Bringing Home the Message: How Community Can Multiply the Power of the Preached Word

Lloyd John Ogilvie Institute of Preaching Series

series editors:

Mark Labberton

Clayton J. Schmit

The vision of the Lloyd John Ogilvie Institute of Preaching is to proclaim Jesus Christ and to catalyze a movement of empowered, wise preachers who seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, leading others to join in God’s mission in the world. The books in this series are selected to contribute to the development of such wise and humble preachers. The authors represent both scholars of preaching as well as pastors and preachers whose experiences and insights can contribute to passionate and excellent preaching.

other volumes in this series:

The Eloquence of Grace: Joseph Sittler and the Preaching Life edited by James M. Childs Jr. and Richard Lischer

Ordinary Preacher, Extraordinary Gospel: A Daily Guide for Wise, Empowered Preachers by Chris Neufeld-Erdman

The Preacher as Liturgical Artist: Metaphor, Identity, and the Vicarious Humanity of Christ by Trygve David Johnson

Blessed and Beautiful: Multiethnic Churches and the Preaching That Sustains Them by Lisa Washington Lamb

forthcoming volumes in this series:

Decolonizing Preaching: The Pulpit as Postcolonial Space by Sarah A. N. Travis

Bringing Home the Message

How Community Can Multiply the Power of the Preached Word

Robert K. Perkins

BRINGING HOME THE MESSAGE

How Community Can Multiply the Power of the Preached Word

Lloyd Ogilvie Preaching Institute Series 5

Copyright © 2014 Robert K. Perkins. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Cascade Books

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

isbn 13: 978-1-62032-736-4

eisbn 13: 978-1-63087-421-6

Cataloging-in-Publication data:

Perkins, Robert K.

Bringing home the message : how community can multiply the power of the preached word / Robert K. Perkins.

x + 192 p. ; 23 cm. —Includes bibliographical references.

Lloyd Ogilvie Preaching Institute Series 5

isbn 13: 978-1-62032-736-4

1.

Small groups.

2

. Preaching. I. Title. II. Series.

BV4319 P4 2014

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

All Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

To

Mitali, Tim, and Jim,

my primary

and most precious

community

Acknowledgments

In acknowledgment of those for whom I am grateful and to whom I am indebted, I wish first to thank my mentor, Sid Buzzell, who carefully read each chapter of this volume and provided insightful, helpful feedback. Much admiration and appreciation is also deserved for  Haddon Robinson, who also read this work; in addition, Robinson skillfully led our Doctor of Ministry Preaching Cohort and taught me how to preach a message worth bringing home.

I am grateful to God for my dear church family at Newton Presbyterian, who taught me so much about the true essence and meaning of community. While serving as their pastor, I was continually blessed and motivated by their hunger to hear, study, and live the truth of Jesus Christ. Not only did they graciously allow me to work on this project while serving as their pastor, but many of the small groups also joyfully participated in the sermon-based Bible studies for this book. I wish to thank Reverend Delianne Koops, who served as Newton Presbyterian Church’s Associate Pastor during this project and helped to assemble much of the material found in Appendix B.

I thank God for my new church family of Moraga Valley Presbyterian Church. Not only have they eagerly welcomed the opportunity to put into practice the principles of this book, but they constantly encourage me by their hunger for God’s Word and the zeal with which they each bring home the message into their own hearts and lives. I am grateful to my assistant, Valerie Bigelow, who carefully read each page, formatting and helping with the final proofing of this manuscript.

I can’t imagine what pastoral ministry or doctoral studies would be like without the heavy lifting performed so selflessly by my prayer team. Many thanks to Ruthann Stiles, Sandy Siciliano, and Hal May—each mighty and faithful warriors. I could not possibly have seen this project through to completion without the prayers, support, and friendship of my covenant brothers and fellow pastors, Greg Haroutunian and Tom Lee. Week after week, these men encouraged my work, prayed for me, and held me accountable as a husband, father, and pastor. Also, I am eternally grateful to one who spends more time on her knees for me than any other in this world, my beloved and faithful mother.

I have been richly blessed with a loving, patient family who willingly bore with me through this long and arduous project: my two wonderful sons, Tim and Jim, of whom I am so proud; and God’s greatest gift to me, my amazing wife Mitali, whose own writing vocation and editing expertise have helped me as a writer and have contributed to this project in no small way.

Finally, this work would not have been started or finished, nor would it have had any meaning but for the sustaining grace of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to Whom I owe everything. They are, together in themselves, the sole source and reason for community.

1

Preaching That Transforms Lives

The Church is in the business of transforming lives by living the truth of Jesus Christ. As a pastor, my prayer for each member of my congregation is that they might experience transformation as they know and follow Jesus, the living truth. For this to happen, a person must not only know the truth but he or she must also put it into practice. Transformation comes by living the Truth of Jesus Christ.

