these men was: “How does living in a post-9/11 world influence the way you preach and do ministry?” Here are their responses:

Matt Chandler:

9/11 created some legitimate seriousness in what I perceived in 2001 to be a general silliness among a bulk of younger evangelicals, a comfort with the shallow end of the pool.  This manifested itself in a concentration on what we should or shouldn’t be doing that was driven by moralism and wasn’t flowing from  transformed hearts.

The grief, fear and shock of that day revealed that for all of the comfort in the shallow end there was a need for transcendence, greater depth, we needed deeper water.  Depth that could help us understand how such things could happen, could show us where God was that day.  Depth that could help us worship when everything was going wrong not just when everything was going right.  An understanding of God that went beyond our personal safety, bank accounts and health.  We need an understanding of the nature and character of God and how He interacts with His covenant community, how He interacts with the fallen world and where our hope should be placed.

Kevin DeYoung:

I was just starting my last year of seminary on September 11, 2001. My theology of preaching was already pretty well set. After reading Calvin, Edwards, the Puritans, and lots of Lloyd-Jones I knew that I wanted to be a preacher that would try to give people a big picture of a big God.

9/11 didn’t change my convictions about ministry or about preaching. But it certainly confirmed that pastoral ministry could not skirt past the hard issues of life. I didn’t want a God, a theology, a view of eternity, or an approach to ministry that would look trite next to the rubble of the Twin Towers.

Thabiti Anyabwile:

When 9/11 occurred, I was waking from a comfortable night’s sleep in an upscale San Antonio hotel.  While dressing, I watched the news footage like most people—dumbstruck.  After I gathered a good sense of what was happening, called to check on my wife and daughters in D.C., I joined my coworkers gathering in a hotel conference room for a discussion of public policy and improving the life outcomes of children and families.  When I arrived, I found a room heavy with confusion, sadness, and fear.  We were a collection of policy professionals from around the country—lots of us with family and friends in Washington, D. C. and New York.  In the silence, confusion, and sporadic telephone connections with family were the questions, “What’s going on?”  and, “Who is in control?”  A few dared ask, “Is God involved in any of this?”

I was the lone evangelical Christian in a group of committed political and social progressives.  I wasn’t in the room 3 minutes before everyone was looking to me for an answer and for prayer.

That scene reminds me that everyone needs to answer some basic, deep questions about life.  Is God involved in my life?  Who is in control?  How do I explain this pain?  It also taught me that, at bottom, we all need to encounter the majestic, glorious, merciful, and awesome God of the Scripture.  He’s the only God there is.  And when we really need Him, we need Him in all His bigness and splendor.  Suffering people hardly settle for a puny god.

So, I want to preach in such a way that recognizes that the God that truly is and the God we truly need holds all things in His hand.  He rules and reigns with no rivals.  And when the world seems to come undone, the sovereign God of the Bible is who we need.  In truth, we need that God all the time and the purpose of preaching in a post-9/11 world is to simultaneously reveal Him in sovereign glory while stripping away the mundane to expose our deep need for Him.  Most of us live in a routine-induced daze that distracts us from ultimate matters.  Preaching is the audible interruption of that daze to ask, “Do you see this great God?  Come and love Him!”

J.D. Greear:

9-11 of course did not introduce tragedy into our world, but it certainly elevated it in our public concsciousness. In a tragedy-less world, simple, practical, ‘how-to’ messages seem relevant, but in the midst of deep pain and troubling questions, “3 ways to fix x in your life” is less so. Deep calls unto deep, and a God who is better than the pain and deeper than the questions is the only thing relevant.

Since 9-11, I have found that the distinction between preaching relevantly and preaching deeply has vanished. Deep is the new relevant. (Unless, of course, by “deep” you mean parsing tenses of inconsequential, obscure Greek words or minute dimensions of theology. That is neither deep nor relevant.) If by depth we mean “depth in gospel”– showing how the God of the gospel is a superior trust than all other false idols, and how the wisdom displayed at the cross is deeper than the questions asked, then there is nothing more relevant to the modern audience than that. It sounds ironic to say, but I find the “traditional seeker sermon” to be no longer very relevant. Silly, shallow sermons may attract bored, cultural Christians from other churches, but that number is rapidly shrinking.

Increasingly our society is made up of  true skeptics and fervent believers; both want, and need deep, gospel-saturated preaching. Indeed, in my observation, both are turned off through light, personality-driven entertainment.

Last month, I was glad to give the opportunity for a dozen or so bloggers to contribute posts during my blog break. Unfortunately, I overbooked the blog and was unable to post all the contributions. This post, however, was just too good to pass up. It’s written by Jacob Sweeney, a seminary student and minister of eduction who blogs about pop culture here. Enjoy!

The Preacher’s Message: The Dragon Has Been Slain

The world in which we find ourselves has lost nearly all moral language. Pop music and television glorify unhinged sexuality and violence. Even our humor seems to consider everything to be acceptable as long as its satire. Those of us who are – or want to be – preachers are faced with a difficult calling. Our context may appear different, but the challenge is the same. For me, my strongest instinct is to face the culture head-on, don my best John the Baptist costume and declare sin and repentance. But, sometimes I think preaching in morally confused world means we turn their own poets and prophets against them.

