“Teaching is giving information that explains. Preaching is an attempt to win people to respond to information that explains.”  Yancy Arrington

Application tends to be one of the hardest parts of the sermon-writing process. When preachers are stuck on exegeting a difficult text, parsing a word or phrase, or understanding the context, commentaries come in help. But writer’s block tends to show itself when it comes to applying the sermon to the hearts of our listeners.

Application is important; it is how we invite those listening to respond to the meaning of the text and ultimately to the gospel of Jesus Christ. If we preach the gospel, but give no way to respond, how will our people know what to do? You don’t want your congregation asking for the altar call like the people in Acts 2:37. You want to lead your people to the heart of the text and tell them what to do with it. Otherwise, your sermon is like a car with no wheels. It may have a powerful engine, a fresh coat of paint, and comfortable seats, but without wheels, it won’t go anywhere. Similarly, sermons with the power of the gospel, a polished presentation, and comforting truths must lead people to respond. Application is the very heart of the sermon; to give no way for people to respond is to have a sermon with no life at all.

So, as we think about application, we must have hearts in mind because application aims for the heart. We must be mindful of the heart of the Lord, the heart of the preacher, and the hearts of the congregants. With that framework, I want to encourage you to walk, sit, and live ways that will help your sermons’ application.

1. Walk with your Lord. 

Prayer is what Christians should do in everything (1 Thessalonians 5:17). It is not the only thing we do, but it must be the first because it is the most important. In prayer, we ask God to do that which we cannot do: We ask the sovereign Creator, Sustainer, and Orchestrator of the universe to move.

Prayer is integral to the Christian life. For instance, if we are struggling with sin, we start with prayer and we fight sin prayerfully. Similarly, if we are struggling with application in sermons, we must begin with prayer and continue in prayer. If we want the sermon to reach the hearts of our people, we must ask the Lord to empower our preaching to that end.

When I write sermons, I pray before I read the text; I pray the text itself; I pray as I take notes and outline the passage; I pray before I manuscript; I pray between finishing and delivering the sermon, and I pray after delivering the sermon. I ask the Lord to grant me clarity and truth. I ask the Lord to work the truth of the text into my heart, and I ask the Lord to prepare the hearts of those who will hear the sermon. From start to finish, we must walk with the Lord.

2. Sit with your text.

Application must always be rooted in the text, so spend as much time in the text as you can. I know that the longer I sit with the text, the better my application is. Not only is meditation a biblical command, but it reaps practical benefits. The longer you can sit with a text, the more you begin to see the many facets of it. You begin to contemplate doctrines that lie underneath the surface. You give yourself time to remember parallel passages, and you begin to go about life and see the world through the lens of that passage.

I personally like to begin studying the text three weeks before I preach it. I exegete the passage and think about it for a week. I write the sermon over the course of the next week, and then I sit with my finished sermon for a week before preaching it. The Lord has gifted me with the ability to multitask, so I overlap the sermons I work on.

When I sit with the text, I ask the Lord to apply it to my heart. He starts to reveal my own sins, struggles, fears, frustrations, hopes, and hurts. As I confront these realities of my heart, I am able to apply the gospel to my life in a way that nurtures my own soul. So then when it comes to application for a sermon, I can authentically and applicably show my people what the Lord did in my heart through that passage.

3. Live with your people.

Being as young as I am, I have not encountered as many hardships or tribulations as some of my congregants who have been following Jesus longer than I’ve been alive. But as I look out to my church family each week from the pulpit, I see people, stories, and struggles. I know the hurt and heartache of our people because I’ve had lunch or coffee with them, and they’ve shared their lives with me. I know them because I spend time with them.

So, when I preached Psalm 42, 51, and 84 a few years back, I thought of the weary pilgrims in my church who were longing for peace, renewal, and hope. I thought of the members who were fighting for joy. I had in mind the recently widowed and those struggling with infertility. I thought of the struggling marriages, parents, and single people in our church.

As I thought of each of these people by name, I made it my goal to give each of these individuals the good news that can only be found in Christ. Just as we need to exegete our text before we preach a sermon, so too should we exegete our people before preaching to them.

