From a three part series written by Jonathan Dodson

Listen to Their Story

Ask Good Questions

• Can you elaborate on that?
• How did that happen?
• How does that make you feel?
• Did you feel alone or supported?
• Were you afraid or confident?
• How did you respond?
• How are you feeling now?
• What concerns you the most about this?

Listen in order to Speak Gospel Encouragement

• What grace can you affirm in their life?
  • That’s a really helpful insight.
  • It’s been so challenging to hear you talk about your neighbor
• What victory can you celebrate?
  • We’ve seen God answer your prayer for less people pleasing
  • Isn’t it awesome how God provided this job for you?
• What progress have you seen in their faith?
  • You are fighting depression really well
  • I’ve really seen you grow in this area
• What are some ways you do this?

Move the Conversation Along Deliberately

• Develop Sermon Discussion Questions: Progress from 1) anyone can answer to 2) a challenge 3) the deeper heart idol or lie 4) what needs to change 5) How the Bible shows us we can change. Lead discussions by trying to guide people roughly through this progression.

• Ask Transitional Questions:
  • Follow up off-base or incorrect comments with “What do you guys think?”
  • Anyone else relate to or struggle with that?
  • Tom, we haven’t heard from you, what do you think?
  • Nate, can you hold onto that comment so we can hear from someone else who hasn’t shared tonight?
  • Allow silence…
  • What are some ways you do this?

Discern Their Story

Empathize with Their Story

• Are you discouraged? Where are you doubting?
• That is so difficult. Ugh!
• Does anyone else struggle with that?
• Can we pray for you right now?
• Bring up the issue in the next meeting.

Discern the Heart

To have good gospel conversations, we need to help people discern their heart in the midst of their life story. We discern by relying on the Spirit and the Word to see our heart motivations in our stories. Be sure to communicate your love and acceptance regardless of their struggle and make sure they know that you have heard their story.

• In that situation I would be tempted to blame my co-worker, what about you guys?
• Is there a subtle lie you might be believing here?
• What do you want most out of the situation?
• What are you longing for?
• Where do you feel like you were wronged?
• What is most important to you in that moment?

Additional Questions to Discern Idols of the Heart (adapted from Counterfeit Gods).

• Where are you spending your money?
• Where does your imagination take you? What do you daydream about?
• Where are your emotions uncontrollable? What do you find yourself longing for, angry over, fearful of? There is your idol.
• How do you respond to unanswered prayers or dashed hopes?

Redemptively Retell their Story

Apply the Gospel to Your Own Story

• Be a Lead Repenter. It is important that the leader be a “lead repenter” when answering heart-penetrating questions. This does not mean you are always the first to answer the question; however, it does mean that you come to the gathering ready to share how the Spirit has lead you into repentance in your own life. Lead repenting begins at home in your heart and naturally carries over in how you lead during gatherings. Be bold with your brokenness and invite words of correction and encouragement.
  • Confess Your Own Sin & Idolatry: ask for prayer, help, encouragement
  • Apply the Gospel to Yourself: So often we become focused on discerning the wounds and cracks in others hearts that we forget to apply the gospel to our own hearts first. EX: Parenting. Let your CG see you apply the healing balm of the gospel to your own wounds. This will dissolve a self-righteous hierarchy as well as show them how to apply the gospel to their own lives.

• Lead with Grace. In redemptively retelling others’ stories the goal is not to publically rebuke, but rather, to graciously point them through their circumstances to Christ in the midst of their struggle.

Ways to Lead with the Gospel

Listen and Empathize with a person’s story and then Retell their story back to them but with a twist of redemption. Don’t take sides, but infuse the Redeemer’s Story into their life.  Do it in a fresh way that reveals that Jesus is not a wonder cure, but that he is crucial and concrete to her life. Show how Jesus is the only key to fit the lock of their problems. How then can we redemptively retell their story? How can we lead people well in the Gospel?

• Sometimes say Nothing. At times, no words are needed. While sharing a person will often verbally correct their wrong motives and actions. If that is the case, you can simply affirm them in their conclusions and point them to Jesus who is sufficient for their failures and strong for their successes. See Christ, not hear Christ.

