How to Be a Good Guest Speaker, How Much You Should Tell Your Kids About Church Drama and So Much More!

[00:00:00] As a younger man, whether it was in my teenage years or in my mid-twenties when I became a full-time pastor, there's a bit of a sense of I've got to stand here and be authoritative.

[00:00:13] I've got to believe in myself that these people ought to listen to me because I'm declaring God's word. And as you grow, there becomes a greater sense of recognizing that the authority of the preaching moment doesn't come from the preacher but from what is preached.

[00:00:33] And so that experience has certainly changed and I hope I've matured in that. His guest, Dr. Philip Nation. His ministry experience has included roles as a Bible publisher. He has revitalized established churches as a pastor. He's worked with nonprofits. He's published curriculum. He's served as a university professor.

[00:01:12] His personal publishing experience includes writing or co-authoring or editing more than 20 published books. Over the years, he's trained leaders in multiple countries around the world and continues to travel for teaching and preaching and leadership training.

[00:01:32] In this conversation, we speak about lessons that he's learned over nearly four decades of expositional preaching. We talk about some trends that he's seen come and go and deliberate decisions that he's made to be a continual learner and always be making progress as a preacher of God's word.

[00:01:52] And then also some very practical bits of advice on how to be a good guest speaker. When you are invited to preach in a church that's not yours, what are the sort of things that you should be bringing to the table?

[00:02:07] Also, towards the second half of the interview, we speak about the positive or the negative effects that church leadership can have on a pastor's family.

[00:02:17] Philip shared some ways that for those of us who have kids in the house, that we can help our kids to think positively about the church and have a confidence in the sufficiency of the word of God.

[00:02:29] There is just great wisdom on tap here from beginning until end. I know it's going to be a beneficial conversation for you to listen to.

[00:02:38] This episode is brought to you by the upcoming Calvary Chapel Global Network pastors and leaders conference, which is coming up real soon, June 23rd to the 26th at Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa.

[00:02:53] This is a conference for ministry leaders or anyone who's interested in being equipped and inspired in their Christian walk. This year's theme is Hope, Suffering and Glory, Studies in 1 Peter. It's going to be nine speakers that will address topics taken from the book of Peter.

[00:03:14] Additionally, there's going to be workshop topics very specific and practical about caring for your own soul, apologetics, making sense of Christianity for Gen Z, trauma-informed ministry. And myself and Pastor Brian Rodersen are co-leading the workshop on sermon preparation.

[00:03:35] So I hope you can join us for this year's CGN International Conference starting June 23rd. You can learn more at conference.cavarychapel.com. That's conference.cavarychapel.com. Alright, here is my conversation with Dr. Phillip Nation.

[00:03:57] Hey, welcome to the ExpoZitters Collective Podcast. I'm excited to be speaking with this week's guest, Phillip Nation. Good morning. Welcome to the show. Thanks. It is fun to be with you today.

[00:04:14] Yeah. So I'm not super good at small talk. I'm just going to jump straight in. Could you please tell me and tell us about the first time you ever preached the Bible?

[00:04:25] I know that you kind of passed a milestone somewhat recently. When was your first Bible teaching? When was your first sermon? Yeah. So my first sermon was when I was 16 years old. And so as of the time that we're recording this, it's a little more than 38 years ago.

[00:04:43] And it was at my home church in Birmingham, Alabama on a youth Sunday. And our church had two morning worship services. And so I preached at the 8 a.m. service that morning.

[00:05:00] And the subject of my sermon was on having a stronger faith. It was all rooted out of Hebrews 11 because obviously 16-year-old teenage boys from the suburbs know all about what it means to have a strong faith.

[00:05:19] So the Lord was kind and so were the people. And that was the first time I had ever preached publicly. Yes. Yeah. So the question is, why did you only get to do one of the services? Why not the 8 a.m. and then the 10 a.m. as well?

[00:05:37] And the 10 45 service. The reason was our church had those two morning services and then also a 6 o'clock evening service.

[00:05:48] And so I had recently made public that I felt called to the ministry. So they gave me the 8 a.m. service, then the associate to the youth minister who was part-time young guy that was in his 20s.

