How Do We Determine What To Preach? - Ask the Pastor

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This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Kiley Callaway, Tyson Lambertson, John Mulholland and Jon Simpson.

Jon Simpson
We've been discussing preaching. And some of the, maybe letting you behind the scenes a little bit as to how we determine how to preach and what to preach on, and hopefully giving you a little insight into that. Sometimes people wonder how pastors come up with what they do and there's different opinions on styles of preaching. Be it topical or expository. Should you preach through a book of the Bible? Can you preach on a topic? We kind of talked about that a little last time, so we wanna discuss a little bit more maybe how we determine what to preach on in a given year, kind of how we lay that out and what influences those decisions. So, John, how do you kind of look at that in your church?

John Mulholland
Well, like I said last time, for us it's more expository in nature than the topical piece. Try and manage that Old Testament, New Testament piece. So, then we kind of look at, what haven't we gone through? So if a book of the Bible is gonna kind of guide our primary thinking, what haven't we talked about? So are we preaching through, are we teaching through things that we haven't talked about before, and what does that look like? But also just you know, knowing what's happening in our church body. Tyson, you know, you talked about praying and listening to the Holy Spirit, and certainly those things are a huge part of that because of what God is teaching us and wanting us to talk about. A lot of those conversations too, come from staff meetings of like, "What are we kind of," without actually asking the question, "What are we seeing, feeling, hearing from our church body?" But just like being in tune with our other pastors who are connected to small groups and serving teams. Like, you know, "What are we thinking that we see?" And then we set up that calendar, we do operate on a yearly calendar. Usually by October I start getting antsy, cause we want to know what we're gonna teach on in the year. So we're about a year ahead on our teaching. So I would say prayer, discernment of the Holy Spirit, and then just conversations and awareness of what's happening in our local church body of what we kind of feel like we need to teach on.

Tyson Lambertson
I think that's great. You have to pray, be aware of what the Holy Spirit's doing and where you're wanting to take your church as far as the discipleship model or the method where you want to take the scripture. And if you connect that to your small groups and how that works, if you do your small groups in conjunction with your sermon series and all those. So one of the benefactors that I have is, I have a very intelligent wife. Her name's Tammy and she's very in tuned with the Holy Spirit and helps guide how we preach, what we preach, when we preach it. And gives me some feedback on, I'll say, "Hey, what do you think about doing the book of 1 Corinthians or doing a topic on marriage?" or something along those lines. And she'll say, "Yeah, you know, I think that should wait, maybe we can fit it here. This would be better." So just listening to the Lord and listening to my wife and really being sensitive to what's happening to our people, that in the life of our people is so, so important.

John Mulholland
Yeah, and I think a big thing, an advantage, you know, a window that we have into the lives of the people that go to our churches, like social media. What kinds of things are they---

Tyson Lambertson
That gets dangerous.

John Mulholland
It can get dangerous. But what kinds of things are they talking about? So like for, you know, last year we went through---

Tyson Lambertson
Loving your enemies.

John Mulholland
Yeah, we went through the book of Revelation last year, because I just have this sense that people are thinking like, "Oh, you know, we're living in the end times, it's the end of the world," all that kind of stuff. So let's tap, maybe tap into that angst that people are feeling and hopefully coach and guide them through what scripture has to say on those things. How about for you? How do you decide?

Jon Simpson
So one of the things I do throughout the year, I am trying to listen to the Holy Spirit and watch, as you said Tyson or you guys have said, what's going on in the church? What are issues and stuff that we're dealing with or that I see happening in their struggles maybe? And then just the culture at large, what are the issues that are happening in our culture around us? That, you know, because we're so connected to the world it seems like we feel personally connected to something that happens on the other side of the globe, you know, if there's a tragedy. So I think that is what's happening in the world and what the are issues there. And so I kind of take that all together and just let that sort of ruminate in me. I feel like God at times gives me, whether it be a book of the Bible or whether it be, you know, a particular issue to address right? And so just like I said the last series I was in, The Lies That Satan Tells Us. Well, through the last year, I just felt like I was watching, and of course it happens to me, but I see it happen to people where they're believing a lie that the enemy is interjecting. And I see it happen and honestly it makes me angry because it always leads to destruction right? So I'm like, "I want to address that, you know, that's an issue, that's a problem that I see in the world." So then it's like, you know, figuring out, where does the scripture speak to that? And what does the Bible say and how do we? So I think that is kind of what guides me. I've always, since I was a church planner I was coached to do a year, you know, plan that year out. So I always try to go in January. If I have a team, I take some of my team and we just pray over it and talk about, and ask God, seek God, and then look at our church and all that stuff, and try to plan out a year. And you know, 2020 was kind of encouraging, cause that was my first full year here. And of course I went out away in January with Ken, our worship pastor, we figured out, kind of planned the year out. And then as COVID hits, as stuff happens, you know, things just fell in place. Where it's like I had, you know, I did a series on, you know, Fear Less, I think it was, and then I came right after everything kind of was blown up. And it was like, just very timely, I felt like God had really led and it made me feel like, "Okay, God, you're with me in leading this church, you know, and trying to prepare people, cause I know it's not me." But that's where I really trust God to, you know, lead that way and give us the right stuff to address. And so anyway, it's a year out and it's looking at that and then yeah, whether it's a book of the Bible or whether it's, like I said, an issue or a topic, and then just trying to deal with that.

