How Pastors Can Preach Effectively in Light of the Dechurching Movement

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Jim Davis
Welcome to as in Heaven season three. My name is Jim Davis. I am your host and pastor of Orlando Grace Church and I am joined by my friend and fellow pastor and preacher here in Orlando, Michael Aitchison, who pastors over it with pastors and planted Christ United Fellowship Church, and I’m especially glad to be joined by Mike today for this episode on the topic of preaching in this era that we call the great deed churching as I would consider him to be one of the most gifted and powerful preachers I know. I am always blessed when I get to hear him preach God’s word. And we are joined today by two incredible guests and fellows at the Keller Center for Cultural apologetics, who serve in two very different contexts. First, we have Sam Albury Sam is a pastor on staff fairly newly at Emanuel in Nashville, as well as serving as a Canon theologian for the Anglican Church in North America. Sam is originally from the UK and has written numerous books, including seven myths about singleness, why God, Why Does God care who I sleep with and what God has to say about our bodies. He also hosts a podcast with Ray ortlund on the TGC network of podcast called You Are Not crazy gospel sanity for young pastors. And then second, we have Michael Keller, Michael is the founding and senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Lincoln Square in New York City, he spent extended time in London and Boston getting a PhD before returning home to Manhattan. And along with preaching on a weekly basis in a post Christian context of New York City. Michael has written on effective preaching in such contexts, and we’re grateful to have both of you. You know, we Michael, we obviously had your dad last season on this podcast. So you two are officially the first father son combo. So we’re making small as in Heaven history here today. And this season on the podcast, if you’ve been with us, you know that we have been talking about living in a new context in the US called the great deed churching as 40 million people who used to regularly attend church do not anymore, which is changing so much about the fabric of our society, in addition to our churches, and as we have transitioned now into the latter half of the season, to consider we want to consider how the church can address the reality of de churching, both in stemming the tide, but also in effectively reaching those who have left, we have considered how specific ministries in the church can do this. But we also want to turn today and ask how can the public proclamation of God’s word that happens on a weekly basis speak to care for and reach those who might D church or have D churched. But also equip the church to also be a part of reaching them. So I just want to say thank you to both of you for joining us here today.

Sam Allberry
Thanks for having us.

Michael Keller
Yeah, thanks for having us. Appreciate it.

Jim Davis
Well, I want to start off by acknowledging it’s not immediately obvious to some that preaching in our view should be held up as a key part or even as a central part, to the whole worship service. In light of deep, deep searching phenomenon. There have been some that have actually argued that part of addressing the issue should actually be moving away from preaching as we’re accustomed to thinking about it. So just to start, I wanted to ask you guys, how you can see we’ve have the task of preaching itself. What is its purpose? What is its goal? And it’s important to worship for the body? So Sam, why don’t we start with you?

Sam Allberry
Yeah, so it’s a good question. And whenever people say that we you know, people don’t believe in preaching anymore. I’m skeptical, because every time it’s the Oscars or something like that you put put someone in front of a microphone and they preach. We all believe in trying to change minds and hearts through proclaiming something. And for us, our goal is to win hearts for Christ. We want our hearts to be cherishing him, worshiping him enjoying him reveling in all that he’s, he’s done for us. I’m not just imparting information, though there’s that that needs to be involved as part of the process. I’m, I’m wanting all of us to be wowed by Jesus, as we meet Him through His word.

Jim Davis
What about you, Michael?

Michael Keller
Yeah, it’s I think it’s a good question, mainly because I think the job of the preacher should always be to evaluate our culture and the effectiveness of of our forms. And I think if you look over the span of history and humanity, the effectiveness of preaching, based on are you one more word based or more picture based? Are you more? You know, I think we already know I think culturally we know that there are different types of learning. Someone’s a bit more visual somes more auditory, some this or that. So I think it’s always good to kind of evaluate what the Bible is clear that preaching is a role of, of learning of the Holy Spirit coming into the life of the individual. I think that’s a non negotiable, I think it’s fine to ask it, you know, even even right now, today, we have Anglican traditions that have the 1520 minute sermon net, maybe you have more, I think Jonathan Edwards was preaching to our sermons at one point, you know, in the 1730s, and 40s. And so you have already a, a range of now people mean, should we move away from preaching, in the sense of like, shortening it or elongating it? Or what how the forms to put into it? I think that’s a valid thing. Should we get rid of it completely? I don’t think that’s a, I would call that a non negotiable based just on what the our, our biblical text tells us.

Mike Aitcheson
Well, thanks, guy. So with that, that foundation in mind, it’s also worth talking about the role of the preacher themselves in the preparation and presentation with their own individual personality and passions. I think it was Spurgeon who said, preaching his proximate proclamation through personality. So my question is, how do each of you conceive of your role in the preaching task? And what’s the balance between that and letting the text speak for itself? Michael, why don’t we? Why don’t you kick us off?