All three of these components are needed when it comes to finding good sermon application. If we only spend time in the text without walking with Jesus or living with our people, we will have information without application. The goal is not to teach lectures but to preach sermons. And what separates teaching from preaching is application that springs from walking with your Lord, sitting with your text, and living with your people.

On March 1, 2015, I preached the first sermon of my first senior pastor assignment. I was nervous and felt woefully underprepared for the monumental task ahead of me. The second pastor in the church’s 35-year history, I had just turned 29 a few weeks earlier. I had not yet even graduated with my bachelor’s degree, but the Lord was faithful, and the church was patient. During my five-year assignment, I learned more than I could have imagined. I’d like to share the top five lessons I learned in developing a preaching series. By no means is this an exhaustive list, and by no means am I writing from a place of preaching perfection. I am a work in progress and hope to share some of that progress with you.

1. Be Prayerful: No doubt this goes without saying, but this is the area that I am prone to overlook. With the hectic schedule that comes with being a pastor (whether bi-vocational or full-time), a husband, a father, and even perhaps a student, it is surprising that the most accessible discipline is the first to be overlooked (by me at least). As terrible as this sounds, there were Sundays I would get to my office before service to pray, and I realized it was the first time I had stopped to pray over the service all week.

This does not mean that I never prayed. I remember spending chucks of my morning hours on my face in prayer for my church. It was a revitalization that took its toll on me physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I prayed a lot, but I did not always pray that I would be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s lead or my congregation’s needs. I did not always pray for humility in the pulpit or humility in how I handled pointed critiques of the sermon I had just preached. I did not always pray for faithfulness to the text or the task. I didn’t deviate from Scripture, but at times I was tempted to preach out of frustration and not out of love (more on this shortly). Last, I did not always pray for consistency in my study time. As a result, my failure to properly discipline myself for the time needed to preach week in and week out resulted in hasty preparation that showed in sermon delivery

2. Be Sensitive: In the development of any preaching series, sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s moving is second only to prayer. I am in the habit of creating a spreadsheet that projects my sermons up to a year out, and if I am not careful, I can hold to that schedule rigidly. At times the Spirit moves, but if I am not sensitive to his moving, I can miss it all for the sake of “staying on schedule.”

A quick secondary note: Be sensitive to the needs of the flock you oversee. After two years at my first assignment, I was becoming frustrated. In my frustration, I remember thinking, “I have a church of Pharisees.” I have since repented of this ungracious critique, but instead of thinking about the church’s needs, I prepared a series through the Gospel of Matthew with the single intention of highlighting their “white-washed tombs.” This is an example of where being sensitive to the Spirit saves you from disaster. The Spirit convicted me that my heart was not in the right place to preach this series. To this day, I still have that entire unused sermon series.

3. Be Humble: Closely related to my previous point, humility in developing preaching series helps to circumvent lack of sensitivity (or lack of faithfulness and consistency, for that matter). A pastor who is prayerfully considering his flock’s needs and is sensitive to those needs as he prepares the Sunday meal for them to feast on, in conjunction with the moving of the Holy Spirit, is humbly putting the needs of the flock over his desires or frustrations. I learned this the hard way.

4. Be Faithful: For whatever season you are in, you are called to shepherd the congregation entrusted to you. Be faithful to them. Trials will come and stressful situations will arise; do not take your frustrations out on your people in your preaching. Be faithful to lead them in love (tough love at times). Loving faithfully means being faithful to the text. Be careful not to weaponize a passage because it perfectly proves the point of an argument you had last month. If you are faithful to the text, the Holy Spirit will do the job of convicting. He doesn’t need your help, but he does desire your faithfulness.

5. Be Consistent: Regardless if you are an expositional preacher who tackles whole books at a time, a topical preacher who exposes specific topics and themes at certain times of the year, or a combination of the two, be consistent. The Lord has gifted you with specific gifts. He has also made you unique. Be you. Early on, when I was developing a series, I struggled with who I was. I realized I was not John MacArthur, Adrian Rodgers, or Church Swindoll, and to try and be them was not consistent with who God had made me to be.

If you were looking for technical tips on what commentaries to use or whether you should use a Greek word in your sermon, I am sorry that is not what you got here. If you are frustrated, tired, and not looking forward to the tiresome work of preparing your next series, I hope you found encouragement. Brother, we have all been there. Struggle in a positive direction, for the glory of God alone.