[00:06:04] And so we preached then the main morning service and then our full-time youth minister then preached that evening service. So they were spreading the love around and why anybody would let a 16-year-old loose in the pulpit is a bit of a mystery, but they did.

[00:06:20] Yeah. I mean, they're either spreading the love around or they're mitigating risk. That is probably more the case. But I do remember sitting on the platform because it was another teenager who was going to lead the singing.

[00:06:34] And I remember just a couple of minutes before the service, I leaned over to him just with fear in my voice and said, there are far too many people here to listen to me preach today.

[00:06:46] So I but I actually have a cassette tape of that sermon and I don't have anything to play it on. I need to go find a cassette tape player, but I still have it in case I ever needed to listen to it to humble myself.

[00:07:02] Ah, yeah, that's that is that is great. Yeah, I have cassette tapes as well. And the same thing that I don't want to throw them out, but I got nothing to play them on.

[00:07:11] And yeah, just last night I was on YouTube listening to old punk rock records I used to listen to that were on cassettes and then someone has digitized them and put them on YouTube.

[00:07:21] Maybe that's anyway, whatever, I just alienated people by by referencing 90s punk rock. But I'd love to kind of circle back to like what what kind of like caused a 16 year olds to to feel a call to vocational ministry.

[00:07:38] But that's kind of for a few minutes time just to warn you. But I'd like to also say like, in my tradition, we don't really do youth services. We don't really do youth Sundays.

[00:07:48] Is that something that is continuing on? Do you see them or because you mentioned to when their right mind would let a 16 year old preach right to people still do that.

[00:08:00] Well, there are. I'd say yes, there are still churches that do that. My tradition had the I'm a part of the Southern Baptist Convention grew up as a Baptist kid. And that was a very common thing in the 80s, where there would be a youth Sunday where either the youth minister would

[00:08:20] preach or you would bring in an evangelist specifically geared toward hey, we're going to have a Sunday. We want all the teenagers to bring their friends to hear an evangelistic message. But in our church once a year, it was the opportunity was given that it was the

[00:08:37] youth choir that sang that morning and either the youth minister or like me, one of the teenage boys that felt called to ministry would get the opportunity to preach. Of course, having met with the pastor several times to go over my sermon outline to make sure I wasn't going

[00:08:54] unintentionally spout heresy for the morning. And so that was a common thing in those days to encourage teenagers to look at themselves as not just the future church, but that we are workers in the present church.

[00:09:09] And still, I would say to this day within a lot of conservative evangelical circles, probably in smaller churches. That's still a common thing that happens even to this day.

[00:09:22] Okay, yeah. Because you certainly aren't the first. Again, that's my opening question for everybody. And I have heard a few people I mean predominantly SBC preachers that do speak about these youth services. And of course, you know, a lot could go wrong. But then I wonder, is our

[00:09:41] concern about something going wrong robbing a lot of us for from letting young people even make their first these first steps towards it shaky and awkward as it might be.

[00:09:54] Absolutely, I will say that it is a it is a spiritual marker in my life that sticks with me about preaching. And I actually had the opportunity to say something publicly about this recently that in that sermon.

[00:10:10] It was about the third sentence that came out of my mouth when it was just that moment where the Holy Spirit just settled my heart in in that sense of, oh, this is a calling like I feel confident in this moment.

[00:10:27] All of the nerves and the shakiness of 16 year old Philip, who was about five foot three at the time and probably swallowed up by the pulpit suddenly felt like, oh, no, I'm actually supposed to be right here in this moment.

[00:10:45] So it stands as a very important marker in my journey as a pastor and a preacher. Yeah, yeah. Well, so that's been that was 38 years and 12 days ago. I think it's correct.

[00:11:02] And so how have you how have you grown since then there's some obvious growth, but essentially like in your nearly four decades of teaching and preaching. Are there like some some conscious changes that you've made or some evidence of grace and growth that has marked your pulpit ministry?

[00:11:21] Yeah, I obviously there's a lot of changes in how you study. You learn how to study as the years go by and you learn what parts of the study are more necessary than others.

