Dr. Allen: It is a joy to host, in the Spurgeon Room today, Dr. Johnny Hunt and Dr. Mark Hoover. They are friends of mine and friends of Midwestern Seminary, and they are two men who know much about pastoral ministry. Dr. Hunt pastors the First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Ga. He is one who is known throughout the Southern Baptist Convention, and beyond, for his leadership within the church and his leadership within the denomination. Mark Hoover serves as senior pastor of NewSpring Church in the Wichita area. I’ve gotten to know him recently as I have been president of Midwestern Seminary.

It is a joy to have the two of you on campus today. These are two men who love the local church. Anyone who knows much of anything about Midwestern Seminary or my heart knows we are giving ourselves to serving the local church. That is what a seminary is to be about. We find kindred spirits in the room today and a conversation worth having.

Particularly today, I want to talk about tenure in pastoral ministry. Each one of you have been at your churches about 28 years, serving as pastor, senior pastor, and perhaps titles or iterations of the job. You have basically been leading the same congregation—though it has grown tremendously—in the same local church for 28 years. You are two men who know much about tenure in the local church. Thank you for joining me today for the conversation.

Dr. Hunt: Good to be here.

Dr. Hoover: Thank you, Dr. Allen. It is good to be here.

Dr. Allen: I want to keep this relatively casual and practical. I am not looking for a theory of tenure, but I would like to hear more testimonially, how this has happened. What has the Lord done in your life? What has kept you fresh there and in love with your church? It is so very clear when I talk to you that you men love your church. I want to ask each of you to share a two or three minute autobiography of the Lord’s call, and how that calling to your church has remained fresh and intact. Dr. Hunt, let me start with you.

Dr. Hunt: Thank you, Dr. Allen. You started at the right place, and that is with the call. I believe the call is the commencement to the staying power. When you have what you really believe is a divine, supernatural intervention in your life for God to place you somewhere, you are reluctant to leave where he places you. Normally, when people go through difficult times in their life, they find themselves working backwards to say, “I doubted coming here in the first place, and now I am even more doubtful this is where I am supposed to be.” But if you solidify in your heart, in going there, that you had nothing to do with it and you can see the apparent hand of God and the move of the Spirit of God in taking you there—and it is not even necessarily somewhere you would have chosen for yourself, or it would have been descriptive of what you would like to lead–but you have this overarching, deep conviction that you are there for one reason: God placed you there. I feel like Jesus will be pleased in that he finds me faithful as a steward to what he has for me. That trumps everything else. Then, when the storms do come, you stay in the boat because you are going to the other side; you don’t know what you are going to encounter. You are aware that Christ is in the boat with you; he started the journey with you; and he is leading. It literally has been the staying power.

Dr. Allen: So, 28 years at one church. Roughly speaking, what was the size of the church then and the size of the church now? How have those dynamics changed over nearly three decades?

Dr. Hunt: We were averaging around 200 people, and the church was in trouble. They had dismissed their pastor and their minister of music. I would say to every young pastor listening, try to find the heart and will of God, and his voice in all of this instead of what it looks like, because it may not look anything like where you would think you would serve. The Lord led us there then, and now 28 years later—which, I believe it is impossible to build whatever we would consider a great work without longevity—now, on an average Sunday with our four campuses, we average about 6,800 attenders.

Dr. Allen: That is incredible. Dr. Hoover–looking to Wichita–share your story. You have been there for 28 years. Tell us about that. How did the Lord draw you there, and what have you experienced in broad terms in keeping that sense of calling fresh?

Dr. Hoover: It is still startling to hear the number of years—28 years. I was 28 when I went there, so this is an interesting year for me. Half of my life has been spent in my church. I am from the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and I remember still going to chapel one day with my then girlfriend–my wife I’ve been married to since 1977. Before we got married, we were going to chapel one day, and I said, “I will go anywhere God sends me except Kansas,” and I really meant it. It was not that I was hooraying Kansas or anything, it was just that I felt like I didn’t connect with Midwesterners. I knew kids from the Midwest, so I thought, “Well, I’m sure God is not going to take me out of Texas.” But this church would not leave me alone, so I wound up coming here in 1985. Just like what Johnny said a moment ago, it might not be our first choice, but it is God’s choice, and it is the right choice. Now, I cannot imagine being anywhere else. It has been a love affair for my wife and I for all of these years to be in Wichita at our church and to watch it grow. You say it is the same church, but at the same time, in 28 years a church goes through so many transitions, in some ways it feels like 10 different churches. Yet, it is the same church. I cannot imagine being anywhere else.

Dr. Allen: I would love to hear any reflections on the different phases of those nearly three decades. As I talk to pastors who have been in the same church for many years, they will speak of sweeter seasons or phases, challenging phases–maybe because of the different growth dynamics of the church–where you hit certain thresholds of people, and it becomes more challenging to lead and manage. I would love to hear your hearts on the different phases of that ministry—what would seem to be the sweeter, easier phases, if I can use that word, and what different thresholds appeared more challenging. Dr. Hunt, you go first.

Dr. Hunt: They say you teach what you know, and you reproduce what you are. It is easy to teach and talk about what it is going to take, as Jesus said, “To sit down and count the cost before you go to war or build a tower.” We did a relocation process, and we built a building in 1991. I thought I would never need to commit the church to raise so much money again, only to see 15 us go 10 times beyond that number 15 years later. There have been growth times, and there have been growth times in my life.

As I seek to listen to Christ and to oversee and lead this congregation, it is a frightening thing to think that sometimes the only thing they may not embrace in the will of God is what I have been fearful to lead them to embrace. There are people ready to go.

There came a stage in our life where there was a transition, and they allowed it to become a pastor-led church. I did not demand that. I became a respected feature of the ministry that, by the grace of God—and I don’t know a magical line we crossed—instead of the guys coming and speaking to me about what we ought to do, there was a change where they would say, “We know, as our leader, you have decisions to make, and we are committing days to pray and fast as you make the decision to lead us.” You cannot demand that. That is something that has to be granted, given, and it has to be earned. I am not sure exactly how. I wrote some leadership lessons on the stewardship of influence, and I do know this, if God gives me influence, it is a platform that he gives me to help others succeed. It is not about me. If I can display that it is not about what I hope to get through this, but it is only through joining with the body of Christ to distribute that gift for the profit of all, what a marvelous difference it makes.

Mark made a good statement when he said it seems like he has really pastored 10 different churches but the same one. There are transitions where staff grows. This may encourage a young pastor or staff member. There was a great transition—I am a pastor at my core being—there was a day that I did all of my hospital visiting. I did not have staff. I led the youth ministry, and my wife worked with the children’s choir. She would just listen to music and then teach them. We built the nursery because we were the only ones with children. We have been through those phases. It was a difficult day when I had to hire a hospital pastor because the church was so large and hospitals were so spread out. I still want to be there. I had a young pastor with me recently, and a text message went out to my deacons and to the staff that someone had been in a serious accident. I found myself saying, even though I had a pastor with me, “Hey, guys, stand down, I want to take this.” I looked over at the pastor with me and I said, “I am still a pastor.” He said, “Say what?” And I said, “I am going to do this, not because I have to. This is who I am.” I have never changed in that sense. I still have the heart to do things.