It’s Sunday Morning. I am attending your church’s worship service. I have bowed my head and listened to prayers. I have stood up for the music portion and carefully followed along with the lyrics. You have come up to the front and directed me to open the Bible on the back of the seat in front of me. For the past thirty minutes or so, you have been sharing the meaning of a part of the Bible. It clicks. You don’t know me. You don’t know what I have been dealing with these past few weeks. Yet somehow it just clicks.

Your sermon is not a TED Talk. Instead, it is more like a LIFE Talk. I can’t explain it, but it is exactly what I needed to hear today. You have obviously done your research and helped me understand what this part of the Bible is teaching, not just how you feel about it, but the way that it would have been understood in the time it was written. Now you are helping me understand why it is important for me, today. It makes sense. I am in agreement. 

That scenario is not too unlikely. In fact, it ought to be the desire and expectation of every pulpiteer that after the prayerful preparation of a biblically faithful sermon, the Word of God does that which it promises. It does not return void. It pierces the heart of men and women as the truth without any mixture of error.

But what is next? Here are a few pragmatic reminders when extending the invitation for people to respond to the dynamic message you will be sharing this coming Lord’s Day:

1. Be Clear. 
   1. “Churchy” words can be confusing. Avoid jargon that goes unexplained because it may leave a first-timer in the dark. You’ve walked with them through the text. Be faithful to walk with them in accepting it. Whatever method of invitation and response you will be using, be sure to explain it clearly.
   2. Don’t be manipulative. Manipulation, trickery, or the twisting of someone’s arm is not befitting a minister of the gospel. We deal in truth, not trickery.
   3. Extend a gospel invitation every time. Invite people to go public with their faith through believer’s baptism. Invite them to join your local fellowship through your membership process. Invite them to repent of unconfessed sin. Invite them to love their neighbor. Invite them to commit to missions, evangelism, holiness, or whatever the text is calling for. Just be clear that God’s Word isn’t just for information but for transformation. In other words, be clear that everyone should be responding to what God’s Word teaches.
2. Be Prepared.
   1. Prepare for people to respond. Let this be an act of faith on your part and on the part of your team, not faith in your preaching, but rather in what you’re preaching. You may not be the most confident in your sermon, but you ought to be confident in the power of the Holy Spirit.
   2. Prepare the right method. You may ask people to come forward and join you at the front. You could also invite them to fill out a connection/decision card and turn it in at a welcome station or complete it online. Maybe you ask people to join you and the church staff or response counselors in a designated area after the service. No matter what method you use, be sure to include the opportunity for anyone worshipping online to make a decision or seek counseling as well.
   3. Prepare others to help. I invite to the front other staff members and volunteers who are prepared to listen, pray, and even take someone to a designated area when they need to be counseled longer. We have other men and women equipped to sit down and help people who come forward during the response time. All these volunteers need is for one of the ministers to make eye contact and wave them forward. As they join the minister and the individual who is responding, we introduce everyone as well as share what has been said. I always let the person coming forward know that the staff member or volunteer there with us is a trusted friend. After all, you want people to be as comfortable as possible if you need to hand them off to someone else. Make sure no one is alone and no one is matched up in a mixed group. I personally make it a habit immediately after the close of the response time to rejoin those being counseled. You can find various tracts and resources at the SBTC webstore (com). If no one is being counseled that day, I let everyone know that I will be off to the side of the lobby in case they need to talk. You may be surprised by how many people make a decision after the benediction when nearly everyone else is gone. Whatever your method, help everyone involved to be prepared.
3. Be Expectant.
   1. Don’t rush. I’m not saying to hold the congregation hostage until everyone comes forward. But you should be praying, even as you are looking around and deciding when God wants you to close the invitation.
   2. Include everyone. I tell the staff and volunteers that if they want to respond during the invitation, go ahead. Whatever their instrument, role, or location, if they need to respond, they shouldn’t hesitate.
   3. Remember the results are in God’s hands. People may not come forward at every service—although that may be a good expectation. However, someone coming forward, in and of itself, is not your goal. Your goal is to be faithful in proclaiming the Word of God, inviting people to respond to what it teaches, and then walking with them in discipleship.