Modern Day Demi-gods

We don’t have to look far to recognize that our world is hemorrhaging in pain. Humanity is searching for a hero to deliver us. Consider the demi-gods who warred against the oppressive deities in Greek myths. I think of Aesop’s fables with its tales of evil around every tree and the impassable hero who would defeat it. Presently, the summer months are reserved for cinematic explorations of superheroes – the modern demi-god. From Harry Potter to the Green Lantern, I see an opportunity for ministers and preachers to speak directly to this world.

Every movie and every book has told them the exact same story, and every one of them is right. We do need a hero! 

Christians know that hero is Jesus Christ. Millennials and Post-moderns may not hear you at first when you speak of sin, but they will listen when you speak of a broken world and our desperate need for deliverance.

Shaping Minds and Moving Hearts

Sin’s effect on our mind can directly affect us in precisely the way we don’t expect. In other words, we don’t always know what we think we know. Our hearts can be deceived. Our brains can be misled. A good preacher knows this about himself and about his people.

Essential to the task of preaching is shaping minds according to Scripture. This requires more than an information dump. The Preacher – by the grace of God and the power of the Spirit – must fill the mind and move the heart.

As you prepare remind yourself that the Word of God is the Spirit-empowered means by which God changes people. He fills their minds and their hearts. Pray for every sermon, that the Spirit would move through the preached Word to transform hearts and minds. As much as it depends on you, preach to stir the heart and the mind.

Give Them Hope

The moral topography of contemporary culture is bleak. The cultural landscape is desolate and dreary. What carries travelers through such wretched wasteland? Hope. Preacher, don’t ever forget that the gospel is a message of hope! It does not surprise me that my generation’s native tongue is cynicism. We do not know hope!

How do we preach in a world gone mad? What is a preacher to do when facing a congregation that does not know its right from its left? He gives them hope. He tells them that the world is not what it should be; it has been devastated by rebellion. Insurrections rarely bring about beauty. Yet, the King returned. He put down the rebellion by suffering the mutineer’s fate. The very ones who sought to usurp him are now invited to his table.

G.K. Chesterton wrote:

Fairy tales do not give a child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.

Most people know the dragon exists. They’re hopeful he can be defeated. The ministry of a preacher is telling people the dragon does, indeed, exist. And there is a St. George and the dragon has been slain.

Jacob Sweeney is a graduate of the Moody Bible Institute (BA) and is currently a Master of Divinity student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. He writes book reviews and explorations of pop culture at his blog.  His greatest blessing is his wife, Whitney – who always believes, always hopes and always loves.

Good questions prod us along toward greater effectiveness in fulfilling our calling. Here are some probing questions that I have found helpful in pastoral ministry.

About Preaching

1. How can I show the congregation how this passage / topic fits into the grand narrative of Scripture?

• This question reminds me to connect the dots of the Bible’s storyline, so that the people in our congregation see application in light of the great story of God’s redemption.

2. As I preach from the Old Testament, is there anything in my sermon that a faithful Jew could not affirm?

• This question reminds me to consider whether I am approaching the Old Testament from a distinctly Christian perspective. It increases my desire to show the congregation how the gospel is the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises.

3. As I preach from the New Testament, is there anything in my sermon that a Mormon could not affirm?

• This question reminds me to examine whether or not my admonitions are rooted in the gospel or in morality. It points me toward Christ as Savior, not just Christ as example and helper.

4. Am I addressing this topic or cultural issue from a distinctly Christian point of view?

• This question challenges both conservative and liberal talking points and forces me back to the gospel of grace as the message that makes Christian preaching unique.

5. What is there in me/us (preacher and congregation) that will rebel against the truth of this text and how can I  move us beyond that rebellion?

• This question reminds me that God’s word must capture my heart and affections before I can properly proclaim it to the congregation. It also helps me to look for obstacles that would keep us from obedience.

6. How does the truth I am proclaiming equip Christ’s church to be on mission for the kingdom of God?

• This question helps me look past doctrine for doctrine’s sake, and causes me to focus on missional application of biblical truth.

About the Mission of the Church

7. If our church were to cease to exist, would anyone in the community be affected? Would anyone mourn the loss?

• This question challenges a view of the church that exists only for itself and its members. It forces us to ask hard questions regarding our impact as a body of believers in the world God has placed us.

8. What would the result be if everyone in our church shared the gospel as often as I do?

• This question challenges me in regards to personal evangelism. Am I asking church members to do something I myself am not doing regularly? Am I modeling evangelistic faithfulness?

9. What are the unique needs of our community that our church members could address as part of providing a platform for proclaiming the gospel?

• This question challenges me to see community engagement as an opportunity to build a platform upon which to present the gospel faithfully. It also causes me to look for the ways God has gifted individuals in our churches to faithfully represent Christ in areas of need.

10. Are the programs and activities of our church the best way to spend our time, money, and energy to spread the gospel locally and globally?

• This question challenges us to look at our programs and ask difficult questions related to our church’s mission. We shouldn’t be satisfied with relying on the good things we do if those good things do not aid us in fulfilling our primary calling: to fulfill the Great Commission.