Michael Keller
Yeah, it’s a, I think it’s an art more than a science in this space. That’s, that’s probably where I would I would start, I think, I mean, we’re worried based individuals. So we should always be starting with the hermeneutic of what was the original author’s saying, I know, there’s different types of views on that. And I don’t have I’m not stepping too much into hornet’s nest. But I think the clearest way to make sure that you’re not getting off of Scripture is you really, you’re starting with that as your foundation of what is the author trying to get across? I do think that there’s a dialogical conversation between you and the text. I got this from I guess, my seminary professor, Dr. lens, that there’s a theological framework that you see everything through, just because of our cultural location. You already there’s, there’s the with original writers said, as between 2000 and further back, and you’re trying to get as close as you can, but you know that you’re coming at it from a certain place, you try to get down here, but then the preachers looking out to where popularizers, by by definition, are jobs to take the text and try to communicate it and into out into the world. I think there was a move when I was a preacher. When, when you’re young, you’re kind of just trying to say what you’re trying to figure out. What do I say, What do I say? I think you get to a new stage, when you go away from what do I say? And you’re thinking more about how do I say it? And how do I say it in a way that that moves? Folks? And you see, Paul doing the same thing, right on Mars Hill, you see him doing the same sort of, how do I put this in a certain way to the right to, to people based on who I’m talking to, whether it’s the Jews or the Gentiles? And so I feel like there’s, again, biblical warrant for us to do both to both have that balance? I don’t know. Is it 5050 6040? I don’t know if I could. I think that’s too much of a science. I think it’s more of an art depending on again, yourself your cultural location.

Mike Aitcheson
Like, Sam.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, I think another factor in addition to that is the presence of outsiders in the congregation as well. Sometimes, part of what I’m doing in the sermon is breaking the ice between me and people who might be there for the first time. And so I’m not preaching myself in that moment, but I’m kind of introducing myself as a person who’s wanting to reach Christ to them. So some some preachers, where I come from a call that waggling on the tee, that kind of, you know, getting yourself all set up before you kind of get going. But I think there’s a there’s a place for that, particularly when, if we’re regularly speaking to people who are there for the first time who are not regular churchgoers, and who are wondering what on earth is going on in this building anyway, I want them to know that I’m, I live in the same world that they do I see some of the same things that they do. I think humor can help to kind of bridge a bit of that gap. So there’s a certain amount of that I think is necessary and healthy. Um, the sermon on preaching should like sound like a sermon I’ve preached rather than a sermon, somebody else has preached. But at the very same time, my hope is in five years time, they’re remembering what was said in the sermon and can’t quite remember who was who said it. So when when someone comes up to me, the church and says, I remember that sermon a few years ago, it was on this passage, and we learned this, but I can’t remember you preached it or someone else preached it. And they’re apologetic that they can’t remember who preached it. I take that as a compliment. I’m glad they can’t. If it’s a truth that’s been remembered.

Mike Aitcheson
Yeah, yeah, that’s helpful. But both of you started to enter into this this space. But I wonder if we could just follow up on the your actual process. One of the most common questions I get from members of my church all the time is simply what does your process look like? Some people I think, just think that sermons are like microwavable TV dinners, you just pop them in, and then a couple minutes later, they come out now granted, some sermons, you can get accomplished in less time than others. But others talk to me and just wonder, Where do I even begin? So would you guys be willing to each let us in on what your specific process looks like?

Michael Keller
Well, mine is proprietary. I, you know, I don’t think I can tell you all that, Mike, because it’s a secret recipe. Now, I think it’s important to also understand that that are your, your process changes over time. So the one I’m in right now is I like to write my sermons. Because sometimes this is not knowledge, right? My sermons a week and a half ahead of time. So that gives me a lot of time to marinate on the first version versus the last version. But you’re I start with a Bible study, I take attacks and I just start, I do a Bible study on it. What’s it saying, and what’s it trying to get at, you know, what’s intended, or God through this to confess to thank God, and I just start with that sort of meditative and sort of personal sitting with a text, you know, then I’ll go to the Greek and the Hebrew the words, then I’ll go to the commentaries. After that I’ll the commentaries, I’ll probably I usually try to come up with a framework, a shaft of what’s actually happened the text and kind of put it together, always trying to whittle it down, there’s always a million things that you can say, but try to get it down to a flow in order logic, then now I might listen to a sermon or two of, of, you know, somebody that that has maybe preached on that text before that might be in the same vein of where I think the framework that I’m going to do with, I make notes and all that, then I sit down on and write a first draft, I kind of write it all out for me, then I put it away, I don’t come back to it until the weekend before. And usually I tear it up, I ended up adding examples, and adding the all the other kinds of I kind of rewrite it, but then I add everything else. And then I tried to really just warm my own hearts let it if it doesn’t move me, it’s gonna be hard to move my people. So I kind of have to sit with it until it does. And so sometimes I go, why do I even care? And how does this actually, where’s this hitting me? And then and then I think that’s sort of a guiding way to know how it might land with my people.