If we are going to reach the widest audience possible with meaningful, challenging, and God-honoring messages that are faithful to Scripture, we must plan our preaching. Our planning should go beyond next Sunday. It should include the entire year.

Admittedly, designing a preaching calendar for an entire year’s worth of sermons might seem intimidating. You might even be thinking, “It is hard enough to write a single sermon each week, how am I going to pull together a year’s worth of ideas, texts, and titles all at once?”

Let me offer you a few tips to get you started.

1. Determine your church’s needs

With what is your church struggling? What encouragement do they need? What initiatives do you have for the year, and how does your church need to be equipped? In what areas of theology and doctrine do they need to grow?  What is happening in the surrounding culture?

Your answer to these questions will most likely differ year to year, which is why they are good questions to ask and answer as you seek to develop a preaching calendar. You will want to target your series and individual messages to both meet your church’s needs and challenge your congregation. Doing so will not only help them see the Bible is relevant to everyday life, but it will also help you initiate Word-centered change in your church.

2. Preach expositionally through books of the Bible

I don’t know about you, but determining what text I will preach is a struggle. Stand-alone messages and topical series have a place in a preaching calendar, but I find preaching through books of the Bible gives me a leg up when it comes to developing a year-long preaching schedule. With your congregation’s needs in mind, spend time praying about what book(s) the Lord would have you preach through, along with your stand-alone sermons and topical series.

3. Determine the main idea of the books you will preach

The book’s main idea should help you determine the theme and ultimately the title for the sermon series you will preach. It also gives you a main theme to focus your sermons around so that your series is cohesive.

For instance, my sermon series through the book of Galatians is Jesus + Nothing = Everything. I chose that as my overarching theme for the series because I believe the book of Galatians has a strong focus on the gospel of Jesus Christ as the exclusive means by which we experience salvation and sanctification. As I write each individual sermon, I will seek to link it to that theme.

The introductory sections of commentaries are helpful in determining the book’s main idea. Additionally, search out the theme and title others have given to a series on that book. I’m not suggesting you adopt them as your own, but use them as inspiration and a place to start as you think through the focus of your series.

4. Work to break the book(s) you will preach into pericopes

A pericope is a unit of thought. Developing your message around the book’s pericopes will aid in determining how many messages you will preach from a given book. For instance, two books I am preaching through this year are the books of Jonah and Galatians. I divided Jonah into four messages. One message for each chapter. Galatians was a bit more difficult, but I determined to divide it into sixteen sermons.

The best way to find a book’s pericopes is to read the book through several times. As you read, make note of changes in thought or argumentation. Keep a list of the sections.

After you have compiled your list, see if you can develop a main thought from each section. The main idea doesn’t have to be perfect. You aren’t writing a sermon; you are simply testing your breakdown to determine if you have enough material to develop a sermon.

Once you are satisfied with the breakdown, attempt to write the title and the main idea of each pericope. Keep the book theme in mind at this point so as to develop a cohesive series through the book. Again, it doesn’t have to be perfect. Just get something down to work with later.

5. Keep special dates in mind

As you develop your preaching calendar, keep special dates in mind. I always take a break from my series to preach special Mother’s Day and Father’s Day messages, an Easter message, and a Christmas message. Make sure to specifically call out special dates when developing your preaching calendar.

6. Plan for days off

Spend time thinking through when you are going to be out of the pulpit. When will you take vacation? Do you have a conference you plan to attend? What preaching engagements do you have for the year? Do you want to provide the opportunity for others to preach? Whatever the reason, think through as best you can when you will be out of the pulpit and put those dates on the calendar.

7. Plan for the Summer

Summer is typically a time when families take vacation. With the drop in attendance and regularity, summer is a good time to take a break from major preaching initiatives.

Don’t plan to preach a series on your church’s new vision during the summer or one that builds on itself each week. Instead, choose to preach a topical series, or through Psalms, or even the Parables of Jesus. Preaching any of these is a good way to keep consistency in your preaching calendar while also providing your congregants the opportunity to miss a Sunday here and there without feeling lost when they return. It also provides an opportunity for others to preach in the series since each message will most likely have a stand-alone theme.