[00:11:34] In terms of the actual standing in the pulpit, there is a sense of being able to hide yourself behind the authority of the word and the authority of Christ in that moment that as a younger man, whether it was in my teenage years or in my mid 20s when I became a full time pastor.

[00:11:55] There's a bit of a sense of I've got to stand here and be authoritative. I've got to believe in myself that that these people ought to listen to me because I'm declaring God's word.

[00:12:08] And as you grow, there becomes a greater sense of recognizing that the authority of the preaching moment doesn't come from the preacher but from what is preached.

[00:12:21] And so that experience has certainly changed and I hope I've matured in that along with then all of the logistical changes of and my own spiritual formation of how I prepare to preach and allowing, like you said, nearly four decades of spiritual growth and being in the word help to shape and form what I preach.

[00:12:49] Some of it is just the passage of time as you grow up in the word, you grow up in your faith and you have a deeper reservoir from which to draw to preach from.

[00:13:01] I love that idea. Yeah, deeper reservoir. Like, yeah, there, it's not that the Bible gets more deep, but maybe maybe you get more deep or you've gone to the well again and again, you find it hasn't run dry. And so you can speak out of that.

[00:13:14] That's so true. And I think about that wonderful moment. It's in the Chronicles of Narnia where Lucy sees Aslan again and she says you've gotten bigger and he goes on to tell her, I haven't gotten bigger. It's your view of me has made me larger.

[00:13:31] Lewis certainly had in mind this idea of the gospel that as we grow and mature, it gets bigger. Our understanding of it deepens and widens in such a way that there is more of it to give away. Yeah. Yeah. Oh man, that's good. That's really good.

[00:13:50] Is there something like, were there like bad habits that you picked up in those early years that you put work into into changing or dropping or amending?

[00:14:01] There were, I think that there were, there were vocal bad habits. There were hand motions and gestures, bad habits. And then there were probably some studying bad habits. So I'd say, you know, yes to all of that in terms of just the most basic kind of thing vocal.

[00:14:22] Because I grew up in a very revivalistic toe tapping Southern gospel, Southern Baptist kind of church, I had to learn that I did not have to preach like everybody I heard and like every evangelist I heard that was loud.

[00:14:39] And if I can just kind of overreach for the moment loud and sweaty that I instead I could just, I could be who God was forming me to be who I think is a little bit more even handed much of the time.

[00:14:55] I'm still loud, but that's just the nature of how I speak. Then, but in terms of the actual how I preach, I think that a majority of my sermon prep in those early days was so reliant upon very prach pragmatic commentaries that it was it was always rushing

[00:15:20] past the scripture to get to the application. And, and I, and I would say that is a bad habit that I have since I hope broken so that I help people dwell more deeply in the scripture before just rushing to and now this is what you need to do.

[00:15:39] But instead, let's all look to the scripture of the depth of what is there. And we're going to get in and weaving in practical applications, but not trying to make the practical application the whole point of the sermon.

[00:15:57] Wonderful. And was that just because people handed you those types of commentaries and so that you thought that's that's all there was. What kind of draw you to those those application heavy popular level commentaries.

[00:16:10] Yeah, what drew me to those initially is two fold. First, I'll say my my undergrad experience and then my MDiv experience were were drastically different.

[00:16:24] And so I was I was yearning for just a pastor who had written on these passages to be able to tell me how to implement this in the life of the church. That's great. I have this little six year old coming in that was talking over you.

[00:16:46] That's OK. You pick it up. You may start that answer over. You know what? Let's just let's just leave it in. Let's just talk about kids in ministry households. What a what a dude I get it.

[00:17:00] Yeah, yeah. In our mid 30s we planted a church and our house was my office and so that's that's part of the fun.

[00:17:10] But when it comes to those early days, I gravitated to those kind of very practical, pragmatic pastoral commentaries rather than academic ones and technical ones simply because I was young in the young in the pastoral ministry.

[00:17:28] And I wanted like that older brother like Warren Wearsby who had pastored for all those years to just tell me how do I structure a sermon so that people will know what to do with me.

