August 22, 2023 • 44 mins
What do you believe your sermons have the power to do? What do you believe about the weekly preaching moment? Who or what should have influence over your preaching?
What are your Assumptions, Beliefs, and Convictions about preaching?
Every preacher has them but very few write them down and if you have never written them down, it is worth your time.
In this episode of Preaching Through Podcast we discuss the 10 ABCs of Preaching developed by Luke to stay accountable to the craft of preaching, measure improvement, process praise & criticism, and ultimately become a better steward of the preaching moment.
Discover all of our free resources: https://faithfruit.us/podcast-links
Additional questions about this topic? Email us at info@faithfulandfruitful.com.
Preaching Through is powered by Faithful & Fruitful, leadership resources for pastors so they can have a faithful and fruitful ministry over the long-haul.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You did a sabbatical a few years back and you got to
do what virtually no pastor evergets to do you got to go and
listen to other preachers preachat lots of different churches.
So what did you think of thepreaching?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, it was a wild experience.
It was really nice.
I mean, first of all, justbeing able to take sabbatical is
a sweet deal and I was reallygrateful for it.
I was mostly trying to go andbe encouraged.
I just wanted to be a Christian.
I wasn't trying to learn abunch from everyone else or, you
know, do some undercover pastorthing, just really trying to be
ministered to.
I do believe that matureChristians are easily edified,
(00:42):
so I think even in a sermonthat's not great you can always
find something to be encouragedby.
That said, as I reflected on it, I went gosh.
I hope my preaching is not asunderwhelming as this and I
really left it with a desire towork on it.
I didn't assume that I'm betterthan anyone else I listened to,
(01:05):
but to go, man, I really wantthis to feel compelling.
It felt what it felt like as Ilistened to a lot of the sermons
was they felt like undercookedmeals.
It was like there was somereally great stuff there that
just didn't get developed.
It felt like it didn't get muchtime.
It felt like it didn't getenough attention and so it just
felt kind of half baked and Ileft that experience going man
(01:28):
Lord, help me to figure out howto take that good stuff and take
it all the way, cook it all theway through, also not overcook
it.
But yeah, that was a bigconviction and I walked away
saying like a lot of preaching,not because people are bad, not
because people are ungodly, butjust because we're busy.
We got a lot to do.
If we're not careful, mostpreaching can be underwhelming
(01:50):
and I don't want to do that.
All right, this should be agood one.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Let's talk about it.
We hope that we can be onevoice of encouragement in your
(02:27):
journey to become a betterpreacher, to communicate the
gospel more effectively and tobe a great steward, with the
context and the calling that Godhas placed upon your life.
And my name is Dave Shrine.
This is my co-host, lukeSimmons.
This is season two, episode two.
We really excited to be backand to be talking about all of
(02:48):
the different things thatpastors encounter as they are
preaching.
Through.
Season one we talk all aboutpreaching through nonfiction
books, book of the Bible Today,what we are talking through, the
ABCs, or your ABCs.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Luke, right, yeah, abcs stands for assumptions,
beliefs and convictions aboutpreaching.
So preaching through your ABCsand, to be clear, this is not
everyone having to preachthrough mine, right, but it's to
say every preacher, I think,needs to develop and articulate
and write down what are myassumptions about preaching,
what are my beliefs aboutpreaching, what are my
(03:22):
convictions about preaching.
For me, I put it in a top 10list there's a lot of things I
think about preaching, but toactually write it down and to
make it clear and to preach outof those assumptions, beliefs
and convictions, One of yourmost recent preaching coaching
cohorts, which you called thepreaching lab.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
You had the people who went through that come up
with their ABCs of preaching andthat was a super encouraging
list.
It like I like your list, butthey had some things in there
that I was like man, that reallyshould get some consideration.
That was a really fun exerciseand it was really interesting to
see that your assumptions,beliefs and convictions are not
going to be the same andshouldn't necessarily be the
(04:00):
same for other people as well.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, every preacher is, importantly, I think, trying
to find their own voice.
And I mean, on one hand, noneof us wants to be original.
If we're going to be faithful,I don't want to come up with
some new truth about Jesus,right?
That's how you create a cultNot interested in that.
At the same time, finding yourvoice is to say okay, how's God
(04:23):
made me, what are my passions,what are my gifts, what's my
voice?
And part of how you identifyand articulate that is through
the ABCs.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
There's lots of good things we're going to get into
this season.
We're going to talk aboutweddings and funerals.
We're going to talk about campsand conferences.
We're going to talk aboutpreaching through praise,
criticism and silence.
We actually had somebody reachout to you and said, you know,
hey, tell me, what did they say?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, it's a guy I'm connected to on Twitter.
His name is Mark and he's aboutto start at a new church and
he's been in ministry for awhile, but this is going to be
his first time, I believe, as asenior pastor at least new role
at the church he's going to, andso he said man, I'd love to
hear an episode on how would youpreach through your first year
at a new church, or you know nochurch planners who think the
(05:09):
same thing, so maybe that'ssomething we could talk about.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
That could be fun.
I think this episode could leaninto that idea of preaching
through your first year at a newchurch or your first year in
that role.
It might be critical to developsome ABCs, so why don't you go
ahead and share what your ABCsare, and then maybe we'll pick
out a couple to deep dive?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, that sounds great.
So I've, like I said, have 10of them and yeah, dave,
whichever ones you think we needto go deeper on, that would be
great.
In the videos that we recordedfor the preaching lab, I go
through all of these and explainthem in more depth, but here
I'll just blitz through them andthen I can go deeper on a few
if you want.
So number one preaching is anessential tool for making
(05:51):
disciples, for evangelizing anddiscipleship.
Preaching is an essential toolfor making disciples.
Number two preaching is themost significant tool for
leading a local congregation.
We actually talked about thatlast time, last episode, yeah,
as we were looking at a falllaunch.
Number three preaching is oneof the main ways God disciples
the preacher.
Number four most life changehappens in the moment.
(06:14):
Number five, but a lot of lifechange happens over the long
haul too.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Okay, I'm making a note on that one right there,
okay.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
number six people remember what the preacher
emphasizes and gets excitedabout.
Number seven people want to bechallenged, which is both good
and bad.
Number eight gospel preachingfeels more like news than advice
.
That was probably one of myfavorite things, just by the way
, in the preaching lab is tohave a number of guys who I know
(06:45):
are preaching the scripturesand working faithfully to have
an experience of going.
Wow, I think I actually havesome ways to grow in preaching
the gospel, so it feels morelike news.
So diversion.
Number nine preaching improveswith reps and feedback.
And number 10, most preachingis underwhelming and that was
what came out of thatconversation or we had at the
(07:07):
beginning related to my time insabbatical.
Yeah, okay.
So there they are.
Those are my ABCs and, like Isaid, I think it'd be valuable
for any preacher to developwhatever they are.
You know, not only do they helpyou just have confidence in
where you're coming from, butthey deepen your conviction.
They help you navigatecriticism Okay, this criticism.
(07:27):
You know what that's actuallyrelated to some of my core
convictions about this.
I should take that more toheart.
And it helps you train otherpeople.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
All right, I've got a few written down here.
We'll come back and we'll talkabout these.
This is gonna be fun.
Okay, your first 200 sermonsare gonna be terrible.
This is something the late TimKeller once said, meaning that
no matter how hard you study,how many hours you put in or how
much you work on your preaching, there's this glass ceiling
(07:55):
that can only be broken withmore reps.
So getting reps becomes yourmain way of growing as a
preacher.
But what happens when yousurpass 200 sermons?
What are you supposed to workon?
Where should you try and grow?
Or what muscles are you gonnaneed to build to have a faithful
and fruitful preaching ministryover the long haul?
Well, the preaching lab is acurriculum developed by our
(08:16):
co-host, Luke Simmons, thatfills this gap and takes
preachers beyond what they'velearned in seminary or Bible
college.
This live experience providespreachers with meaningful
feedback, insight andinstructions so that they can
improve their preaching for afaithful and fruitful preaching
ministry.
During this 12 week preachingcohort, preachers learn of minor
adjustments to their sermonhabits that have a major impact
(08:39):
on the preaching moment, Tweaksthat nobody in your congregation
have the ability or theconfidence to give you.
It's a deep inspection of yourroutines, habits, study and
preaching, all so that you canbecome a better steward of the
gift God has given you.
Every single week, an audience.
This is your opportunity toreturn the favor back to your
congregation and preach a sermonthat is faithful and fruitful.
(09:02):
Visit faithfulandfruitfulcomslash lab to learn more about
the preaching lab live cohort,as well as the preaching lab on
demand video curriculum.
Now back to the podcast.
Looking at these 10 ABC'sassumptions, beliefs and
convictions, knowing that wetalked about what was it?
(09:23):
Number two preaching is themost significant tool for
leading a local congregation.
Ordinarily, I'd probably wantto go to that one, but we
discussed that in episode one.
So the first one that I want todeep dive in is preaching is
one of the main ways Goddisciples the preacher.
Why is that making the list andwhy is that true for you?
Speaker 2 (09:47):
This has been one of the real delights of preaching
over the last 15 years.
For me is to remember yeah, I'ma shepherd of a church, but I'm
an under shepherd underneaththe chief shepherd, and he's the
one who walks through thevalley of the shadow of death
and he's the one who leads mebesides the waters and he's the
one that leads me into greengrass, and he's the one who's
(10:09):
rodent staff come for me.
Like before I'm a pastor,before I'm a preacher, I'm a
Christian and I'm beingdiscipled by and shepherded by,
and formed by and loved by theLord himself, and so one of the
things I'm just aware of is that, okay, if that's true that he's
discipling me, he's probablygoing to disciple me through the
things that he's calling me todo, which I think is actually
(10:30):
true of everybody, right?