Sam Allberry
Michael, I’m curious, because you preach most Sunday. So does that mean, in any given week? You’ve got two sort of sermons in the oven at the same time? One one day? Well, one? Yeah,

Michael Keller
yes. Yesterday, I wrote the sermon for two weeks from now. And then I and then I have the Easter Sunday one, which was written last week, and I’ll come back to it on tomorrow and Saturday, the Easter sermon. Exactly. And I think well see. See, that’s the thought. That’s why I pause what I just like to tell everybody this, everybody says your head, but you’re, it’s not that way. Because the first draft is really not that. Put together. It’s very much just, I won’t go to bed until I until I get something on paper. That way, it can come back later and go, Okay, do I Is this where I’m at? Or does this actually fit? So yeah.

Sam Allberry
I think much of my process is the same as Michaels, but compressed into the sort of three or four days before I’m preaching it rather than the 10 days. I love that I think that that would be a worthy aspiration because that I find that marinating time is often where I kind of make have key insights into application and culture. But I think similar to Michael and I’m beginning with the Bible study process, it’s discovery. I’m relieving myself of any pressure to have a message. I’m just having fun, exploring the patient passage and seeing what’s there. And then after a day or two of that I tried to think through again, what what is this? How should this passage contribute to my my love of Christ? And then I’m also thinking, Are there any particular cultural narratives this, this passage passage can be brought into dialogue with, that it might correct or redirect or undermine or, or any of those things. And similarly to Michael, I, I need to feel the weight of this text on my own heart. Because there’s a burden in this passage, and I want to feel the weight of it, whether it’s a burden to lift up broken hearts, or to convict complacent hearts, whatever, whatever the sort of vibe and tone is. It Yeah, we shouldn’t expect our teaching to move other people if it’s if it’s not. And I want to speak as someone who has been spoken to by the passage, and not all the time, but more often than not the sermon I preached as the sermon I’m preaching to me, and hoping it might accidentally help someone else on the way as well. But I’ll sometimes have particular church members in mind as I’m preparing, and sort of think they have this land on that person, Hamilton, but I always want to make sure I’m, I’m starting with myself. Otherwise, it’s too easy to think about what the passage means for everybody else, and not to let it do its work on me.

Mike Aitcheson
Yeah, so both of you very helpfully leaned into the process of application. I wonder if I can drill down just a bit further and, and ask you to help us think through how you might apply the text. And come up with illustrations in light of this massive phenomenon of detaching. So as we think about people who have left the church, and as we think about people who are continuously leaving the church, as you’re going through it, are you thinking about folks that maybe you’ve seen come and go, or stories that you’ve heard of? How might we think about that from your perspective?

Michael Keller
I mean, yeah, but when I think of the churches, I actually, I think of deconstructing, because that’s usually when I talk to people, they I know they’re different. Because the deconstruction is inside of Detroit chain, right? It’s not, not everybody who’s the church is definitely deconstructing. But when I sit down with folks, that usually is when when they are the church, and a lot of times, if they’re willing to talk to me, or they want to kind of talk on the way out. That’s the term that kind of comes up. And I think there’s two types of deconstructing. There’s a type that’s really discernment, and they’re trying to figure out what have I grown up with as a cultural value. And I never knew, and I’m really frustrated with working through what’s a biblical kind of assumption and what actually was just a cultural value. And then there’s the folks who really just, we didn’t, they didn’t use the word deconstruction used to be losing my faith, but losing my faith just now, I think feels too passive, deconstructing sounds more active. And when I’ve had conversations with those individuals, I try to acknowledge where they’re right. But I do try and get down to well, is Jesus who he actually says he is, is is there a reason Christ is there? Do you really still believe that? And if the answer is yes, then I said, then what role is the church have in in that process? I think when it comes to preaching, I like what Sam said is that you start with yourself, but I also always have the so what question in my my head for the audience person, if I was sitting there? Because often I am right, when you’re sitting there, you’re going, you’re watching that preacher, you’re like, why should I care about what you’re about to tell me? Or why should I care about what you’re saying? So I feel that pressure. And so I have these voices, whether the person who’s in that discharging process or that person who doesn’t, you know, doesn’t know why they’re there, or why they shouldn’t be there. And so I think that does guide the shaft in the way I preach to some degree.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, I agree with that. I think my dirty secret is I just don’t I don’t really like listening to sermons very much. And I particularly don’t like listening to sermons whether they’re telling me what to think without giving me a good reason. And so I really echo that so what thing because that’s mentally where I, I kind of just naturally am anyway, and so I’m trying to preach sermons that someone who’s is is cynical and jaded as I can sometimes be, is going to be you know, I want to try and get through to that. I’m not assuming everybody woke up that morning. Oh, I really want to know what Ephesians 315 27 is about You know, I need to be roused into interest in God’s word to say. And I think that’s where I find a lot of preaching misses it. For me, it’s often interesting from a exegetical point of view. But at some point, I’m like, you haven’t persuaded me of anything. And sometimes we just assert things without actually convincing someone of them. So I find that that I try to FrontLoader that in the introduction because I want to get someone at the beginning. I want them to think okay, this might be worth hearing this might be this might have been worth getting out of bed for. I don’t always achieve that. But that’s at least what I’m aiming for. Certainly in the first part of the sermon is just to try and help both the the sleepy churchgoer and the the skeptic or the I don’t know why I’ve come this morning to think okay, this, I think I need to listen into this. This might be this might be relevant to me. But