Here is what I hope in my heart—there are some things that I do not have to do as much of as I used to, but I pray I will never get to the place that I am not willing to do those things, but that I desire to do them. Dr. Allen, when we came on your property, you said, “I wanted to be on the campus.” That is how I feel. I really want to be with the people. I love the people I lead. I think that if I love Jesus, I will love the people. “Simon, do you love me?” Then Jesus pushed it away from himself and said, “Feed my sheep.” I think if I get to the point where I am not feeding and caring for the sheep, it has more to do with my relationship with my Savior. I love ministry. It is large, but the larger it grows, the smaller we must become.

Dr. Allen: That is good. Dr. Hoover, speak to the different phases at NewSpring.

Dr. Hoover: One of the best aspects of longevity is that your church lets you grow up. I have grown so much in the 28 years, and they have given me the elasticity to grow as a leader and as a Christian. I really like that part of it.

We were in an eight-year relocation process where we moved 12 miles, bought land, and built. I always joke and say it was impossible for seven years and 51 weeks. That is absolutely true. That was a great season of time for us to grow our faith.

In 2004, we began a pretty serious transition. I know we use these words a lot, and they mean different things to different people, but I would say we really went from being an internally focused church to an externally focused church. We went through a difficult period of four years as we wrestled through the various transitions of that, but coming out of it we have experienced explosive growth the last few years. Most of our growth has come from new believers. That has just been a great season for me. Looking back on these 28 years, they have all been wonderful. Every time I get to be with the people or get to step before the people and communicate God’s message, it is all wonderful, but there have been special seasons, and those are a couple of them.

Dr. Allen: As I was looking at the statistics, many churches turn over a new pastor every two, three, or four years. A pastor leaves, and they are looking for a new pastor. Some of the reason behind that is that certain guys just run out of stuff to preach. They become stale, and they are preaching old sermons. If they run through their “stuff,” they look for a new post to repackage their previously packaged sermons.

You preached through your “stuff”; you have been there a long time; your people know you two men. That requires a certain freshness and returning to God’s Word. I would love to hear you two speak to how your preaching ministry over the years keeps you fresh, and at the same time how you know you must be fresh and encounter God’s Word daily and weekly in ways that impact you. Before I would ask you to respond, I know the two of you are in your churches a lot. Both of you preach there. You are there 45–48 Sundays per year preaching. So, you are not like many individuals who pastor large churches, and they are out every other week so to speak. You guys are there laboring in it. I would love to hear you speak to how the ministry of the Word has channeled and paralleled your tenure in the local church, Dr. Hunt.

Dr. Hunt: When you stay there long enough, you are able to behold what you have grown. We give God the glory, but you begin to see if the ministry has worked. Have we produced genuine disciples? Again, we want to be so careful to give God the glory, but I told our people one time, “Pound for pound, I would put y’all against any people.” The men appreciated that. The women said, “Can you come up with a word better than ‘pound’?” We are working on that.

One of the things about staying and loving your people is that you really get to know them better. You begin to listen to them. They say, “If you listen to your people, they will tell you what is important.” I began hearing more and more of my people in the last couple of years say, “I really love God, but I feel like I am in a dry season.” I heard that enough that I began to research and write in that area, so I came back and wrote six biblical messages on restoring spiritual vitality. Now all of the research out there is saying that our people have so many stops in their lives where they are regressing and stopping. I want to address that and help our people see that we can continue this process, and it really is a day-by-day growing with the Lord, surrendering, periods of brokenness and embracing more—growing from glory to glory, just as much as sin leads from lawlessness to lawlessness. Sin is never satisfied with the amount of us it possesses; it always wants more, and it takes more. I think it is the same thing on the opposite end of the spectrum with Christ.

With that in mind, I really want to help my people. I want to help them realize our mandate to the nations and to this nation—to making Christ known to their neighbors and the nations. It is just so much to do. Sometimes I will dive in and do a two-year study through the book of Acts and change it up every now and then so I do not bore them. Then, I will be in the season like I introduced today, where God is continuing to change our heart. Our hearts are evil, and in the humanness of our lives we will struggle with them. I want them to understand that we are all struggling, and there is no temptation but such is common to all. To me, that would mean if I am struggling with it, there is another million. So, all I’ve got to do is preach out of my own struggles, and they are out there struggling with me. Almost every week someone picks up on a statement and says, “Thanks for sharing that. I am struggling too and it helped me to realize that you are a sojourner with me in this thing.”

I like to remind myself that the greatest call in my life was not to be a pastor and it was not to pastor Woodstock. It was to be a Christian. We were talking about Pilgrim’s Progress. I have read Pilgrim’s Progress in Old English, new English. I’ve read the children’s version, and I even have the children’s video series. Some may say, “What are you doing?” When I became a Christian, that was the number two best read book in the world. We have gotten away from it, but it has so helped me because it is so real with the different characters that he encountered on his way to the Celestial City and the things that caused him to regress or be detoured, then get back on the road. I feel at times like I was in the dungeon with him when he was writing that allegory. There is probably not a month that goes by that I do not use one of the illustrations out of that book in my sermon. Life is real and as long as we keep it real with the people, it helps.

One other thing I will say about preaching—if you preach and God helps you to communicate, and you will be honest with the text and your life, you will connect with your people, and they will desire to connect with you. When you are off the platform, if you are not there to connect, I think it does something that is going to keep you from being as effective as you can be. I really like to connect with the people, find out what is going on in their life, and hear from them and their journey. If you spend enough time with them, just like I do with pastors, you learn which subjects are the hottest on their hearts to speak to.

Dr. Allen: Thank you. Dr. Hoover, speak to the ministry of the Word and enabling a protracted tenure.

Dr. Hoover: Going back to what you were talking about earlier, about ministers who preach themselves out in a short period of time—I never know what to do with that because to me, the whole process of preaching is addictive. Leadership is what I must do; preaching is what I get to do. It is like the cherry on the sundae. I do not just mean stepping before people; I love the whole process. For me, I just hope I live long enough to preach all of the things I have in the pipeline.

It is true, the Bible never changes. David kills Goliath every time, but there are all kinds of lessons and ways of presenting it. I love the idea of trying to find creative ways to come in through new avenues and to sequence the thoughts in different ways in order to reach the audience. At NewSpring, as I was talking about a few moments ago, so many of the people who walk in our doors have secular backgrounds and do not know the Bible. So, in many cases I am getting to introduce them to Bible characters for the first time.