So, dave, you're in digitalmarketing, and other people are
in other careers.
Some are teachers, some arenurses, some are stay-at-home
parents, some are retired, butwhatever your vocation is, I
think probably God is usingpieces of that vocation to
disciple you, to make you morelike Christ, and so it's no
surprise then that that's truefor preachers as well, and
(10:51):
anybody who has ever taughtanything knows that really you
learn way more when you teachand you have to internalize it
at a deeper level.
Just the fact that I get tostudy scripture for hours and
hours every week.
This year I've been recentlyusing a touchscreen monitor
(11:12):
sometimes when I preach to tryto highlight different
connections in the text.
I'll underline keywords thatare related and use different
colors to help match it up, andit's been kind of fun.
I don't do it all the time, butwhen I do it it's kind of fun.
And what I've realized with itis that people will say to me
man, that's so cool, how you sawthat.
And what I tell them is well,I'm only trying to bring out
(11:33):
what I think you would see ifyou had the time to see it right
and I've been blessed as apreacher.
I get the time Like this isright.
I know some of the folkslistening to this.
They're bivocational.
They don't have as much timeAverage Christians who are
grinding away in their life andtheir job and their career.
They're trying to spend timewith the Lord.
They don't have the extendedtime that I have to study and to
(11:54):
prepare, and so I'm just sograteful for how the Lord uses
his word to shape me, and partof it comes out of a conviction
that I need to try tointernalize what God is saying
to me before I preach it toothers.
Now, if you're preaching 30, 40, 45 times a year, I don't know
(12:14):
that you could ever perfectlyapply everything you're gonna
preach right.
There's always a sense you haveas a preacher of like am.
I a hypocrite?
Am I a phony?
Like I don't live it, probablyto the level I'm trying to call
us to live it.
Now the key on hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy isn't that you failto do what you say you should do
.
Hypocrisy is when you act likeyou don't fail to do it Right.
(12:38):
That's the problem.
If, as preachers, we start toact like we got it all wired
when we know we don't, that'shypocrisy Anyway.
So there's a verse in Ezra,chapter seven, verse 10,.
It says that Ezra set his heartto study the scripture, to
practice it and then to teach it.
And that has been a model,that's been a paradigm for me.
(12:58):
So I think if, as a preacher,you approach this as okay, I've
got these sermons to prepare,I've got this scripture to study
, I'm gonna study it, I'm gonnatry to practice it in my own
life.
Have God wrestle with me onthis and then I'm gonna deliver
it.
I think if you do that, overtime you'll just find man.
That is one of the sweetestways that God disciples you.
(13:19):
And so much of the time I'mpreaching to other people, but
I'm really just preaching to meand I do have times, even on a
Sunday, where, as I get upbefore I go up to prepare or to
preach.
I'm praying like Lord.
I believe this, but help myunbelief.
Would you actually use mypreaching of this to help me
(13:39):
believe it?
And he's gracious, and he oftendoes.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
When it comes to preaching, as one of the main
ways God disciples the preacher.
Are there ways that God hasused people in your life to say,
hey, you could grow in thisarea.
Or are there ways that God hasused this core conviction to
help you grow deeper with himand maybe a season where it felt
like you were a little bit moredistant or away from him?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, I mean, I remember a time I was preaching
toward the end of the year abouthow to have a great year and
one of the things that I broughtup was what's your plan then
this coming year for reallyconnecting with the Lord
personally?
And as I was saying that and inthe subsequent weeks, I felt
the Lord gently tapping on myshoulder saying yeah, luke, what
(14:22):
is your plan for that?
And I realized that a lot of myown private devotional time had
gotten eaten up by other thingsand I said, yeah, I gotta
prioritize that again.
And so that's a specificinstance.
At a more general level, I thinkone of the things that
preaching regularly does is itforces me to tidy up things
(14:44):
relationally, like I think,especially with my wife and kids
, they're gonna sit there andlisten to me, and if there's a
rift between us and if there'ssome unfinished, unresolved
tension, it's gonna not be good.
And so there is a sense inwhich I think that's one of the
graces of preaching is that atleast again, if you take
(15:05):
integrity seriously, which I'mtrying to, it is this regular,
at least weekly, invitation tosay am I okay in my most
important relationships, like,am I in a good place.
Are we reconciled?
Because I wanna walk withintegrity and I don't want you
know, I don't want my kidshaving an internal eye roll when
they listen to me preach.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
That was number three .
And then we move to.
I made a mental note of numberfour and number five.
Number four most life changehappens in the moment, but a lot
of life change happens over thelong haul too.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah, you know, I think a lot of times preachers
will make a big deal about howmuch of your sermon did people
remember and I just don't everfeel that pressure.
I don't care, like if theyremember something great, like
I'm not against it, I wouldnever be like make your sermons
unmemorable, but that's not good.
But the pressure like you'regonna talk for 30 minutes, 35
(16:06):
minutes maybe, not much longerthan that, but like even if you
only talked for 20 minutes, arepeople gonna remember everything
you said in those 20 minutes?
No, hopefully they mightremember one thing.
But my point in that first oneof most life change happens in
the moment is that usually it'slike it's an aha, it's the
spirit, convicts, it's anillustration lands and you see
(16:29):
something in a fresh way.
It's that sense that you haveof, oh, my goodness, I feel like
I was the only one in the roomor did somebody tell him about
what's going on in my life.
You know, like people will saystuff like that Then and that to
me is like it's those lifechanging moments.
It's the conviction, it's theimpressions, it's the thing that
happens in the moment, and Ithink that a lot of the life
(16:50):
change happens in that senseright and so, in that sense,
anyone listening right.
If someone comes to church 40times a year which that would be
great if people came to churchthat often but say they did and
they listened to 40 sermons, Iwouldn't expect that every week
would be oh, life changing.
Oh, life changing Like thatsounds like.
I don't think that's likely.
(17:10):
It might be once a year, itmight be three times a year, but
that you really have like awhoa, like paradigm shifting, a
phrase that stuck, somethingthat made sense.
What's crazy to me about it isso often when people articulate
to me the life changing thing Isaid I don't remember saying
that and sometimes I'm like Iknow for sure I didn't say that
(17:34):
and what that tells me is whatis actually changing their life
is the work of the spiritapplying something to them in
some really cool way.
So that's the idea there.
On the other hand, so much ofhow I was formed, especially as
a young Christian, was bylistening to good, consistent
preaching from my pastor, mikeShea, at Community Evangelical
(17:54):
Free Church in Champaign,illinois 120 people or so and
the way he would preach theBible taught me to study the
Bible and the vision he had forthe glory of God gave me a
vision for the glory of God andhis understanding of what it was
to be a church on mission.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Like.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I realized so much of the stuff I'm now fluent in as
a newish Christian was beingspoken all around me through the
weekend week out preaching.
And so in that sense, I go okay,a lot of life change happens
over the long haul too.
It's one of the reasons why, asI use that touchscreen from
time to time, sometimes it's toprovide a oh, like, wow, boom,
(18:33):
look at this.
Other times it's just to showpeople this is how you study the
Bible.
And so I don't wanna I don'twanna overdo, like man, I gotta
come up with this decisive thingthat's gonna change, and I
don't wanna neglect that, likeyeah, it's gonna be the
consistent, normal rhythm.
But mostly I just go.
I don't feel the pressure totry to have everyone have a life
(18:57):
changing experience every time.
I want it to be good.
I wanna preach the word, Iwanna get excited about the most
important things, and then I'mgonna trust the Lord with the
results.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Well, that's a particular thing for you.
Season one we had an episodewhere we talked about preaching
through Easter and Christmas,and it's well documented in that
episode that you, for thelongest time, did not like
preaching through Christmas or aChristmas Eve message more
specifically.
Talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah, it was.
I remember talking to a mentorand saying, yeah, I know there's
all these people coming, butI'm not that excited about
preaching on this.
And he said well, here's why.
He said I think it's becauseyou're a teacher and you do love
it when people have an ahamoment, and all the pomp and
circumstance of those holidaysmakes aha moments really hard.
So quit aiming it.
(19:48):
Trying to make everyone have anaha moment.
You put too much pressure onyourself.
You try to be overly creative.
You try.
You know it starts blendinginto being corny, like just be.
You give a good, faithfulmessage and trust that God will
use it, cause really, the mainthing you want on those holidays
is for people to come back.
You know, if they have a goodenough experience with the whole
(20:08):
thing, maybe they'll come backand over time they'll have an
aha moment.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
What I hear you saying there is you can't hit a
home run.
Every single message no no andI don't.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I mean I don't think, yeah, you can't, and you
shouldn't be disappointed thatyou can't.
You know, often on a SundayMolly will say how do you think
it went?
She said, well, I think we'vemoved the chain Right.
I have a sports background, so Igo you know we can move the
chains with a 45 yard bomb downthe sideline, or you can move
the chains with a four yard runup the middle.
(20:41):
What matters is you keep movingthe chains right, and that is
the reality, right?
If this is a one timeconference sermon, maybe it's
like I got to knock it out ofthe park.
But yeah, because I don't thinkthat's how it works, I'm okay
with it going.
And we move the chains.
You know and this was a some ofthe guys in the preaching lab
(21:01):
that I that I led pointed out,as he said, you know, when
you're preaching through booksof the Bible, there's a lot of
passages that don't really lendthemselves to home run right
Like like.
One of the advantages ofpreaching more topical series is
you could self select home runpassages all the time.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
You know.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
The downside of that is there's this thing called the
whole counsel of God that youmight never get to, you know.
So I would rather move thechains, hit singles, hit a
double, occasionally hit a homerun through the whole counsel of
God and just keep moving andtrust that the Lord will use
that to grow people.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
I think that's helpful to hear almost
permission not to phone it inthat's not even close to what
we're saying but permission toallow the text to speak, allow
the text to say what it needs tosay.