[00:17:39] And I'm just so happy to be able to do that with this passage. And as I've grown up, I've just gained a greater confidence to be able to do the technical work and come to an understanding of how to help my local congregation that I'm preaching to

[00:17:57] and know how do we step forward because of this passage.

[00:18:02] Yes, yeah. And you know I used to read loads of Wearsby and then I kind of felt like oh I'm kind of past all that and then it was just going deep into whatever Baker academic or all these like heavy things.

[00:18:14] And in the past couple of years, I've actually reincorporated Wearsby into my reading because like you know it's actually people need this as well and this is good for me to help and to see.

[00:18:25] It's not the first thing I go to and it's not the only thing I go to but I've actually really benefited from Wearsby at different stages of my life.

[00:18:32] Right. And then part of the other, I think what young preachers do and I did this as well is that we run from one end of the spectrum to the other because then I would also give these words study heavy sermons where I had spent far too much time in my Greek lexicon and my Hebrew dictionary to try to convince people of oh there's this extra deep special meaning to the etymology

[00:19:02] and then you just watch people's eyes glaze over as you you know just persecuted them with word study after word study that had no bearing on their life.

[00:19:15] And so you find the balance in all of those things and allow the text to drive your sermon rather than all of your tools to drive your sermon. Yeah, just because it's interesting to you doesn't mean that it's interesting to them or necessary.

[00:19:32] Well, you know, as my six year old son interrupted earlier on I've also I know that of the volume this books that you've written or co written you've you've written about like the impact that ministry can have on on a pastor's family.

[00:19:48] And in the sermons of yours that I've heard I've heard you on two different occasions speak very highly of your Christian upbringing.

[00:19:59] I know that your dad was a deacon in his church and your mother was a real woman of God and seems like you're a good dad to I'm going to assume but like what's your like what are the dangers or the opportunities that ministry families can can have.

[00:20:18] Yeah, as I was thinking about this one of the great dangers that I would want to warn pastors off of is talking about ministry in front of their children as if it is a weight that just has to be born and you just have to gut it out.

[00:20:38] And one of the things that my wife Angie and I always tried to do with our two sons Andrew and Chris who are both now grown married our younger son Chris is in the ministry now is we always spoke about ministry in front of them and around them like this is fun.

[00:20:56] Like the and certainly there are tough days in ministry. There's no two ways around that but we just always brought the boys along with us and I think one of the dangers is in the attempt to shield our children especially from the hard edges of ministry is we don't bring them into the work with us.

[00:21:19] And so all along the way, whatever the ages our boys were we found something for them to do in the life of the church and I'll give you one silly illustration but I think it holds true.

[00:21:34] In my early 30s I was the Minister of Education so the discipleship pastor at a mega church in Atlanta.

[00:21:41] And the boys there was plenty of children's ministry stuff for them to participate in but they always came into the worship service with us and we had this cavernous sanctuary.

[00:21:53] And so we gave an assignment to the boys that before the service because dad's trying to talk to people mom's trying to talk to people.

[00:22:01] We gave them the assignment we want the two of you to go find somebody who is sitting by themselves and needs someone to say hello to them and that they're glad that they're at church today.

[00:22:14] And so our two little boys at that point they're in elementary school you could watch their little heads, you know, like they were two sharks swimming around the sanctuary looking for and they always found some little old man who was all by himself that they would go and sit down with and talk to for a few minutes.

[00:22:32] And then they'd come running back to mom and dad to sit with us.

[00:22:35] And so we always just found those very simple ways for them to feel like that they had contributed to the life of the church in a way that was appropriate to their age and that would help them to see that they could care for a person in need as well.

[00:22:53] And that made a huge difference in their lives and the view that they have even today of church life. Well, that's and it's worked. They're still in the faith still like not as far as I know not like railing against their abusive horrific.

[00:23:14] Yes. Yeah. Well, that's that's great. And then I suppose to yeah, I've heard similar advice we try to like implement that at our household too is talking about the kind of the wins you know like hey this is exciting and this person's life is being changed and I want you to know about this.

[00:23:32] What at what point did you start talking about the challenges or the behind the scenes hardships.