8. Plan your planning

To successfully develop a preaching calendar, you must plan your planning. If you don’t carve out time to sit down and plan, you will never get to it. Take a couple of days or even a week off with the intention of planning. If you don’t have the opportunity to take time off, then plan to set aside time every day for a week or two to develop your calendar. However you decide to do it, plan your planning.

Four minutes into one of my first sermons, I realized I’d made a pretty big mistake. Leading into that sermon, I genuinely believed words just came to the person speaking as he went. At least, I thought that’s what would happen to me because, you know, of my special talent for preaching.

That night, I walked up on the stage, read the passage, prayed, and then began with the few prepared thoughts I had. After four minutes I was completely out of material. I looked at the clock and panicked. Nothing else came whatsoever. So, I did what any self-respecting preacher would do—I repeated the only material I had. After six total minutes elapsed, I crash landed the plane and left the stage, resolved to never do that again. I learned this principle that night: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

That same failure to plan extends into other areas of our churches—like discipleship. I assumed discipleship was taking place in my people’s lives simply because they were attending the service and hearing me teach. Thankfully, this failure of mine to plan out discipleship was challenged at a youth pastor conference I didn’t have much interest in attending.

At the time, I was a youth pastor, and I attended a YouthLab Conference in Fort Worth, mostly so I could come back for the weekend to the city I loved and missed. Robby Gallaty was the keynote speaker, and he spent the entire weekend sharing about discipleship and creating a discipleship plan. I’m not exaggerating when I say that weekend was one of the most impactful ministry experiences for me because it was the first time I’d ever heard about an actionable discipleship plan within a local church.

Since that weekend, I have focused a lot of my attention on discipleship planning and leading cultural change within my church context for the sake of greater discipleship among my people. Here are some thoughts that may be helpful to you as you seek to do the same in your church.

1. The Hard Work: Plan Your Discipleship Plan

If we desire our people to develop as disciples of Jesus—in Christlikeness and in their involvement in the Great Commission—then we must give them the path forward. What happens for most people is that if uncertainty exists as to what to do, nothing is done. Thus, we need a plan for discipleship that we can lay out before our people with specific steps and goals that will lead them to greater levels of Christlikeness and Great Commission work.

QUESTIONS TO ASK

In creating the discipleship plan for our churches, there are a number of questions we need to answer to give us a framework:

1. What is discipleship?
2. How did Jesus model a discipleship relationship?
3. What are we calling our people to do?
4. In what areas are our people expected to grow?
5. What are specific replicable steps people can take to grow as disciples in those areas?
6. How do you define or gauge success?
7. What is your method for replicating this process?

Whatever answer we give to these questions, we must source them from the Word of God.

In walking through these questions, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I encourage you to read books from pastors who have promoted discipleship in the local church. Two books that have been helpful to me are Growing Up: How to Be a Disciple Who Makes Disciples and Rediscovering Discipleship, both by Robby Gallaty.

What Discipleship Looks Like at My Church

We promote Discipleship Groups (or D-Groups) within the context of our larger church structure consisting of large group worship service and non-gender-specific small groups or Life Groups. Each element of our structure—worship service, Life Groups, and D-Groups—fulfill an aspect of our discipleship plan for teaching, community, spiritual growth, and mission.

Our D-Groups are gender-specific and consist of 3-5 people who meet an hour or an hour and a half weekly for the purpose of Bible reading/discussion, Bible memorization, accountability, and prayer. These groups meet for 12-18 months, after which each member is encouraged to begin their own D-Group made up of new Christians or Christians who have not yet been discipled.

2. Promoting a Discipleship Culture

Once you have a discipleship plan, you need to have a plan for how to roll it out to your people. Just because you mention discipleship once or set out an informational sheet doesn’t mean your people will take it and run with it.

Here are a couple methods that, when used together, have been successful in rolling out discipleship in our church.

1. Be a Discipler Yourself

This is the most organic method of promoting discipleship within our churches. We as disciples of Jesus are called to engage in discipleship just as all believers are. Out of faithfulness to Christ, we must personally be discipling people within our churches, leading the charge for spiritual development. And, as pastors, what we do, are involved with, and celebrate will be what our churches become. Therefore, we must have boots on the ground, leading discipleship groups and training people within those groups to replicate this process when our time as a group is over.