And not every text isnecessarily going to equal into
that moment of aha, but over thelong haul God can use it and
God will use it.
(21:58):
I remember that after I had Ispent years in the church and I
got let go and it was reallyreally difficult, super, super
hard for me to process and I wastrying to reconcile what my
thoughts were about churchleadership and what my thoughts
were about the church.
Looking back on all of thestuff that I was going through
(22:21):
and processing, I realized nowthat I had to reconstruct my
view of the church into what Godultimately says the church is
meant to be.
Not deconstruct my faith orwhat I believe about the church.
God has already said what'strue about the church and I had
to reconstruct my belief in thattruth.
But through that process I hadjust been.
(22:41):
I like I don't want to becomebitter, I don't want to become
sour, I don't want to become anegative voice.
I love Jesus, I love his word,I love the spirit God's inside
of me.
It probably took a good eight to16 months for me to figure out,
and just time with the Lord andattending church, and I don't
(23:03):
know if there was a moment whereany of the messages said what,
ultimately, I felt the spiritsay to me.
I was feeling this hugepressure, after being a pastor
on a church, to have this sportsmetaphor batting 400 faith
right, not even batting 400,batting 1000 faith.
And that pressure was sointense that I was like can't,
(23:25):
is it okay for me to just bat100?
Like can I just bat 100 rightnow and just show up and take
the reps?
And and the way God spoke it tome through the spirit was look,
we'll just build this thingback up, one brick at a time,
like one moment, one brick, onetruth at a time, and we will
reconstruct what it is to walkand be with me.
(23:49):
And that life change happenedover, like I said, over a year
and I'm still, you know, sure,going back, and I'm in a much
better place than I was now, butthat life change did not happen
in a home run message.
I don't even.
Maybe the preacher said it,maybe the preacher didn't say it
, but I do know that God did itover a long haul and, like
(24:10):
praise God, that's awesome and Ithink that's.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Well, and this isn't exactly the point of this whole
ABCs thing, but I just want tosay, because so many of us are
navigating, people who are goingthrough church hurt and
deconstruction, questions andand part of why I think your
faith was has been able to bereconstructed is because you
were able to be honest aboutwhere it was.
Yeah, Instead of pretending itwas somewhere else.
(24:33):
You were honest about where itis.
I know a pastor who says youshould never be honest, you're
not not beyond.
You should never tell peopleyour weaknesses, because no one
wants to learn to hit from afrom a 100 hitter.
Well, okay, but that to mesounds like a recipe for
phoniness and a recipe for onceit starts to crumble, it's all
(24:55):
going to collapse.
But your ability to be honestand to let God over time shape
your heart.
I also you know, justincreasingly.
I heard someone recently say youknow everybody's fighting a
battle that you know nothingabout.
Well, if that's true and I'mpreaching to however many people
on a Sunday, I couldn'tpossibly have the wisdom to
apply everything exactly to thebattle that they're fighting
(25:16):
that I don't know anything about.
But that's the miracle ofpreaching is sometimes like
probably every week, someone hasan aha, but not everyone.
And a lot of weeks, like a lotof people are just kind of
plugging away and you know, andI go.
I just want to keep themengaged, I want to keep them.
You know, there's a couple ofboys that sit in front of my
(25:38):
wife on Sunday and they're likeprobably in sixth grade or
seventh grade and there was oneday where one of them was like
literally laying down, just laiddown, you know, we've got, you
know kind of padded chairs thatyou could lay down, you know you
could if you wanted to.
And so he, he just was not eventrying.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Right.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
And so the next week I went to him at the kind of
meet and greet time and I saidhey man, I have one goal today
and it's for you to stayinterested during this whole
sermon.
That's my only goal.
Well, of course that helped himfeel more interested, you know,
like knowing that he was caughtsleeping.
You know, but I go if peopleare paying attention, if people
are listening.
(26:20):
I just trust the Lord will workthrough it.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
It is a miracle how the spirit works that way.
It's unexplainable, it's.
You can't reconcile it otherthan to just say it's God doing
what God does.
It's those mornings back when Iwas doing music and we just
blew it Like it just wasn't good.
There wasn't good rhythm, therewas it just it just felt off.
(26:46):
And then someone comes up toyou and just tells you what God
did during that moment andyou're like that's awesome.
And then the moments when youfeel like I mean, sometimes
people will say something, butlike when you feel like man,
this was a home run, this waslike, this was awesome.
Do y'all see?
Like we gelled, we stayed withthe click track and it's just
(27:08):
silence.
And you're kind of like, well,you know, I can recognize it was
good, but let the spirit dowhat spirit wants to do.
So yeah, oh, that's true.
Okay, so that was most lifechange happens in the moment,
but a lot of life change happensover the long haul too.
I want to really key in here onthese last two.
(27:29):
Number nine is preaching,improves with reps and feedback.
And I remember asking youseveral years ago I was actually
interviewing you for a projectthat I was working on.
In my mind.
I had always thought thatpastors don't get feedback
because they're afraid.
(27:49):
I mean it, not pastors, but inthis context, pastors, anybody.
You're afraid to ask forfeedback because you're afraid
of what the truth is, and yousaid that might be some people,
but really a lot of times it'sjust cause you don't know who to
ask.
It's like I don't know who Ishould go to.
So this one intrigues me forthat reason, and then we'll get
to number 10, but preachingimproves with reps and feedback.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah, I mean someone might listen to what we just
talked about.
Hey, don't have to hit on homerun and go, oh good, which is
good.
And they might hear that and go, well, cool, I'll just wing it
then and I'll just hit a single.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Just preach the gospel.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
And it's like I mean, maybe if you're playing little
league, like maybe you couldwing it and not practice very
much and still get singles.
But NFL teams work very, veryhard to move the chains.
There's lots of possessionswhere they don't move the chains
and I think you can't justassume, well, I'll just wing it
and hit a single every week,like, yeah, I don't know that
(28:48):
you actually will.
So this is saying, okay, I wantto improve, I want to grow.
Well, there's two ways to do it.
One is you need a lot of reps.
Tim Keller famously said yourfirst 200 sermons, no matter
what, are going to stink.
So I remember talking to myaunt and I told her that she
lives in another state.
(29:08):
She said, well, tell me afteryou've hit 200.
So that's when I'll come visitthe church.
And his point with that was tosay, instead of spending 25
hours sermon prepping, what ifyou spent 10 hours and you spent
the other 15 with people?
Because the extra 15 hours ofprep you're not going to be any
better because you're first 200sermons stink.
So on one hand, you just needreps.
(29:30):
Right, we did this summer.
It was really fun.
We did a training day where wehave three services on Sunday
and we had a developing youngleader.
One of them took each of theSunday sermons.
So one guy preached at nine,one guy preached at 1045, one
guy preached at four and we gavehim feedback and we gave him
and that was a good experience.
(29:50):
They're not going to get agreat deal better without a lot
more practice, right.
So I told him all right, youcan invite to do a nursing home
to do a Bible study.
You say yes, you get invited todo a high school football
chapel, you say yes, you getinvited to come speak at it.
Like, just say yes to anythingwhen you're a young, developing
preacher, because you just needreps.
At the same time, you reallydevelop not just with reps but
(30:14):
with feedback, with evaluatedreps.
Right, everyone grew up hearingpractice makes perfect.
That's not really true.
Practice just makes permanent.
It's evaluated reps, it's repswith coaching, reps with hey,
why don't you try this?
Hey, do you notice?
You do that.
And, like you said, very fewpreachers get that.
(30:35):
At most we get hey, pastor,that was a great sermon.
Or an email where someone'scomplaining about something.
But like, what do we really?
We don't hear much.
And we don't want to burdenpeople in the church, like, once
(30:55):
you start listening like acritic, it's hard to turn that
off.
I don't want to make, I don'twant to do a bunch of that,
right so?
But how do you get feedback?
How do you get reps?
To make it worse, none of uslikes to hear ourselves or watch
ourselves, so the self feedbackwe could give we're often
resistant to cause it's like Idon't like this, like.
So we got to get over that.
But really, I mean that's a lotof.
(31:17):
What has been so fun about thepreaching lab is to be able to
give feedback.
You know, the last week of thepreaching lab I don't know if
we'll do this again in thefuture, but I told the guys I
said, hey, I want you toevaluate one of my sermons, like
I can take the medicine too,and they brought up some stuff
that I went I hadn't noticedthat.
And so having experiencedpeople who care about you and
(31:37):
love you and know what they'retalking about and can actually
give you detailed feedback tohelp you improve, cause if you
improve just a percent or 2% manover time, that makes a huge
difference.
So, yeah, I think we need repsand we need evaluated reps.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Most preaching is underwhelming.
As your 10th ABC, let's getinto that.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
What I have in mind here is it's just very easy to
skim the surface.
I mean most of the preachers Ilisten to.
I listen to them cause they'regreat preachers.
So, I don't hear gobs of badpreaching cause I, why would I
waste my time?
And I also think why wouldanyone else waste their time
with a bad?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
preacher.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
So it's like why we gotta get better.
You know, my experience on thatsabbatical was largely hearing
stuff that you know well.
Yeah, I just read it, that'swhat it says, Like, but there
wasn't a lot of insight, therewasn't a lot of application,
there wasn't much illustrationto help it go deeper.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
I actually have a framework when it comes to
writing and I think there's acrossover here of what you were
looking for.
You said insight.
There's four that I go afterInsight, inspiration,
information and instruction.
And if you hit two of those andmake sure that it's not
information and instruction,that's really a recipe for
(32:54):
compelling narrative orcompelling content.