Communicating the truth of Jesus Christ is one of the most important tasks of any pastor. Preaching is the primary vehicle to accomplish this objective; however, merely communicating this all-important truth Sunday after Sunday—even if it is done clearly and compellingly—is not enough. Parishioners need to take what they hear from the pulpit on Sundays and apply it throughout the week, in everyday life. Unfortunately, many people regard their spiritual walk as just one separate compartment of life. To experience true transformation, parishioners must do more than merely attend church on Sunday morning and listen to the sermon. They must really hear it, then put it into action each and every day.

James writes: Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says (James 1:22). How many people sitting in the pews on Sunday morning are merely listening to the Word, and are, therefore, deceived into thinking they are faithfully doing all that it takes to be a follower of Jesus? What can a pastor do to help the congregation take the Word proclaimed on Sunday into the week so that they become actual doers of that Word?

The Preacher’s Challenge: Loss of Community

A preacher’s task has become increasingly difficult in the postmodern world. Life is generally whizzing by at a fast pace and people in the pews have increasingly shorter attention spans and seemingly less time than they did in decades past. Worse, in our highly individualized society, they are increasingly detached from Christian community. This loss of community causes many Christians to be more significantly influenced by values and forces outside the church than by the Word of God or other Christians. Though the preacher’s task has not changed—to communicate God’s Word in a clear and relevant manner so that lives might be transformed by living the truth of Jesus Christ—traditional models of ministry have become less effective at bringing about this transformation.

To get the big idea of the sermon across, today’s preachers must compete with increasingly more worldly, pervasive, and persuasive messages of popular culture. Even when the message is delivered with eloquence, clarity, and power, a multitude of modern-day distractions can dilute the effectiveness of the proclamation of God’s word. Local congregations need a strategy to reinforce the preacher’s message, keep God’s word fresh in their minds, and provide mechanisms and structures for feedback and accountability. After hearing God’s Word, people need help to allow it to continue to impact their hearts and lives. The church needs a vehicle to foster community where Christians can challenge one another to apply what they have heard on Sunday morning, pray together through the implications of the message, and provide accountability for one another as they seek to obey the words of Scripture.

The Preacher’s Ally: Small Groups

That vehicle is sermon-based small groups. This book seeks to demonstrate the effectiveness of supplementing the preaching of the Word on Sunday morning with continued study and application of that same Word during the week within the context of small groups. Parishioners in sermon-based small groups who have heard a sermon preached on a given passage on Sunday will continue to reflect upon that same passage in community with others who have heard the same. Together, they can explore the implications of the passage, wrestle with some of the more challenging questions and aspects that may not have been dealt with in the sermon, and, most importantly, consider ways in which the passage should be applied to one’s life.

Within small groups, growing Christian relationships provide the context by which believers are able to challenge one another to take seriously the implications of God’s Word. In this context, members spur one another on to love and good works (Heb 10:24). They are able to worship together, study God’s Word in community, and pray for one another. During the week, they can check in with one another to see how each one is doing as they seek to live faithfully the truth that God has spoken and impressed upon their hearts on Sunday morning and in the small group.

To demonstrate this, I have produced study guides used by small groups in the congregation I served, each corresponding to a particular Sunday morning message. I encouraged all of the small groups in our congregation to use this curriculum, and most did. For the pilot project of this book, I preached a fourteen-week sermon series from the Gospel of Luke with a focus on Christian community. I wrote study guides for each sermon, to be used by small groups, and assembled leader’s guides to be used by the group leaders. These tools are designed to reinforce each biblical theme for the week.

The Preacher’s Strategy: Multiple Reinforcement

As small group members meet during the week to discuss and apply what they have heard in church on Sunday, they are able to interact with the Scriptures in a much deeper and more personal way. Members of small groups enjoy intimate fellowship with one another as they experience the body of Christ in action. They are able to get to know each other well as they study together, pray for each other, and hold one another accountable. They experience each other’s joys and sorrows and can grow together as they seek to put into practice the truths from God’s Word. In this community context, significant transformation can take place.

In and of themselves, small groups can be powerful vehicles for growth and discipleship. When the content of the small group Bible study follows a unified curriculum that reinforces what is being preached on Sunday morning, the benefits are multiplied. This strategy of multiple reinforcement has been shown to be extremely effective through recent ministries that emphasize small groups as a component to reinforce what is being learned on Sunday.¹ The 40 Days of Purpose, a program used by thousands of churches in recent years, emphasizes this. Churches participating in the 40 Days or other similar programs, using small groups as one of the components, have seen tremendous growth in numbers and faith commitment levels.