[00:23:38] It was when when they were teenagers is when we began letting them see that after the mega church where I serve then we planted a church and so we went from a church of a few thousand to a church of a few dozen.

[00:23:54] And again deeply involve them into the life of the church and they got to see ministry happening happening in our home.

[00:24:03] But when they were teenagers and we were in a church that I was helping to revitalize and it was it was a comeback situation that had a lot of pain involved with it.

[00:24:15] They were old enough then to understand there was no way to shield them from what was going on. They were old enough to understand that they were cranky people their financial problems.

[00:24:27] There were going to be staff members who were going to pop off in kind of a unhealthy way every once in a while and they were going to see that and at that point then it was just like we're going to be we're going to open the books to them so that they can ask any question they want to

[00:24:46] and that they can see mom and dad praying and at times struggling in prayer through this but knowing that these temporary problems don't make us lose our faith about what Christ could do in the church.

[00:25:01] And and then I will say because this is the expositors collective I ensured that they understood that no matter what the difficulties were that we're going on inside the life of the church that dad or whoever was going to be in the pulpit that we were going to be faithfully and ardently studying the word because that was going to be the bomb that soothes.

[00:25:26] The you know the wounds and it was going to be the source of our answers not what's in the latest three ring binder that we came up with what's the latest book that dad read that's going to bring a solution but that we were going to find the solutions to this this ailing congregation from the Lord and in his word.

[00:25:49] Yeah. Yeah. Well thank you. Thank you for also knowing your audience and pitching this straight to us expositors here that actually leads directly into what I'd like to ask you next again you've your ministry experience has been has been quite quite varied in different capacities serving on staff at a megachurch starting from scratch all over again and then there's etc etc but these days I know that you're doing a lot of yeah itinerant mirror minutes.

[00:26:19] We could call that a ministry or guest speaking we could call that and what is it like what have you noticed about being a guest speaker and again some of the sermons that I've listened to you from yours it's you in a guest speaking capacity and on the one hand you can't know your audience but it seems that you've definitely put work into trying to

[00:26:43] even leaders within the church by name or talking about initiatives specifically so essentially the question is kind of how do you be a good guest speaker. Yeah I would start I'll answer first in the negative and go to the positive and I'll say don't be lazy finding out what's going on in the life of a church before you show up is not hard in fact it's really easy

[00:27:10] and and so I have a standard list of questions that when whether it's somebody that I know really well or it's somebody that I'm just meeting that they've invited me to preach for their church.

[00:27:24] I have a list of almost of investigative interview kind of questions that I want to find out what's going on in your church. What has been the latest sermon series that you're preaching through do you want me to be a part of that series or a standalone message.

[00:27:39] Tell me about what's happening so that I can be in prayer rightly to get ready to preach but that also that I can help be a champion of what God is doing in the life of the church that you want to make sure is highlighted continuously rather than just I've shown up as Superman guest preacher aren't

[00:28:01] you glad I'm here let me make sure that I dazzle you with the stories about my ministry so that everybody knows that they need to listen to my sermon and then I can justify the honorarium that your pastors pre you know paying me.

[00:28:16] Instead I've come to like bolster the your faith in the work that Christ is doing here in the church and so don't be lazy find out what's going on and then champion God's work and those initiatives that are happening it.

[00:28:34] It helps that church to know that they're not alone but that even the guest preacher guy is excited about the right things. Okay yeah so that's the negative don't don't be lazy. What's what's the positive. Yeah the the positive is make sure that that you.

[00:28:57] It's really it comes down to if I were the pastor of this church how would I talk to these people and and consider carefully who is this church like where are they located what kind of of culture and socio economics does this church serve as a missionary enterprise into and so how can I.

[00:29:23] Write a sermon and deliver a sermon that is applicable to this location because how I preach if I'm the pastor of a church.

[00:29:34] In a place that is a mega city and a mega church is different from how I'm going to preach in a rural environment it's going to be different from how I you know the illustrations I'm going to use in a suburban environment versus an urban environment so.

[00:29:50] We have this saying in at least in the circles that I grew up in that lots of itinerant ministers and evangelists have their sugar stick sermons those are the sermons that they preach over and over and over again they got seven sermons and they just keep using them over and over again.