But just those are the fourthings that I look for and those
are the four things that I wantto hear, because that really is
what I'm looking for and reallyis what ultimately makes
motivating.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yeah, I mean if your sermon more or less sounds like
what chat GPT would have come upwith, like you gotta do a
little more work.
And so that, to me, is thething is not enough time
studying, not enough timecrafting, not enough time
thinking through illustrations,not enough time proving it.
I think that's a key thing is,a lot of times it's easy as a
(33:27):
preacher to assert but not toprove it and to think okay, what
would someone who disagreeswith this Ask?
How do I address that objection?
How do I go just one notchdeeper?
I don't think going deep means Ihave to quote a bunch of Greek
words.
I don't think it means I needto, you know, fill up my Stuff
with quotations and referencesfrom the church fathers.
(33:48):
But I think it's, it's thinkingat a deeper level, going one
more notch, because otherwiseit's just informational or it's
just emotional.
But the most compelling sermonsare insightful, they're
inspiring and they engage youthe whole way, because and
usually they engage the wholeway because of the way the
(34:09):
illustrations Keep you hooked in, and so it's just a little bit
more attention and time Spent inthe crafting and I think that
takes it from beingunderwhelming to being
consistently strong you use yourmind all day, every day in
ministry and Preaching andstudying, and so one of the
things you have said you enjoydoing at the end of the day is
(34:30):
to do something with your hands.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
And so you've gotten into the cooking world and have
a black stone.
I recently got a black stoneand Smash burgers.
It's very good, I'm enjoying it.
Any black stone fans out thereGritle fans us, send us some
love.
You use a cooking metaphor.
You say you know it's gatheringingredients, it's, you've got
great ingredients with the Bible, like it's just rich.
(34:52):
It's.
It's.
You know.
You describe it as electricJesus's life, like it's really
really good content.
And so you're gathering theingredients and you're kind of
starting to decide you know whatare what am I gonna prepare?
You decide what you're gonnaprepare and then go to cook it.
When it's under cooked you cantell it's under cooked and it's
(35:14):
it's not the ingredients, butit's the way that they were put
together.
And so I mean, does that, doesit?
Ultimately it comes with thatfeedback and that critique and
that evaluation, people tellingyou, hey, this was a little bit
under cooked, even if it hurtsor stings.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Well, and it really, I mean, it is hard and
especially because you haveother stuff come up in your life
and you have, and I do thinkthat Any creative work there's
an there's an element ofemotional energy.
You need Not just physicalenergy, and so this gets really
hard in those thick, deep, hardweeks where it's hard as a
(35:51):
family or there's a crisis inthe church or you're dealing
with big decisions.
You know what?
I recently was looking at apassage in 1st John and it's
like, okay, this is reallyclearly about love one another.
And I'm looking at it going.
This is gonna be a boringsermon love one another, like
(36:11):
everyone already knows that.
Everyone already thinks they'regood at it.
And I didn't have eyes.
It was like I don't, I don'tknow what to do with it, and I
stared at it and I stared at itand I stared at it and that
cursor was taunting me, is itLike you know?
And I just had to go.
You know what?
I'm gonna walk away from thisand I'm gonna come back to it
tomorrow, and so you know,sometimes you got to grind
(36:35):
through it and just put a littlemore work.
Other times you got to comeback and you know what, and I
literally went home and took anap and so, okay, I'm gonna deal
with this tomorrow, but it'sit's not accepting that.
I'm just gonna say the blandgeneral thing that everybody
already knows.
I could do that and be faithfulto the text.
Mm-hmm but I don't think thatwould serve the people very well
(36:56):
and I don't think that wouldfacilitate.
That wouldn't move the ballforward that would check the box
that technically I preached abiblical sermon but it wouldn't
actually advance people'sability to like.
I need to think what is gettingin the way of them being able
to love?
Why does everyone think they'regood at loving but actually
struggle with it, taking theextra time to figure out?
(37:19):
Okay, is there an illustrationthat really connects with this
passage?
So that extra work is work andit doesn't always flow easily,
and I think because we just getoverwhelmed when we get busy,
sometimes we let that go and andthe result over time is it
feels like undercooked.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
I've been taking messages and I have been
Transcribing messages that Ifind online and I've been
spitting them into chat GPT intoAI models Actually, I'm using
one called Claude Claude 2.0,but into an AI model and I'm
saying give me a compellingintroduction and conclusion,
tell me what the main points areand Then identify the key
(38:01):
verses and the topics so you'retaking a sermon that's already
been preached sermon that'salready been preached.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
This is not to write a sermon correct.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
This is more to create tools For after the
sermon right to and and Iactually I would actually
challenge and encourage anypastor Number one closed caption
your messages, get your messagemessages transcribed.
You can go to revcom, get themtranscribed and upload closed
captions.
I think every single messageshould have closed captions
(38:29):
because a lot of times peoplewill not Listen, but they will
watch and they will read and Ithink that's just an easy way to
make your messages more accept,not acceptable accessible
accessible.
Thank you very much.
So I think that's a great whenI think getting them transcribed
and putting the let, takingclips of your messages and just
(38:50):
putting the words Over them is agreat thing.
But one of the areas where Ireally think Sermons fall short
is in the descriptions, and youand I have talked about this.
In the descriptions that we usefor the podcast or for the
YouTube description or for eventhe website, it's usually just
pastor Luke preaches a sectionon first John and it's like,
well, that tells me Virtuallynothing.
(39:12):
And if the, if the title isinaccessible, if the title says
something like what it takes tobe more, it's kind of like that
tells me almost nothing, right?
So if your title talks aboutwhat life looks like on the
other side of their eyes, andthat gives some information, but
(39:33):
crafting a good description?
So what I've been doing is I'vetaken these sermons that have
already been preached.
I said, okay, write adescription for me.
And they do a very, very goodjob.
The models of AI do a good jobof Summarizing the content into
almost what I would say istweetable format.
Right, it gives you an idea,summarizes the main points.
Well, what's interesting is someof the some of the messages.
(39:55):
I know the preachers and I knowthe passages and in some cases
I know the sermons because I'velistened to them, the ones where
I know that the preacher isputting in to make sure that
it's cooked.
It's almost like chat GPTdoesn't know necessarily how to
wrap a really tight bow on it.
(40:16):
It's it's a more exhaustiveintroduction and conclusion and
there's a greater length to thekey points, whereas there's a
lot of them.
I don't know, the messagescould be great, but the majority
of them are just three keypoints that are fairly general
An introduction that's generaland a conclusion that's general.
(40:37):
Now, that's better than nothing, but it's just interesting to
see that even a I struggles tomake it general and generic when
the content itself has reallybeen cooked and really been
enslaved over and really been,you know, dealt with.
I just think it was in.
I've done probably about 200 ofthem now and it's fairly
(40:58):
consistent that it happens thatway.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Yeah, and I think another application would be
sometimes preaching isunderwhelming and people aren't
able to go as deep on it becausethey're just preaching too much
.
Right, you can't how, how, howmany times a year can you make a
compelling sermon?
Like not 50, maybe not 45,maybe not 40.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
So figuring that out is a is a key thing to the guys
over at ministry past friends ofours They've done surveys and
it's like I think it was likeover half we talked about it in
one of our season one episodesbut I think it was like over
half of the people are preachinglike 48 to 52 sermons a year
and it's, it's just.
It's just too much.
Like you, you can't be goodthat many times a year.
(41:43):
Like it's it.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, and the hard part too is it.
It makes it where.
Not only is your preachingsuffer but your leadership.
Yeah, the church suffersbecause of all the time you
don't have for other stuff there.
So you know, finding that sweetspot where you have enough time
to work on the church andenough time to really give good,
intentional, well cooked mealsto the, to the preaching, that's
(42:05):
a big deal.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
I really appreciated the first time I ever heard you
go deep on these ABCs.
To me, the idea of having likeno, this is what I believe.
These are the values that Iwant to hold to as a way of
growing, a way of processing anda way of challenging, I think
it's a great mechanism forultimately becoming a better
(42:26):
preacher and being a bettersteward of the time that you're
given, because that's a greatgift.
30 to 40 minutes of undividedattention from adults that's an
incredible gift that everycorporation in America, in the
world, wishes they could have.
So to be better with that timeseems like a no brainer, and
ABCs can help you get that way.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yeah, and that's why I would just encourage anyone
listening to think through whatare yours.
You know we have ours, but yeah, what would you add or what
would you say instead?
You know, having the convictionabout it really matters.
You're going to, you're goingto preach out of what your
actual convictions are.
Sometimes it's worth writingthem down.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Thank you so much for listening to this episode again
.
Preaching through podcastseason two this is episode two
is a lot of fun to go throughand just identify several of
these core convictions.
If you have any feedback, ifyou have any questions, any
follow up, you can reach out toeither of us at info at faithful
and fruitfulcom.
We would love to hear from youin the same way that we heard
(43:25):
from you know one of our friendson Twitter saying hey, do
preaching through your firstyear at a new church or first
year of preaching.
That would be a fantastic thingto hear from you.
What could we help you with?
If there's any follow up tothis episode or if you've got
some ABCs and you'd like to haveLuke take a look at him info at
faithful and fruitfulcom.
We'd love to hear from you.
If you would be so kind, youcan leave us a review on Apple
(43:49):
podcasts or over on Spotify.
That'll do a great service tohelping other preachers and
other pastors find this podcastand hopefully take a seat at the
table and find someencouragement and some
challenges as well, andultimately that's what we want
to be is just one voice ofencouragement.
We hope that you are findingcommunity.
We hope that you are findingjust relationships with other
(44:09):
preachers, other pastors, otherministry leaders to help
challenge you and grow, and ifwe can be a part of those voices
, that would just be tops for us.
Luke, really excited.
The next episode we're going tobe talking about preaching
through weddings and funerals.