This strategy is unique in that it focuses on the reinforcement of hearing the same Word of God in more than one context—namely, the proclamation of the text on Sunday from the pulpit, followed later in the same week by the study of that same text within the community of a small group.

Through the reinforcement of the message in multiple settings throughout the week, people will not only be able to hear the Word of God, but also live and experience authentic transformation.

a Roadmap for Sermon-Based Small Groups

In chapter 2, you will find a biblical and theological exploration of community, specifically the themes of hearing, living, and applying the Word of God in the context of community and the theology of small groups.

Chapter 3 contains a survey of current literature on community and small groups, with a focus on how Christian community is essential if the hearing of God’s Word is to be transformational.

Chapter 4 describes how I put these ideas into practice in our congregation. Namely, I explore the effectiveness of reinforcing Sunday’s message in small groups by implementing sermon-based curriculum for the church where I serve as a pastor. I illustrate by example how to prepare sermon-based study guides. I have also included a full set of fourteen study guides for small groups to accompany a sermon series taken from the Gospel of Luke.

Chapter 5 contains a summary of what was learned through this project. Appendix A describes the history and context of the congregation I served while writing this book with the goal of helping the reader understand the importance of this methodology for churches like ours. Appendix B contains a sample companion set of leader’s notes to assist those leading the sermon-based small group Bible studies.

1. The orientation and leadership training materials provided for the 40 Days of Purpose campaign, originated by Saddleback Community Church and Rick Warren, emphasize the value of this strategy.

2

Biblical Foundations for True Community

In the beginning, God created . . . and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters . . . And God said, Let there be light, and there was light . . . Then God said, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness . . . (Gen 1:1–3, 26)

From the beginning, God has existed as a community. In fact, community is central to God’s very nature. God’s Words were spoken into the midst of the community of the triune Godhead. By his Word, God not only created the universe, but in the process of creating humankind, he simultaneously created community. This book explores the importance of God’s Word, spoken into the context of true community.

While much has been written in recent years from a practical standpoint to further small group ministry within churches, there is still a great need for the development of a biblical theology of small groups. A scriptural foundation for small groups—especially in relation to the preaching event—can help pastors better understand why small groups are essential to complement the ministry of the preached Word. The recent popularity of small group ministry has primarily been programmatic and pragmatic in its emphasis in most churches. Many churches have implemented a small group ministry in the hopes that such a program will build transformational community into the life of their congregation. Many books on the subject of community and conferences featuring small group gurus promise tremendous results of growth, both in numbers and maturity of the members, as a result of participation in small groups. Anyone surveying the plethora of books on the subject of community and small groups will soon discover that the vast majority focus primarily on the mechanics of small group ministry. More foundational than how one implements a small group ministry is the question: Why are small groups needed at all? This section aims to answer that question.

Some who have been raised in the church look upon small groups as a passing fad or dismiss them as some programmatic ministry gimmick. When we embarked on a program to involve everyone in our congregation in small groups, one woman asked, Will this really make any difference? We’ve tried this sort of thing before. I’m sure this program will be like everything else we’ve tried. After a while, we’ll just go back to the way things were. Others find the thought of participation in a small group personally threatening; because they have never been part of a small group, they are fearful of the experience and worry that they’ll feel uncomfortable or will be forced to say or do things they don’t want to say or do. Many are satisfied with their current church experience of Sunday morning worship, Sunday school, and occasional special church events. Why do we need more? they wonder. As long as small groups are seen as just another program, these concerns will remain difficult to answer.

However, once people are able to understand the biblical and theological basis for community, they will be much more willing to embrace small group ministry as an effective way to build community and will be more likely to participate in a group themselves. Pastors and leaders must be able to clearly articulate the biblical theology of small groups if they ever hope to convince parishioners of their importance and motivate them to join and participate in a small group. Church leaders need more than just an understanding of the importance of small groups; they need a passion for community that transcend(s) a wise church program.¹

The Bible contains a rich theology of community. Community in general and small groups in particular are natural consequences of God’s nature, of our identity, and of the way we were created. In this chapter, we will explore the biblical foundations for small group ministry as a natural and essential counterpart to the preaching ministry of the Word on Sunday mornings.

God is communal, and community is within God’s very nature. Thus, human beings, who were made in God’s image, were created for community. Furthermore, God’s interaction with his people in forming covenantal relationship has everything to do with community. The incarnational ministry of Jesus demonstrated community, both in his relationship with the Father and the way he conducted his ministry while among his disciples. The way Jesus modeled community in his life and ministry became the standard for the life of the early church.

God as Trinity—Source and Archetype of True Community

The Christian Scriptures reveal one God existing as three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. "For