11. Am I focused primarily on training people to bring the lost to church where I will present the gospel? Or am I focused on equipping people to share the gospel throughout the week in their workplace, neighborhood, and schools?

• This question challenges us to see evangelism as a life-long exercise, and not merely an event-driven practice done by professionals.

What about you? What questions do you ask yourself regularly as you seek to faithfully fulfill your calling?

Those of us who are entrusted with the task of expositing the Scriptures in a local church must take care to verify our sources, illustrations, and stories. No matter how helpful an illustration may be, it is dishonoring to God if it is untrue.

Here are a number of urban legends that get repeated in sermons. Some are more pervasive than others, even appearing in commentaries and scholarly works.

1. The “eye of the needle” refers to a gate outside Jerusalem.

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God,” says Jesus in Mark 10:25. Maybe you’ve heard of the gate in Jerusalem called the “eye of the needle.” The camel could pass through it only after stooping down and having all its baggage taken off.

The illustration is used in many sermons as an example of coming to God on our knees and without our baggage. The only problem is… there is no evidence for such a gate. The story has been around since the 15th century, but there isn’t a shred of evidence to support it.

2. The high priest tied a rope around his ankle so that others could drag him out of the Holy of Holies in case God struck him dead.

Various versions of this claim have been repeated by pastors, but it is a legend. It started in the Middle Ages and keeps getting repeated. There is no evidence for the claim in the Bible, the Apocrypha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, the Pseudepigrapha, the Talmud, Mishna or any other source. Furthermore, the thickness of the veil (three feet) would have precluded the possibility of a priest being dragged out anyway.

3. Scribes took baths, discarded their pens, washed their hands, etc. every time they wrote the name of God.

As a way of getting across the reverence of the Jewish and Christian scribes toward God, preachers like to describe the honor given to God’s name. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence that scribes did these sorts of rituals every time they came across the name of God.

4. There was this saying among the sages: “May you be covered in your rabbi’s dust.”

This is one of the most pervasive and fast-spreading stories to flood the church in recent years. The idea is that as you walked behind your rabbi, he would kick up dust and you would become caked in it and so following your rabbi closely came to symbolize your commitment and zeal. Joel Willitts explains:

This is powerful stuff isn’t it? Well the only problem is that it just isn’t true… The context in which it is given in Mishnah Aboth 1:4 is expressly not what is assumed by those who promulgate this idea.

5. Voltaire’s house is now owned by a Bible-printing publisher.

Voltaire was famous for saying, “One hundred years from my day there will not be a Bible in the earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker.” There is a myth out there that within 50 years of Voltaire’s death, his house was owned by a Bible society that used his own printing press to make Bibles. Sounds like a great story, but it’s not true. Regardless, Voltaire’s prediction of the demise of the Bible was vastly overstated.

6. Gehenna was a burning trash dump outside Jerusalem.

I’ve used this illustration many times. But there isn’tevidence to support this idea. Still, because it seems like a reasonable explanation for the origin of the Hinnom Valley as “hell,” commentators and preachers have accepted it. It’s possible that the verdict may still be out on this one, but not if Todd Bolen is right:

“The explanation for the ‘fire of Gehenna’ lies not in a burning trash dump, but in the burning of sacrificed children. Already in Old Testament times, the Valley of Hinnom was associated with the destiny of the wicked.  That the valley was just outside the city of Jerusalem made it an appropriate symbol for those excluded from divine blessing.”

7. NASA scientists have discovered a “missing day” which corresponds to the Joshua account of the sun standing still.

Please don’t repeat this myth. There has been no “missing day” discovered, and the legend has been circulating longer than NASA has been in existence, with different scientists playing the part.

What are some other urban legends we should avoid as pastors?

The Gospel Coalition conference has come and gone, and thousands of pastors and church leaders have now returned to their posts, eager to put into practice all that God taught us.

Last Thursday afternoon, I packed my bags and headed back to the airport. Watching the Chicago landscape speed along from my seat next to the train window, I saw people coming and going: some looked like locals, others like tourists, but regardless of where they hailed from, many were probably lost and running from Jesus.

Chicago is big. The dispersion of 5500 believers into this sea of millions of human faces seems like merely a drop in the bucket.

For three days, thousands of young pastors and church leaders sat under profound, biblical teaching. We were drenched in the truths of God’s Word and blessed by the opportunity to meet with likeminded believers. We were challenged to deeper devotion, encouraged in our walk with Christ, and infused with passion for proclaiming the riches of Christ’s atonement to impoverished humanity.

The conference was like a nuclear explosion of gospel truth. Being in the middle of that kind of gospel intensity was thrilling.

But on the train back to the airport, the sound of our voices mingled in praise lingered only as a faint echo in my mind. The conference experience was beginning to fade. The intensity of gospel celebration was supplanted in my heart by the immensity of the lostness that engulfs the streets of Chicago. Even as we were gathering to sing praises to our Savior, the vast majority of the people in Chicago do not know the Jesus whose presence we sensed so palpably. Most don’t even know what the gospel is, much less a conference called the Gospel Coalition.