[00:30:09] And I have those but I try to make sure that I have in mind who is this church and how can I benefit what Christ is already doing there and so just know you're not showing up to bring Christ for the first time you're coming alongside this pastor who's been faithfully proclaiming the word and leading well

[00:30:32] and so how do you add on to that ministry. Yeah sugar stick no that's the first that's the first I've heard it.

[00:30:42] Yeah I've heard him called yeah you're silver bullets yeah or yeah the crowd pleasers but but yeah all of that has to do with essentially like how can I make people like me you know or what what what kind of work what a what a pivotal shift into how can I yeah serve these people.

[00:31:02] And come alongside what Jesus has been doing with this congregation. Yeah and in a really simple way that I try to do that is I speak in the first person plural when I am at you know first Baptist church of Walla Walla Washington.

[00:31:18] I don't say I'm so glad I'm here with you guys worshiping today I say it is so great that we're here together and even when I start using illustrations or applications about how they might apply this passage into their current ministry in the community.

[00:31:38] I'll say we instead of you know one of the ways you guys could do this.

[00:31:43] I'll say one of the ways that we can do that this in our city and I just I just take on the mantle that I'm just a member of their community in that moment so that I can just move past that hurdle of well this is the guy we're never going to see again but instead in that moment I just talk about ministry in the first person like I'm right here with you.

[00:32:07] And this is the church that we're a part of and I don't do it to be manipulative I just do it to just move past the oh this is the guy that we don't know and that doesn't know us I want them to get it that I'm a member of the family of faith with you in this and I am for you in this work that you're doing in in this community.

[00:32:31] Okay. Yeah and yeah and what I've observed and as I briefly mentioned you also will even specifically mention the name of the person who was doing the announcements or these things and again part of that is just politeness but I think there's probably an intentionality in that as well to act as if you're I mean on the one hand you're parachuting into that community

[00:32:57] but on the other part like as Christians are part of the same community and why emphasize your differences that you have when there's so much commonality.

[00:33:06] Yeah so again at the time of this recording just yesterday I preached locally at a smaller congregation that is looking for a pastor so I'm filling in for them on Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday and for their Palm Sunday service they use this one chorus

[00:33:23] that was very very brief it just had four lines that they use multiple times during the service where it was turn your eyes toward Jerusalem where they would sing that line several times and then it was turn your eyes toward Gethsemane later on in the service

[00:33:39] and then at another point it was turn your eyes toward the wine and the bread and then last it the fourth time they sang it was turn your eyes toward the rugged cross.

[00:33:49] Well I had no idea they were going to do this little chorus four times in between different elements of their Palm Sunday service but during my sermon I just went I just you know just use that at an appropriate moment where I said just as we've worshiped the Lord today

[00:34:08] you know as Jesus is coming in on the triumphal entry and they're singing Hosanna blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord you know the king of the Jews I said you know we have been called to turn our eyes toward Christ and so I just repeated those four phrases

[00:34:26] just to say you know I've been present in this service with you I'm not just the guy who was sitting over there fiddling with my notes waiting for you people to be done and my turn to preach.

[00:34:38] Yeah yeah you emerge from the green room and you're seeing them for the first time and they're seeing you for the first time.

[00:34:46] Less green rooms more greetings okay if you're a guest preacher don't stay in the green room go out shake a few hands meet a few people even if you think I'm never going to be back here again go out there like you're a part of the congregation

[00:35:05] and I would say that very specifically for pastors to don't hide in your office until 30 seconds before the service starts.

[00:35:17] Yeah yeah you might be tweaking that point but you know what buddy you're not going to make it that much you can't change it too much at the last second anyway and I as myself listen I don't have a green room if I did have a green room I'd be really tempted to spend a lot of time in there

[00:35:31] but yeah there's just not much that can be tweaked at that point anyway. No. Okay so you've visited sounds like very large churches and Walla Walla Washington and you've been serving in perhaps a smaller situation here in Palm Sunday and then next week you've been on multiple continents

[00:35:55] you've served the global body of Christ and the publishing world and the Academy and so many other areas.