Man, I was terrified the firsttime that I was told you need to
be the preacher for thiswedding and it was something
(44:31):
that my pastor said that justcalmed my nerves.
I'm going to leave it rightthere.
Oh man, I can't wait to hear.
Thanks for listening.
We can't wait to hear from youand we can't wait to be back
again.
Take care, and yeah, nextepisode preaching through
weddings and funerals.
You did a sabbatical a few years back and you got to
do what virtually no pastor evergets to do you got to go and
listen to other preachers preachat lots of different churches.
So what did you think of thepreaching?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, it was a wild experience.
It was really nice.
I mean, first of all, justbeing able to take sabbatical is
a sweet deal and I was reallygrateful for it.
I was mostly trying to go andbe encouraged.
I just wanted to be a Christian.
I wasn't trying to learn abunch from everyone else or, you
know, do some undercover pastorthing, just really trying to be
ministered to.
I do believe that matureChristians are easily edified,
(00:42):
so I think even in a sermonthat's not great you can always
find something to be encouragedby.
That said, as I reflected on it, I went gosh.
I hope my preaching is not asunderwhelming as this and I
really left it with a desire towork on it.
I didn't assume that I'm betterthan anyone else I listened to,
(01:05):
but to go, man, I really wantthis to feel compelling.
It felt what it felt like as Ilistened to a lot of the sermons
was they felt like undercookedmeals.
It was like there was somereally great stuff there that
just didn't get developed.
It felt like it didn't get muchtime.
It felt like it didn't getenough attention and so it just
felt kind of half baked and Ileft that experience going man
(01:28):
Lord, help me to figure out howto take that good stuff and take
it all the way, cook it all theway through, also not overcook
it.
But yeah, that was a bigconviction and I walked away
saying like a lot of preaching,not because people are bad, not
because people are ungodly, butjust because we're busy.
We got a lot to do.
If we're not careful, mostpreaching can be underwhelming
(01:50):
and I don't want to do that.
All right, this should be agood one.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Let's talk about it.
We hope that we can be onevoice of encouragement in your
(02:27):
journey to become a betterpreacher, to communicate the
gospel more effectively and tobe a great steward, with the
context and the calling that Godhas placed upon your life.
And my name is Dave Shrine.
This is my co-host, lukeSimmons.
This is season two, episode two.
We really excited to be backand to be talking about all of
(02:48):
the different things thatpastors encounter as they are
preaching.
Through.
Season one we talk all aboutpreaching through nonfiction
books, book of the Bible Today,what we are talking through, the
ABCs, or your ABCs.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Luke, right, yeah, abcs stands for assumptions,
beliefs and convictions aboutpreaching.
So preaching through your ABCsand, to be clear, this is not
everyone having to preachthrough mine, right, but it's to
say every preacher, I think,needs to develop and articulate
and write down what are myassumptions about preaching,
what are my beliefs aboutpreaching, what are my
(03:22):
convictions about preaching.
For me, I put it in a top 10list there's a lot of things I
think about preaching, but toactually write it down and to
make it clear and to preach outof those assumptions, beliefs
and convictions, One of yourmost recent preaching coaching
cohorts, which you called thepreaching lab.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
You had the people who went through that come up
with their ABCs of preaching andthat was a super encouraging
list.
It like I like your list, butthey had some things in there
that I was like man, that reallyshould get some consideration.
That was a really fun exerciseand it was really interesting to
see that your assumptions,beliefs and convictions are not
going to be the same andshouldn't necessarily be the
(04:00):
same for other people as well.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, every preacher is, importantly, I think, trying
to find their own voice.
And I mean, on one hand, noneof us wants to be original.
If we're going to be faithful,I don't want to come up with
some new truth about Jesus,right?
That's how you create a cultNot interested in that.
At the same time, finding yourvoice is to say okay, how's God
(04:23):
made me, what are my passions,what are my gifts, what's my
voice?
And part of how you identifyand articulate that is through
the ABCs.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
There's lots of good things we're going to get into
this season.
We're going to talk aboutweddings and funerals.
We're going to talk about campsand conferences.
We're going to talk aboutpreaching through praise,
criticism and silence.
We actually had somebody reachout to you and said, you know,
hey, tell me, what did they say?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, it's a guy I'm connected to on Twitter.
His name is Mark and he's aboutto start at a new church and
he's been in ministry for awhile, but this is going to be
his first time, I believe, as asenior pastor at least new role
at the church he's going to, andso he said man, I'd love to
hear an episode on how would youpreach through your first year
at a new church, or you know nochurch planners who think the
(05:09):
same thing, so maybe that'ssomething we could talk about.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
That could be fun.
I think this episode could leaninto that idea of preaching
through your first year at a newchurch or your first year in
that role.
It might be critical to developsome ABCs, so why don't you go
ahead and share what your ABCsare, and then maybe we'll pick
out a couple to deep dive?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, that sounds great.
So I've, like I said, have 10of them and yeah, dave,
whichever ones you think we needto go deeper on, that would be
great.
In the videos that we recordedfor the preaching lab, I go
through all of these and explainthem in more depth, but here
I'll just blitz through them andthen I can go deeper on a few
if you want.
So number one preaching is anessential tool for making
(05:51):
disciples, for evangelizing anddiscipleship.
Preaching is an essential toolfor making disciples.
Number two preaching is themost significant tool for
leading a local congregation.
We actually talked about thatlast time, last episode, yeah,
as we were looking at a falllaunch.
Number three preaching is oneof the main ways God disciples
the preacher.
Number four most life changehappens in the moment.
(06:14):
Number five, but a lot of lifechange happens over the long
haul too.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Okay, I'm making a note on that one right there,
okay.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
number six people remember what the preacher
emphasizes and gets excitedabout.
Number seven people want to bechallenged, which is both good
and bad.
Number eight gospel preachingfeels more like news than advice
.
That was probably one of myfavorite things, just by the way
, in the preaching lab is tohave a number of guys who I know
(06:45):
are preaching the scripturesand working faithfully to have
an experience of going.
Wow, I think I actually havesome ways to grow in preaching
the gospel, so it feels morelike news.
So diversion.
Number nine preaching improveswith reps and feedback.
And number 10, most preachingis underwhelming and that was
what came out of thatconversation or we had at the
(07:07):
beginning related to my time insabbatical.
Yeah, okay.
So there they are.
Those are my ABCs and, like Isaid, I think it'd be valuable
for any preacher to developwhatever they are.
You know, not only do they helpyou just have confidence in
where you're coming from, butthey deepen your conviction.
They help you navigatecriticism Okay, this criticism.
(07:27):
You know what that's actuallyrelated to some of my core
convictions about this.
I should take that more toheart.
And it helps you train otherpeople.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
All right, I've got a few written down here.
We'll come back and we'll talkabout these.
This is gonna be fun.
Okay, your first 200 sermonsare gonna be terrible.
This is something the late TimKeller once said, meaning that
no matter how hard you study,how many hours you put in or how
much you work on your preaching, there's this glass ceiling
(07:55):
that can only be broken withmore reps.
So getting reps becomes yourmain way of growing as a
preacher.
But what happens when yousurpass 200 sermons?
What are you supposed to workon?
Where should you try and grow?
Or what muscles are you gonnaneed to build to have a faithful
and fruitful preaching ministryover the long haul?
Well, the preaching lab is acurriculum developed by our
(08:16):
co-host, Luke Simmons, thatfills this gap and takes
preachers beyond what they'velearned in seminary or Bible
college.
This live experience providespreachers with meaningful
feedback, insight andinstructions so that they can
improve their preaching for afaithful and fruitful preaching
ministry.
During this 12 week preachingcohort, preachers learn of minor
adjustments to their sermonhabits that have a major impact
(08:39):
on the preaching moment, Tweaksthat nobody in your congregation
have the ability or theconfidence to give you.
It's a deep inspection of yourroutines, habits, study and
preaching, all so that you canbecome a better steward of the
gift God has given you.
Every single week, an audience.
This is your opportunity toreturn the favor back to your
congregation and preach a sermonthat is faithful and fruitful.
(09:02):
Visit faithfulandfruitfulcomslash lab to learn more about
the preaching lab live cohort,as well as the preaching lab on
demand video curriculum.
Now back to the podcast.
Looking at these 10 ABC'sassumptions, beliefs and
convictions, knowing that wetalked about what was it?
(09:23):
Number two preaching is themost significant tool for
leading a local congregation.
Ordinarily, I'd probably wantto go to that one, but we
discussed that in episode one.
So the first one that I want todeep dive in is preaching is
one of the main ways Goddisciples the preacher.
Why is that making the list andwhy is that true for you?
Speaker 2 (09:47):
This has been one of the real delights of preaching
over the last 15 years.
For me is to remember yeah, I'ma shepherd of a church, but I'm
an under shepherd underneaththe chief shepherd, and he's the
one who walks through thevalley of the shadow of death
and he's the one who leads mebesides the waters and he's the
one that leads me into greengrass, and he's the one who's
(10:09):
rodent staff come for me.
Like before I'm a pastor,before I'm a preacher, I'm a
Christian and I'm beingdiscipled by and shepherded by,
and formed by and loved by theLord himself, and so one of the
things I'm just aware of is that, okay, if that's true that he's
discipling me, he's probablygoing to disciple me through the
things that he's calling me todo, which I think is actually
(10:30):
true of everybody, right?
So, dave, you're in digitalmarketing, and other people are
in other careers.
Some are teachers, some arenurses, some are stay-at-home
parents, some are retired, butwhatever your vocation is, I
think probably God is usingpieces of that vocation to
disciple you, to make you morelike Christ, and so it's no
surprise then that that's truefor preachers as well, and
(10:51):
anybody who has ever taughtanything knows that really you
learn way more when you teachand you have to internalize it
at a deeper level.