• Graciously expose Lies. Ask them if there is a lie they might believing. As sin surfaces, it is very tempting to either shift the blame or dismiss the sin.

• Blame-shifting. We are often tempted to lay blame on our circumstances. For instance, we might blame our sexual sin or over-eating on the absence of a girlfriend/boyfriend or spouse. We might explain our anger by saying “It’s the Kids fault. Childcare situation.” Angry or depressed because you aren’t marred, so you say: “There are too many married people in this group/church. No one my age.” When blame shifting occurs, you can ask the group in general “Do guys really think Jane is gossiping because she only has one trusted friend?”
• Sin-skirting. As a community that speaks the truth in love, we have an obligation to not allow one another to skirt sin, to glaze with moralism or indifference. For example: “Yeah, I’d be angry too.” “It will get better.” “Don’t be a doormat!”

In order to make the gospel turn from listening and discerning the heart, we have to point one another to a better God, a better promise, a superior Savior. At this point in the conversation, draw the community’s attention to the gospel in the passage.

• Point to Gospel Promises & Stories
  • How does our passage address your heart issues? Look for heart, idol, lie, deceit, worship, passion, love language.
  • What alternative promise does Scripture offer us? Jesus is a better Satisfaction, Intimacy, Joy, Defender, Advocate, Lover, Counselor.
  • Can you think of any Bible stories, parables, promises or truths that would help us here?
  • How does the gospel address this?
  • How does Jesus supplant and replace our idol of success? We know Jesus is better but “How”?
  • How is Jesus better than X?

• The Four G’s (from You Can Change, Chester)

• 1. God is Great so we don’t have to be in control
• 2. God is Glorious so we don’t have to fear others
• 3. God is Good so we don’t have to look elsewhere
• 4. God is Gracious so we don’t have to prove ourselves

Jonathan Leeman recently wrote on Word Ministry and Deed Ministry on the 9Marks Blog. Much of the content is from his upcoming book Reverberation: How God’s Word Gives Light, Freedom, and Action to His People. Here are quotes from Part 1

What’s needed, I think, is a conception of the whole that allows for distinctions or different emphases to be made. We must recognize that words and deeds are both necessary for mission or missions, but that they play different roles and are necessary in different ways. The Word declares what God has done. The good deed provides evidence for it.

This doesn’t sound as neat and tidy as “either/or” or “both/and.” But remember, this is a complex subject, and striking the right balance may require a solution with more nuance. We don’t want an either/or, but nor do we want a both/and which smothers all distinctions and emphases. We want a both/and with differing emphases.

When we speak of the word being “central”—a term which I take from D. A. Carson—we acknowledge that the Word is of utmost importance; it’s the highest peak in the landscape. But the metaphor of “central” allow for there to be other features on the landscape. It connects the central thing with everything else.

Word ministry really is the most important. It’s the highest mountain. But that mountain is resting upon everything surrounding it. The Scripture makes it manifestly clear that our deeds should adorn our doctrine for the sake of witness.

Here are quotes from Part 2

Are good works necessary for the Word and Spirit to give new life? Certainly not! The last chapter and the first half of this chapter, hopefully, have dispensed with that idea. People get saved listening to hypocritical preachers and anonymous radio preachers. You can proclaim the gospel without deeds, but you cannot proclaim the gospel without words.

But aren’t good deeds necessary for preserving the public reputation of the church and its Lord? For demonstrating that he means what he says? For demonstrating that we have integrity? Generally speaking, yes! Listen to how one biblical minister advises another: “Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us” (Titus 2:7-8).

The gospel Word creates gospel life in an individual and in a church. When that individual and church then turn to minister to others, their word and life should be integrated—have integrity. In one sense, there are not two things (two wings) but one thing with two distinct parts—a faithful witness in word and deed. Also—and this is very important—the two distinct parts are doing distinct things, unlike two wings. The Word is doing things that the deed cannot do: it’s pointing to an invisible God who has sent his Son to die on the cross; it’s calling all to repentance; it’s freeing the enslaved; and it’s giving life to the dead. The deed is then doing something the Word cannot do: it’s demonstrating or picturing the effects of this gospel Word. It’s testifying to its life-changing power. The Word is the main character; the deed is the supporting character.