I was doing a series called The Thing last year on David’s sin, because the Bible says, “The thing that David did displeased the Lord.” We used a monster theme, and I still remember telling the story of how David had Uriah killed. I was walking them through the aspects of the narrative, and I still remember my audience gasping at seeing David hand Uriah’s death message to Uriah. It is so exciting to have the privilege of getting to communicate God’s Truth. It still excites me, and every time I read Scripture it is like something is going to jump off the page. Before I came down here, I was reading Jonah in my private devotions. I have preached through Jonah several times, but I told my wife, “I do not think I have ever preached through Jonah before,” because there are so many wonderful things to communicate to an audience. I think one of the reasons guys get burnt out—I cannot speak to it with specificity, but just guessing—the only reason why I am pumped about preaching the message is because it has done something in my life first. Now I’m excited to communicate to other people what God’s Word has done to me. I think if I ever got to the place where the Scriptures were not impacting me personally, then I might have a hard time communicating it to others.

Dr. Allen: That is good. I have found in my own life, and as I have known and conversed with preachers about the act of preaching, some people really enjoy the proclamation and they thrive in that. Other people really enjoy the study, and they thrive in that. The great preachers usually really enjoy both. The study they enjoy, but then actually the delivery they enjoy. Would that God raise up a generation of preachers that enjoy and thrive in both contexts!

One other question before we wrap up our time together–What advice would you give a guy in his church right now who is reading or listening to this podcast and has been there three, five, or seven years? He is tired, and maybe contemplating leaving, not because the Lord has strongly called him away from where his is, but there are some misgivings in his soul and perhaps he is discouraged. What encouragement would you give him to press on and be faithful unless it is truly the Lord calling them elsewhere?

Dr. Hunt: Unless the Lord is calling them, I think first of all, guys have got to be careful about knowing what encourages them. The bottom line is there are things that discourage us–which take courage out–and there are things that encourage us. We need to do an inventory of that and find out what it is that really encourages us and make sure that we are involved.

You talked about your family a moment ago. I adore my daughters; I love my son-in-laws; I’m absolutely crazy about my grandchildren; and I’m still madly in love with my wife after 43 years. It is one thing to say you are best friends, but I am telling you, when there is an opportunity to spend the day with anyone or have someone travel with you, hands down, I want my wife. So, I really invest. I date my wife every week and try to do special, creative things for her and with her. So find things that really encourage them because a lot of times they are just too focused on the one thing in their life. If the only thing they are focused on is their church and it becomes discouraging, their whole life is discouraging. I feel like I’ve got so many different concentric circles in my life that encourage me, it is hard to get down unless the whole world falls apart. I would encourage them in that way.

They should have some pastor friends in their life. Mark Hoover and I are friends. I really would say, and I mean this with all of my heart, the guys that are listening today may not know Mark—he is new in our Southern Baptist camp, and he is there at NewSpring in Wichita. He is a genius. He really has a creative mind. I have sat under his preaching, and he has a cool way of looking at a text that is a normal text, but bringing you in a backdoor. He is very gospel-centered, and I challenge anyone to find anyone stronger on the gospel and a desire to see people come to Jesus. It is the best of both worlds. I know some creative speakers who say, “Goodbye, have a great week, see you next week.” No, when Mark spreads the table with God’s wonderful gospel delights, he invites them to come and dine and come to Christ. They are seeing a lot of adults—a lot of young men—come to Christ.

When I host Timothy-Barnabas Conferences—here is my favorite story—there are five couples sitting at one table. Little do we know, but one of the couples is sitting there thinking, “This is it; unless God chooses to do something during this time of encouragement and instruction, we are out.” They are sitting there, and as they are getting acquainted—women particularly are extremely vulnerable–they will tell you more than you want to know, and guys keep everything pretty close. The girls are carrying on a conversation about how difficult it is. When the evening is over, this couple that is ready to leave goes back and says, “I am so encouraged. After hearing their problems, we really do not have any problems.” Sometimes, when you do not have camaraderie with friends in the family of God it is easy to become lonely in the ministry.

You have to be intentional with relationships. When you talk to the other brothers—Mark will tell you, we get together and talk church all the time. We will talk about some of the challenges we have and some of the blessings. Then, we will get 30 pastors together, and a lot of times we are all struggling in the same area. It sort of helps to see, “I was just thinking I was weird and that was a deficiency in my life.” Then you begin to think, “I need to leave,” and “Am I even doing the right thing?” So, they can help themselves by relationships with others. God has not called us to be a Lone Ranger. I am an American Indian, so take it from this Tonto. Have friends, show yourself friendly, network with other brothers, and find a whole lot of other things to be encouraged about.

Dr. Allen: Thank you. Dr. Hoover?

Dr. Hoover: I would just reiterate what Johnny said about friends. I was laughing because earlier this year Johnny, his wife, Janet, Mary Alice, and I had a chance to be in Mexico together. Johnny and I were sitting beside the pool preaching sermons to one another. It is one of those things that you think about all of the time. I would just say to a guy who is struggling with thinking about moving on without God directing him to move on—I know this could sound cliché, but I can just tell you—the most difficult moments of my pastorate at NewSpring, when I was most driven to think about bailing, it was right after that that we had an explosive, God-ordained blessing, whether it was growth, revival, or whatever. Again, I know that could sound cliché, like “It is darkest before dawn,” but I really do believe that the greatest seasons in church ministry is had by guys who will stay in there and stay faithful.

There are so many blessings of longevity. We could go on forever. I do not do too many weddings anymore, but I was doing a wedding a couple of years ago, and I was standing before the bride and groom. I looked at the bride and realized, “I think I was the third person to hold her.” I had gone to the hospital right after she was born. Her mom held her, then her dad, then they handed her to me, and I stood before her now marrying her. You are not going to do that if you just go somewhere in three years. I will see people in our office who work for us, and I will think, “I remember when they were three or four-years-old running around.” The first couple I visited 28 years ago, I remember holding a little two-year-old boy on my lap. That two-year-old boy is doing a phenomenal mission work in Guatemala today.

There is something about being in a place a long time, having God develop you, having God develop these people, and knitting your hearts together. Truthfully, you reach a place when you have served a church as long as Johnny and I have, that you do not know where the fabric of you as a person is and the fabric of the church begins; it is woven together. I know this is true for Janet, and it is true for Mary Alice, my wife. It has been a thing that our wives have loved too. Our wives love our churches and our ministries. I would just say, if you are thinking about bailing, unless the Holy Spirit sends angels down to pick you up and carry you away, stay there. Adrian Rogers told me one time, “When you go to a place, be ready to go there and spend the rest of your life and be ready to leave in 15 minutes.” Maybe that is still the right way to look at it.