Just the fact that I get tostudy scripture for hours and
hours every week.
This year I've been recentlyusing a touchscreen monitor
(11:12):
sometimes when I preach to tryto highlight different
connections in the text.
I'll underline keywords thatare related and use different
colors to help match it up, andit's been kind of fun.
I don't do it all the time, butwhen I do it it's kind of fun.
And what I've realized with itis that people will say to me
man, that's so cool, how you sawthat.
And what I tell them is well,I'm only trying to bring out
(11:33):
what I think you would see ifyou had the time to see it right
and I've been blessed as apreacher.
I get the time Like this isright.
I know some of the folkslistening to this.
They're bivocational.
They don't have as much timeAverage Christians who are
grinding away in their life andtheir job and their career.
They're trying to spend timewith the Lord.
They don't have the extendedtime that I have to study and to
(11:54):
prepare, and so I'm just sograteful for how the Lord uses
his word to shape me, and partof it comes out of a conviction
that I need to try tointernalize what God is saying
to me before I preach it toothers.
Now, if you're preaching 30, 40, 45 times a year, I don't know
(12:14):
that you could ever perfectlyapply everything you're gonna
preach right.
There's always a sense you haveas a preacher of like am.
I a hypocrite?
Am I a phony?
Like I don't live it, probablyto the level I'm trying to call
us to live it.
Now the key on hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy isn't that you failto do what you say you should do
.
Hypocrisy is when you act likeyou don't fail to do it Right.
(12:38):
That's the problem.
If, as preachers, we start toact like we got it all wired
when we know we don't, that'shypocrisy Anyway.
So there's a verse in Ezra,chapter seven, verse 10,.
It says that Ezra set his heartto study the scripture, to
practice it and then to teach it.
And that has been a model,that's been a paradigm for me.
(12:58):
So I think if, as a preacher,you approach this as okay, I've
got these sermons to prepare,I've got this scripture to study
, I'm gonna study it, I'm gonnatry to practice it in my own
life.
Have God wrestle with me onthis and then I'm gonna deliver
it.
I think if you do that, overtime you'll just find man.
That is one of the sweetestways that God disciples you.
(13:19):
And so much of the time I'mpreaching to other people, but
I'm really just preaching to meand I do have times, even on a
Sunday, where, as I get upbefore I go up to prepare or to
preach.
I'm praying like Lord.
I believe this, but help myunbelief.
Would you actually use mypreaching of this to help me
(13:39):
believe it?
And he's gracious, and he oftendoes.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
When it comes to preaching, as one of the main
ways God disciples the preacher.
Are there ways that God hasused people in your life to say,
hey, you could grow in thisarea.
Or are there ways that God hasused this core conviction to
help you grow deeper with himand maybe a season where it felt
like you were a little bit moredistant or away from him?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, I mean, I remember a time I was preaching
toward the end of the year abouthow to have a great year and
one of the things that I broughtup was what's your plan then
this coming year for reallyconnecting with the Lord
personally?
And as I was saying that and inthe subsequent weeks, I felt
the Lord gently tapping on myshoulder saying yeah, luke, what
(14:22):
is your plan for that?
And I realized that a lot of myown private devotional time had
gotten eaten up by other thingsand I said, yeah, I gotta
prioritize that again.
And so that's a specificinstance.
At a more general level, I thinkone of the things that
preaching regularly does is itforces me to tidy up things
(14:44):
relationally, like I think,especially with my wife and kids
, they're gonna sit there andlisten to me, and if there's a
rift between us and if there'ssome unfinished, unresolved
tension, it's gonna not be good.
And so there is a sense inwhich I think that's one of the
graces of preaching is that atleast again, if you take
(15:05):
integrity seriously, which I'mtrying to, it is this regular,
at least weekly, invitation tosay am I okay in my most
important relationships, like,am I in a good place.
Are we reconciled?
Because I wanna walk withintegrity and I don't want you
know, I don't want my kidshaving an internal eye roll when
they listen to me preach.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
That was number three .
And then we move to.
I made a mental note of numberfour and number five.
Number four most life changehappens in the moment, but a lot
of life change happens over thelong haul too.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah, you know, I think a lot of times preachers
will make a big deal about howmuch of your sermon did people
remember and I just don't everfeel that pressure.
I don't care, like if theyremember something great, like
I'm not against it, I wouldnever be like make your sermons
unmemorable, but that's not good.
But the pressure like you'regonna talk for 30 minutes, 35
(16:06):
minutes maybe, not much longerthan that, but like even if you
only talked for 20 minutes, arepeople gonna remember everything
you said in those 20 minutes?
No, hopefully they mightremember one thing.
But my point in that first oneof most life change happens in
the moment is that usually it'slike it's an aha, it's the
spirit, convicts, it's anillustration lands and you see
(16:29):
something in a fresh way.
It's that sense that you haveof, oh, my goodness, I feel like
I was the only one in the roomor did somebody tell him about
what's going on in my life.
You know, like people will saystuff like that Then and that to
me is like it's those lifechanging moments.
It's the conviction, it's theimpressions, it's the thing that
happens in the moment, and Ithink that a lot of the life
(16:50):
change happens in that senseright and so, in that sense,
anyone listening right.
If someone comes to church 40times a year which that would be
great if people came to churchthat often but say they did and
they listened to 40 sermons, Iwouldn't expect that every week
would be oh, life changing.
Oh, life changing Like thatsounds like.
I don't think that's likely.
(17:10):
It might be once a year, itmight be three times a year, but
that you really have like awhoa, like paradigm shifting, a
phrase that stuck, somethingthat made sense.
What's crazy to me about it isso often when people articulate
to me the life changing thing Isaid I don't remember saying
that and sometimes I'm like Iknow for sure I didn't say that
(17:34):
and what that tells me is whatis actually changing their life
is the work of the spiritapplying something to them in
some really cool way.
So that's the idea there.
On the other hand, so much ofhow I was formed, especially as
a young Christian, was bylistening to good, consistent
preaching from my pastor, mikeShea, at Community Evangelical
(17:54):
Free Church in Champaign,illinois 120 people or so and
the way he would preach theBible taught me to study the
Bible and the vision he had forthe glory of God gave me a
vision for the glory of God andhis understanding of what it was
to be a church on mission.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Like.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I realized so much of the stuff I'm now fluent in as
a newish Christian was beingspoken all around me through the
weekend week out preaching.
And so in that sense, I go okay,a lot of life change happens
over the long haul too.
It's one of the reasons why, asI use that touchscreen from
time to time, sometimes it's toprovide a oh, like, wow, boom,
(18:33):
look at this.
Other times it's just to showpeople this is how you study the
Bible.
And so I don't wanna I don'twanna overdo, like man, I gotta
come up with this decisive thingthat's gonna change, and I
don't wanna neglect that, likeyeah, it's gonna be the
consistent, normal rhythm.
But mostly I just go.
I don't feel the pressure totry to have everyone have a life
(18:57):
changing experience every time.
I want it to be good.
I wanna preach the word, Iwanna get excited about the most
important things, and then I'mgonna trust the Lord with the
results.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Well, that's a particular thing for you.
Season one we had an episodewhere we talked about preaching
through Easter and Christmas,and it's well documented in that
episode that you, for thelongest time, did not like
preaching through Christmas or aChristmas Eve message more
specifically.
Talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah, it was.
I remember talking to a mentorand saying, yeah, I know there's
all these people coming, butI'm not that excited about
preaching on this.
And he said well, here's why.
He said I think it's becauseyou're a teacher and you do love
it when people have an ahamoment, and all the pomp and
circumstance of those holidaysmakes aha moments really hard.
So quit aiming it.
(19:48):
Trying to make everyone have anaha moment.
You put too much pressure onyourself.
You try to be overly creative.
You try.
You know it starts blendinginto being corny, like just be.
You give a good, faithfulmessage and trust that God will
use it, cause really, the mainthing you want on those holidays
is for people to come back.
You know, if they have a goodenough experience with the whole
(20:08):
thing, maybe they'll come backand over time they'll have an
aha moment.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
What I hear you saying there is you can't hit a
home run.
Every single message no no andI don't.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I mean I don't think, yeah, you can't, and you
shouldn't be disappointed thatyou can't.
You know, often on a SundayMolly will say how do you think
it went?
She said, well, I think we'vemoved the chain Right.
I have a sports background, so Igo you know we can move the
chains with a 45 yard bomb downthe sideline, or you can move
the chains with a four yard runup the middle.
(20:41):
What matters is you keep movingthe chains right, and that is
the reality, right?
If this is a one timeconference sermon, maybe it's
like I got to knock it out ofthe park.
But yeah, because I don't thinkthat's how it works, I'm okay
with it going.
And we move the chains.
You know and this was a some ofthe guys in the preaching lab
(21:01):
that I that I led pointed out,as he said, you know, when
you're preaching through booksof the Bible, there's a lot of
passages that don't really lendthemselves to home run right
Like like.
One of the advantages ofpreaching more topical series is
you could self select home runpassages all the time.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
You know.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
The downside of that is there's this thing called the
whole counsel of God that youmight never get to, you know.
So I would rather move thechains, hit singles, hit a
double, occasionally hit a homerun through the whole counsel of
God and just keep moving andtrust that the Lord will use
that to grow people.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
I think that's helpful to hear almost
permission not to phone it inthat's not even close to what
we're saying but permission toallow the text to speak, allow
the text to say what it needs tosay.
And not every text isnecessarily going to equal into
that moment of aha, but over thelong haul God can use it and
God will use it.
(21:58):
I remember that after I had Ispent years in the church and I
got let go and it was reallyreally difficult, super, super
hard for me to process and I wastrying to reconcile what my
thoughts were about churchleadership and what my thoughts
were about the church.