To summarize: are deeds “necessary” for raising the dead and freeing the enslaved? From the standpoint of the Spirit’s work, no. From the standpoint of Christianity’s public credibility, generally yes. The Spirit’s work will produce evidence in our deeds. And every good deed becomes one more witness who testifies on behalf of the gospel’s truth and power.

• They proclaimed an exclusive gospel. (1 Cor 1:23, Acts 4:12, John 14:6, Acts 20:21, John 3 & John 4/Acts 8, Acts 17 & Acts 10)
• They were intentional in sharing the gospel. (John 4)
• They were Spirit-led. (Acts 1:8, Acts 8:4-8, Acts 8:26, Acts 8:29, Acts 10:19-20)
• They understood the importance of culture. (Acts 17:22, Acts 17:28-29, Acts 26:1)
• They were flexible to the context.
• They began where people were in their spiritual journeys.
  Since Nicodemus believed that his genealogical account was sufficient to earn God’s favor, Jesus spoke of being “born again” (John 3:3).  Philip did not begin sharing with the Ethiopian a discourse about Adam and Eve, but rather started preaching from the passage about which the man had questions (Acts 8:35).
• They were sensitive to the fears, hurts, and concerns of others while speaking the truth in love.
  Though Jesus could have spent much time speaking about the evils of adultery and fornication to the Samaritan woman, He acknowledged her wickedness and continued on in the conversation (John 4:17-18).  Jesus could have scolded and severely rebuked Zacchaeus for having wicked business practices (Luke 19:7).  He decided, however, to stay at his house, bring salvation (Luke 19:9), and gain the reputation as a friend of tax collectors and sinners (Luke 7:34).  Jesus and the Apostolic Church never denied wickedness.  They always called people to repentance out of love (Mark 10:21), even when they spoke to the self-righteous.
• They were post-conversion oriented.
  Their practice was to make disciples, not converts.  A simple reading of the book of Acts and the Epistles reveals that the new believers were gathered together in new churches.  Paul followed up with the new believers through visits, letters, and messengers.  Church planting was (and still is) a major part of fulfilling the Great Commission.

From Thom Rainer, president and CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources and senior pastor of four churches.

There are no “do overs” in life and ministry. But there are always opportunities to learn, correct, and improve. So I decided to share with you seven of the key mistakes I made as a senior pastor.

1. I would spend more time in the Word and in prayer
2. I would give my family more time
3. I would spend more time sharing my faith
4. I would love the community where I lived more
5. I would lead the church to focus more on the nations
6. I would focus on critics less
7. I would accept the reality that I can’t be omnipresent

These are good words of warning as I look to plant a church.

David Murray recently wrote a great series of blog posts on evangelistic preaching. If you want to read them all, click here or read below for excerpts from each one.

What is evangelistic preaching?

evangelistic preaching expounds God’s Word (it is expository) with the primary aim being the salvation of lost souls (rather than the instruction of God’s people). Stuart Olyott says it is to “preach from the Bible with the immediate aim of the immediate conversion of every soul in front of us.”

What’s happened to evangelistic preaching?

The Preacher

Prejudice: “It’s more socially acceptable, it’s more dignified and respectable to be engaged in calm reasoning and deduction, rather than in anxious weeping and beseeching. I think we’d all have to admit that it is easier emotionally and socially to be teachers than evangelists. And that prejudice, that bias, influences our choice of text and the way we preach our texts.”

Pragmatism: “Let’s get people in first. Get them used to our church. Then we will become more “evangelistic.” After all we don’t want to put them off by telling them they are sinners who need a Savior; or that they must abandon their own works and trust in Christ’s grace alone; or that without faith in Christ they will be punished forever in hell, etc.”

Presumption: “some pastors dangerously presume that their hearers are already saved.”