2. Preach About Discipleship

In addition to the ground attack of discipling people yourself, consider using an air attack by preaching about discipleship, both as a series as well as sprinkling discipleship stories and application in your sermons. What we celebrate from the stage is what our people will begin to be excited about.

3. Allow Members to Share Stories of Discipleship

In addition to preaching about discipleship, consider having members who are involved with discipleship share their positive experiences and stories about discipleship from the stage on a Sunday. The benefit of allowing others to speak about discipleship from the stage is that it may change the perspective in some peoples’ minds that discipleship is something “pastors” do to something people like they themselves take part in. This could be done by giving them three minutes to share their experience or it could be an interview that you lead.

3. Give Grace and Allow Time for Development

When I began at my church, a godly elder (and close friend) named Paul told me often, “You’ve got time.” What he meant was that I didn’t have to be in a rush to bring about all that God was going to do here at our church. Things take time to develop and that is OK. Often, that is God’s way. Just as in the parable of the mustard seed, new initiatives such as a discipleship plan will start small and develop over time with diligence. Celebrate each win, such as when a group flourishes and continues to meet after three months or when a member takes initiative to begin a group. Give grace to the process and to your people as a new culture of discipleship begins to develop.

Now, looking back on that rudderless preaching experience, I’m grateful it happened. Of course, there was embarrassment at the time, but I learned the great value of having a plan. For those of you also tasked with shepherding God’s people, do you have a discipleship plan?

As pastors, one of our primary roles is helping our people establish relationships with each other that leads them to ongoing spiritual transformation. Our church members thrive when connected to each other. As effective as our efforts may be, the development of these relationships often comes at a price Scripture never suggests we pay. We will never thrive as pastors to the fullest of our callings unless we commit ourselves to this same type of relationship with other pastors. A thriving in our callings is safeguarded in relationships with other pastors. Although the calling of a shepherd includes a laying down of his life for his sheep, that calling must never include forsaking relationships with other shepherds. When this misconceived sacrifice occurs, at best we do not thrive. At worse, we experience crushing blows of tragedy that compromise our callings and our families.

This summer will mark my nine-year anniversary of serving in fulltime vocational ministry. While being a lead pastor for all nine years may be somewhat unique, the fact that the first three also included custodial duties, Sunday School teaching, youth ministry, and occasionally leading hymns (as long as the mic volume was set low enough) is not uncommon, to say the least. We all know what it’s like to carry out the rewarding responsibilities of “other duties as assigned.” Among many commonalities we share, there’s unfortunately one we wish never existed—knowing pastors who have experienced the tragedy of compromising their callings and families.

In those nine years of vocational ministry, I have personally known no fewer than one pastor for each of those years who have found themselves in this debilitating category. For some of them, it was difficult for me to imagine they could ever possess vulnerabilities in their armor. For others, their adopted paths of isolationism and self-righteous attitudes seemed to drive them toward impending demise with bells and whistles. I recognize I don’t have official data, but personal experiences have identified a common denominator too weighty for me to ignore:

Every one of these pastors lacked relationships with other pastors to foster their ongoing spiritual transformation. With their sobering realities in view, my heart breaks knowing they somehow missed a relationship with a fellow pastor that might have been available as a preventative haven. My heart also breaks when I consider whether I miscalculated my own relational capital; perhaps I had the capacity for a better relationship with one or more of these pastors.

Although the sheer volume of compromised callings is staggering, the opportunity for authentic relationships moving forward is greater. In an age when a premium has been placed on authenticity in ministry, forsaking authenticity between pastors is dangerous. A relationship with another pastor that leads to ongoing spiritual transformation is an opportunity of grace for you and for me. Each of these referenced pastors had some type of relationship with other pastors. But the specific tragedy is that every one of them lacked relationships with other pastors that fostered their own ongoing spiritual transformation. There is a great difference between relationships primarily focused on orthodoxy or orthopraxy and those purposed first toward the gracious personal transformation of lead shepherds. When experiencing ongoing spiritual transformation is the standard for relationships between pastors, growth in the knowledge and grace of our Lord and Savior becomes a rewarding reality.