Dr. Allen: That is good. I grew up at Cottage Hill Baptist Church in Mobile, Ala. Fred Wolfe was my pastor. He was there 25 years, and I just assumed every church was like my church. Kids just make these grand assumptions, and for me I just thought every church was like that. Now, I look back on my childhood and teenage years and see the joy and simplicity and predictability it brought into my life and my family’s life. Having the same pastor through my childhood and adolescent years brought a whole level of stability that so many do not have. I commend the two of you for standing strong. I appreciate your ministries. Dr. Hunt, I have described you to others as being a “powder keg in the pulpit,” and you are. Dr. Hoover, your joy for the church and the gospel is infectious. I appreciate your encouragement to the seminary community here at Midwestern, to me personally, and to the broader ministry that the Lord has entrusted to the two of you. Thank you for being here today.

*Recorded 25 March 2014 in the Spurgeon Room

Dr. Allen: It is a joy to welcome to the Spurgeon Room today Dr. Ronnie Floyd. Dr. Floyd, you are a friend, a colleague, a gospel laborer, and it is a joy to have you here today visiting about the Southern Baptist Convention. Welcome to the Spurgeon Room.

Dr. Floyd: Thank you, Jason. It is great to be with you. I am so excited about all that God is doing at Midwestern, so it is a real privilege to be able to sit down and talk “Southern Baptist” with you and the future of the SBC.

Dr. Allen: Periodically, we have in the Spurgeon Room pastors, theologians, and other leaders. We engage a whole range of topics. Today, it is indeed fun to talk about a topic that is of great interest to you and to me and to many: that is the Southern Baptist Convention. We will be in Baltimore together in just a few weeks. We will be having a presidential election, and your name will be on the ballot. You are being nominated by Al Mohler, our friend and one of my great mentors in life. I want to have a conversation with you about the Southern Baptist Convention and how you perceive things leading up to Baltimore.

Dr. Floyd: Thank you, Jason. First of all, I want to let you know—I think you know this personally, but to let those who are listening to know—I have lived the SBC for years, and I have served in churches. I have served in many of the institutions, agencies, etc., in relationship to where we have been in SBC life. I believe in what we do. Through the course of time, especially in the past year or so, I have had a lot of people from all walks of SBC life—from smaller membership churches to larger membership churches, and entity leaders of the SBC, as well as many state convention leaders—really appeal to me to permit my name to be nominated. When Dr. Mohler called me in February, telling me he felt led of the Lord to do this, we prayed through it and talked about it. I could not be more excited about who is going to place my name in nomination. If the Lord lets me do this, it would be a joy to serve the churches of our convention and to work with them toward fulfilling the Great Commission in whatever way we can.

Dr. Allen: Amen. You think about the Southern Baptist Convention, which is the largest Protestant denomination in America with some 16 million members in about 46,000 churches, and we meet a couple days a year. We elect a president who typically serves two-year terms. All the way back from 1845 onward, there have been so many historic names. Some household names—especially since 1979 with the intentional election of conservative presidents—beginning with Adrian Rogers and electing heroes of yours and mine like Jerry Vines, Tom Elliff, and so many others.

Now here we are in the year 2014. The presidency of the SBC has formal responsibilities, of course, and appointive powers within the committees, making it the lynchpin office in the convention. Of course, there is no question about where you are and what you believe. Everyone knows you are a conservative and an inerrantist. You have been that your whole public ministry, and you have so led and served that way. Beyond that formal appointive power, the feature aspect of the presidency is the power of influence: to rally Southern Baptists, to speak to Southern Baptists, and to speak for Southern Baptists. As you begin to think about the presidency and what that would mean to you if the Lord would have you serve, I immediately contrast that with Fred Luter, a friend of ours as well, who has so effectively led, preached, and served, and been a bleeding heart in a sweet season for Southern Baptists.

We move toward Baltimore with this next stage and transition with your name in nomination. Talk specifically about the presidency. If the Lord has you elected, how would you like to encourage Southern Baptists? What is in your heart to convey to Southern Baptists in June of 2014 and over the course of the next 24 months?

Dr. Floyd: I really believe, Dr. Allen, that I want to do my best to go throughout this convention and to give hope toward our future. I am very encouraged about a lot of things today. I know sometimes we hear the dismal reports here and there. I understand those reports. I have been in those meetings, and I hear those reports. Some of that, if not all of that, is accurate. But I believe we need to believe that Jesus is Lord, the gospel is the power unto salvation, the Holy Spirit is our power in sharing that gospel, and we have the greatest message that this world needs to hear. To me, it is a great time of hope and a great time in our future.

When I think about what the needs are in the SBC—which, obviously, many of us have prayed through and talked though—our greatest need is spiritual. When you look at the status of churches, so many churches really are plateaued or declining. Some of that is demographic-related; it is not a matter of total ineffectiveness by any means. Personal evangelism is way off in the SBC life. Somehow, we have got to come again with a strong commitment to win people to Christ personally, which will bring about a greater number of disciples and that entry point, which will be baptism in our Christian faith.

Then, when you think about the health of our churches, many churches are filled with divisions and strife. You see that personified in SBC life, and you see it in our own convention with the fragmentation and segmentation.

Also, you look at our nation. We all know where our nation is. My soul! It is obvious to me that we need a mighty, fresh manifestation of God’s presence in our lives personally, which I would call personal spiritual revival. Our churches need that mighty manifestation of God’s presence through the life of the church—revival, revitalization, whatever you want to call it, refreshing winds of the Spirit. There is no question, Dr. Allen, that the greatest need in American life is a spiritual awakening. We must get to a point and a posture as a convention where the churches say, “What if God could use us as a catalyst to see the next great spiritual awakening in our nation?”

Think about it this way—we have had the great Conservative Resurgence. What a resurgence it was! I was a boy preacher when a lot of that began. I was present in 1979 as a seminary student at Southwestern Seminary. That was my entry point into the formality of the SBC. Just think about this: we have had the great Conservative Resurgence, and we are now in the beginning stages of the great Commission Resurgence. I was so fortunate to lead that strategic group of 21 other people, but that is just the beginning stages. You think of how long it has taken for the Great Commission Resurgence to be realized, and now we are conscious in seeing it sustained. Now, we are seeing that those matters are happening. They are beginning to happen in greater force. To me, what is needed is to energize and empower, spiritually, both of those. It is past time, I think. We need a Great Awakening spiritually.

Dr. Allen: I could not agree more, and I do not think Southern Baptists could agree more. Anyone who thinks we are at optimal pace spiritually needs to have their eyes checked. Along those lines, in recent weeks I have been on a reading project about the Great Awakening, which you just referenced. I have been re-reading biographies of Whitefield and Arnold Dallimore, and one that will soon come out by Thomas Kidd. To see a man who showed up in the 1740s in a town or church to say, “I have come here today to talk to you about your soul;” to see the masses converted; to see a wind of revival swell throughout the colonies; and to see the nation founded in the aftermath of that, on a Christian footing, made me long for revival, evaluate and reevaluate my personal evangelism and the focal point of my gospel preaching. I believe—and I sense among the Southern Baptist Convention—a ground-swell desire for renewal, revival, and an increased focus on the Great Commission. So, I commend you for stating that.