Michael Keller
go ahead, Sam,

Sam Allberry
I was gonna say I love what Michael said about when I talked to people who would say they are deconstructing often it’s because of the stated reason is often to do with the church. And there are there are aspects of that we can we can sympathize with and relate to. Sometimes there’s a moral issue going on underneath. And you know what the heart chooses the mind justifies kind of thing. But I always want to say, but I love what Michael said, Yeah, okay. But what about Jesus? Did he change did he let you down. And sometimes there’s been a misunderstanding of what they thought Jesus was, was going to provide for them. And so they’re experiencing what they think is buyer’s remorse. But then I have to sort of try and pass out the fact that actually there they were trusting in something Jesus never promised to them. So there’s, there’s a lot of stuff going on there. But I, I want people, it is all about Jesus. And therefore I want people to sort of rethink as much as I can. I want them to rethink whether they’re actually wanting to let go of him. Because if they do stick with him, they’re more likely to stick with his people because it’s hard to have the bridegroom without his bride. So I’m not here to be an apologist for the church. But I, I can be a good apologist for the church by being a good apologist for Christ.

Michael Keller
And which sound that brings up something that I want to be careful when I was talking about deconstructing that. I think you can, pastors can convict him blame a little bit by saying, Well, this is why they’re leaving the church. I do remember early on in my preaching ministry going to my father and saying, you know, what can I improve? Because I feel like I’m boring. I feel like I’m boring myself up there. And that talks about this, this thing, he calls it Miko. He says, when you look out onto the lookout in the audience, everybody has MeeGo because it’s my eyes glazed over. It’s an if you see people’s eyes kind of glazed over. You know, there’s a, there’s a defensiveness, a preacher can have said, well, you know, it’s my, I’m just preaching God’s word. It’s not it’s not my fault. It’s the Holy Spirit, or it’s that, you know, it’s their hard heart. But I think there’s a role that we have to say, Well, what role do I actually have to play in that? Because I think there’s reasons why a sermon can go on and on interesting, it’s not their hardness of heart, it’s clarity, clarity issues from you. It’s persuasion issues from you. It’s it’s a application issues from you. And so I think, I think there is a moral responsibility of the preacher to actually have such a high integrity with themselves to say, is that because of me, and not because of just because of them, so I think it’s helpful to have both that it’s not just guess the deconstructing DC charging, but also what role do we have in that?

Jim Davis
You know, it’s interesting, Michael, hearing your answer I can, I can hear just the difference in your context and mine. So according to Barna, Orlando in New York City have the same percentage of evangelicalism, which is mind blowing, but the feels like a very different place because most of our population are D church. Do you have so many unchurched and so while Mike Aitchison and I see people deconstructing, we also see a lot of people who just got used to not going during COVID Are the kids sports got busy. We call these the casually the church they didn’t, they didn’t, it wasn’t intentional, it just kind of happened. And so we find ourselves preaching a lot to the value of biblical community, the value of the church the value of worship as a regular rhythm. And so it’s really interesting to me even hearing y’all speak, I mean, all of these things are important, but depending on where somebody is, they might see one more of one or the other. Quick. Alright, I have another question. But this is dangerous. Getting preachers talking about preaching, this could end up being a long podcast, but do you so I’m thinking about the MeeGo. Quickly, do y’all have a way peep? Feedback loops, that’s the word I’m looking for. Do you have people who can tell you? Yeah, that was kind of a that was kind of a boring sermon. You know, briefly Do you what kind of feedback loops Do you have, after you preach to be able to know Was that me? Was that them? What’s going on?

Michael Keller
Man, I have my wife and I have my father, which I think are probably my two most trusted sources. But there’s always people in your church that you probably have a more trusted ear. And then there’s the ones that are like us. Nice. Thanks for the feedback. And there’s always truth in all feedback, whether it’s positive or negative. So you can always get something from everyone, but I think there’s probably more trusted sources and less trusted sources.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, I’ve got a couple of couple of friends at church who, if I ask them a direct, you know, tell me how was that they will give me the real answer. I can normally tell if if I’ve bought the congregation, and I can normally tell if people were with me. Now I tend to skew negative. So I tend to always think things were worse than they actually were. So often, the feedback I need is it wasn’t as bad as you thought it was. God, you know, God still did something with that. But yeah, we do need and you know, a Monday morning is not always the healthiest time to reassess your your previous day’s ministry, because Monday morning is when most pastors I know want to quit. But at the same time, I’ve also seen sermons where my my felt experience was, Oh, my goodness, there’s not a person who’s awakened here. And then God does something very deep and very powerful in one particular person’s life and you sort of thing every now and then I just need that reminder that my measure of what is a strong or weak sermon is not necessarily God isn’t bound by that. And he uses sermons he probably shouldn’t.