The enormity of the Great Commission leaves us feeling overwhelmed and helpless, but I think that may be the point. We aren’t supposed to hear the gigantic command (“Make disciples of all nations”) apart from Jesus’ preceding statement (“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”). The magnitude of the task is matched only by the magnitude of Christ’s power. And reflecting on that power brings me back to the reminder that our gospel retreats are meant for gospel advance.

There are many reasons why conferences are important to pastors:

• We need the mutual strengthening that comes from face-to-face conversation.
• We need the opportunity to sit and listen to the Word preached.
• We need to be reminded that the kingdom of God is vast and that God is working in all sorts of ways through all kinds of people.

Conferences help us envision ourselves as individuals taking part in a bigger movement, a procession of the gospel that moves from God to us and then through us to the people around us. It’s no wonder we enjoy the occasional retreat. We need to be refreshed and have our spiritual batteries recharged. God works in us so that He can continue to work through us.

But I fear that many of us enjoy the explosive experience of a conference so much that we want to linger around Ground Zero. We can begin living from conference to conference. The gathering becomes the end rather than the means to something greater.

Eventually, conferences can assume a concert-like atmosphere. Instead of listening to our favorite band play live, now we listen to our favorite preachers in person. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the immediate teaching of a favorite pastor or theologian, but a gospel-centered conference is – indeed must be – different than a concert in a very specific way.

Concerts are all about the event, the live experience, the immediacy of the band in front of cheering spectators. Conferences like the Gospel Coalition, however, are intended to be a catalyst for something much bigger than a group of 5500 people saying “amen.” We are united by the cross that leads forward in mission. We come together momentarily in order to scatter for a lifetime. We seek spiritual refreshment, not merely so we can bask in the glory in the experience, but so that we can invite the thirsty to taste the Living Water. We retreat in order to advance.

Brothers and sisters, may we not live only for the retreat, but for the advance. May our times of mutual strengthening and encouragement be for the proclamation of Christ crucified and raised among those who do not yet name Him. And may the fallout from the nuclear explosion of gospel truth encompass our towns and cities, our states and countries, our nations and our world.

Today, I’m happy to introduce Kingdom People readers to Mitch Chase, author of The Gospel Is For Christians. A few months ago, I wrote this about the book:

“In The Gospel Is For Christians, Mitch Chase demonstrates not merely a love for theology, but a love for the Savior to which all good theology points. Mitch reminds us that the good news of Jesus Christ is not a peripheral matter for the Christian. The gospel must remain at the center of our spiritual life in order to bear the fruits of ongoing repentance and faith.”

The following is a conversation between me and Mitch about what it means to be “gospel-centered” and mission-focused.

Trevin Wax: Mitch, the title of your book would have seemed strange to most of us a few years ago: “The Gospel Is For Christians“. And yet, we’re seeing a gospel-centered movement in our day that is making this very claim, that Christians need the gospel for sanctification just like we need the gospel for salvation. Why do you think this message has grown in popularity? What is the gospel-centered emphasis a reaction to?

Mitch Chase: Thanks for this conversation, Trevin, and what a great way to start!  The notion of gospel-centeredness indeed seems to be growing in popularity, and hopefully the ultimate reason for this is the nature of the gospel itself, which should still be compelling and powerful for believers to hear.  In one sense, this gospel-centered movement has gained momentum from the books and sermons of Tim Keller, Jerry Bridges, Mark Dever, Sinclair Ferguson, J. I. Packer, C. J. Mahaney, John Piper, and others.  These contemporaries have faithfully proclaimed the gospel and helped countless others – like myself – see that its power is central for Christian living.

The prevalence of “gospel-centered” language is a reaction to the kind of failed discipleship methods that many of us once thought would sustain our Christian faith.  Church leaders haven’t always rooted discipleship in the gospel, so for many Christians the biblical mandate to grow in faith has led to continual frustration.  What’s been proclaimed is an endless array of steps, secret formulas, or studies that lead to deeper truth.  Therefore, many of us once considered the gospel as essential for believing in Jesus but unimportant for actually following Jesus.  So what’s crucial in this gospel-centered movement is its fresh emphasis on Christ’s work for our growth and obedience.

Gospel-centeredness is a critique of our consumeristic culture, in which new is better and the latest is greatest.  Contrary to this mindset, Christians don’t grow in faith by discovering the latest formula or completing the program with the newest “truth.”  Human growth methods have no power to conform sinners to Christ for the glory of God.  What Christians need isn’t something new but something old – the Old Story of Christ Crucified and Risen.  So the gospel-centered movement certainly appeals to believers who recognize the spiritual bankruptcy of “Christian” consumerism.  There is no greater news, no deeper teaching, than the gospel.

Trevin Wax: It’s interesting you bring up discipleship materials. There are always people asking for “deeper Bible study” or for a “deeper walk” with Christ. But what people mean by “depth” is not often clear. Some people think in terms of information. They want to know more facts, whether they come from history or theology. Information dump. Others think “deep” means a practical tidbit for my life tomorrow. They think in terms of immediate application. But this can turn the Bible into a self-help manual.