The Congregation

Mature Christians: “When we preach evangelistic sermons, the mature Christians in our congregations, those we often lean on for our encouragement and strength, might feel (or even say), “Well there wasn’t much for me in that sermon…that’s more like milk for babies than meat for the mature.” They are maybe less than enthusiastic about simple preaching of the Gospel to lost sinners.”

Few Unconverted Persons: “My first congregation had only 20-30 people. Sometimes there were maybe only 3-5 unconverted hearers in an evening service. It’s a lot harder to preach an evangelistic sermon in these circumstances, because everyone knows to whom you are directing your warning, wooing, and pleading words.”

The World
… The real test of incipient pluralism is, “How do we really view the unconverted?” Is our first thought when we see them, “These precious souls are hell-bound, without Christ, lost, under the wrath of God, however religious they may be?” I’m deeply afraid that a kind of incipient, subtle, often unnoticed pluralism has blunted the sharp edge of evangelistic preaching.

The Devil
Then, of course, there is our great enemy, the devil. If there’s any kind of preaching that has been more successful in stealing captives from him and claiming them for the Lord, it is passionate evangelistic preaching. No weapon in the Gospel armory has been so effective in rescuing souls. Of course, he is going to fight it, and he is going to supply every excuse not to preach in an evangelistic way.

Why preach evangelistic sermons?

Biblical Warrant: “The Old Testament prophets were passionate pleaders for the souls of their fellow men and women. Deuteronomy reads like an Old Testament evangelistic tract, as Moses expostulates with Israel and beseeches them to embrace the God of Genesis to Numbers. Study the weeping reasonings of Jeremiah and the powerful pictorial pleas of Hosea. Even apocalyptic and enigmatic Ezekiel contains the most beautiful calls to Israel to turn from their evil ways and live. In encounter after encounter, in public and in private, Jesus exhorted souls to seek salvation. The Acts of the Apostles show us Peter and Paul pleading with individuals, groups, congregations, and public gatherings. “Teacher” Paul cannot resist tearful expressions of angst and desire in Romans 9-11, that most doctrinal of letters.”

What happens when Evangelistic Sermons are absent?

• Preaching becomes lecturely and academic
• Christians become forgetful, proud, inward-looking, and prayerless
• Christians do not bring friends to church
• Children growing up in the church assume they are saved
• Lost souls go to hell

Four kinds of evangelistic sermon

“Warm-up” sermons: “These are sermons we preach to clear and prepare the ground for the gospel. They address some of the common objections to Christianity; the caricatures of and prejudices against Christianity .. These sermons are aiming at conversion, especially the early stages of conversion. They are clearing away all the rubbish that has accumulated in a sinner’s mind, to gain a hearing for the gospel.”

Warning Sermons: “The great aim of these sermons is to convict, to bring our hearers to an awareness of their perilous state before God, and their need of repentance.”

Wooing Sermons: “We explain the wonders of the Father’s willingness to send his Son to sinners, and to save them by His sufferings, death, and resurrection. We also focus on the Lord Jesus; His willingness to come, suffer and die for sinners; His tender, wise and winning ways with sinners. We explain the powerful work of the Holy Spirit in regenerating and renewing the hardest of hearts. We explain that God saves by grace through faith, not by merit through works. We are trying to address people who are trembling, who are fearful, who are scared, and are seeking to draw them in to the love and the mercy and the grace of God. No pastor can pluck the chord of grace enough.”

Will Sermons: “These are sermons that bring people to the signpost at the junction, with two choices. These are sermons that bring people to the ballot box, where they must cast their vote. They bring people to that point where they are faced with the two great and ultimate options: faith or unbelief, life or death, heaven or hell. These are sermons that are full of persuasion, pleading, and arguing and beseeching.”

8 marks of an evangelistic sermon

Present: “Evangelistic preaching majors in the present tense. Yes, it deals with biblical data, which is usually in the past tense. But it moves rapidly from the past to the present”

Personal: “Yes, again, we begin with explaining the Word as originally given to the Israelites, the disciples, etc. It starts with “they” and “them.” However, in evangelistic preaching, we move rapidly to “you.”"