Jim Davis
So Michael, I have a question for you. Your I guess back in December, I read Collins biography on your dad, it was it was really, it was really enjoyable for me, because your dad has had a big impact from afar in preaching. He’s had a big impact in my life. Of course, I read his book and really appreciate his book. And one of the things that Colin talked about is how your dad would be immersed in different preachers at different times. I remember him talking about how he’d be immersed in Martyn Lloyd Jones. And he’d get to the point where, according to Colin, your mom would say, alright, come back to him, come back. And so what he was doing is he according to Colin, he would immerse himself in different preachers, but then he would take the best leave what’s not him? And then at the end of the day, he has something that’s uniquely his. So with you having grown up under your dad’s preaching, which is, you know, that somebody who I just think so much of in that realm, what have you taken from your dad? And you’ve said, Yes, this is this, I want to incorporate and be part of me, and what have you said? Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s uniquely my dad’s. And that’s not me. I’d be curious to hear about that process.

Michael Keller
Yeah, I’ve gotten I’ve gotten used to it as of this question. One time, I was applying for seminary, and I was trying to get a scholarship. And in the interview, they asked me, like, you know, how do you see yourself and, you know, different? And I completely bombed the question, because I was like, you know, I don’t they’re like, you know, what’s it like to be or the son of your father? And I was like, I don’t know, what’s it like to be the son of your father? Do you do anything differently? I think I came off a little aggressive. And I’ve learned, I learned what you know, I know what they’re trying to ask behind it. I think, on one level, you don’t know anything different than what you’ve grown up underneath. And I think you know, that your father’s our fathers have all affected us. And we see aspects of, of them in us. And I think that’s something that you have to save for it for everything, including myself. So I think he’s not wrong in that whoever you listen to, you end up sort of embodying what I’ve been told from other people just pick, just doing planting the church here and doing church here. I think there’s things that I have, that are just base rate assumptions, the assumption of non Christians in in the audience the assumption of how to talk without using Christian jargon words and tribal language, the blood of the lamb that propitiation of once sit, you know, I mean, though, these are valid and in good words, but can often be hurdles for Christians or even non non Christians to actually access the spirit and what God’s trying to speak to them. So I think there’s ways of things have just grown up here in the city, under that, that I sort of absorbed. But I also, you know, my PhD was in Computational Linguistics of Jonathan Edwards sermon. So I’ve read the 1200 sermons that have his corpus, and when you do that, you can’t not but get affected by by somebody else’s preaching, and I think that’s, I think, I think dad’s described it as like a rings on a tree, that there’s different rings or my my mom was my mom actually, who first came up with that analogy that you have different rings that At different times, and they affect who you are, but they aren’t who you are. And I think you that’s getting every minute, I think every young minister struggles with, you know, who am I and you end up selling the person that you’re heroes, and then trying to like, absorb that and change it. I’m completely in the same boat with everybody else in there.

Jim Davis
Now, that makes a lot of sense. I can remember as a young preacher spending seasons where I effectively was trying to be Tim Keller, or trying to be John Piper, or trying to be Matt Chandler, whoever it was at the moment that was influencing me. And then I remember the like, the year that I figured out who I was not that I’m any better than that. I’ve certainly not better than those people have more effective, but man, I’m better being me than anybody else. And it Sam, you alluded to something like this already, but, and I have so much more fun preaching when I’m genuinely me. So I love the rings on the tree analogy. Alright, so as we talk about preaching, with the D church in mind, there are kind of two sides of the coin that we see churches falling into. So there’s the one side of the coin that says any preaching that contextualize is to a group, and it’s teaching has effectively strayed away from being faithful to the biblical text. So we just need to teach the text and let the Holy Spirit apply it, this group would value in my opinion content over context, then there’s the other side of the coin that can try and contextualize so much that it begins to value the context over the content. And whether it’s whether the meaning to or not evade passages that might offend a potential visitor. And our studies have shown that either extreme even if the intent, intent is good, can actually contribute to deep searching more than stopping it. So how is it that we can think through preaching with multiple groups in mind, the church, the church, the D church, while avoiding these twin temptations? I feel like Michael has been talking so Sam will, will will go to you first.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, I echo Michaels language, I think is less science and more more art and, and feel. In Nashville, we’ve got an interesting blend of a lot of people who would be very secular and unchurched moving into the city. All the people who’ve been leaving Michael’s neck of the woods seem to end up in my neck of the woods, whilst at the same time having a lot of kind of Bible Belt refugees, as it were people who’ve been burned by a form of cultural Christianity or have had church hurt. And so trying to minister to both, there’s significant overlap.

Jim Davis
Your context, Sam sounds a lot like our context. I feel like you’re describing Orlando right now.