You mention your hope toward the future. I would love for you to unpack the prayer meetings you have held over the past year and what you are sensing there. What is on the heart of those pastors and how that may or may not inform your desire and perceived need for a true spiritual renewal?

Dr. Floyd: Less than a year ago, some pastor friends of ours and we believed this was the time when we needed to come back together to return to the basics, mainly to get together and pray together with pastors and leaders, to seek the Lord about what His future was. So, we had a national gathering of pastors in Dallas/Fort Worth. We had 26 states represented. Less than a couple hundred pastors flew in for that. It was a powerful meeting. It was four hours on Monday night, four hours on Tuesday morning, and it was great. Then, we came back to Atlanta. We left Dallas not knowing if we would ever do another one; and when we came back to Atlanta, we had over 400 people in January and 28 or 29 states represented. Then, just two weeks ago—the week after Easter—Jason, I led one of those for the Arkansas State Convention. We had 304 pastors from the state of Arkansas. What a powerful thing it was to do that in our state. Two nights ago, I was with Jack Graham and his entire full-time staff team and a few spouses, and we had somewhere around 600 people at that gathering. The whole purpose of it was four hours of intense prayer. All of that to say this, I have been with some 1,500 pastors, from all across America, and I believe the reason why this is happening—I believe they know we are able to do this, this, and this, but they also know we are not penetrating the culture. Our best cannot get it done. This is wearing me out. We have got to approach the God of heaven to do something in our generation that literally takes the gospel and ascends it to a level unknown to any of us, all because of the power of God and his ability. So, they are coming with desperation. They want to see God do this. I really believe that the key to this—and I am willing to unpack this if you want—is a fresh, new commitment to what Jonathan Edwards called “extraordinary prayer.” Because to me, that is the key.

Dr. Allen: Amen to that. I hear you saying, if given the opportunity to lead, you are going to champion, from day one, a call to spiritual renewal, to personal revival, to prayer, and to seeking the Lord. You know the old saying, “Necessity is the mother of invention”—I think that is the case. The pastors I know, the students on my campus, the ministers I interact with on a daily basis, they perceive our backs—as believers and gospel ministers—are against the wall culturally. We wake up, and we have a Bible in one hand and in the other we have a call to prayer, with the Word and the Spirit, seeking to be faithful. As I look to our convention, I see that is my desire, that is your desire, and I think, collectively, we agree that is our great urgency.

I want to shift gears for a moment. I was visiting with Tom Elliff on the phone the other day, and he mentioned something by way of analogy as he was talking about his impending transition from the IMB. He said, “Jason, if you go into a restaurant with your family, and you see that the seats at the table are taken, you do not have a place to sit. So, you go to another part of the restaurant or you go to a different restaurant altogether.” The expression Tom gave was to express the need for there to be generational inclusion and intentionally, strategically handing off leadership roles and involving and giving the opportunity to participate to the next generation. Talk about your heart for the next generation, and especially to keep Southern Baptists who are my age and younger at the table, engaged, seeking to be a part of God’s work through the SBC.

Dr. Floyd: I think one of the greatest things in SBC life is to remember that we are a cross-generational convention of churches. We have a disconnect at times—not only with the younger generation but the older generation and the other generations in-between. Somehow, we have to heighten the vision in relation to what we are doing around the world with the gospel and for the Great Commission so that all generations want to climb on board. We have a strong commitment to doing that within our own staff, within our own church, and within our own realm of church planting. We now have the Cross Church School of Ministry that is developing young men and women in the realm of ministry that God is calling them. We have had a long-term commitment.

The SBC must think constantly about that next generation. That does not mean we leave behind the other generations. What that means is that we have got to always think, “How are we going to hand this off?” “How is all of this going to be done?” “What is the vision going to do?” Really, even right now, we must be asking that question and strategizing in relation to it. That is, we have got to be able to have something that is so exciting, creative, powerful, and engaging biblically—for our churches and for the future of the Great Commission—that this generation behind me and the generations behind me want to come on board and say, “Man, this is one of the most exciting things in the world.”

We (the SBC) have 16,000 seminary students right now. We have the largest mission-sending force in American life. We have great representation in Washington D.C., speaking to those cultural and ethical issues for us and with us as Southern Baptists. We have the greatest national relief center, next to only the Red Cross and Salvation Army, in America. There are so many wonderful things we are doing through church planting and our Send North America conferences. Listen, there is not a greater time in the world for all of us to be a part of the Southern Baptist Convention. We need to engage in an annual time of meeting together that is so fresh and so exciting that it literally makes people want to come, and sends people out with a real belief and a real commitment to who we are and mainly, what we do, as Southern Baptists.

Dr. Allen: I was visiting with someone the other day, and they were talking about Midwestern Seminary. They were reflecting very positively on what we are doing, and I said, “I wake up every morning and go to bed every night seeking to honor the Lord in my stewardship. My second desire,” I smiled and said, “perhaps it is an inappropriately close second desire, is to make Southern Baptists proud.” From knowing you and getting to know you, especially in the past year and a half since I have been in Kansas City, I sense that you are a man who desires to honor the Lord, and to a second degree—perhaps to an inappropriate second—a desire to serve, lead, honor, and make proud Southern Baptists, if entrusted with this leadership.

Dr. Floyd: I believe, Jason, that the Lord has permitted me to serve in so many ways in Southern Baptist life. I am so blessed. If there is nothing else that I am ever asked to do or am requested to do, I have been so blessed with serving on the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee for 10 years; chairman of it two of those years. I have served on it numerous times as an officer during that time. I’ve served as president of the Pastors’ Conference. I’ve served on the Guidestone board for eight years. I’ve served by leading the Great Commission Resurgence. I was on the program and restructure subcommittee of seven members who restructured the SBC in the mid-90s.

The Lord has blessed so much and given so many opportunities that I would take all of that and I would try my very best to lead, not just from my perspective, but also by listening to the people. What are the people saying? What is the Spirit of God saying to the church of America? What is the Spirit of God saying to the churches called Southern Baptist?

I do not know totally where everyone is on this issue, but I will say this: I really believe that the Southern Baptist Convention has decided its path. Our path is that we are a Great Commission people. Really, since1845 we have been that. We have gotten in the fog a little bit and lost our way some, sure. We do that at church some; we do that personally some. But I really believe a few years ago we said, “We know what our path is. Now, let’s get back on the path.” Now, the problem is not our path; the problem is our pace, Jason. We have got to accelerate our pace. We cannot accelerate the pace being fragmented, segmented, where everybody is skeptical, critical, and half-way cynical. No, no, no, no, no. We have got to be able to get beyond that.

