For the Sake of the Congregation 9.11.2025

    The work of preaching not only brings personal fulfillment through answering God’s call on our lives, it also is necessary, critical work for the health of the Kingdom. The Church flourishes when it is nourished by preaching both in the global and local perspective. The whole church thrives, and your local congregation will be healthier when fed with fresh, timely, locally prepared preaching. 

    Since the task matters so much good preaching is for the sake of the congregation. There are abandoned libraries of works detailing how to “Grow your Church.” Some of what they recommend is common sense, much is outdated, and lots of it is unbiblical. Let’s get the Lede out of the way. The Holy Spirit creates growth and health. Church leadership provides structure and accountability so that the Spirit can act through people. Preaching is essential and indispensable to this work. The indwelling Spirit works with the Spirit-inspired Word of God to not only bring about individual regeneration but also to grow the whole Body of Christ (The Church). 

    When we spend time, talent, and treasure investing in our long-term preaching ministry we are making a significant statement about, not only our personal stake in the Christian faith, but in the corporate nature of the faith. Good preaching matters, not only because we are called to do it, but because the Church needs it. 

    It is for the sake of the congregation that we invest in the tools of exegesis, hermeneutics, theological analysis, and the various other departments of learning. It is for the sake of the congregation that we invest the time needed to master the tools and deploy them. It is for the sake of the congregation that we chose vocational ministry over other vocational opportunities which would been served just as well by the very talents and abilities the Holy Spirit leverages in ministry. We are committed to the task because it matters. Because it matters, how we do it is important. Since preaching is for the sake of the congregation the congregation has a stake in how we do the work and our investment in improving. Today let’s discuss a couple of issues that are too easily overlooked when we think about the congregation’s stake in our work. 

Specificity

    There is only one you…so what should you do? Complete the hard work until it is through! 

    Sorry, I never intended to go all Dr. Seuss on you, but the rhyme does a good job of introducing what I mean about specificity. You are called to this place, these people, this pulpit, this moment. You are called to preach Scripture from the work that you do on the text and the work the text does on your heart. If you are preaching material written by Sermon Central or stealing material from famous (or infamous) preachers you are not only cheating you are deceiving the very people who have called you to their town, their church, their pulpit, their family. 

    Do not rob your people of the specificity of your personality dedicated to ministry and focused on the task. Do not try and reheat or microwave “leftover” lessons from a life that you have not lived. Do not foist laziness off as some shared service. Just stop. Do it right or don’t do it. This is for the sake of the Church. 

Regularity

    The 52 weeks of the year, excepting a Sunday or two for vacation, should basically be the same. I have heard and read that for some reason we preachers are overworked, overtaxed, and overextended. Perhaps we are. All that overexertion should come from doing the work of preparing to preach. 

    This may seem unnecessary but let me say it anyway. (My essay, my rules.) You need to want to be in the pulpit 45-50 weeks out the year. Yes, there are circumstances with multiple staff that will require other individuals to fill the pulpit. They need to do so according to the plan you have established for the teaching office of your congregation. If you absolutely must do this, then make your plan easy for others to follow. It is ok to feel uncomfortable being absent from the pulpit. You will take greater pleasure as the work of your colleague’s benefits from your experience and oversight. But always keep in mind, the Church needs a regular voice in the pulpit. It needs regular rhythm, timbre, and flow. No congregation should come into the facilities on a given Sunday wondering “what’s going to happen today?!” It’s not a fair or a circus. There should be regularity and predictability, that begins with the pulpit. What goes on in the pulpit is your responsibility. When you are laying out your Sermon Calendar lay out the 52 weeks. Account for vacations and make the plan clear enough that if you need to be away from the pulpit or if a member of your staff is preaching that they know the plan and the role their sermon will play in moving that plan forward. 

    This is for the Church, for the sake of the Kingdom. Make it habit in reporting your work to your Elders and Board of making the heart of your report about preaching, teaching, and preparation. If you minimize its importance and reduce your expectations, they reduce theirs. Teach your people what to value, maintain your preaching schedule and help them to understand the benefit of predictable Biblical preaching. 

    A last note on this topic. If you move to a new Church, make your expectations for yourself with respect to your pulpit work absolutely clear. “I expect to be in the pulpit no less than 50 Sundays a year, and I prefer 52.” If that congregation has a long list of other speakers, events, occasions, or guests, you will need to directly and pointedly ask them whether they are willing to change their expectations for their regular preacher. If not; do not go there. They don’t want a preacher they want a Master of Ceremonies. For the sake of the Church, do not be that guy. 