[00:36:02] What have you noticed about preaching like are there trends that you've seen ebb and flow are there things that cause concern or that give you hope in the kind of the broader preaching world?

[00:36:14] Yeah the answer to all of that is yes there are things that give me hope and there are things that give me concern I would say that the major trends though that I have watched over

[00:36:24] these multiple decades is that there is an ebb and flow especially here in the USA of us kind of rushing into the highly pragmatic topical world of preaching

[00:36:41] and then there is this counterbalance of everybody pushing us back toward almost an exegetical style of preaching but in the great kind of middle is just the worker man pastor who just wants to be text driven

[00:37:04] and I think that there is a spectrum dependent upon where people are theologically whether they are highly conservative to highly liberal as to how often they're going to be an expository preacher

[00:37:20] but I think that in general what we see and you can really watch this in the literature that gets published about preaching is that we see this ebb and flow from the highly practical you need to talk about people's felt needs

[00:37:35] and you need to deal with their hurts and their pains and help them with all of their triggers to throw all of that out and you just need to and in the face they might say expository but what they really mean is exegetical

[00:37:54] and it just gets so highly technical that everybody gets they become very intelligent in terms of what the word has in it but not necessarily very soft hearted toward their neighbor

[00:38:09] and but what I think has helped me is I do read modern writings about preaching but I prefer things that are a bit more time tested and and are and just settle into the idea of being text driven rather than topical driven

[00:38:33] and and so I obviously I have a preference for expository messages and expository preaching but that doesn't mean that you have that you're bludgeoning people with the text it's that you're helping to unveil what is there

[00:38:51] and and so I am concerned that we're in a we're in a swing back toward the highly felt need motivated kind of preaching where people are talking about the enneagram more than they are the fruit of the spirit and and so I would warn my friends who preach to allow the word to address the needs of the day

[00:39:21] and not shove the needs of the day into your sermon and just be somebody looking for a verse to bolster your opinion. Yeah, wow. Well yeah speaking of enneagram man that is such a type one thing of you to say. Classic type one better right there.

[00:39:41] Yeah I wonder what my wing is today. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean yeah there's there's nine fruit to the spirit right there's nine enneagram types.

[00:39:51] Yeah, and if you're gonna do a nine week series on something you know the Bible has yeah and actually I you know I I loved your tweet from a bit ago you know it was a table of contents at the Bible that you were saying here's a list of sermon series ideas for you and obviously tongue in cheek but I thought it was.

[00:40:11] Yeah, but spot on because we do we are convinced and here's where I would warn my past my pastor friends because I did this to we are convinced that if we can come up with a clever enough sermon series and a clever enough sermon series title that people will be more likely to listen to us.

[00:40:30] And I let me just dispel this for you for a moment for those of you that are listening.

[00:40:36] There is probably not a single member of your congregation that could tell you on a Thursday afternoon what the name of your sermon series is and don't take that as like oh I've wasted all this time and what am I even doing this there in the middle of the fight of their life at work and and I get this I work for Harper Collins publishing.

[00:41:00] A for profit publicly traded company leading the Thomas Nelson Bible's area which is incredibly honorable work and I'm honored to do it. But I get it I swim in a sea of Excel spreadsheets every day.

[00:41:15] I don't have time like yeah the title of your sermon series like doesn't have any bearing on whether or not I'm a witness to my coworker and so like focus on the thing that matters and can that matter.

[00:41:30] Sure. Can it be helpful. Yes. But it's not the life changing thing and so yet just take him to the scripture and and let that be the life changing event of their week.

[00:41:44] Wow yeah there's there's five conviction in that I could tell I jump up on my soapbox for a moment. Yeah yeah wonderful please yeah more more of that. Okay you mentioned you you know you lead Thomas Nelson Publishing. Here's a question for you like what is thank you.

[00:42:04] Thanks. What what is my daughter just handed me a slice of pizza that is awesome. That is nice. That's the perks of ministry home and they're not all bad aren't they.

[00:42:13] That's right. So what's OK. I'm going to phrase this in a funny way but what's something that Thomas Nelson Publishing has put out that isn't a bestseller but you wish it was like what's kind of like what's something that you think like why having people seen how great this thing is like maybe specifically for preachers but what's the thing that you are like surprised isn't a bestseller.