Sam Allberry
But actually given given where secular culture is at some of the sensitivities you would apply to people who’ve been hurt by church will be appropriate for people in a in a very anxious kind of self loathing age as ours. We have to we have to consider our context. I don’t believe preachers who say they don’t do contextualization because they’re preaching in a given language using given colloquialisms referencing certain sporting events. They just don’t know that they’re just not being honest about it. But at the same time, one of the reasons I really value Expository Preaching is it keeps us honest, it means we do have to hit truths that we are going to find uncomfortable, our context is going to find uncomfortable. But you know, we’re doing this not because we get a kick out of saying the hard thing, but because we did Chapter Four last week and Chapter Five is this week and chapter six will be next week. So it’s a way of saying the harder things in a way that doesn’t feel like we’re just out to get people and stick it to them. But it means we do have to preach things we might we might not have rushed to preach in a given context. I remember in my my former church in England, we were going through First Corinthians we got to the point in chapter 14, where Paul says women must be silent and there’s there’s stuff in that passage that is showing us that it’s not just a complete universal thing. But remember, that was the week some some non Christian friends of mine had said that they might come to church this week was I preaching but I mind that they came and part of me wanted to say, Please don’t come this week. But then part of me had to think then and I all of all of God’s word is powerful and but it helped that I could say the reason I’m preaching this is because the guy who was preaching last week deliberately didn’t cover this bit so that I’d be on the hook this week. And you know, it’s not because I I’ve got it in for people who who care about these things. So I don’t think I answered your question, but I said some things.

Michael Keller
No, no, Sam, I actually thought I love what you said there about that. Everybody contextualise. I mean, it’s, it’s such a, it’s I don’t quite understand the argument that people don’t believe in contextualization, the minute if I open my vise started tomorrow, preaching only in Spanish, at my church, there will be a ton of people who will leave my church. And until I knew people who would come in i or if I started using certain words over other words, it’d be, if I have certain examples of other examples, I will attract some people and not attract other people. That’s contextualization by just whether you know it or not. So I think you’re doing that no matter what I think the best way to avoid the twin temptations of over contextualized are under conceptualizing. I think maybe the best way to do it is to pastor people is to sit with your, your people in in the church and find out who they are, and what are their needs, what are their felt needs, and what are their real needs. I just went on, I’ve only been on the, you know, job. I used to do college ministry for seven years, but with New Yorkers, as their pastor for for seven or six years at this church plant, and one of the things I’ve learned is that the sin is, is busyness and time is the need. People don’t have any time they think they have no time. I know this is everywhere. But this is like a particularly New Yorker, least, to the type of New Yorker that I’m ministering to that sort of issue. So I think the way you prevent over and under conceptualizing is find out the best way to communicate the gospel and find out what the sin issue is. So for instance, back in the 80s, Dad did a great job of contextualizing sin away from a conceptual concept of bad things and turn it in use idolatry, which is a biblical Old Testament concept and saying, hey, everybody has something that they’re idolizing. And all of a sudden New Yorkers were like, Oh, my gosh, I mean, I believe I’m a Senator. But I guess I believe that I guess I do idolize stuff, I guess I do need Jesus and all of a sudden you saw people realize something they didn’t realize before, because that was good contextualization, of what the sin issue is, and then he put gospel and then later I think, as culture changes, we constantly have to do a new version. So I think the new needs are shame and guilt, I have the shame and guilt, I don’t know how to get rid of it. And we have to show how the gospel means those things and move into this place is that so I love what your your answer saying that’s perfect.

Sam Allberry
Well, in the New Testament that the pastor is described as both a servant of the word of servant of the flock. So we serve the word pipe by making sure we’re teaching it truthfully, and clearly. And we serve the people by making sure we understand them well enough to help them hear what is being said as in. It’s not just what we say it’s how it’s heard. And

Michael Keller
I think the best way to do that is in the best way to do that is to sit with your people, like I know that exact match for them.

Mike Aitcheson
Brothers, those are remarkable examples of communicating that we actually do contextualize whether we want to admit it or not, and whether we are aware of it or not. And you both told us, eloquently, the how of contextualization, can you kind of drill down and tell us what does good contextualization actually look like? And what does bad contextualization actually look like, can you give us some like concrete examples, maybe as you’ve grown and becoming a better contextualize or, or what you’ve seen and realized maybe that’s not healthy or, or habits that you’ve adopted or practices that you’ve adopted, not only in your preaching, but also in the worship service.

