Great post from friend and fellow planter, Bob Thune, on Church Planters and Money. An excerpt:
A few months ago a church planter I know had to close up shop. As I scrolled through his fire-sale ad on Craigslist, I couldn’t help but wonder: did he really need all this stuff? If he had allocated funds differently, could he have stayed in the game a little longer and reached a place of viability?
Preaching can be hard. It’s a challenge to interpret an ancient text faithfully, apply it practically, contextualize it culturally, and most important of all, preach and savor Christ. And after you do it once, you have to turn around and do it again in six days.
Preaching is Hard
Let me revise. Preaching is hard. In addition to all the work that goes into preaching a biblically faithful and culturally relevant sermon, there’s the challenge of crafting your message. How should you arrange the material? Where should you illustrate? What material should you leave out? What kind of blend of history, theology, practice, and culture should you go for? Then there’s the rhetorical challenge. Pitch, pace, pause, gesture. I’ll never forget the first preaching class I took that talked about delivery. It’s scary how much people think about that stuff, but it is a legitimate part of preaching the gospel.
Ever hit the wall the night before your sermon? I did last night. I’d experimented with preaching a different type of sermon. I was trying to “improve.” I typically work through three documents. One on notes, one full length outline, and one manuscript, and then one rehearsal in my office. The final manuscript was almost finished as I hit the wall. I came to my poor wife to share my frustration. She came back with some rich counsel: “Maybe you need to listen to your sermon first.” The message was on Gospel Identity, not confusing your various life roles with your identity in Christ. And there I was, finicky over whether or not people would like it. If the new format would “come off.” My wife basically told me to be myself. She was right in more ways than one.
Identity Confusion in the Pulpit
All too often young preachers imitate or innovate to an extreme. They try to preach beyond their gifting and personality. The best thing we can do is be ourselves, in two ways. First, don’t try to be a John Piper, Tim Keller, or Matt Chandler because you’re not. Be yourself for Jesus. Don’t over analyze your sermons or style; it’s narcissistic. Instead, analyze the text. Soak in the Gospel. Pray for your people. I think it was Moltmann who said, “We prepare a preacher, not a sermon.” Prepare your heart as well as your head. Preach for Christ. Make it your aim to clarify and delight in Him. Be yourself and preach Christ.
Second, be yourself in Jesus. Remember, your worth is not in your sermon. Your worth is in Christ. Your value isn’t determined by your delivery. Your identity is disciple, your role is pastor. Your identity is shepherd, your role is a sheep. Your identity is a sinner redeemed by grace, your role is to pastor and preach by grace. All too often we swap our roles for our identity. We find our worth in what we do, instead of who we are.
Wisdom from Spurgeon
When you hit the preaching wall, it’s always good to pick up a gospel-saturated preacher. Before going to bed, I picked up Spurgeon’s, Lectures for my Students. A Spirit-led decision. Chapter five is called “Sermons–their Matter”, a must read for every preacher. This chapter addresses the matter, or material, of our sermons from a variety of angles. Spurgeon opens up with this:
Sermons should have real teaching in them, and their doctrine should be solid, substantial, and abundant.
Notice he does not say enter the pulpit with a finely-crafted piece of rhetoric. He does not exhort us to master our delivery. Instead, he tells us they should be doctrinally rich. He goes on to explain. “The entire gospel must be presented from the pulpit; the whole faith once delivered to the saints must be proclaimed by us. The truth as it is in Jesus must be instructively declared, so that the people may not merely hear, but know, the joyful sound.” The entire gospel? That’s what he said. Spurgeon implores us for gospel clarity, not compelling delivery, that we would deliver “the truth as it is in Jesus.” What a privilege!
Preach the Gospel
Spurgeon elaborates:
but the true minister of Christ knows that the true value of a sermon must lie, not in its fashion and manner, but in the truth which it contains. Nothing can compensate for the absence of teaching; all the rhetoric in the world is but as chaff to the wheat in contrast to the gospel of our salvation. However beautiful the sower’s basket it is a miserable mocker if it be without seed.
We need, our churches need, not more finely dressed baskets but baskets full of gospel seed. And if we fear the judgment of others, disapproval of our delivery, hope in Christ. Repent from placing your identity in your role, your worth in your preaching.