Accountability

    So, we come to accountability. When we say that it is for the sake of the Church, we subsume that expectation under the reality that the Church is the Body of Christ. Accountability then begins as a faith issue related to the specifics of our own discipleship and our own Christian growth. The 21st Century Church has largely been captured by unbiblical ideologies derived from cultural narcissism, and individual adhocracy. Driven by Therapeutic Deism and Theological childishness. Far too many congregations have essentially become the plaything of a strong man. The preeminent model for leadership in the Megachurch movement is the autocrat. This is not NT Church leadership; it is lethal to the Gospel and is undermining nearly 2000 years of work. 

    The preacher functions within an accountability structure. A Biblical preacher participates in the work of the Eldership and extends it in the specific area of preaching. As I like to describe it the preacher is primarily responsible for the Teaching Office of the Church. We are called to know who is teaching, what they are teaching, and how what they teach contributes to the overall instruction of God’s people in this place. 

    You are not called to be a ringmaster. You must at some point do administrative work, but you are not purely an administrator. You will need to spend time investing in programming (largely by investing in the people who will run those programs). There are times when institutional issues will bubble to the top. Most adult human beings have jobs that require a modest set of skills beyond the central defining task of the job. The preaching ministry is no different in that respect. The issue is balance, focus, and intent. If you want to preach, make it your priority and the definitive benchmark of accountability.  

    When I was younger, none of the preachers who influenced me were called or wanted to be called Reverend. I was never a huge fan of the term “brother”. It always sounded sort of stilted, making a title out of a term of endearment. Another term which the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ rarely used was Pastor. Now, it is not inaccurate to call me or anyone else in this position pastor (Yes, small “p”). I am a pastor. We have many others at our Church. My specific pastoral task is preaching. Pastor is functional/descriptive. Preacher, now that is a purely functional term. That is what I do. I preach. All the other ministry tasks I perform flow from the work I do in my study which bears fruit for the pulpit. All other Pastoral, Professional, Planning, or Programming work is like a spoke connected to the central hub of Preaching. 

    Because I have made this model of ministry clear, because I have focused every report that I have ever given my leadership on this model of ministry, because I constantly update the Elders and congregation on my intent and goals from the pulpit there is a clear pathway for accountability. 

    The job of ministry is heartbreakingly satisfying. It can be hard on a family, testing for a marriage, and tough on your blood pressure. Why do it? For the sake of the Church. The Church for whom Jesus died. His body. His bride. His building/temple. His flock. For your sake, do it right--for their sake.

For the sake of the Preacher 9.4.2025

     Cui Buono? Is a Latin legal maxim which still informs contemporary jurisprudence. To whom the benefit? Who profits? Or even more colloquially, who does this help? My concern is not legal theory but preaching. I do my best to provide guidance and coaching to help preachers become better at the task. If you stick with me, I think you will benefit. If nothing else I try and provide food for thought whether you agree with me or not. That is, after all how we learn.  Thinking through the issues during the process of composition is helpful to me. I hope this thought process helps you as well. This is our task and doing it well matters. 

    During September 2025 I want to drill down and consider the question I invoked at the beginning of this essay. Who benefits? Specifically, who benefits from good preaching? Throughout the month I want to address several “constituencies” that benefit from focused attention on the task of preaching the gospel. Clearly the congregation benefits from good preaching. There is little point in even discussing the inspired authority of Scripture if those tasked with preaching it do not understand it or misapply it, so Scripture itself is a beneficiary.  And the Gospel benefits as well. The actual message of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is the ultimate expression of God’s love to us. It is more accessible and engaging when it is preached faithfully, accurately, and powerfully. 

That covers the rest of September. Let us begin at the beginning. For the sake of continuity and sanity, good preaching is for the sake of the preacher. What exactly does that mean? Let’s start here:

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15 ESV)

To which we may add:

“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” (2 Timothy 4:1-2 ESV)

     These two passages would appear to (at least minimally) encourage Timothy to 1) Be good at his work. 2) Be prepared for doing that work. In a world brimming with seemingly unbounded self-promotion, often masquerading as false modesty it is tempting to be demure and self-deprecating. Avoid that allurement. Paul also writes these words in the Epistle to the Romans:

“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” (Romans 12:3 ESV)

The goal is not false modesty but appropriate self-evaluation. This is necessary for identifying and rectifying weaknesses. This is essential, not only for the sake of your congregation, but for your own sake. It can be catastrophic to a person’s self-image to become complacent at their work and uninterested in improvement. Let’s take a few moments to consider briefly these two motivating statements. 