It’s no accident these benefits then extend to both a pastor’s family and the local church. It’s within these relationships the sharing of burdens and the sharing of wisdom occur. It’s within these relationships opportunities exist to be candid, speak encouragement, decompress, and even learn from the experiences of others rather than wishfully waiting to see if your family and church will survive. It’s within these relationships between pastors that not only a growth in the knowledge of Jesus is experienced, but more importantly, a transformation of life by grace. It is only by the grace of Jesus I am saved. It has only been by the grace of Jesus I continue to persevere in my calling. It is also only by the grace of Jesus I have been blessed with ongoing spiritual transformation directly linked to relationships with other pastors.

These relationships work best in my own life when I connect with other pastors on a weekly, monthly, and annual basis. It’s in a once-a-week phone call with a pastor who is not on my staff that spurs me on Sunday to Sunday. Beside four to five phone calls a month, I enjoy a monthly meal with five other pastors in my area. We are pastors in covenant with one another for the sake of the gospel. Whether ministry has been somewhere in the Greater Houston Area or the Texas Big Country, this monthly connection with local pastors has been an invaluable standing appointment on my calendar for the last nine years. Monthly meals are more filling than weekly phone calls but never as refreshing as an annual retreat with other pastors.

There’s something special that takes place when a group of pastors and their wives are able to retreat for three consecutive days a year, free from the weekly grind of ministry, and yes, even free from the physical presence of their little arrows of blessings. It’s over the course of those three days, God reenergizes and recalibrates my life, my family, and my ministry for another faithful year. For the men (and their wives) who make up these three levels of connection in my own life, no expression of gratitude to God or them will ever be adequate. But that reality also serves as extra motivation and strength for staying the course. Based on the source of life they have been for me, my family, and the local church, my prayer is that God will grant you the same. Some of you may need time to prayerfully consider this, but in all sincerity, most of you likely need to simply pick up your phone and connect with some pastors you already know.

Read to Treasure Christ

Three times in the last three years I’ve seen believing friends of mine fall into serious moral failure. Two were pastors, and one was a seminary professor.

In one sense, it baffles me to see people who are seemingly committed to Christ fall into such blatant and damaging ways. In another sense, though, if I’m honest, I remember being in a very dark spiritual place myself not that long ago.

When our love for Christ wanes, from where can we minister and pour out as pastors? When our affections for Christ dwindle, we can’t exactly take a break from ministry (at least not easily). So, we start drawing from other places for our energy, our self-worth and our purpose.

Maybe for you it’s not as serious as pornography. Perhaps it’s entertaining yourself to death via Netflix or social media to help you escape. Or maybe it’s pouring everything into your role as a pastor, thinking that’s what gives you value.

No matter the symptom, the illness is always the same: Our love for Christ has waned. This is why the spiritual disciplines matter so much. Not because they are valuable in and of themselves, but because they foster our love for Jesus. A personal, devotional time of some sort is crucial.

When and How

One of my closest pastor friends starts every morning at 4:30 a.m. He wakes up, goes to the gym, comes home, reads his Bible, showers, and is completely ready for his day by the time his kids wake up.

Me? I wake up when my kids are screaming and I have no other choice but to get up. And usually, I’m waiting to see if my wife will get up so I can have a few more minutes to sleep.

To be honest, I sometimes wish I was a morning person. But I’ve always been more of a late-night guy. I’ll gladly stay up until midnight or 1 a.m. almost every night. Late at night is when I spend my time with the Lord.

I don’t think it matters as much when or how we get into the Word as long as we’re in it. Here are three simple but crucial steps in spending time with the Lord.

1. Read

Whether you spend three straight months digging deeply into a particular book or read the whole Bible in a year, make a plan. The old adage is true: “If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail.” No, this isn’t about checking something off your to-do list. It’s about spending time with God. But you’ll be more consistent in your time with Jesus if you pick a plan and stick to it. Pick a plan, find a time, and get into God’s Word. For me, that’s late at night, usually on my back porch.

2. Linger

When you read, slow down. No matter how many tasks you have to do in a given day, there’s nothing more important than what you’re doing when you read the Word. Pause and ponder. Enjoy being a child of God. Enjoy seeing the smallest glimpse of who God is in the passage you just read. Spending time in the Word isn’t simply a daily task. It’s a relationship. The goal is that our affections are stirred, that we are compelled to worship this God we see more clearly each day. Keep this as your primary goal. Slow down. Enjoy this Father with whom you’ve been reconciled in Christ.