Looking back on all of thestuff that I was going through
(22:21):
and processing, I realized nowthat I had to reconstruct my
view of the church into what Godultimately says the church is
meant to be.
Not deconstruct my faith orwhat I believe about the church.
God has already said what'strue about the church and I had
to reconstruct my belief in thattruth.
But through that process I hadjust been.
(22:41):
I like I don't want to becomebitter, I don't want to become
sour, I don't want to become anegative voice.
I love Jesus, I love his word,I love the spirit God's inside
of me.
It probably took a good eight to16 months for me to figure out,
and just time with the Lord andattending church, and I don't
(23:03):
know if there was a moment whereany of the messages said what,
ultimately, I felt the spiritsay to me.
I was feeling this hugepressure, after being a pastor
on a church, to have this sportsmetaphor batting 400 faith
right, not even batting 400,batting 1000 faith.
And that pressure was sointense that I was like can't,
(23:25):
is it okay for me to just bat100?
Like can I just bat 100 rightnow and just show up and take
the reps?
And and the way God spoke it tome through the spirit was look,
we'll just build this thingback up, one brick at a time,
like one moment, one brick, onetruth at a time, and we will
reconstruct what it is to walkand be with me.
(23:49):
And that life change happenedover, like I said, over a year
and I'm still, you know, sure,going back, and I'm in a much
better place than I was now, butthat life change did not happen
in a home run message.
I don't even.
Maybe the preacher said it,maybe the preacher didn't say it
, but I do know that God did itover a long haul and, like
(24:10):
praise God, that's awesome and Ithink that's.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Well, and this isn't exactly the point of this whole
ABCs thing, but I just want tosay, because so many of us are
navigating, people who are goingthrough church hurt and
deconstruction, questions andand part of why I think your
faith was has been able to bereconstructed is because you
were able to be honest aboutwhere it was.
Yeah, Instead of pretending itwas somewhere else.
(24:33):
You were honest about where itis.
I know a pastor who says youshould never be honest, you're
not not beyond.
You should never tell peopleyour weaknesses, because no one
wants to learn to hit from afrom a 100 hitter.
Well, okay, but that to mesounds like a recipe for
phoniness and a recipe for onceit starts to crumble, it's all
(24:55):
going to collapse.
But your ability to be honestand to let God over time shape
your heart.
I also you know, justincreasingly.
I heard someone recently say youknow everybody's fighting a
battle that you know nothingabout.
Well, if that's true and I'mpreaching to however many people
on a Sunday, I couldn'tpossibly have the wisdom to
apply everything exactly to thebattle that they're fighting
(25:16):
that I don't know anything about.
But that's the miracle ofpreaching is sometimes like
probably every week, someone hasan aha, but not everyone.
And a lot of weeks, like a lotof people are just kind of
plugging away and you know, andI go.
I just want to keep themengaged, I want to keep them.
You know, there's a couple ofboys that sit in front of my
(25:38):
wife on Sunday and they're likeprobably in sixth grade or
seventh grade and there was oneday where one of them was like
literally laying down, just laiddown, you know, we've got, you
know kind of padded chairs thatyou could lay down, you know you
could if you wanted to.
And so he, he just was not eventrying.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Right.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
And so the next week I went to him at the kind of
meet and greet time and I saidhey man, I have one goal today
and it's for you to stayinterested during this whole
sermon.
That's my only goal.
Well, of course that helped himfeel more interested, you know,
like knowing that he was caughtsleeping.
You know, but I go if peopleare paying attention, if people
are listening.
(26:20):
I just trust the Lord will workthrough it.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
It is a miracle how the spirit works that way.
It's unexplainable, it's.
You can't reconcile it otherthan to just say it's God doing
what God does.
It's those mornings back when Iwas doing music and we just
blew it Like it just wasn't good.
There wasn't good rhythm, therewas it just it just felt off.
(26:46):
And then someone comes up toyou and just tells you what God
did during that moment andyou're like that's awesome.
And then the moments when youfeel like I mean, sometimes
people will say something, butlike when you feel like man,
this was a home run, this waslike, this was awesome.
Do y'all see?
Like we gelled, we stayed withthe click track and it's just
(27:08):
silence.
And you're kind of like, well,you know, I can recognize it was
good, but let the spirit dowhat spirit wants to do.
So yeah, oh, that's true.
Okay, so that was most lifechange happens in the moment,
but a lot of life change happensover the long haul too.
I want to really key in here onthese last two.
(27:29):
Number nine is preaching,improves with reps and feedback.
And I remember asking youseveral years ago I was actually
interviewing you for a projectthat I was working on.
In my mind.
I had always thought thatpastors don't get feedback
because they're afraid.
(27:49):
I mean it, not pastors, but inthis context, pastors, anybody.
You're afraid to ask forfeedback because you're afraid
of what the truth is, and yousaid that might be some people,
but really a lot of times it'sjust cause you don't know who to
ask.
It's like I don't know who Ishould go to.
So this one intrigues me forthat reason, and then we'll get
to number 10, but preachingimproves with reps and feedback.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah, I mean someone might listen to what we just
talked about.
Hey, don't have to hit on homerun and go, oh good, which is
good.
And they might hear that and go, well, cool, I'll just wing it
then and I'll just hit a single.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Just preach the gospel.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
And it's like I mean, maybe if you're playing little
league, like maybe you couldwing it and not practice very
much and still get singles.
But NFL teams work very, veryhard to move the chains.
There's lots of possessionswhere they don't move the chains
and I think you can't justassume, well, I'll just wing it
and hit a single every week,like, yeah, I don't know that
(28:48):
you actually will.
So this is saying, okay, I wantto improve, I want to grow.
Well, there's two ways to do it.
One is you need a lot of reps.
Tim Keller famously said yourfirst 200 sermons, no matter
what, are going to stink.
So I remember talking to myaunt and I told her that she
lives in another state.
(29:08):
She said, well, tell me afteryou've hit 200.
So that's when I'll come visitthe church.
And his point with that was tosay, instead of spending 25
hours sermon prepping, what ifyou spent 10 hours and you spent
the other 15 with people?
Because the extra 15 hours ofprep you're not going to be any
better because you're first 200sermons stink.
So on one hand, you just needreps.
(29:30):
Right, we did this summer.
It was really fun.
We did a training day where wehave three services on Sunday
and we had a developing youngleader.
One of them took each of theSunday sermons.
So one guy preached at nine,one guy preached at 1045, one
guy preached at four and we gavehim feedback and we gave him
and that was a good experience.
(29:50):
They're not going to get agreat deal better without a lot
more practice, right.
So I told him all right, youcan invite to do a nursing home
to do a Bible study.
You say yes, you get invited todo a high school football
chapel, you say yes, you getinvited to come speak at it.
Like, just say yes to anythingwhen you're a young, developing
preacher, because you just needreps.
At the same time, you reallydevelop not just with reps but
(30:14):
with feedback, with evaluatedreps.
Right, everyone grew up hearingpractice makes perfect.
That's not really true.
Practice just makes permanent.
It's evaluated reps, it's repswith coaching, reps with hey,
why don't you try this?
Hey, do you notice?
You do that.
And, like you said, very fewpreachers get that.
(30:35):
At most we get hey, pastor,that was a great sermon.
Or an email where someone'scomplaining about something.
But like, what do we really?
We don't hear much.
And we don't want to burdenpeople in the church, like, once
(30:55):
you start listening like acritic, it's hard to turn that
off.
I don't want to make, I don'twant to do a bunch of that,
right so?
But how do you get feedback?
How do you get reps?
To make it worse, none of uslikes to hear ourselves or watch
ourselves, so the self feedbackwe could give we're often
resistant to cause it's like Idon't like this, like.
So we got to get over that.
But really, I mean that's a lotof.
(31:17):
What has been so fun about thepreaching lab is to be able to
give feedback.
You know, the last week of thepreaching lab I don't know if
we'll do this again in thefuture, but I told the guys I
said, hey, I want you toevaluate one of my sermons, like
I can take the medicine too,and they brought up some stuff
that I went I hadn't noticedthat.
And so having experiencedpeople who care about you and
(31:37):
love you and know what they'retalking about and can actually
give you detailed feedback tohelp you improve, cause if you
improve just a percent or 2% manover time, that makes a huge
difference.
So, yeah, I think we need repsand we need evaluated reps.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Most preaching is underwhelming.
As your 10th ABC, let's getinto that.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
What I have in mind here is it's just very easy to
skim the surface.
I mean most of the preachers Ilisten to.
I listen to them cause they'regreat preachers.
So, I don't hear gobs of badpreaching cause I, why would I
waste my time?
And I also think why wouldanyone else waste their time
with a bad?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
preacher.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
So it's like why we gotta get better.
You know, my experience on thatsabbatical was largely hearing
stuff that you know well.
Yeah, I just read it, that'swhat it says, Like, but there
wasn't a lot of insight, therewasn't a lot of application,
there wasn't much illustrationto help it go deeper.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
I actually have a framework when it comes to
writing and I think there's acrossover here of what you were
looking for.
You said insight.
There's four that I go afterInsight, inspiration,
information and instruction.
And if you hit two of those andmake sure that it's not
information and instruction,that's really a recipe for
(32:54):
compelling narrative orcompelling content.
But just those are the fourthings that I look for and those
are the four things that I wantto hear, because that really is
what I'm looking for and reallyis what ultimately makes
motivating.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yeah, I mean if your sermon more or less sounds like
what chat GPT would have come upwith, like you gotta do a
little more work.
And so that, to me, is thething is not enough time
studying, not enough timecrafting, not enough time
thinking through illustrations,not enough time proving it.