I want to build a culture and try to lead in a culture of the SBC that is not prone toward what I would call 1 Corinthians 3 tendencies of that kind of activity. Let’s come to high trust; let’s come to a deep belief in the future of who we are, a deeper commitment to doing this. We have got to find a way long-term as well, Jason. As you well know, we have got to make sure that we are going to fund, financially, a long-term future, the work of the Southern Baptist Convention and all relating to that; not what we do, but the fulfillment of the Great Commission. It is all about who we are as Great Commission people and what we can do to see the Great Commission accelerated. I even believe, [we can see it] completed in our generation. It is going to be completed with or without us, but I want to be a part of it. I want us to be a part of it, and I want to do what I can to help us get there.

Dr. Allen: Well said. A wise pastor once told me, “Jason, when you are looking for leadership in your church, do not give leadership roles to people who may become leaders. Give leadership roles to people who are already leading in the context of your church.” You have kindly reminded me, even in the course of this conversation, of the many roles the Lord has used you in the past several decades in the SBC—leading publically and behind the scenes—and what you and your church have done even in the past five or six years through the Corporative Program, by leaps and bounds ratcheting up your generosity to the Southern Baptist Convention, supporting the seminaries, missionaries, and all the rest. You are leading, and I commend you for that.

Our time is passing quickly. Ronnie, I want to give you the last word. Is there anything else you would like to say to me or to our Southern Baptist brothers and sisters who may read or listen to this conversation?

Dr. Floyd: I would say it this way: I really believe that we need to call the churches, pastors, leaders, associations, state conventions, entities of the SBC—we need to call everyone—to a major season, and that season is only going to be defined by the Father alone, a season of extraordinary prayer for the purpose of seeing personal revival, revival in the church, and awakening in America so that the Great Commission can be escalated to its rightful priority in our lives and be accelerated to its completion in our generation. We need to remember what great men have said. There is no doubt about it. It is written all over the awakenings, “There is no great movement of God that ever occurs that is not preceded by extraordinary prayer.”

Somehow, we have got to get so fed up with who we are, realizing our own weakness of what we have and who we are, even with the great things we have been blessed with, to know that now is the time for the world to see what God can do with a people who really want to be his people and who really want to see our own nation and the world won to faith in Jesus Christ and him alone.

Dr. Allen: Amen. May God bring it. May God give his people, Southern Baptists, a revival, renewed urgency in prayer, and a great Great Commission impulse that we have never known before. If it be his will, may He use you to that end and the will of Southern Baptists.

Brother, it has been a joy to have this conversation. Ronnie, I appreciate you, and I look forward to seeing you in Baltimore. God’s blessings on you, your church, and all that you do for Jesus’ sake.

Dr. Floyd: Thank you for the opportunity to converse today.

*Recorded 8 May 2014

Religious liberty is simply an application of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and render unto God that which is God’s,” which is saying there are some things that belong to God that do not belong to the government; they do not belong to Caesar. Read more

Last week Dick and Rich Bott invited me onto their radio program, “The Complete Story,” to elaborate on my recent article, “Seven Questions Every Donor Should Ask.” In that conversation, the Botts and I were able to tease out some of the implications of Christian stewardship, including the role of Midwestern Seminary in serving the church by training pastors and ministers to stand firm on the pressing moral issues of the day. I invite you to listen to our entire conversation here.

Dr. Allen: Dr. Smith, it is a joy to welcome you to the campus of Midwestern Seminary today. We are in the Spurgeon Room today, in the President’s home, the Vivion Home, here on campus. It is a joy to have you here to talk about topics that are of interest to us. Most especially, we want to talk about preaching. For many years, you have taught preaching at Southwestern Seminary, and you serve currently as vice president for Communications and Student Services there as well. You are a person whom I know has given much thought and written much on the topic of preaching. It is fun to have this conversation with you—a conversation that you and I may be having in any setting, as we have on a number of occasions, but to have it in this setting with an audience to listen in and hear what we talk about. It is a joy to have you here in the Spurgeon Room. We are surrounded by some of Spurgeon’s books and Spurgeon’s desk. It is the right time and place to talk about preaching with a man who loves preaching.

I want to draw the conversation specifically to the topic of expository preaching. Now, you and I have talked before about the fact that seemingly everyone is an expositor. I am yet to meet anyone that consciously denied themselves as an expositor. So, begin with how you define expository preaching.

Dr. Smith: It is an elastic term. It is most foundational. It comes from the Latin to “ex out the positive truth.” So, it is to remove a positive truth and give it to someone. One of my favorite definitions of expository preaching is Dr. [Paige] Patterson’s—my boss, the president at Southwestern—which is simply to teach people to read Scripture. I love that because it has another function besides talking. You are actually teaching people their own hermeneutics—teaching them how to interpret a text.

Because exposition is such an elastic term, as I mentioned today in the Hester Lectures [at Midwestern Seminary], we at Southwestern—it is not original of us—have used the term “text-driven preaching.” What we mean by that and the working definition I use in class, is a text-driven sermon is one in which the interpretation and communication of a biblical text that mirrors the substance, structure, and spirit of the text. You are interpreting it, and you are communicating it. When you communicate it, I believe that the actual “how” is not arbitrary. We can talk more about that, but it flies in the face of a lot of what we hear today: “Yes, I believe the Bible. We just need to find another means to communicate it.” Yet, there is so much meaning at the structural level. There is so much meaning at the genre that you cannot have an arbitrary means of communication. That substance, structure and spirit has to mirror what is going on in the text.

Dr. Allen: When you think about expositional preaching—expository preaching—and you have already alluded to this, but define that, especially in contrast with other counterfeits of exposition or other modes or styles of preaching that may rub up against it, but they may not be classical exposition.

Dr. Smith: Today, we talked about three different philosophies of preaching. One is topical preaching, which can be good or bad. You are essentially taking a topic and saying, “Here is what Scripture says about this topic.”

Another one, to coin a phrase, is “text-centered” preaching. The reason I like using the phrase “text-centered” is because I think a lot of what goes under the name of exposition is not really “ex-ing out a positive truth,” but people think it is exposition because they may sound like an expositor stylistically, and they build that sermon around one text. However, it is possible to have one single text, never leave that text, extract all your points from that text, but miss the point of a text. Theoretically, you could preach through a book of the Bible and never get to the point of each individual unit of thought. This is why I do not like the phrase, “verse-by-verse exposition.” I understand what somebody means by that, but the verses, of course, are not in the original languages. Those are important, but they are inventions of later times. We are trying to grasp the meaning and units of thought in the text.

Dr. Allen: Absolutely. To pick up on the phrase “verse-by-verse exposition,” I use that oftentimes in reference to exposition–and I mean that in the good way–but for many people that are doing verse-by-verse exposition, really what they are doing is just a series of topical sermons based upon pre-assigned texts. It just so happens the pre-assigned texts are the ones they are following through in a book of the Bible or a passage of Scripture. But if you are avoiding or not giving due consideration to the canonical context, to the particular book’s context—what is going on before and after—you are undermining your whole argument for expository preaching.