The gospel-centered movement has the opportunity to redefine what “depth” means. We shouldn’t see depth as “more info” or “life insights” but gospel-centrality. Going deep means we immerse ourselves in the truth that Jesus Christ bled and died to save helpless sinners like you and me. We’ve got to see the depth of our sin and the depth of God’s grace in such a way that it is clear we can do nothing to make ourselves more acceptable to God. Depth means going deeper into the gospel until it confronts the idols of our hearts.

You’ve got a chapter called “Preaching the Gospel to Yourself.” I’m hearing this phrase more and more nowadays. What do you mean by “preaching the gospel to yourself” and why should Christians be doing this?

Mitch Chase: “Preaching the gospel to yourself” refers to the practice of speaking to our hearts about Christ’s redemptive work: on our behalf Christ has broken the power of sin and paid the penalty for sin. Essentially the idea is to dwell on the meaning and accomplishment of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  C. J. Mahaney says that preaching the gospel to yourself is the most important daily habit a Christian can establish.

In my book, I give two main reasons for preaching the gospel to our hearts.  First, we are sinners – redeemed ones, to be sure, but sinners still.  While believers are new creations in Christ, we face constant temptations to return to the flesh and fulfill its desires which war against the Spirit (Gal 5).  The gospel is necessary for the pursuit of holiness, because salvation doesn’t produce morally perfect people.  The power of the gospel saves sinners by grace and then sustains and empowers them in that grace.  In order to obey God, our hearts must dwell on the perfect obedience of Christ on our behalf, becoming a curse for us and satisfying His Father’s wrath.

Second, we need to preach the gospel to ourselves because we are prone to forgetfulness.  In this culture, we can be so bombarded with information that we don’t know what to retain or reject.  These cultural messages seek to define our lives, our priorities, our ambitions.  So we need the gospel because of our wandering hearts.  We sing, “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.”  The Old Testament also testifies to this tendency, for the Israelites constantly forgot the Lord and forsook his commandments.  It can happen easily, subtly, in times of blessing or trial.  Our blessings can become our idols, and our trials can become deterrents to relentless trust in God.  In running the race set before us, we must keep our eyes on the Author and Perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:2).

Preaching the gospel to ourselves, then, is a biblical and practical strategy that goads us onto the path of remembrance and obedience.  A key aspect of discipleship and Christian growth is learning what to remember, what to return to again and again.

Trevin Wax: I think the idea of preaching the gospel to yourself is great. We certainly need to have the truths of the gospel massaged deep into our hearts.

I wonder though how preaching the gospel to ourselves relates to our preaching the gospel to others. I worry that we might take something great – like this idea of gospel-centrality – and invert it into something self-centered and self-focused. Take a daily quiet time in prayer and Bible study for example. Such times are a great gift from God, but if they become the standard of evangelical activity, they can lead to a rather lopsided view of Christianity. In other words, we always face the temptation to confuse make means the end.

So, how do we guard against doing this with self-preaching? God’s purposes are much bigger than Christians walking around reminding themselves of the gospel. How do we connect gospel-centeredness with Christian mission?

Mitch Chase: You point out a great danger.  How tragic if our flesh used gospel-centeredness for self-centeredness!

In a sense, the answer to such a danger is not less of the gospel but more.  The gospel is crucial in God’s overarching plan for the world.  He blessed the nations through Abraham’s seed, who is ultimately Christ Himself (Gal 3).  In Revelation, we see multitudes of every nation, tribe, and tongue, people bought by the blood of the Lamb who was slain.  In Colossians 1, Paul spoke about the gospel bearing fruit all over the world.  These Scriptural examples show that the gospel has a global perspective that should correct extreme individualism.

The key, therefore, is to connect the truth of the gospel to God’s unfolding purposes for the world.  Jesus died for individuals who compose the Church (1 Cor 12), and through the proclamation of the gospel by His people Jesus is drawing sinners from the nations.  This perspective challenges our individualism and reminds us of the global nature of the Christian mission.  Christians need to be immersed in this global perspective.  The mission of the church is to make disciples of the nations (Matt 28:19-20).  Jesus is the Light of the world (John 8:12).  Christians must also be aware that our salvation is a work of new creation that will culminate in God renewing the whole world and uniting heaven and earth (Rom 8; Rev 21).

Biblically speaking, then, gospel-centeredness is inseparable from Christian mission and God’s unfolding purposes.  If Christians seek to separate the two, then they become self-centered (rather than gospel-centered) and disobedient to the Lord’s commission to His Church.

I’m curious, Trevin, whether your upcoming book Counterfeit Gospels addresses the question you posed to me.  What wisdom would you share in connecting a believer’s gospel-centeredness to God’s mission in the world?

Trevin Wax: I do address this subject in Counterfeit Gospels, albeit from a different angle. My concern with a self-centered view of “gospel-centered” goes back to the nature of the gospel announcement. If the announcement of Jesus Christ crucified and raised is public news that is about the actions of our missionary God to rescue us from sin and death, then it follows that this gospel will create a community of people who put on display that kind of missionary heart.

If we think we are “gospel-centered” and are not compelled to share our faith, love the community of faith, help the poor, give to the needy, and so on, then my question is: what kind of gospel are we preaching? And what kind of disciples are we making? If our idea of “gospel-centered” is a large number of people in a church on Sunday grateful for personal salvation but unaware or uninvolved in the brokenness and lostness around them, then I wonder how gospel-centered we really are.