Be Good at Your Work

    Obviously, there are differences in temperament, style, and even approach. There is, however, no room for slovenly, purloined, apathetic, or ill-conceived work. There is nothing so encouraging to the preacher as simply doing his or her best work. In fact, I know of no way to improve without doing the work. I know of no way to enrich your learning or expand your palate of expression other than doing the hard work of ministry. Much of that work, as we often discuss, is invisible to your congregation, known only to you. And that’s how it should be, that’s how it must be. 

    When you are good at your work you will more readily withstand criticism and grow from it. When you are good at your work you will sleep better and deal with stress more adequately. When you are good at your work you will be more aware of your weaknesses and do what you can to improve. When you are good at your work you will not only feel better about yourself, but you will also please the one who called you to this ministry.  

Be Prepared for Your Work

    Since you can’t preach the Word without doing the work you will need to prepare. Your preparation is your work. Never apologize for spending time in study. What will you possibly preach if you don’t spend high-bandwidth time in preparation?  We are called to declaim the Word of God every week. Our weekly journey through the text will provide a variety of messaging strategies. Throughout the typical week there will be other teaching opportunities and many of them will require us to be more agile in our approach and cognizant of the understanding of our audience. The only way to be ready then--is to be ready always. You may not have a specific thing prepared but if you have your mind regularly in the Scripture the partnership between the Spirit-inspired Word, and the Spirit-in-dwelt teacher will result in your readiness to speak for God whenever the time comes. 

    You have been called to teach which requires you to study. Study takes time. Time is an investment. There is nothing worse for the preacher than routinely finding that time has been misspent, stones have gone unturned, and significant textual information has been neglected due to lack of preparation. There will be occasions when you will be so overwhelmed that you will be at the bottom of the well. Those times should be infrequent. If they are common in your ministry—you are doing something wrong and you need to develop new habits. You are called to preach. A constant arc of improvement and growth will not only give you more confidence it will also encourage your congregation to improve their listening skills and their own habits of study. 

    Who benefits from good preaching? Everyone. The whole congregation. I think it’s good for your town. Not for the sake of pride or bragging rights but for the sake of the Kingdom. For too long we have mistaken inferiority for humility. No one benefits from that. 

    Every one of us knows when we do a poor job. Bad lawyering loses cases. Bad farming leads to starvation. Poor driving leads to accidents. Poor preaching leads to depressed preachers and ill-informed congregations. Let’s set the bar high and depend on our faithful God to inhabit our work. He can only do that when we do the work. We can talk about attitude and work-life balance till we are blue in the face. For your own sake, preach the word—preach it well.

Parts and Wholes 8.28.2025

     A sermon or discourse is a whole thing that has constituent parts. Those constituent parts can be considered from the standpoint of the text or the standpoint of the presentation. Preferably both the text and sermon will share the basic structuring elements which is the best indication that the text is rightly exegeted and faithfully expounded. 

    One of the best advancements of postmodernism (yes, there are some), is the recognition that virtually all communicated data is embedded within or at least, comes to our attention with, significant metadata. In our reading of scripture, the foremost example of this, at the simplest level, is that we both read and cite scripture by chapter and verse; acknowledging that each is not a part of the text. They are metadata that helps to organize the text so that it can be more easily approached and understood. An attendant result is that it greatly facilitates the translation of the Biblical text into other languages. 

    Some metadata is, in a very real sense, preliminary even to the text itself. The parts of speech, the syntactical connections, and the discourse characteristics are constituent parts of language apart from which nothing could be spoken, or written, or understood. 

    Now we have computerized analytical tools and much of the power they put in our hands is a matter of expanding and exploiting an ever-expanding trove of metadata. The grammatical codes embedded in a grammatical database, or the discourse and “reported speech” markers available in contemporary tools are not there to take the place of the unvarnished text but help the exegete to understand the text at a more specifically granular level. Which is good. But you and I still need to understand the languages to responsibly use the available tools. 

