I’m in London as I write this. Tomorrow I meet with about 15 church planting pastors here in the UK. They are a great bunch of men. All of them are making tremendous sacrifice to minister in this Post-Modern, Post-Empire, Post-Everything city. I am going to facilitate a training module on preaching Christ-centered, grace saturated sermons in our post-Christian world. It is one piece of our half-day meeting (we pray together; we do small group peer coaching and problem solving together; we pray more; we laugh and cry; we tell stories of what God’s doing). It’s great. I wish you could have a community like this one. I suspect you’d last longer if you did. One day I will tell you about the Stout Monk’s Society I’m in, but I digress.

I attended two different churches today. Both sang the songs we sing in the USA. (one better than the other but again I digress). I listen to and evaluate about 25 sermons each year and write reviews for church planter wanna-bees. I also have coached a number of pastors in preaching. Today’s “two-sermon Sunday” caught my attention. Both were different in delivery and content. Both taught from the Bible. Both loved Jesus and are obviously loved by Him, so please don’t misunderstand what I am about to say. I am not criticizing any of my dear brothers, either here or in the USA. And trust me, I am a better coach than practitioner. (and I really wish after listening to Steve for over 25 years, I were better).

Brothers, may I humbly remind us of two things: one, we are strangers in a strange land and preaching Christ and his grace is for both believer and non-believer. Be careful you are not simply talking “Christianese” to Christians. But secondly, it’s the gospel of grace. It really is all about Jesus Christ and the radical nature of his love and grace. The way you get in to a relationship with Jesus is by grace through faith and repentance and the way you live in grace is through ongoing faith and repentance, not by the rules. Jesus didn’t die so he could give your congregation an easier list of rules to live by. He died to set them free.

I want to tell you that I thought Zach’s blog, Heroes and Heretics, was so real and honest. Thanks Zach. I think that’s a great example of what our freedom allows us to enjoy. And when we preach with that kind of remarkable authenticity, our watching world of non-believers may just sit up and listen. When Jesus is lifted up as the only solution for our plight, lives, communities and cities will be transformed. God’s glory and our good!

The following is from an old British pastor from the mid 1800’s, named C H McIntosh.
“A man may be called to preach the gospel in the same place for years, and he may, at times, feel burdened by the thought of having to address the same audience, on the same theme, week after week, month after month, year after year. He may feel at times at a loss for something new, something fresh, some variety. It will greatly help such to remember that the one grand theme of the preacher is Christ. The power to handle that theme is the Holy Ghost; and the one to whom that theme is to be unfolded is the poor lost sinner. Furthermore, it is well for the preacher to bear in mind, on every fresh occasion to rising to preach, that those to whom he preaches are really ignorant of the gospel, and hence he should preach as though it were the very first time his audience had ever heard the message, and the first time he had ever delivered it. To preach the gospel is really to unfold the heart of God, the person and work of Christ; and all this by the present energy of the Holy Ghost, from the exhaust-less treasury of holy Scripture”.

Of course, it might also help if you had a deep voice that sounded like God… but once again, I digress.

Tom Wood has been a pastor for 25 years. He has planted and pastored two churches and has served as a church planting trainer and coach for the Presbyterian Church in America. He is currently the president of Church Multiplication Ministries, in Atlanta. His mission is starting, strengthening and multiplying grace centered churches and church planting networks, through coaching and consults with church planting pastors, leaders and emerging leaders.

In need of encouragement? Subscribe to Tom’s weekly dose of grace at GracedAgain.com.

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