Persuasion: “We are here to persuade. People must see our anxiety that they respond to the Gospel in faith and repentance.”

Passionate: “Let people see that we feel this deeply, that we fear for their eternal state, that we are anxious over them, and that we love them deeply. Let that be communicated in our words, but also in our facial expressions, our body language, and our tone.”

Plain: “If we love sinners and we are anxious for them to be saved, we will be clear and plain in our structure, content, and choice of words. If we can use a smaller word, we use it. If we can shorten our sentences, we do so. If we can find an illustration, we tell it. Everything is aimed at simplicity and clarity, so that, as it was said of Martin Luther, it may be said of us, “It’s impossible to misunderstand him.”

Powerful: “Let’s preach with powerful, bold, divine authority. People need to hear, “Thus says the Lord.””

Perseverance: “And let our evangelistic sermons also be characterized by perseverance. We preach. No one’s converted. We do it again. We preach. No one’s converted. We do it again, and again, and again.”

Prayerful: “Above all, of course, evangelistic preaching is to be prayerful – before, during, and after. Pray to be delivered from the fear of man, pray that God would give you passion for souls. Pray that you would be able to communicate naturally and easily and freely. Pray that you’d get a hearing for the gospel and you’d be able to present Christ so that you “disappear.” And pray afterward that the seed sown would bring forth a harvest of saved souls, and that the church will be revived and built up.”

I daresay that no current Christian leader and writer has had as much impact on me as Mark Dever, Senior Pastor of Capital Hill Baptist Church. He loves the church and loves to serve her while calling churches to greater fidelity to God. His books have been illuminating, challenging, and foundational to my understanding of ecclesiology and church life. I can’t highly recommend them enough.

A number of years ago he and Capital Hill Baptist started 9Marks, which is “a ministry dedicated to equipping church leaders with a biblical vision and practical resources. Our goal is simple: churches that display the glory of God“. The nine marks that are needed in a healthy, biblical church are

1. Expositional Preaching.
2. Biblical Theology.
3. A Biblical Understanding of the Good News.
4. A Biblical Understanding of Conversion.
5. A Biblical Understanding of Evangelism.
6. Biblical Church Membership.
7. Biblical Church Discipline.
8. Biblical Discipleship and Growth.
9. Biblical Church Leadership

Recently 9Marks posted overview videos about each mark. You can watch them below, along with a video announcing a new collab between 9Marks and Lamp Mode Recordings, a lyrical theology record label. Who would have guessed a church where the preacher wears a suit each week would be the inspiration between a rap album?

Mark 1 – Expositional Preaching

Mark 2 – Biblical Theology

Mark 3 – A Biblical Understanding of the Good News

Mark 4 – A Biblical Understanding of Conversion

Mark 5 – A Biblical Understanding of Evangelism

Mark 6 – Biblical Church Membership

Mark 7 – Biblical Church Discipline

Mark 8 – Biblical Discipleship and Growth

Mark 9 – Biblical Church Leadership

And here’s the rap video announcement

Starting with our first Re:Train class, the past year has had a significant focus on discipleship. I got my discipleship paper back from Bill Clem and, while my grade was OK, his comments will definitely make it more biblical and usable. Discipleship is tough and it takes time. The Trellis and the Vine is probably the best book on discipleship I’ve read and here is a blog post from Aaron Menikoff that has many similar ideas.

First, every Christian needs to be discipled. … The Great Commission of Matthew 28 and the call to encouragement of Hebrews 3:13 makes this clear. …

Second, every Christian should feel the responsibility to make disciples. … The Great Commission is for all which means discipling is for all.

Third, discipling can take place in small groups and in one-on-one relationships. … As a few gather or just a couple, Christians should take deliberate steps to apply the Gospel to each other’s lives.