    For preaching that means leveraging those tools to aid us in making a clear distinction between the parts of a discourse and the whole. A sermon is a single “thing”, yet if it is to be effective it needs to subdivide into logical, coherent parts all reinforcing a single argument which delineates the intent of the author. If we don’t carefully consider this “parts/whole” question then we may understand a text and have difficulty in explaining it or more importantly, being understood. The goal is not just a good explanation—the goal is understanding that leads to application and even life reformation. The compositional tool that enables us to record and comprehend the analytical process of considering a whole text in light of its parts is an outline. 

    Of all that you have ever read or heard about preaching the concept of an outline has likely been a central issue. Contemporary preaching likes to focus on narrative presentation or relies upon audiovisual components to take the place of traditional outlining, but whether you use a mind map, a traditional outline, or storyboard your message you are still leveraging metadata to delineate structure. Or not. If not, there is a pretty good chance you are rambling. 

    There are a couple of elementary concepts that help understand what an outline is and how it helps to organize information. This organization is necessary for both incoming (what we read, see or process) and outgoing (what we say) information. 

Skeletal outline

    In looking at a text we can think of an outline as a skeleton. It is the bones upon which the message hangs. Let us consider this verse (this process scales to larger texts, of course).

“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”” (John 8:12 ESV)

A skeletal outline for this text might look something like this:

▪ Identifying the Light

▪ Following the Light

▪ Accepting the Light

As a skeletal outline it is a framework for understanding. It structures without overwhelming. It is not a whole sermon, the outline does not explain everything. It is a pathway for explanation and gives the listener guidance for hearing. A skeletal outline is not the only option

Containment outline

    We can also think of an outline as showing how the parts of a text are contained within the whole. A skeletal outline is a more ground up approach, a containment outline works from the whole to the parts. In composing a sermon, address, or lesson it can be productive to consider both kinds of online in preparing. It has been my experience that difficulty in producing the scaffolding of a skeletal outline is often overcome by beginning again and thinking in terms of containment. 

    I understand that some readers may think that this is going on and on about irrelevancies. My take is simple. After many years of working through the text of scripture, after preparing and preaching many sermons from the same texts, after learning and exploiting the tools available to us, one of the greatest risks is becoming stale. Sometimes this is nothing more than boredom with the task. Sometimes it comes from always using the same strategies to overcome difficulty with texts. It can be compositional sclerosis. To do the work well requires rethinking things. Rethinking assumes thinking. That’s why we do the work. 

    We need to conceive of our messages as incorporating both kinds of outlining. The Skeletal form builds content from parts until one can grasp the whole. The containment form envisions the whole as being the tapestry from which the parts can be identified and understood. Any information driven endeavor includes both wholes and parts and we need a combination of tools to understand this relationship completely.

Beginnings and Endings 8.21.2025

 A sermon is not like following the yellow brick road, and you are not Dorothy Gale of Kansas.  The preaching event is not a road trip. You don’t just hop on where you happen to be. There is a start and there is a finish, a beginning and an end, a point of departure and an arrival. Yet a Biblical sermon—being content driven, defines the beginning and end by what goes on in the middle. Introductory and concluding words get us into the text and help us present conclusions to our congregation. The end of a sermon not only brings it full circle, but it also emphasizes the content of the text and the intent of the Biblical author. 

    If you have been following a well-constructed Sermon Calendar much of what it details will be the content of the various texts that you are preaching. The front matter and end matter is often handled in one of two fashions. 1) Largely ignored. 2) Too heavily emphasized. I would like to address this topic by discussing proportion and purpose. That is what allows us to align both the beginning and ending of a sermon with the middle. 

Composition

    How you write has an impact on what you write. Habits do not determine content, but they provide structure and a repeatable approach to the text at hand. It is for that reason that the primary content of as sermon, lesson, or address needs to be laid down before you figure out how to get into the material and how to get out of it. The sermon’s end is about comprehension, retention, and actuation. You can’t actuate something which is not understood. 

    So (despite the title of this essay) the critical matter is the content, the heart, the “guts” of what you will be saying. Biblical preaching and teaching must seek to communicate the intent of a passage of scripture to an audience. Rightly conceived the thesis at the heart of any sermon, lesson, or address should focus on rightly communicating the author’s intent. To do this means we don’t begin at the beginning, nor the end. Rather we should begin the compositional process in the middle. 