Michael Keller
When you think Sam,

Sam Allberry
well, you’ve mentioned one of them, which is, is kind of using a lot of insight, a language that that’s an obvious way of failing to contextualize. It’s helped I’ve come from the UK, I’m used to being in a, in a secular context, to Nashville where, you know, some of the Christians, some of the pastors in town here are used to preaching to Bible belt. So I’m, I’m often finding myself saying to people, some of that language you just use would make no sense to a secular person. Whatever that might be, there’s just certain kind of insider phrases and terms we use are the technical theological ones, like Michael referenced, or just, you know, I’m praying a hedge of protection over you. And you know, even as a Christian for many years, I was like, what is the hedge of protection? So we can fail to make what we’re saying intelligible. You don’t have hedges in New York City. So what’s that? What’s that? And I think a good thing is, as Michael said, it’s you can, you know, I could I could read some books on there. There’s some high altitude stuff you can do reading about cultural trends, but there’s no substitute for knowing the flesh and blood that are sort of walking through the door and anticipating people’s objections. Recognizing where the text is going to rub them up the wrong way trying to sort of, like Michael said earlier being dialogical in your preaching, it may be a monologue in its form, but it’s a dialogue in its spirit, because you’re actually you’re you’re playing, you’ve know people well enough to know where their mind is going, as you’re expanding certain things, and you kind of having that, that game of chess going on.

Michael Keller
I see bad contextualization, falling off the bike on two different sides, you can fall off the bike over conceptualizing is when well under conceptualizing is when you only come from, you’re stuck in your culture, and your way of seeing things and not at all considering the person out in the audience, as the preacher, I think over conceptualizing is when you’ve changed the forms. So what’s so unique about Christianity, Islam, all it can only be an Arabic, right? It’s stuck in one cultural form. And it says hate because Allah is absolute, and this is how it is. But what’s so beautiful about Christianity is it changes go to any place in the world. And the derivative of what and how Christian is presented is different. That allows us to contextualize but I think over visualizing is when it loses its power. And it loses power, I think most predominantly when your need for the gospel is not, is not really stated enough. I think we’ve seen that in context. So you have to really, you’re over contextualized. And when you, you’re so trying to meet people where they’re at that you’re not calling them out of something, there has to be some level of saying you’re stuck without this. And if you don’t have that, then the gospel the good news of what Jesus done, whether Chris is Victor overpowers principalities, or penal substitution, you know, transferring your sins onto him and his rights to sign you, you, these things don’t become impactful without your need. And I think that would probably be my guiding light, if you’ve ever contextualized that the need is gone.

Mike Aitcheson
I feel like I’m in a refresher course right now. I’ve got 1000 questions to ask. So you both both of you guys are fellows at the Tim Keller Center for Cultural apologetics. And I think one of the most powerful ways we can preach with the D church in mind is by drawing out the cultural narratives, they are believing and adopting that has defined that modern life. And what the need to be apologists of the Christian faith in the face of its cultural critiques. What does it look like to effectively do cultural apologetics from the pulpit? And how do you balance that with remaining grounded in a specific text? Right? So thinking about the need for apologetics in the moment, but then being rooted in a particular text? How do we balance that?

Michael Keller
Same I talked last one here, you first.

Sam Allberry
Again, this is this is why I love expository preaching because the text is setting the parameters of the content of the sermon. So I don’t have to spend Monday through Saturday thinking, I wonder what I should talk about this Sunday, the passage is telling me so I’m trying to I’m trying to be constrained by the passage. That’s that’s not an absolute thing. Sometimes you want to pull in things from outside wall, if there’s something urgent going on in the world around you. But generally, I’m thinking, Okay, how does this passage and this passage is message and burden come into interaction with the culture of the people I’m speaking to, again, is there a particular cultural narrative this will touch upon or expose or critique or whatever it might be? And that takes some thinking. Christopher Walken has done a really great job with his his book of giving us a sort of a roadmap for a lot of parts of the Bible and how that can work. But again, it’s thinking through that the people in my context, hopefully I know them well enough to I know, broadly speaking, what they’re, what they’re living for, what they’re fearful of. And what what they’re kind of trusting into getting through the day, and the passage will will have something to say about that. It always does in in one way or another. So I think that for me is one of the is one of the key things just letting the text itself shapes. Shape Yeah, limit what I’m going to be talking about.