Dr. Smith: That is exactly right. There is another one that I did not mention today, and this is tenuous to talk because it may be misunderstood, but it is perfect for our discussion here. “Theological exposition” is really gaining ground today. What I mean by that is what was taught by William Perkins, probably the most influential Puritan homiletician and was influential perhaps mostly on Jonathan Edwards. He went through Solomon Stoddard down to Edwards.

Yale released two years ago the first volume of Edwards’ sermons that have been translated. It was 19 sermons on one parable. As you read through Edwards’ sermons, it is just incredible. Rarely does he deal with the point of that parable. What he would do, following the Puritan plain style, is extract the text, deal with the text, and—reading these sermons—he would never refer back to the text after the first five minutes. He would extract a doctrine from the text and, the rest of the sermon was an exposition on that doctrine. Why could he do that? He was Jonathan Edwards. He just had this veracious mind that was incredible. However, I do not think it is an imitable practice from someone who wants to, over a period of time, give people a swath of Scripture because we do not have access to his mind and that giftedness. There is, I think, a growing number of people who are extracting doctrines from a text and preaching that doctrine, but sitting under that for 20 years I think would keep people from seeing the overarching canonical flow of the grand narrative of Scripture because they have been taught doctrines, not texts.

Dr. Allen: Absolutely. There is a certain appeal to that, especially if you are a theologically-minded person. There are times when we need to camp out on a particular doctrine and hammer it out and explain and defend it, especially in this age when we pastor churches and preach to parishioners who very often are ill-equipped and ill-informed theologically. At the same time, though, if you do that and make it a mode of preaching, you are certainly strained for exposition, and you may be informing your folks of doctrine, but you are not teaching them how to study the Bible. You are not teaching them how to read the Bible, and you are not bringing that full scriptural diet to bear.

Dr. Smith: That is a great way of saying it. I love theology. I love doctrine. But that approach has a tendency to reduce individual texts of Scripture to propositions in which, actually, these are fully orbed pieces of literature. I am picking on the Puritans. The Puritans are amazing, but this is why they were so forcibly allegorical in their approaches to wisdom literature, because you had to find a way to reduce these propositions. Well, wisdom literature is incredible. Proverbs are incredible; Psalms are incredible. In a purely text-driven approach, you can allow the genre to breathe. Let it be itself. Let the text do what it was intended to do. Appreciate the literature of it and the communication of it.

Dr. Allen: Very good. When we are thinking about exposition, oftentimes in the poplar mind, there is this strong correlation between something being thought of as being expository and there being a tightly defined, and often alliterative, outline. So, a ton of time and energy goes into having this spit-shined outline. I know what you are going to say to this because we have talked about some of these things in different settings, but I think it is helpful to get it down here. Talk about the role of the outline and how much energy a preacher should expend on the outline, and how that is or is not reflective of an expository sermon.

Dr. Smith: When I first began to preach, the outline defined the sermon. The question was not, “Do you have a text?” The question was, “Do you have an outline?” In the circles that I ran in, that was the most important thing. What we are suggesting by text-driven sermons is that I decide what type of outline this sermon is going to have because every sermon will have an outline, but I make that decision upon what is going on in the text. There is no one template by which you preach a parable. Take Matthew 13:52. It is a one-sentence parable. That is it. But take Luke 16, The Rich Man and Lazarus, or Luke 15, The Prodigal Son. These are huge, fully-orbed settings with characters, scenes, and all of these types of things.

So, the outline that I choose is going to simply be buoyant. It is going to come up from the text. If I am preaching a parable and it has three major scenes and Jesus teaches something at the end, that is what I do. If it is an Old Testament narrative that has four major movements, I just preach those movements. If it is out of the Apocalyptic literature, where there is just a description of something coming in, then that is my sermon. It is just incredibly liberating. The temptation is to not think of exposition as a philosophy but to think of it as a style. If it is just a style, then I sound like the style of an expositor. I think sometimes we attempt to sound like the style of an expositor only to neglect what the text is really saying.

Dr. Allen: That is very well said. Oftentimes, when a person is so inclined to have an outline and spend so much energy seeking to force or inflict an outline or certain structure on a passage, it actually is counterproductive. Not only may you be undermining the revealing of the passage and the meaning of the passage, but oftentimes outlines become very generic. If you are always trying to get at a proclamation, documentation, and exhortation or the person, the plan, the plea, them these outlines are sounding very generic. It is really not even helping to illumine the text.

We are in the Spurgeon Room and as I sit here I am mindful of a picture to my right of Stephen Olford, who is one of my heroes in preaching. He and Mrs. Heather, who recently passed away as well, were very kind to me and my wife when we were engaged and newlyweds. We had occasion to visit with them several times in Memphis. He was just an incredible preacher. He is one of my favorite preachers who has ever lived. But if I would offer one slight word of criticism—I want to put an asterisks by the word “criticism” because who am I to criticize him?– he was so dependent upon that sermon outline. The points of the outline would always alliterate, the sub-points would alliterate, and he would always emphatically say, “You should never force alliteration on a passage to get the outline.” He believed that, and I believe that he believed that. But there is no way you get all of this alliteration all the time without somewhere rounding an edge.

It took me a while as a preacher to work through that and to reassess the role of the outline. I have an article up on my website about the five ways my preaching has changed. One of the leading ways it has changed over the years is a whole reassessing and appropriating of the sermon outline.

Dr. Smith: Maybe one positive spin to put on it—you think of our Southern Baptist heritage, and there was a time when the young up-and-coming guys were looking for models of preaching and wherever they were not getting it, they were getting it in a Stephen Olford. I think of it like a 12-year-old who is learning a golf swing. He learns the fundamentals of that; he imitates; he only learns through imitation; but ultimately, he has to tweak it to fit what is most effective. When you learn from a master like that, there has to be a point where you keep the spirit of that and deviate from the style and start doing what is faithful to the text, even if it may break down the style that was once so attractive.

Dr. Allen: That is good. That is a very insightful point to make. I tell our students here, listen to a lot of good preachers. If you listen to one preacher, you will find yourself sounding a lot like that preacher. So if you only listen to John MacArthur, you are going to be preaching a whole lot of sermons with a lot of content that he can do exceptionally well, but you may not do so well. If you only listen to Alistair Begg, you are going to be developing a Scottish accent before you know it. If you listen to two preachers, you will likely be very conflicted because you are not going to know who you are. Who do you preach like? But if you listen to seven or eight, that will probably help round you out and inform you.