Being gospel-centered doesn’t mean we are obsessed with a factual truth. It means we are smitten with a beautiful Savior. And the more we love Jesus, the more we will look like Him.

Mitch Chase: I completely agree!  The nature of the gospel announcement must be the starting place.  If the gospel announcement is defined entirely individualistically (and thus incorrectly), then the inevitable result will be self-centered “disciples.”  True gospel-centrality should actually stir missionary zeal, not stifle it.  One mark of a gospel-centered church, then, is a global mentality.  A small church of 30 people should think globally, because the gospel is global and because the Christ of the gospel is Lord of the world.

I hope that one of the effects of the gospel-centered movement is to spur on the Church to obey the Great Commission with even more faithfulness, perseverance, and willing sacrifice.  And this effect should surely be driven by an even greater desire: to see the nations praise our God who is worthy of worldwide adoration.  As true gospel-centrality empowers churches to proclaim and live out the gospel in the world, we will see the truth of John Piper’s statement from Let the Nations Be Glad!, “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church.  Worship is.”  Believers should want to be gospel-centered people because we want the nations to exalt the world’s true Lord.

Trevin Wax: May all of our passion for the gospel be directed to that end! Thank you for the conversation, Mitch.

Today, I’m glad to welcome Jonathan Leeman to the blog, as we enjoy a conversation about how the Word of God should reverberate in our churches. Jonathan’s new book, Reverberation: How God’s Word Brings Light, Freedom, and Action to His People, encourages us to have full confidence in the power of God’s Word. I wrote this about the book:

I love books from authors who love the Word. Jonathan Leeman is one of those authors. In Reverberation, Jonathan displays his passion for Scripture, his heart for the church, and his love for King Jesus. This book has deepened my affection for and my confidence in the Word that is powerful unto salvation.

So, on with the conversation!

Trevin Wax: Lots of books are out there about the Word of God and its importance in the church. What makes your book different? How does the idea of reverberation tighten our understanding of how the Word does its work?

Jonathan Leeman: Thanks for starting the conversation, Trevin. In a discussion about the role of the Word and preaching in the church, a friend said to me that it’s good to talk about the meat, but did I see a place to talk about the barbecue sauce? He wanted to know if we could talk about the devices that spice up preaching, or spice up a church service, and so forth.

I think that’s a fine question to ask. But my impression is that many church leaders these days too quickly want to talk about the sauce, or write books about the sauce, or offer workshops on the sauce. And, personally, I like some sauce. At Chic-Fil-A, I go for the Polynesian sauce.

But the purpose of my book is to say, “Hey friends, let’s talk about the meat. ‘Cause all the power and protein is in the meat.”

I guess my contention is that, like the gospel or the doctrine of God, we need to apply ourselves continually to deepening our understanding of how God’s Word works. Our faith in its power needs to grow! Otherwise, our faith in its power becomes nominal. When that happens, church leaders begin to build their churches on secondary things, and church members begin to value and go looking for those secondary things.

So how is this different than other books? First, because I try to trace out the process of how the Word builds up the church, moving from person to person and area to area. In so doing, second, I hope it’s a faith-creating meditation on the Word’s power to give life and change.

Trevin Wax: I like sauce too. Honey mustard has always been a favorite. But I’m with you – the Word is where the power is and that’s the foundation of building a church.

What do you say, though, to a pastor who seeks to faithfully preach the Word week in and week out and yet doesn’t see much numerical growth in the church? His people know the Bible, love the Bible, want to hear from the Bible, and yet they are sluggish when it comes to the mission and evangelism. How does the Word challenge the Bible-centered church in this area?

Jonathan Leeman: That’s a great question, Trevin. And I did try to write the book with that pastor in mind–the one trying to preach faithfully, but seeing few results.

At the risk of being slightly cheeky, as our British friends say, let me turn the question around on you, drawing from my last answer. What would you say to the pastor who preaches the gospel week after week, or the doctrine of God week after week, and yet he doesn’t see numerical growth as well as sluggishness in missions and evangelism?

Trevin Wax: Oh boy, the conversational approach turns on me!

Here’s a start. There are two ways that numbers can skew our vision. The first is when we equate numerical growth with God’s blessing. This is a mistake. Churches may grow because of a number of factors. Not every church that grows numerically is biblically faithful.

On the other hand, there’s another way that numbers skew our vision – and that’s when we become suspicious of growing churches and thus take comfort in declining numbers as a sign of faithfulness. “I’m just preaching the gospel no matter what and our decline must mean I’m doing something right.” Neither approach is helpful or healthy.

The key for me would be to go back to what you said in your first response. It’s not the sauce that matters ultimately; it’s the meat. The temptation for a pastor of a declining church is to start analyzing the sauce.

Instead, I’d encourage that pastor who seeks to faithfully preach the Word every week and is discouraged that his people are sluggish in missions and evangelism – I’d encourage him to evaluate his teaching to make sure that he is faithfully preaching the Word. If 300 people are gathering every week to worship Christ and no one is being baptized upon conversion, something isn’t right. Gospel-centered ministry will lead to mission because it’s the story of a God with a missionary heart. This is the God who calls us, saves us, sanctifies us, equips us, and sends us back out.