    Your habit of writing needs to hammer out content first so that you know rightly how to draw the lesson to a close. Beginning at the middle also gives you a target when thinking about how to get the “Plane into the air”. And you will find that this is liberating and puts you, the speaker, in control of the flightpath. Composing from the middle allows you to choose how to get into your material and what to make of it at the end. If you don’t know what you are going to say, or what it’s desired effect will be, you are asking the listener to structure the discourse and determine its direction. It is not fair, and each listener can easily misunderstand, or even purposefully draw conclusions which are significantly different from what you intend. 

Comprehension

    We write and speak to be understood. If we do not clearly understand the material ourselves communicating it to others will be problematic at best. Preaching and teaching is hard work and most of it is never seen in the pulpit or on the platform. We provide a path to comprehension for our auditors when we invest in study, prayer, and drafting which guarantees our personal comprehension of the text before we seek to persuade or inform others. 

    As we complete the heart of our message, we are ready, only then, to consider how to draw things to a close and what intellectual, emotional, and volitional outcomes we can legitimately expect from a faithful declaration of the text before us. Comprehension is essential because if we misunderstand the intent of the author, we may try to draw conclusions or expect results which, even if valid concerns, are not rightly derived from the text before us. 

    You must understand, to determine whether you have correctly grasped the intent of the author, particularly if you expect what you say to be understood by others. The idea that texts have different meanings determined by audience or reader, is the primary strategy, not of Biblical hermeneutics but of Postmodern reader-centered literary criticism. Who’d thunk that asking the questions “What does this say/mean to you?” or “What do you think?” do not yield Biblical answers but are actually the characteristic questions of our individual if not narcissistic culture?

Concentration

    Our aim is focus. If we know what we will say we can prompt our auditors to correct conclusions. Now we need to focus on the first step. At this point in the process, we can mark a clear path into the discourse. Here, we need concentration and clarity. You are aiming for specific results derived from the text. So, your introductory thoughts should concentrate on shared, parallel, or widely understood information that will bridge the gap between information your auditors already have and what you will provide in the discourse. 

    Generally speaking, there are lots of ways to get “into” a text. We write the middle first because that process eliminates many of the good ways you can get into the text, limiting your options based on your current framing of the content, leading to the conclusions you want from your audience. Yes, a sermon is one “Thing” but like any other complex entity it is made up of parts. Three primary parts. Beginning, middle, and end. They are presented—taught, preached, or discussed in that order--but they more easily written intentionally--from middle to end to the beginning. This process limits the chance that your auditors or readers will misunderstand or veer off track.

A Conclusion

    Any scheduled address whether weekly or for some special event is predicated on the idea that this one person can, at this time and place, bring a legitimate expression of God’s will. The speaker should be able to say, “Thus says the Lord.” If you are called to do so, then it is your responsibility to lead your listeners into the reception of that word. 

    It is a monumental task and a significant responsibility. And, despite all His experience with people like us preparing messages like this, Christ still chooses you and me to be His voice. Because we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we are provided the means to both understand the text of Scripture and to communicate it to others. This does not however, allow us to be slackers. We will still need to do the work. We will need to work through the text and try and climb into the mind of our congregation. We will need to hear what people say, then me must read what Scripture says, and do everything in our power, humbly according to the guidance of Word, Spirit, and Church to responsibly speak for our Master. You’ve got this. Understand your message. Be clear on your destination. Begin at the right point so that everyone makes the trip together. God has called you for this moment. You are the pilot.

Sounds, Silences, Spaces. 8.14.2025

     In looking at the printed page you will find several kinds of space. There is intentional space, and unintentional space. The space between characters, words, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, and discourse should be more than unused paper. All words should matter. Even the ones we don’t use. Particularly the ones we don’t use. 

    Last week we focused on understanding and evaluating what is central and what is peripheral. As a Scholar Pastor you not only read and interpret, but you also write and present your conclusions from your study. My reminder in this essay is that you need to choose your words carefully. Those that you use, and those that you do not use. 

    Modern word-processing and typographical tools require greater discipline than the tools most of us grew up with. When writing long-hand or typing it was beneficial to work with care because editing would eventually require a final draft and “clean” copy for pulpit or to be handed in. Every word needed to be chosen carefully which also meant that the unchosen words were also selected with diligence. It was easier to add than to subtract but each required compositional skill lest a total rewrite become necessary. 