Michael Keller
Yeah, I think we’ve already talked extensively about how to route it in the text and make sure we were faithful the text and get down to like the actual, was the text actually trying to say I think that’s the way to Do cultural apologetics as well. And the balance that is you have to also be your students of the text to also be students of culture. And to be a student of the culture, you have to be curious of culture, you have to have a posture where you’re, you’re like a scientist, you want to figure it out, you want to the ingredients you want to know like the makeup and what, what moves people. And this is where story and imagination and that is helpful as a way to try to unlock the culture. And so I think one of the things I’m always doing is I’m always trying to read or talk to people or kind of understand culture. So neighbor in his book, you know, crisis and culture, which is actually an old, it’s an older, more dated book has these different postures that you can have towards culture, you can have Christ against culture, you can have Christ over and Christ IN CHRIST transforming and I think his point in that book was to try to more say that these are all postures you find Christ doing and so they’re all valid to some degree, I think you get in trouble when your posture is only Christ against or only one or the other. So that’s the way that we meet culture, but then we also needed to be seeing what culture is doing. And so I think there’s some there’s some great cultural commentaries out there by Charles Taylor and, and Bella and Chris Watkins is in with his work and James K. Smith has, you know, you are what you love. And he’s, he’s the people who have been doing some great work of finding out the cultural narratives of, there’s a freedom narrative of if you’re just, you’re just free, then he’ll be you know, you’ll be okay. There’s a happiness narrative narrative. Do what makes you happy, there’s a progress narrative, you know, all the world is moving towards progress and, and justice, but then there’s a moral narrative of to whatever you want. And then you said, these are all inconsistent, they don’t really quite work. Right. How do you how do you have a relativist? Like, just do whatever you want, just don’t harm people. But by the way, if you don’t do it, what I say is justice that I’m going to cancel you, it just makes no sense. Or how do you have meaning and purpose when you’ve you’ve evolved out of meaninglessness, but you when you die, you go to meaninglessness, but then how do you have meaning in between? I mean, these are just sort of stuff I’m always stewing about, I think the pastor should as well because your people are. And I think that that lens, then you’ll find when you’re attacked, you come across a text, and it’ll all be talking about something or Jesus will be saying something it you’ll get the insight of how this actually meets the cultural narrative of the time that your people are actually working through and you’re swimming in. And I think that’s actually one of the ways to do contextualization. Well, but it also is how you do call for apologetics. apologetics? Well, as well.

Jim Davis
Well, Michael, I really appreciate it. Sam, both of you. I got one tangential question here to preaching Michael. I’ll get I’ll give it to you. In recent months, really, we’ve had this explosion of AI chat GPT. I mean, I’m, I’m personally making like it’s planning our recipes at home. We’re doing study questions from it from sermons, it’s writing emails, I mean, it’s unbelievable how much how many more applications we’re finding for it daily. And a burning question around preachers, um, around is how is this going to affect preaching? How should it how shouldn’t it? And of course, no one knows the full, you know, can see down the toilet time, five years, but I’m curious initial thoughts as this enters our world here.

Michael Keller
Now, it’s a it’s a great question. And I’ve been dabbling with it. I have, I’ve seen friends that and I like Michael Graham, and I go back and forth talking a lot about AI because it’s, you know, my, again, my PhD in computational linguistics was actually working with earlier modules of this sort of learn. You know, these language modules that computer teaching computers, how to, how to use them and giving them digital values. I think it could be really, really good as far as another way to do data mining. I think I saw an article about a rabbi who preached a chat GPT sermon, like he just asked it, I saw that yeah, and everybody loved it. And I and maybe the cynic in me goes Magus that person wasn’t a very good preacher. Because at the end of the day, see the question is what’s the goal preaching if it’s just a content delivery then chat GPT is gonna be fine. But the goal of the preacher is to is to take the biblical truths and to and to deliver it through the Holy Spirit to the individual so their hearts are flamed. Adam right now I don’t see chat GPT able to do that now maybe chatty UBT will get so good that it can make a writing that is so moving my imagination illuminating right Edwards says that you have the spiritual ideals and heavenly truths and you have the earthly experiences and our job is to connect the two. If Chachi Beatty can do that, then that’s wonderful. I don’t, I don’t see the current iteration being able to because it can its content delivery. And I’ve definitely used it as an interactive partner. And one more dialogical person as you can tell from this pot, this podcast. So what I’ll do is I can ask chat, GBT, like hey, what do you think about this? And, you know, give them kind of banal answers or examples. But out of those, I ended up remembering something or thinking about something, and then that actually helps me in my, whether I’m writing an article or a sermon or something like that. So I’ve used in that, in that sense, I think it could be helpful in that way. And I think that summarizing big piece of data, I think, asking it to create outlines and of sermons that were part of the Bible. I think there’s a lot of great uses that are coming. I don’t think we should have that necessarily. antagonistic posture thing. So when people are like, is you feel worried that your jobs gonna be replaced? Not at the moment, I just don’t I just don’t think that enter sitting with somebody, my friend who who went through some tragedy recently, there’s a ministry of presence of just sitting with the person and that’s, I don’t know, no computer can do that. People are trying to, I saw another article, people getting infatuated with their church EBT as an emotional crutch. But then there’s also studies that show those people are also more prone to depression and in issues because I think at some level, you know, you’re talking to a computer or another person. Yeah.

Jim Davis
Yeah. Well, it is a new world that we’re walking into my brother’s an ER doctor, and he’s Chief of Staff at his hospital. And we’ve been talking about this and I, I told him, I think his job is going to go before mine does. I agree. I think there’s something about there’s so much more than just preaching but even in the preaching, coming from a human being who understands what people are going through and can apply it, as you said earlier to specific people, and inspired by the Holy Spirit’s, which Chet GPT just never will be as competent as it may become. So I appreciate that man. We have gone over as you would expect for preachers talking about preaching to do. I just so appreciate both of you and your ministries and your time. And I also want to say if tell our audience, make sure you stay with us next week because we will be talking with Robert Cunningham, senior pastor at Tates Creek Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Kentucky, and host of every square inch podcast about pastoring through the waves of culture. Until then, blessings.