John Mulholland
Now you said a second ago, you said, "Well, that's where you get into trouble," so how do you like, when we see like---

Jon Simpson
Yeah.

John Mulholland
I see the people at Mitchell Berean are really wrestling with they're believing lies. The people at The Rock are doing this, the people at Westway are doing that. Like how, that getting into trouble, explain that. As a pastor, I know what you mean by that. So how do you tackle some of those things without it being, cause this is something I wrestle with. Do you tackle some of those things without wanting it to be like, "I'm looking at you cause I saw what you posted on Facebook last night?"

Tyson Lambertson
So one of my pastor mentors said this to me, "That God always calls you to a place to do a work in you first, and the other, second." More times than not, my sermon series are on something that I've been struggling with and I'm going through. And the minute I preach it, the minute I say I'm gonna preach it, I'm going to deal with that situation a week before or week after, a month before or a month after, there's something that God's doing in me. So what is God doing in me that He can do a deep work in me so that I can give it away? Because other people are struggling with it, we're human, we all have similar issues, similar problems, similar things. And so staying on topic, not trying to curtail it to somebody, who just done you wrong. And so next Sunday you're gonna preach to that person in that pew. I think that gets you in trouble, that's what I meant.

John Mulholland
So you said, "God's doing your work in me," and I would come back on that too, and say, "There have been things that I've read in scripture." And be like, "Oh man, this would be really good like at some point this would be a really good series," whatever that looks like. How much of you, do you bring into like your Sunday morning? Like how much of you, do you bring into that? Like how much do you talk about, maybe something you struggle with or something you're wrestling with or like your own---

Tyson Lambertson
Yeah, I think there's definitely a balance and I think authentic leadership is so important. Authenticity allows you to be at a level with everyone else, that I am human. And I think where we've gotten in trouble with pastors, is being above humanity. Being something above, and we're not, we're human. We all have sinned, we all have fallen short of the glory of God. And so I think there's a point where we have to be vulnerable, but how vulnerable can we be from the pulpit? When that vulnerability should probably be with some trusted, what I would call my life team. These are issues that I need to discuss with them, not to the public where it's gonna be all over Facebook, YouTube, and social media. You know what I mean? So there's that balance. I think there's that line that could be crossed. But we all need to realize that we're all sinners, we've all fallen short to the glory of God and we need His help. So personal stories, those type of things, I think there's tastefulness and I think there's things that cross the line.

Jon Simpson
Yeah, I think for me, what I'm very cautious about is that in my struggles, which I think it's important to be vulnerable. People need to see that, how we help lead people is for them to see how we wrestle through things and how we struggle with stuff, like that's leadership. I think you go, "I've struggled through this, but this is what I've discovered. This is how I've tried to follow scripture, and this is what scripture says." But I'm careful, like I'm very concerned that I, in any of that, it's sort of a counseling session for me to share, you know, my hurts, my issues. So I don't want that, that's not helpful to anybody. At the same time, I think it's important to let people in and see, you know, Paul said that, his weakness is what he gloried in, because where he was weak was where God was strong. And so he said, I celebrate my weakness and I think it's important to go, "Hey, I'm weak, like I have weak areas or I've struggled through this and this was hard," you know? And so, I think part of it for me is that it's not something that I'm personally wrestling. Like if I've worked through it and I've kind of, you know, gotten through that issue, then I think I can help others and lead them through that. But I also, I don't know, when I was younger, it was a lot of my personal life illustrating things. And I don't do that as much now, to me more now it's like, the principles inside of a point. Like, how do you get through something? Or how do you think through it? That's where I'm interjecting what I've learned or what I've experienced or what the scripture says.

Tyson Lambertson
And I don't know if you guys ever seen the meme, "If you're a pastor's kid, anything that's said can be used in a sermon," those types of things. I really try to watch how I speak about my children. I'll use funny stories and stories that would keep them in a good light. I don't want to use the stories that would tear them down or my family or anybody for that matter. But I do think there's this authenticity that people need to be able to reach out and say, "Oh, he's human too."

John Mulholland
Yeah, when I was in student ministry, and I was like coaching someone who was new coming onto our student ministry team, we would talk about like, be appropriately transparent. You know, there's a level and I think relationally, you know, I'm really grateful that Anne and I have had the opportunity to be in some really great small groups our entire Christian life. But especially since we've been here in Scottsbluff. So we've been able to share things with small group that certainly I would never share from the front. But it's always interesting for me when we share things and people's response to that. Like I had someone once in small group say, "Oh man, I always thought the pastor and his family was this." So to sit in small group and hear this, is really, and it wasn't, "This is shocking." And it wasn't like, "I'm rejecting you because it's shocking." But just people don't really, I think struggle with the concept that the people who are their pastors are human beings and wrestle with things.

Tyson Lambertson
And I think that's because of the series that we're in from the ashes and the devastation that we experienced in the last 10 months. I'm grieving and there's no better person to minister, to people who are grieving than one who's grieving. And so there's some of that identification and being able to connect personally with our own struggles, our own grief, our own mourning. So I think, I think authenticity is so important.

Jon Simpson
Well, thanks again for joining us for another session here. Hopefully this has been encouraging to you and maybe insightful.