[00:42:37] Well let me speak specifically about Thomas Nelson Bibles. When it comes to all of Nelson Publishing we're a part of Harper Collins Christian Publishing which is Nelson and Zondervan and word and so there's a lot of imprints inside of our of our Christian publishing division.

[00:42:57] Okay when it comes to Nelson yeah when it comes to Nelson Bible to reach back to a name we've already used we publish the Warren Wearsby study Bible which is gold. I mean it is just gold wonderful material that I wish more people would grab a hold of and more pastors would find encouragement from the other is something

[00:43:22] that we recently released that I really wish past more and more pastors would get a hold of and it's called the timeless truths Bible where our general editor for every chapter of the Bible.

[00:43:35] He went back into the annals of church history and everybody from Augustine to Chrysostom Calvin Spurgeon Wesley you know from from the second century up through the 19th century.

[00:43:52] There is a commentary piece of commentary for every chapter of the Bible that is just wonderful and so for me it's the Warren Wearsby study Bible is just that everyday expositors kind of material to the timeless truths Bible that just roots you into the church historically of gaining these wonderful little nuggets of insight about any chapter of the Bible you could turn to.

[00:44:22] Yeah yeah well I was unaware of the Warren Wearsby Nelson connection and that makes me I know that I was a besmirching him a little bit of a minute ago but then it came back to yeah I'm glad now to have ended on a positive note about where you've been.

[00:44:41] Absolutely. Well yeah as we kind of yeah can I wrap up another that we've got a hard stop here.

[00:44:49] Last question is like how are you currently trying to grow like I don't think that after 38 years and 12 days you've like arrived and I doubt that you have either what's kind of the next thing that you want to get better at it but work into.

[00:45:04] Yeah and so I'll answer it two ways first how do I grow I review every sermon after I preach it.

[00:45:12] I've made that a practice for a lot of years I listen to it or I watch it it's very easy nowadays almost every church no matter what size you know they're on Facebook live or whatever.

[00:45:22] So I watch every one of my sermons to help me to know are there are there quirky phrases that I'm using are there weird hand gestures that are distracting all the way to this is what I meant to say there and I didn't have my notes written well enough or I miss spoke

[00:45:42] or now after reflecting on this passage there was a deeper point I could have made here rather than the one that I did make there's something more to uncover so I take time to assess every sermon and how am I trying you know kind of in what areas

[00:46:00] I'm trying to grow more deeply I'm trying to in this arena of my life I'm trying to expand my my understanding of the theology around the Holy Spirit I mean that's where I've been working here lately and I think that

[00:46:22] from my from my upbringing and from all of my schooling I got a lot of doctrine of God a lot of doctrine of Christ a lot of doctrine of salvation not enough doctrine of the Holy Spirit and so I'm trying to just be more mindful as

[00:46:40] as I read the scriptures where am I seeing him at work what what do I need to learn more of how he reveals himself in the scriptures so that I can show that off to the people where I get to preach.

[00:46:56] Yeah well hey well thank you very much for for yeah pushing in deeper into the yeah the the quiet member of the Trinity and I think you're here is certainly going to benefit from that and have certainly.

[00:47:11] Yeah and so I hope that yeah for this conversation and all the new expositors collective I hope that it helps you grow in your personal study and public proclamation of God's word. Thank you so much.

[00:47:25] All right hey thanks for listening all the way to the end wasn't that just like a diverse collection of wisdom I really enjoyed that conversation and there'll be links in the show notes to those study Bibles that Philip just referenced a few moments ago as well as other ways that you can get in touch

[00:47:47] I would say Philip is a good guy to follow on Twitter he is consistently encouraging he is often funny and I think that he's somebody that you should follow.

[00:47:59] All right I hope that this conversation and all the we do at expositors collective help you to grow in your personal study and public proclamation of God's word see next Tuesday.

[00:48:10] This podcast is a part of CGN media a podcast network that points to Christ we're supported by listeners like you to help us create more great shows visit cgmedia.org.