The first phase of the project began on March 4, 2012. This phase included soliciting participation of the nine men to attend the preaching seminar and the church members who would critique the sermons during phase 3 of the project.
Elder Meeting to Approve the Project
On February 27, 2012, I presented the plan for the project to the elders of Grace Fellowship. There had been several discussions in the months leading up to the beginning of the project, but I felt that it was crucial for the elder team to understand and fully support my work with the congregation. Each of the elders would also participate in
seminar participants, the sermon critique group, and stressed that the project would take fifteen weeks to complete. The discussion during the meeting was general yet supportive.
I was able to secure the support of all four elders.
Project Participants Selected
After meeting with the elders, I spent the next week securing the participation of five additional men from the congregation who would participate in the preaching seminar. My goal was to select men who had showed potential as a future elder in the congregation. This criterion limited the men who would be able to participate due to the biblical qualifications for the eldership. I also felt that it would be helpful for each of the participants to be men viewed by the congregation as potential future elders. I contacted 7 men and received a positive response from 5 of those contacted. The initial goal was to have 10 men participate in the seminar, but I decided to use 9 because of the desire to train the current elders and potential future elders.
I was pleasantly surprised at the willingness of the men to be involved in the preaching seminar. The requirement to attend the seminar each Sunday for twelve consecutive weeks was a concern for many of the men. Grace Fellowship is a young congregation that is very mobile. The twelve-week commitment represented a potential roadblock for the project. It was very helpful to have the participation of the four elders because this reduced the number of participants from the general congregation. The balance between current and future elders became a real strength of the project.
It was also necessary to select individuals from the congregation to review the christocentric sermon series which would be executed during weeks 4-9 of the project. I selected a group for each sermon that was representative of the general demographic of Grace Fellowship so that the results of the survey would be representative of the congregation. The participants for this section of the project were not difficult to find
because of the low level of responsibility. I was able to select 5-9 individuals for each of the six sermons.
Preaching Seminar Pre-Seminar Survey
The 9 seminar participants were e-mailed a copy of the pre-seminar survey (see Appendix 1). This survey was designed to measure each man’s knowledge of preaching and christocentric preaching in specific. Each of the 9 participants turned in a completed survey. I realized at this stage of the project that several of the men would need constant reminders to complete tasks associated with the project.
The analysis of the pre-seminar survey concluded that the men in the seminar held strong opinions on preaching (see Appendix 3). As can be seen, nine items achieved an average answer of ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree.’ These were agreement that the New Testament is about Christ, the need of a pastor to preach Christ from both Testaments, belief that both Testaments agree with each other, that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, that expository preaching is the best way to proclaim God’s Word in the local church, that both testaments have one message, that training is important for a pastor, that both testaments have equal authority, and that the preaching at Grace Fellowship should be balanced between Old and New Testaments. One item resulted in an uncertain average response. The question that received the average response was whether a pastor should preach more from the New than the Old Testament. Three items generated average
‘disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree’ responses. These were the view that the Old Testament is more about works, whereas the New Testament is more about grace, that a pastor should depend only on the Spirit for sermon preparation, and that a pastor should not practice delivery of a sermon.
I was encouraged by the result of the pre-seminar survey. The information provided by the men indicated that each of them were convicted that expository
each of the men already held a belief that all the Scripture is equally inspired and useful to the body of Christ. The results reflect maturity in the leaders of Grace Fellowship.
After years of serving these men and with these men as teaching pastor, it was a blessing to see that they hold on to the importance of preaching.
The second part of the survey allowed the men to express their self-
assuredness in their personal level of confidence in teaching God’s Word. These answers were given in short answer format so they were not analyzed statistically, but the general consensus of the nine participants was that they felt unprepared to teach the Old
Testament, more comfortable teaching the New Testament, and that they would struggle to preach a christocentric sermon. These answers indicated that the preaching seminar was needed. As I prepared to start the seminar the following week, I spent time praying for each of the men. My desire was that God would use this project to shape and mold christocentric teaching and preaching at Grace Fellowship.
Meeting with Seminar Participant 1
Two days before the official start of the preaching seminar I had lunch with Participant 1. This man is an elder at Grace Fellowship and is the most highly respected man in the congregation. I knew that Participant 1 would have some concerns about preaching christocentric sermons especially in the Old Testament. He has devoted many years to the study of God’s Word, and the majority of his teachers have been
dispensational. During lunch, Participant 1 assured me that he was open to learning the new approach to study and delivery of sermons. He admitted that through my teaching over the years, he had begun to question his commitment to dispensational theology. I assured him that the channel for communication was always open. The conversation was encouraging because he was open to change and he already saw some flaws in his long- held theological position.
Meeting with Seminar Participant 7
On March 11, 2012, seminar Participant 7 asked to talk with me prior to the beginning of the first session. When we sat together in my office, he told me that he was excited about the seminar training, but he was also concerned that he might not be able to keep up with the requirements of the seminar. I sensed that he was nervous about
preparing and preaching a sermon at the end of the twelve weeks. After talking through the content of the seminar, Participant 7 agreed to continue as part of the project. This meeting helped me better understand the anxiety that is often associated with teaching or preaching God’s Word. Because I have been in vocational ministry for the majority of my adult life, it never crosses my mind that what I am doing is stressful. Participant 7 is one of the bright young leaders at Grace Fellowship, and he is already an adequate teacher when given the opportunity, but he was still almost overwhelmed when thinking about preaching a sermon for evaluation. I made note to offer regular encouragement to the participants in the seminar regarding the upcoming preaching opportunity. It was also important to do a good job of teaching the seminar so that the men felt prepared to
preach.