To this day, I am a seminary president, you are an executive cabinet member at Southwestern Seminary, you teach preaching, and I teach preaching, I have never outgrown and will never outgrow the joy and benefit of listening to great preaching. My wife will come down in the morning or late at night, and I will be getting dressed or shaving or sorting files and there will be sermons playing. Our kids know voices, and they can walk through my office and they will hear W.A. Criswell’s voice, Adrian Rogers’ voice, John MacArthur’s voice, John Piper’s voice, and so many others playing.

In talking about expository preaching, we have talked about the “what.” I want to shift gears and ask you the “why.” If you were to give a very quick defense or apologetic of exposition, what would it be? Why expository preaching?

Dr. Smith: I would turn to Colossians 15a: “Christ is the image—the eikon, the exact representation—of the Father. He is the image of the invisible God.” It is repeated in 2 Corinthians 4 as the image of the invisible. Christ exactly represented what the Father has to say; and in a perfect way, the Scripture represents what Christ has to say, all to get to the people. There is an exact representation of the Father in the Son and an exact representation of the Son in the Word. I have no other ambition than to represent—in the same way to God’s people–what God has said perfectly in his word.

Dr. Allen: Very well said. It is the whole notion of exposing God’s people to that truth and to God’s Son as you just said. I think this case—of course I may be partial—is a slam dunk case, especially the philosophical commitment to biblical exposition. The way that fleshes itself out may vary from location to location, and whether it is John MacArthur with a more deliberate verse-by-verse, or more of a Mark Dever style of exposition that is more paragraph-by-paragraph of larger sections. I can be very happy and live with both of those. There is a fundamental commitment to bringing God’s word to bear.

Dr. Smith: What a theology of preaching does for me–that I love–is it protects me from having to defend exposition from a Scripture. I had a student say to me, “What verse in the Bible tells us we have to do exposition?” That is a great question. I do not think there is one. I am not getting my responsibility to do exposition from one verse. I am getting it from answering this question: “Is it the pastor’s responsibility to teach people Scripture based upon how God has revealed himself?” If the answer is yes, then I can figure out how. For me, text-driven preaching is the most faithful way to do what God has called me to do. If there is another way, I would do that. It is just a method to be obedient to that call.

Dr. Allen: Yes. One of the beauties of exposition is, when rightly done, it leads people back to God’s Word. Everything about this should not only be bringing God’s Word to bear, but teaching people by how you handle the text, how you respect the text, how you explain the text, and how you apply the text. All of that is bringing God’s people into engagement with that passage.

I had a conversation a good while back with a gentleman who was complaining about expository preaching. He said to me, “I don’t understand all of this emphasis on expository preaching, and I do not believe in expository preaching.” I said, “Why not?” He said, “I do not like where it leads.” I said, “You do not like where expository preaching leads?” He said, “No, I do not.” I said, “Where does it lead?” He said, “Expository preaching seems to lead to Reformed Theology, so I do not believe in expository preaching.” I laughed out loud. I said, “The point of exposition is that it should lead wherever it leads. Whether it is some theological system you don’t like, dispensationalism or whatever the “ism” is that you do not like, that is another conversation. But do not throw out the baby with the bath water because you do not like that in some people’s exposition it leads them to some system of theology. That is a flawed approach. The whole point is, if rightly done and well done, it is leading people back to Christ, back to the text, back to God’s revelation.

I have one other question as we are thinking of exposition. We have talked about the “what” and the “why.” Just briefly mention the “how.” We cannot do a preaching lab here in the few moments we have left, but give some broad suggestions, broad thematic words of encouragement, that you would say to people to help be an expositor.

Dr. Smith: If I had to isolate one thing, when I was a pastor and began to think more intentionally about preaching and starting to teach it, my one thought in going to the text was, “What is the idea in this text?” I have to extract the big idea. What is the driving idea? Then I would try to find the structure that supported that idea, and I became liberated in a lot of ways when I inverted that process.

The first question for me is, “What is the structure?” When the structure becomes buoyant, when it comes up to the surface, now I can see what the idea is. The structure supports the idea. What I am trying to do is teach people what God’s Word is saying in a section of Scripture, and I have a secondary goal to teach them how the structure of the text supports that. By doing that, I am protecting my people from false doctrine they are going to hear because they understand how Scripture gets at a certain idea. When I look at the “how,” that has probably been the one thing that has helped me the most in my preaching.

The first thing I do when I start to preach is take the text and just read it, and read it, and read it until the structure becomes clear. Once the structure becomes clear and comes up to the surface, then so much of the rest of the sermon preparation process is natural. It comes out of that semantic structure that is in the text.

Dr. Allen: That is good. I would emphatically agree with what you are saying. For me, every sermon begins with an open New American Standard Bible and a legal pad. I deal with the original languages; I deal with commentaries–popular and critical–I cross-reference. I do a whole lot of things, but I do not know if there is anything more fruitful—not only meaning the final product, but in my own heart and soul—than a legal pad, fountain pen, and open Bible, thinking, thinking, thinking, and reading, reading, reading, drawing conclusions and asking questions. All of those things that seem very elementary, frankly, but that is how that sermon congeals itself in one’s heart. Oftentimes observing that and reading that passage again, and again, and again, and again, the meaning, structure, and some of those things surface themselves and rise out.

Dr. Smith: You have a kindred spirit in C.S. Lewis. I am reading Alister McGrath’s biography on him now. He refused a typewriter because he felt like he was student and professor of English literature, and just the noise of the typewriter interrupted the flow of how prose felt when he was writing it and saying it. I have found that before I preach a sermon, I take out a blank sheet of paper. Often it is the backside of printer paper we are no longer using, and I write out my sermon longhand. I prepare a manuscript with a computer using all of the software that I use and all of that, but nothing does more to get into my mind so I can preach without depending on notes than just writing it all out longhand.

Dr. Allen: That is a very good word. I have done that for years. Even as I write, I can hear myself saying it and preaching it. That energy realizes itself on the pen and paper. I can feel myself pressing down harder as I am writing, and it is pulsating through my veins. Preaching is an incredible calling, to think that the Lord has chosen to set apart people—his servants, in Ephesians 4—as gifts to the church to equip the church for faithful ministry. It is an incredible calling we have and an incredible stewardship we have. It is a joy to talk to you about these things here with Spurgeon’s books over our shoulders and seated here within arm’s reach of Spurgeon’s desk and to be in this context.

Dr. Smith: Thank you, Dr. Allen. I have a question for you. Do you mind if I ask you a question?

Dr. Allen: Absolutely.

Dr. Smith: Is it true that the Spurgeon Library here is a lending library?

Dr. Allen: It is not true that it is a lending library.

Dr. Smith: Are you sure?

Dr. Allen: I am positive.

Dr. Smith: So I cannot check something out?

Dr. Allen: No, you can look and you can contemplate thievery, but that comes with a gun shot. Seriously, thank you for being here with us Dr. Smith. It is a joy to have this conversation.

*Recorded 21 January 2014