3. Thread

After you’ve spent time with the Lord, be sure and thread God’s Word into the rest of your day. If a verse was particularly meaningful, come back to it occasionally. Share it with your wife and your kids. Tell your family about the prophet of Obadiah or the bravery of the apostle Paul. For a verse you want to remember, write it down and put it on a card in your wallet. Don’t relegate God’s Word to the brief, uninterrupted time you spend reading it. Thread it into your whole day.

It’s likely that none of this is new for you. But if you’re like me, you too need the occasional reminder about the goal in spending time with Jesus. Our goal is that our “love would abound more and more” (Philippians 1:9). It’s not just to grow in knowledge or to do our daily Bible-reading duty. Our goal is to love and treasure Jesus more than anything. From that well, we can always draw. From that place, we can always minister. In Christ, your value and joy are secure. Read to treasure him.

Early on in my ministry, I knew I desired to reach the community in whatever church I served. This desire has looked different in different settings; nonetheless, the desire is the same. In this article, I want to share a few things I have learned along the way about community outreach. I hope to offer an encouragement, sound a warning, and stir your desire to reach your community with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

First, what is outreach? I think it is helpful to work from a uniform definition since “outreach” can mean different things to different pastors and churches. For our purposes here, we will define outreach as the intentional engagement of the community to accomplish a common  goal.

Next, I want to deconstruct that definition. What is the common goal of outreach? The church’s end goal is to show the community the love of Christ and to share the gospel of Jesus. Community outreach is not a church growth model. Instead, it is the people of God being the hands and feet of Jesus as they proclaim the gospel of repentance. Let me be clear: Community outreach may result in church growth but should never be motivated solely by church growth. A church that sets the goal to reach their community should primarily be doing so from a place of evangelistic zeal and obedience (Matthew 28:18-20).

Following our understanding of the goal, let us identify our community. This identification might be tricky, depending on your ministry setting. For example, if you are a rural church, your community may be more widespread than in an urban environment. Your congregational make-up helps define the community boundaries as much as the physical location of your church building. If you are in a rural farming community, your community will be better represented by your church members who live in the countryside than by the building that sits on the side of the farm-to-market road. Likewise, if you are in an urban environment, your community might be best identified as the neighborhood that immediately surrounds the physical church building. Pastor, it is up to you to determine your community and establish a plan to reach that community with the gospel.

That brings me to my next point: What is intentional engagement? Intentional engagement is the plan you set forth to reach your identified community with the gospel. Here it is helpful for you to understand the community’s needs and determine if your church is equipped to meet those needs. Allow me to provide a point of caution, dear pastor. I have seen and experienced the heartache of a plan gone awry. An eager young pastor is ready to knock on doors and begin getting to know his new community. The people are responsive to the gospel and start attending the church, but they are not like the established members. They’re unchurched. They do not know the social protocols that have been arbitrarily established.

In this situation, several possible outcomes can take place, but my experience says two outcomes are most likely. First, and most likely, the new believers get tired of feeling like outsiders, so they simply fade into obscurity. The pastor may make several attempts to re-engage them, but nothing will change the uncomfortable feeling they get from those inside the church, all because they don’t fit the mold.

A second possible outcome is that the new members plug in and begin to see the struggle the pastor is going through, sharing the gospel with unchurched people in the community and inviting them into the church, only to offend some members in the congregation because the new believers don’t act the way people “should” act in church, the way some longtime members think people should behave in church. The new members take offense on the pastor’s behalf and the two sides—the longtime members and the new members—are ready for war, and the pastor is looking for a new job.

I have seen both these scenarios. I have ministered in both types of churches. When you establish a plan to engage your community, intently pray about it. Preach on the need for the church to get outside the comforts of its four walls. Understand the dangers you will engage in along the way. Equip those who will be faithful companions. In many situations, the church needs to be prepared for the community rather than the community needing to prepare for the church. Develop a plan that suits your church’s strengths while preaching on and strengthening the weaknesses. Be sure your plan meets the needs of your community.

Lastly, make sure your plan is saturated in the lifegiving gospel message that Jesus saves. I cannot say this enough: Outreach is not a church growth tool. Instead, it is evangelistic obedience. Pastor, equip and prepare your people to minister to your community with the gospel.