    In ministry we are constantly tempted to make hasty mistakes because there is always something more, something else to do—and more to say or write. The tools at our disposal can work against the need to preach and teach with restrained excellence. How can we resist the temptation to overdo things? How do we resist overkill? Excessive chatter overwhelms contemplative silence and eliminates essential brooding space. How can one understand when they cannot think? How can someone think if every sermon is so full of information that it does not ask relevant questions and does not present the listener with resonating silence? 

    The complications of 21st century tools require a systematic approach to composition that allows for multiple drafts. If we don’t build in speed bumps, we will blow merrily past the need to provide silence and space as well as sound in our sermons and lessons. 

““Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”” (Psalm 46:10 ESV)

Though we are called to provide information and wisdom to our congregations, much of that guidance will be descriptive rather than prescriptive. We will be showing as well as telling. We will be pointing to God and exegeting texts which leave little room for contemporary application. They are texts which are transformative, specifically because they seek agreement and assent apart from action. They truly call us to be present, still, and contemplative before the Lordship of Jesus. It is in these reflective moments that we must be most restrained. Do not be afraid of those moments in the pulpit when the only thing heard is your own breathing. Do not be wary of silence. Do not fill the divine space found in the text with overindulgent word smithing. Learn to know when enough is enough. 

    The first step down this pathway of restraint is to constantly ask “What does the text say?” We know the Bible so well that it is tempting to smuggle our pre-understandings into our exegetical work. It is often these presuppositions which become the basis for over-reaching. We are clear about what the text says but insist on inserting our own concerns or the foci of modern life, hoping to create a context for application which is not there. Letting the text shape the sermon is an act of faith and a sign of growing maturity as an exegete. 

    The Post-Modern Church has become overly dependent on immediate, relevant, application of Biblical texts to daily circumstances and life. Even when those texts do not allow for that kind of application. There are entire passages of the Bible which inculcate specific beliefs, understandings, or theological conclusions. They cannot be reduced to immediately applicable bullet points. This is why so many contemporary believers are easily misled; it is a direct consequence of being mis-fed. 

    A sermon or lesson not only consists of the disciplined choice and deployment of words but also an equally disciplined choice of what to omit. When I was young, I was generally looking for as much content as I could cram into a sermon. Now I understand that sometimes the text speaks best when it is given space for silence to resonate.

Edges and Centers 8.7.2025

 When I was a wee lad sports teams were built according to a fairly universal, predictable, and time-tested plan.

• Baseball=Strong up the middle. 

• Basketball=Strong in the paint.

• Football=Strong inside running. 

    I’m not sure if there is any analysis of this phenomenon and it certainly has changed over the years. In the 21st Century, particularly in football and basketball the key is the edge rather than the middle. In an attempt to keep these sports contemporary there has been an unrelenting focus on scoring, at the expense of all else. Baseball is an odder duck because of the nature of the game. The defense has the ball and the older concept of strength up the middle from catcher to middle infielders to center fielder still seems to pertain. There is, however, a way that the pronounced move from the center to the edge pervades even baseball. We see it in terms of expectations for pitchers. Today the thought is that a “good” pitcher does a very few things well (speed and spin) and things like durability, grit, the ability to win with bad stuff—has all been shuttled aside for a new conception of the game. Any way you slice it there is no Wilt Chamberlin, Jim Brown, or Bob Gibson. Things are different. Purists would claim that they are not better. Just different. 

    Even the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is constantly wrestling with this evolution. Whether public worship, leadership structure, or the preaching moment we are constantly tempted to reconsider what is most important and to swap the center for the edge. The constant question, not unlike the situation with contemporary sports is whether anything is gained. Is it better? Will it be more resilient? What have we lost?

Paul’s constant calibration

    In his epistles Paul is constantly calibrating the work of Church leadership, whether local or his own delegates, to the work of maintaining a strong center against the ever-encroaching edges. A central reason for keeping things rightly aligned is that cultural and social elements tend to drive those change agents seeking to move the conversation from the periphery to the middle. This usually begins with the adaptation and adoption of an otherwise neutral tool from the culture and falling in freaking love with it. Every hoops squad wants to be able to shoot dependable outside shots and to use the 3-pointer as an advantage. Now it has now become the whole point. What were great, high-percentage shots are now scorned.  Making that edge strategy the whole point has changed the nature of the game of basketball and the kinds of players who become superstars. The same is true of pitching. We now have hurlers who can reliably hit 100+ miles an hour. They never finish games and often have only a few seasons in their abused arms. When edge strategies supplant the center, the result is often change that redefines entirely the point of the organization. And friends, I’m not talking about the National League—I’m talking about Christ’s Church. 