The way that God accomplishes this is through – to borrow your title – the reverberation of His Word among His people. Our love for one another within the context of the church is the evidence of the gospel’s truth. As we are led deeper into the truths of His Word, we come to know God in a deeper way. And the greater our love for God, the greater should be our desire for others to know Him. When we’re not overflowing with passion for the lost, then we need to go deeper into the meat (not the sauce) until we are strengthened for the task that lies ahead.

Jonathan Leeman: Yeah, I agree with all of that. I think the basic point here is that you shouldn’t go changing your assumptions about the power of God’s Word, the gospel, or God himself just because you don’t see your church growing.

Maybe you’re not called/gifted to preach. Maybe you’re not as faithful or gospel-centered in your exposition of Scripture as you think. Maybe you are being faithful, but God does mean to close that church’s doors (though I agree with your point about being suspicious of growing churches). This is where it’s good to have people capable of giving you honest and informed feedback.

Bottom line: it’s still God’s Word that gives life.

Trevin Wax: Agreed. I’d even say, Only the Word of God gives life.

Let’s turn to the buzzword of “gospel-centered preaching.” When you get into the nitty-gritty of expositional preaching, you write of the need to be gospel-focused. “No matter what part of Scripture you mean to expose, the gospel should eventually come into view.”

I totally agree, and I am thankful that more and more pastors are seeking to Christ-centered and gospel-focused in how we do exposition. Yet, we want to do this in a hermeneutically responsible way, not artificially inserting Jesus in every proverb or psalm or story. Do you think that overreading Christ into the Scriptures is a potential problem? Perhaps we can unintentionally send the signal: “Wow, my preacher sees the Christ-connection everywhere… I’m sure glad I have him to interpret the Bible for me. I would’ve never seen that myself.” And then the preacher becomes more important to the congregation than the Word itself.

What suggestions would you offer the pastor who seeks to be Christ-centered and gospel-focused in a hermeneutically responsible way?

Jonathan Leeman: Study. That’s my ingenious one word answer. So I’ve spent the last decade trying to learn how to do this, and I’m always discovering how much I don’t know. In 2001, I read Graeme Goldsworthy’s Gospel and Kingdom. That’s when the big paradigm shift for me occurred. But ever since then, I’ve been working to build on this new paradigm.

For example, several years later I’m teaching a Sunday school class on the wisdom literature. And I’m digging through everything I can get my hands on in order to help me teach those books as Christian books, but to do so responsibly and without allegorizing, as you’re suggesting. Obviously I’m looking at commentaries. But almost more helpful than those were a number of biblical theologies. Bruce Waltke had a helpful essay on Proverbs. Charles Drew had a good book on the Psalms. Carson helped with Job. That sort of thing.  The Gospel Coalition has begun offering a new resource called Preaching Christ From the Old Testament. That looks like a great resource for exactly this sort of stuff.

Beyond study, look to your church. Invite other church leaders to work through these issues with you. Get feedback. Listen to the teaching of others.

What do you do, Trevin?

Trevin Wax: I’ve dipped into some of the same resources that you mention. Goldsworthy has been especially helpful.

I try to keep the Emmaus principle in mind when I preach from the Old Testament. I don’t want to be guilty of eisegesis, forcing Jesus into every text.

At the same time, Scripture tells us that all of God’s Word is a witness to Christ. So there must be a way of faithfully pointing to Christ from any and every book in the Bible without falling into clever allegorizing. When I first started preaching, I did the allegory thing to the extreme. Then, reading people like Kaiser and others moved me into the “authorial intent” category almost exclusively. Now, I’ve realized the limits of authorial intent if it doesn’t take into consideration the Authorial (capital A) intention that puts the whole Bible together. Talking with others about these issues has been very helpful in working through faithful ways of going to Christ.

Jonathan Leeman: I think you’re striking the balance on the exegesis matter: it’s about recognizing that the Bible is a unique book with both an author and an Author, and therefore you want to get at the authorial intent for each.

Trevin Wax: Before we wrap this up, I want to draw attention to your chapter on singing. If other readers are like me, they may be surprised that you devote an entire chapter in a book on the Bible to the importance of singing. Give us a snapshot of the case you make there. I think you’ve done a good job extending the idea of Word-centeredness to everything we do as a church, not just the preaching.

Jonathan Leeman: On the matter of singing…I’m glad you asked. Singing is the perfect place to think about the reverberations of God’s Word in our hearts. Singing accomplishes a number of purposes, but I focus on three:

1. It’s how we the church own and affirm the truth of God’s Word.
2. It’s how we engage our affections with God’s Word.
3. And it’s how we both demonstrate and build corporate unity.

At one point I write that the reverberations of singing God’s Word should begin to reprogram the very way in which a Christian experiences emotion and affection. We can let our emotions be trained by sports enthusiasm, by television commercials, by movies, by the songs on the radio, by whatever our culture defines as masculine or feminine. Or we can let our emotional lives be formed by the church’s singing of God’s Word, by the Psalms, by centuries of wonderful hymnody, and by the choruses of the saints today.