Fourth, discipling requires commitment. Often the commitment comes in the form of time. I met this morning at 7am with four wonderful brothers for a time of discipling. I get paid to do this. These men were meeting before their workday began. That is commitment. Sometimes the commitment is emotional. Getting to know someone spiritually means being there to hear tough stuff. Sometimes it means listening while someone is obviously immature but they need to talk and process so they can grow. Sometimes it means being willing to challenge–which can make the relationship awkward. All of this is commitment, and that it costly.

Fifth, discipling is less about what you do and more about “life on life.” … But at the core of it all needs to be humans applying God’s Word so that sanctification takes place. This can be done in conversation at a ball game and it can be done through Bible study in the living room. The key is that the Word is being applied to life. This means discipling relationships may look different from person to person. Where does friendship end and discipling begin? It’s not always easy to tell. Regardless of the answer, in a discipling relationship lives are being uncovered, challenged, and encouraged.

Sixth, discipling may require discriminating between low-hanging and high-hanging fruit. … Strategy may lead you to invest your time in someone you have reason to believe will be likely to model well the gospel for others. This is all helpful but a word of caution is in order: sometimes the people God puts in our lives–whether they be low-hanging or high-hanging fruit–are exactly the people we should be serving.

Seventh, discipling takes time. … It never ends. We never graduate.

From Thom Rainer

1. They are people of prayer
2. They have a theology that compels them to evangelize (Christ is the only way, all without Christ are doomed to hell)
3. They are people who spend time in the Word
4. They are compassionate people.
5. They love the communities where God has placed them
6. They are intentional about evangelism
7. They are accountable to someone for their evangelistic activities

Number 7 is especially challenging to me. Having someone hold me accountable for my evangelism would make it much more difficult to consider as evangelism activities that don’t have at their core the gospel, which is what evangelism really is.

The practice of multi-site church is, in a nutshell, one church meeting in multiple locations with central leadership of the church. Some churches like Mars Hill in Seattle do multi-site across multiple states. Others, like Highview Baptist in Louisville, KY are committed to their particular city. This is a topic that warrants discussion because it goes to the very heart of what the church is called by God to be. I believe there is a particularlity to the use of church in the New Testament that defines the church as being a particular local, gathered assembly. Here’s the definition of church that I write for our Missional Ecclesiology class

A local gathered community of regenerated believers indwelt by the Holy Spirit, saved and reconciled through the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, sent on mission all to the glory of God. The church is governed through congregational polity led by qualified male elders responsible for the right preaching of the Word. The church covenants together for holiness and discipleship; demonstrates and proclaims the true Gospel so as to evangelize the lost, bring back the wayward and serve the community; participates in the ordinances of believer’s baptism by immersion and the Lord’s Supper; and practices meaningful church membership and church discipline.

I’m still working on it, but it hits the main points

• Location – Church is local and gathered
• Composition-  Regenerated believers
• Polity – congregational with male elders
• Activities – discipleship, proclaim gospel, evangelism, ordinances of Lord’s Supper and Baptism, service

Southern Seminary presented a panel this week entitled “Perspectices on Multi-Site Churches” featuring R. Albert Mohler, Jr. (president of Southern), Gregg Allison (professor at Southern and in Re:Train), Kevin Ezell (Senior Pastor of Highview Baptist Church), Greg Gilbert (Senior Pastoral Assistant for Church Planting at Capital Hill Baptist Church), and Daniel Montgomery (Founding and Teaching Pastor at Sojourn Community Church) which featured both practitioners (everyone but Gilbert) and non-practitioners. It’s a great conversation and it is a testament to disagreeing in love.

Today, Thabiti Anyabwile of First Baptist Church Grand Cayman posted on the 9Marks blog about multi-site. I would say that I’m in agreement with 9Marks and their concerns about multi-site. Many of the proponents of multi-site champion its pragmatism and effectiveness. What if, though

the limits of single-site, single-serivce congregational life are limits divinely appointed to ensure careful pastoral oversight.  To ensure none of us actually have more sheep than we can handle by God’s grace.  Perhaps.

That’s a powerful reminder to me of the weight of the responsibility of shepherding the flock that God entrusts to me, even if that flock is only ever my wife and children.