Weigh your Sermons
Now, it is one thing to turn a deaf ear to the complaining spirit, but it is quite another to refuse to listen to your own sermon. Is it littered with gospel seed or cultural references. Is it soaked in Christ or technique? Weight your sermons, but weigh them well. Be sure to use the right scales:
Horses are not to be judged by their bells or their trappings, but by limb and bone and blood; ans sermons, when criticised by judicious hearers, are largely measured by the amount of gospel truth and force of gospel spirit which they contain.
Weigh your sermons, but weigh them wisely. Be not dampened by stylistic criticisms. Don’t fear the complaining hearers. Instead, weigh your sermon not by delivery but by depth. Measure according to ‘the amount of gospel truth” and the “force of gospel spirit.” Many a sermon has been preached and forgotten. The sermon that remains is the sermon that proclaims Christ, full of earnest and full of Jesus. Gospel-saturated sermons that have been heard by their preachers first will inevitably leave a lasting mark our their hearers second. Weigh your sermons, but weigh them well. Use Gospel scales and cast yourself upon that grace.
Today is the last day to take advantage of the LuLu Discount to get a $100 off an order of 100 Fight Clubs books or more! Just enter the coupon code “FRANKLIN” to get the discount.
There are many people who believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. They know that the story of Christ can be found in the Gospels of the New Testament. They know that belief in that Jesus can get you to heaven and out of hell. They know where to find that message preached. They may even “attend” a church, repeat the catchwords of grace, but have very little understanding of the gospel of grace. They have become too familiar with the gospel.
The Familiar Gospel
In his masterful work, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, Richard Lovelace reveals why this familiarity is so dangerous:
Since their understanding of justification is marginal or unreal—anchored not to Christ, but to some conversion experience in the past or to an imagined present state of goodness in their lives—they know little of the dynamic of justification. Their understanding of sin focuses upon behavioral externals which they can eliminate from their lives by a little will power and ignores the great submerged continents of pride, covetousness and hostility beneath the surface.
Gospel familiarity is dangerous. Being able to say the right words and espouse the right beliefs can bring us false comfort. Our comfort should not spring from knowing what is “right”. Nor should is arise from the sense that we have done right. This is “imagined goodness” before a very real and holy God. When our understanding of sin focuses on external beliefs or behaviors, we betray a very shallow understanding of the gospel. In fact, the gospel tells us that we are much more bent than we can imagine. The gospel is honest; it shows us who we are, unrighteous, imperfect, selfish sinners.
Gospel Reminders
Fortunately it does not stop there. It moves us, by grace, into righteousness and love through constant faith in Christ, our righteousness. If this is the gospel, then we need reminding of it every day. We need the people of the gospel, the Church, around us giving us constant reminders of grace, verbal and non-verbal. If this gospel is this great and deep, then we must share it, tell it, and show it to others. I recently returned from Uganda, where I was frequently greeted by Christians who would say: “The Lord is good.” and the responder would say: “The Lord is good all the time.” I shared this with our church during a sermon a few weeks ago. Last week I was meeting with one of our City Group leaders and shared a challenge I was facing. Before saying much at all he said: “All the time.” I had to think a second. Oh, he was reminding me that the Lord is good all the time (Rom 8:28), even amidst my challenges. The Lord is good all the time for us in Jesus. He was giving me a gospel reminder over lunch. I was strengthened to trust the Lord no matter what happened.
Scorn of Missional Church
But if we are merely familiar with the gospel, with its facts and not through constant faith, we won’t remind one another of its depth. It looses it’s urgency. The gospel is not urgent, our moral acts are. Grace is not necessary, our beliefs are.If we simply add the gospel to our own behavioral improvements, then we will have very little need for the church or for her mission. When we are too familiar with the gospel, we scorn the church and her mission. If we don’t need the gospel every day, then why spend time with the church or attempt to advance the good news through mission? Lovelace writes:
Thus their pharisaism defends them both against full involvement in the church’s mission and against full subjection of their inner lives to the authority of Christ.
Familiarity with the gospel breeds missional contempt. If we know the gospel as a set of spiritual facts and a code of morality, then we have very little use for the Church and her mission, the community and evangelism. But if the Gospel is deeper and more honest than we have imagined, then we must be desperate for more. More gospel talk from our friends, more gospel community from church, more gospel songs with fellow saints, and more gospel news for our neighbors. If the gospel is this great, then is must be shared. What we need is not gospel familiarity but gospel depth. This kind of depth remakes us into outwardly focused people, people who love their neighbors and their city. Press into the gospel of grace. Gospel depth will produce missional drive. If it doesn’t, then something is wrong with your gospel. Perhaps you are too familiar with it?