How powerful the music of the saints is!

Trevin Wax: What does singing the Word teach us about ourselves?

Jonathan Leeman: One way I perceive my own spiritual immaturity as a Christian is in my inability to emotionally engage with the songs on Sunday, whereas it’s relatively easy for me to emotionally engage with any old movie on Friday night. Now, I understand, there are probably a thousand qualifications one should probably make with a statement like that. Still, there’s a real challenge there for me, and perhaps others.

Furthermore, it’s one thing to emotionally engage with a style of music that’s what I naturally listen to on the radio. But here’s a harder question: can I learn to emotionally engage with music that’s not necessarily “my style” for the sake of loving the older member or the younger member? Now we’re talking about building unity, too.

I didn’t say this in the book, but music is a tough topic in the church today because it’s an emotive medium and we live in an emotivistic culture. We idolize our emotional states, which typically tends toward exalting the more extreme emotional states as somehow more real, alive, and desirable. But learning to engage our emotions with God’s Word is not simply about learning to feel, it’s also about learning self-control, knowing what role emotions should play in the whole scheme of things and how to moderate them for the sake of loving and serving others. It requires a more complicated formula than an emotivistic culture recognizes. Rejoicing with those who rejoice, and grieving with those who grieve (1 Corinthians 12) requires  the spirits of the prophets to be subject to the control of the prophets (1 Corinthians 14:32). It’s about learn to feel, but learning to feel in a way that builds up the whole body.

Did you know that, in India, Christianity is known as the singing religion, because we’re the only ones who sing?  What does that tell you?!

Trevin Wax: I’m going to sing louder and more passionately this week because of this conversation, Jonathan. Thanks for stopping by and answering my questions about your new book.

“Making a hospital visit to a suffering family makes more of an impact than the three points you made in your message on Sunday.”

Occasionally, I hear statements like this at pastors’ conferences and preaching seminars. The idea? Pastoral presence is more important than a pastor’s preaching. The implication? It’s better to spend less time worrying about your preaching and more time engaging people at a personal level.

Sounds good. But it’s shortsighted. And ultimately unhelpful.

Sure, there are pastors who spend all day in the study and never among the people. Those kinds of pastors need to be prodded out the door so they can better serve the flock. (Not to mention that being with the flock greatly enhances your preaching!)

It’s also true that most of your congregation already forgot the main points from your sermon last week. And yes, church members will long remember your presence during their time of crisis. But the point of your preaching isn’t that everyone will remember all the information you present anyway. Neither should preaching preparation be forgotten in the attempt to increase one’s pastoral presence.

No, instead we need to consider the relationship between preaching and presence in a way that measures impact beyond what is immediate, powerful, and memorable. That’s why I say: Do not downplay the long-term, cumulative effect of your preaching.

Preaching is formative in ways that go beyond mere information retention. Every time a pastor opens up the Word and preaches the gospel, he is showing his church how to approach the Bible. Pastors who elevate the Scriptures week after week, sermon after sermon, lead their people to approach the Bible in the same way.

A Personal Example

From the time I was nine years old until I left for Romania at the age of 19, I belonged to a church where the pastor (Ken Polk) preached expository sermons every week. I remember the first (and second) time he took us through the Gospel of John. I still remember his 1 Corinthians series, or his sermons from Judges.

Of course, this pastor was also by our side when we had our first child. He has comforted us amidst trial and loss. He is a pastor, after all, not just a preacher. But I dare say – his Word-centeredness as a preacher is what made his pastoral presence so powerful during our time of trial. His presence was enhanced by his preaching.

I cannot calculate the formative influence that this pastor’s preaching has had on my life. For ten years, I listened to Bro. Ken preach. 10 years. 50 weeks a year. 2 times a week. That’s 1000 sermons.

No, I don’t remember the information contained in the vast majority of those sermons. I don’t remember all the titles or the points. But I have no doubt that his preaching has greatly impacted my life.

• I approach the text the way he does, looking to discover what’s there, not invent what’s not.
• I see Christ in the Scriptures because he saw Christ there.
• I respect the Bible because of the way he always made the purpose of the text more prominent than the personality of the messenger.
• We are on the same page theologically because he consistently preached a theology that came from the page.

An exhortation to pastors

Pastors, don’t underestimate the cumulative effect of your preaching. You are not dumping information into brains. You are forming the habits of your people, teaching them how to read and understand and apply the Bible for themselves. How you preach week after week matters just as much as what you preach.

Weekly confrontation with the Word of God slowly changes how we look at the world. We see God more clearly, our human state, and the future of the world within the Bible’s framework, even if we don’t remember all the information in an individual message. Sermons gradually change the way we think and feel and believe and hope.

Yes, your presence at the funeral home and the hospital bed is vital. It matters greatly. But there’s a reason why your presence during suffering is so powerful: The Word. A pastor’s visit is unique because the pastor is the one who speaks authoritatively from God’s Word week in and week out. That’s why Christians want their pastor to be by their side, and not just a fellow church member.

So let’s not pit pastoral presence against sermon preparation. Your preaching influences your presence, and vice versa. May the Lord open our eyes to see the quiet, subtle influence that 1000 sermons have on the people God has entrusted to our care.