I think that's a key thing is,a lot of times it's easy as a
(33:27):
preacher to assert but not toprove it and to think okay, what
would someone who disagreeswith this Ask?
How do I address that objection?
How do I go just one notchdeeper?
I don't think going deep means Ihave to quote a bunch of Greek
words.
I don't think it means I needto, you know, fill up my Stuff
with quotations and referencesfrom the church fathers.
(33:48):
But I think it's, it's thinkingat a deeper level, going one
more notch, because otherwiseit's just informational or it's
just emotional.
But the most compelling sermonsare insightful, they're
inspiring and they engage youthe whole way, because and
usually they engage the wholeway because of the way the
(34:09):
illustrations Keep you hooked in, and so it's just a little bit
more attention and time Spent inthe crafting and I think that
takes it from beingunderwhelming to being
consistently strong you use yourmind all day, every day in
ministry and Preaching andstudying, and so one of the
things you have said you enjoydoing at the end of the day is
(34:30):
to do something with your hands.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
And so you've gotten into the cooking world and have
a black stone.
I recently got a black stoneand Smash burgers.
It's very good, I'm enjoying it.
Any black stone fans out thereGritle fans us, send us some
love.
You use a cooking metaphor.
You say you know it's gatheringingredients, it's, you've got
great ingredients with the Bible, like it's just rich.
(34:52):
It's.
It's.
You know.
You describe it as electricJesus's life, like it's really
really good content.
And so you're gathering theingredients and you're kind of
starting to decide you know whatare what am I gonna prepare?
You decide what you're gonnaprepare and then go to cook it.
When it's under cooked you cantell it's under cooked and it's
(35:14):
it's not the ingredients, butit's the way that they were put
together.
And so I mean, does that, doesit?
Ultimately it comes with thatfeedback and that critique and
that evaluation, people tellingyou, hey, this was a little bit
under cooked, even if it hurtsor stings.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Well, and it really, I mean, it is hard and
especially because you haveother stuff come up in your life
and you have, and I do thinkthat Any creative work there's
an there's an element ofemotional energy.
You need Not just physicalenergy, and so this gets really
hard in those thick, deep, hardweeks where it's hard as a
(35:51):
family or there's a crisis inthe church or you're dealing
with big decisions.
You know what?
I recently was looking at apassage in 1st John and it's
like, okay, this is reallyclearly about love one another.
And I'm looking at it going.
This is gonna be a boringsermon love one another, like
(36:11):
everyone already knows that.
Everyone already thinks they'regood at it.
And I didn't have eyes.
It was like I don't, I don'tknow what to do with it, and I
stared at it and I stared at itand I stared at it and that
cursor was taunting me, is itLike you know?
And I just had to go.
You know what?
I'm gonna walk away from thisand I'm gonna come back to it
tomorrow, and so you know,sometimes you got to grind
(36:35):
through it and just put a littlemore work.
Other times you got to comeback and you know what, and I
literally went home and took anap and so, okay, I'm gonna deal
with this tomorrow, but it'sit's not accepting that.
I'm just gonna say the blandgeneral thing that everybody
already knows.
I could do that and be faithfulto the text.
Mm-hmm but I don't think thatwould serve the people very well
(36:56):
and I don't think that wouldfacilitate.
That wouldn't move the ballforward that would check the box
that technically I preached abiblical sermon but it wouldn't
actually advance people'sability to like.
I need to think what is gettingin the way of them being able
to love?
Why does everyone think they'regood at loving but actually
struggle with it, taking theextra time to figure out?
(37:19):
Okay, is there an illustrationthat really connects with this
passage?
So that extra work is work andit doesn't always flow easily,
and I think because we just getoverwhelmed when we get busy,
sometimes we let that go and andthe result over time is it
feels like undercooked.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
I've been taking messages and I have been
Transcribing messages that Ifind online and I've been
spitting them into chat GPT intoAI models Actually, I'm using
one called Claude Claude 2.0,but into an AI model and I'm
saying give me a compellingintroduction and conclusion,
tell me what the main points areand Then identify the key
(38:01):
verses and the topics so you'retaking a sermon that's already
been preached sermon that'salready been preached.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
This is not to write a sermon correct.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
This is more to create tools For after the
sermon right to and and Iactually I would actually
challenge and encourage anypastor Number one closed caption
your messages, get your messagemessages transcribed.
You can go to revcom, get themtranscribed and upload closed
captions.
I think every single messageshould have closed captions
(38:29):
because a lot of times peoplewill not Listen, but they will
watch and they will read and Ithink that's just an easy way to
make your messages more accept,not acceptable accessible
accessible.
Thank you very much.
So I think that's a great whenI think getting them transcribed
and putting the let, takingclips of your messages and just
(38:50):
putting the words Over them is agreat thing.
But one of the areas where Ireally think Sermons fall short
is in the descriptions, and youand I have talked about this.
In the descriptions that we usefor the podcast or for the
YouTube description or for eventhe website, it's usually just
pastor Luke preaches a sectionon first John and it's like,
well, that tells me Virtuallynothing.
(39:12):
And if the, if the title isinaccessible, if the title says
something like what it takes tobe more, it's kind of like that
tells me almost nothing, right?
So if your title talks aboutwhat life looks like on the
other side of their eyes, andthat gives some information, but
(39:33):
crafting a good description?
So what I've been doing is I'vetaken these sermons that have
already been preached.
I said, okay, write adescription for me.
And they do a very, very goodjob.
The models of AI do a good jobof Summarizing the content into
almost what I would say istweetable format.
Right, it gives you an idea,summarizes the main points.
Well, what's interesting is someof the some of the messages.
(39:55):
I know the preachers and I knowthe passages and in some cases
I know the sermons because I'velistened to them, the ones where
I know that the preacher isputting in to make sure that
it's cooked.
It's almost like chat GPTdoesn't know necessarily how to
wrap a really tight bow on it.
(40:16):
It's it's a more exhaustiveintroduction and conclusion and
there's a greater length to thekey points, whereas there's a
lot of them.
I don't know, the messagescould be great, but the majority
of them are just three keypoints that are fairly general
An introduction that's generaland a conclusion that's general.
(40:37):
Now, that's better than nothing, but it's just interesting to
see that even a I struggles tomake it general and generic when
the content itself has reallybeen cooked and really been
enslaved over and really been,you know, dealt with.
I just think it was in.
I've done probably about 200 ofthem now and it's fairly
(40:58):
consistent that it happens thatway.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Yeah, and I think another application would be
sometimes preaching isunderwhelming and people aren't
able to go as deep on it becausethey're just preaching too much
.
Right, you can't how, how, howmany times a year can you make a
compelling sermon?
Like not 50, maybe not 45,maybe not 40.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
So figuring that out is a is a key thing to the guys
over at ministry past friends ofours They've done surveys and
it's like I think it was likeover half we talked about it in
one of our season one episodesbut I think it was like over
half of the people are preachinglike 48 to 52 sermons a year
and it's, it's just.
It's just too much.
Like you, you can't be goodthat many times a year.
(41:43):
Like it's it.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, and the hard part too is it.
It makes it where.
Not only is your preachingsuffer but your leadership.
Yeah, the church suffersbecause of all the time you
don't have for other stuff there.
So you know, finding that sweetspot where you have enough time
to work on the church andenough time to really give good,
intentional, well cooked mealsto the, to the preaching, that's
(42:05):
a big deal.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
I really appreciated the first time I ever heard you
go deep on these ABCs.
To me, the idea of having likeno, this is what I believe.
These are the values that Iwant to hold to as a way of
growing, a way of processing anda way of challenging, I think
it's a great mechanism forultimately becoming a better
(42:26):
preacher and being a bettersteward of the time that you're
given, because that's a greatgift.
30 to 40 minutes of undividedattention from adults that's an
incredible gift that everycorporation in America, in the
world, wishes they could have.
So to be better with that timeseems like a no brainer, and
ABCs can help you get that way.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yeah, and that's why I would just encourage anyone
listening to think through whatare yours.
You know we have ours, but yeah, what would you add or what
would you say instead?
You know, having the convictionabout it really matters.
You're going to, you're goingto preach out of what your
actual convictions are.
Sometimes it's worth writingthem down.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Thank you so much for listening to this episode again
.
Preaching through podcastseason two this is episode two
is a lot of fun to go throughand just identify several of
these core convictions.
If you have any feedback, ifyou have any questions, any
follow up, you can reach out toeither of us at info at faithful
and fruitfulcom.
We would love to hear from youin the same way that we heard
(43:25):
from you know one of our friendson Twitter saying hey, do
preaching through your firstyear at a new church or first
year of preaching.
That would be a fantastic thingto hear from you.
What could we help you with?
If there's any follow up tothis episode or if you've got
some ABCs and you'd like to haveLuke take a look at him info at
faithful and fruitfulcom.
We'd love to hear from you.
If you would be so kind, youcan leave us a review on Apple
(43:49):
podcasts or over on Spotify.
That'll do a great service tohelping other preachers and
other pastors find this podcastand hopefully take a seat at the
table and find someencouragement and some
challenges as well, andultimately that's what we want
to be is just one voice ofencouragement.
We hope that you are findingcommunity.
We hope that you are findingjust relationships with other
(44:09):
preachers, other pastors, otherministry leaders to help
challenge you and grow, and ifwe can be a part of those voices
, that would just be tops for us.
Luke, really excited.
The next episode we're going tobe talking about preaching
through weddings and funerals.
Man, I was terrified the firsttime that I was told you need to
be the preacher for thiswedding and it was something
(44:31):
that my pastor said that justcalmed my nerves.
I'm going to leave it rightthere.
Oh man, I can't wait to hear.
Thanks for listening.
We can't wait to hear from youand we can't wait to be back
again.
Take care, and yeah, nextepisode preaching through
weddings and funerals.
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