    In a sense the entire point of 1 Corinthians is an argument for keeping the center secure in the face of edge encroachment. The things Paul addresses—good leaders, the purpose of marriage, use of spiritual gifting, theological drift, and economic disparity in a congregation—all are issues that should be dealt with in a well-rounded Christ-focused community. The problem in Corinth was that they kept moving edge issues into the center, losing track of the main purpose of the church. 

Contemporary Observations

1. What is central must be constantly reinforced. “but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,” (1 Corinthians 1:23 ESV). Allowing the culture or what other believers are doing to determine what is central is the recipe for disaster. 

2. Not all issues are easily addressed. We should seek to provide information which is as simple as necessary. 

3. The church can both be nimble and secure the center. Creative engagement in culture does not demand a shifting center. If it did, the Church would have been completely culturally assimilated generations ago. 

4. Not everything that makes us uncomfortable must be immediately addressed as an evil. Paul said we preach Christ. Why not do so in word and deed, allow for the Spirit to move and see what happens?

5. We need to understand Scripture on its own terms and recognize that while universally true, there are issues that it does not address and that we will need to make some difficult calls. 

    Not all truths are equally important. Some require greater investment if they are to be learned. Some require greater diligence if they are to be applied. All require greater attention if they are to become habits. 

The contemporary Church has spent too much time chasing its tail, allowing the center to weaken and the periphery to define both doctrine and preaching. Everything from COVID denial to Christian nationalism, to unbiblical preaching, and a vast morass of distractions and chaotic thinking flows from an inability to identify and stand upon the central doctrines of the faith. 

    It is not duct tape that will allow the center to hold but the weekly decision of preachers and teachers to make a clear distinction between edge issues and the center. If we fail at this we ultimately will preach, not Christ, but our own nightmares, fantasies, and delusions. We have two jobs. Maintain the center, call out heresy 

Well then...7.31.2025

     “Well then…” These words can be uttered in a variety of contexts and can disclose a variety of different mindsets. They can potentially be positive, negative, or even a neutral response to different contexts. The power of these words is that they assume that we (you and/or I) are moving on to the next thing. Whether we have triumphed, been defeated, or simply find ourselves moving along. We can say “well then” and figure out what is next. 

    There are various times and seasons of our lives that are significant “well then” moments. Some of them are biggies. Consider graduations, marriages, and new ministry opportunities. These are moments that are points of closure as well as beginnings. These are the moments when a considered “well then” helps us to consider what we will do, where we will go, how we will act, and whether we will be changed or not. The young graduate, candidate for ministry, or bride who does not think anything is changing is in for a rude awakening! A deep breath, a considered look to the future, and a pause with a “well then”, helps the person transitioning to adapt with purpose and determination rather than just letting things happen to her. 

    Saying “well then” to ourselves, a colleague, a friend, our even our spouse is a reminder that even the end of significant moments of our lives also serve as beginnings. As we adjust to the wedding band, hang the diploma, or get acclimatized to new surroundings we are given the opportunity to look at this new situation with fresh eyes. Learning from our mistakes but leaving them behind, we can lean into the future with hope, purpose, and determination. 

    I have often found in my life that the very next thing that I say after a good, heartfelt “well then”, is a reflective “now what?” The key to considering what comes next is clarity about where you have been and what you have accomplished. You can’t really inhabit “now what” until you are absolutely certain that you have finished what came before, paused through a period of “well then”, and are prepared to invest your time, talent, and treasure in “now what”. I have found that quite a bit of personal failure comes from not allowing enough time to ask these pertinent questions, in the right order, with sufficient patience. I am reminded of the following passage:

“Philippians 3:12   Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Philippians 3:13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, Philippians 3:14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12-14 ESV)

This is kind of a “well then”— “Now what” text. We pause with Paul to reflect. We join him in considering who we are in Christ. And we consider what is to come in our journey of faith. Though he documents this process in this text to the Philippian Church, this kind of pause before proceeding lies at the heart of successful Christian living. If there is no pause to reflect on the past and prepare for the future, if past and present merely collapse onto one another we will grow restless and unfocused. We need those moments. We need to look back and put the past “to bed”. Say “well then” and move on to the next thing. It is hard to say, “now what”, and to move on to the next thing when we cannot let the last thing go.