Welcome to Goodmanson.com .  If you are new(er) here, I began this blog in July of 2004 and today I've posted for the 500th time.  I got out my calculator and discovered that over these 825 days, I've made a post every 1.65 days.  Over the years I've posted a lot on church planting, technology, churches, leadership and culture.  Here are some posts I'd recommend if you haven't been here the whole time.

CHURCH PLANTING 

Five Trends for the Future of Church Planting 26Aug06

The State of the American Church - Why Church Planting is Critical to the Future of American Christianity 16May06

CHURCH

A Partnership of Externally Focused Churches 11Aug06

Emerging From Church De-Construction to Church Kingdom Building 19Sep05

Fun with Angry, Yelling, Legalistic Christians who Know Everything 03Apr05

Is the Twelve Tribes a Cult? 02Nov05 (From my year-plus stint as a weekly Sheep & Goat column for the San Diego Reader)

LEADERSHIP

Preaching the Gospel to Yourself 26Oct06

Deacon Training & Development 02Jun06

Triperspectival Ministry Assessment 12Oct06

The Dangers of Confession while in the Pulpit 20Oct06

TECHNOLOGY

Why God is more glorified by Web 2.0 09Oct06

Technology and the Mission: Conference Session 25Sep06

List of Church Technology & Website Blogs & Resources 27Sep06

CULTURE

My own ‘Sin City’ 18Apr05

The role of the Christian artist in the secular world 20Aug04

FAMILY

New Son Roman! 30Jan06

Gideon Turns 2 Years Old 26Mar05

At Kaleo Church we teach that the Gospel isn't just a means of salvation, but it is the very way we grow as Christians.  When Paul writes his letters to the Galatians or Corinthians, he addresses each problem in the Christian community with the gospel.  (eg., Peter, who eats stops eating with the Gentiles isn't told to 'stop' which would be legalism, but is told that his actions aren't walking in line with the gospel.  His motivation for change is a reminder of who Christ is and what he has done for us and how that sets us free by grace.)

From this a term used is, 'I need to preach the gospel to myself'.  It refers to the need to go through the same process Paul does when he addresses sin.  But how do we preach the gospel to ourselves, what exactly is the process?  I decided to create a diagram to illustrate it (click on thumbnail for larger Preaching the Gospel diagram)

UPDATE: David Fairchild preached an excellent sermon based on this, you can see the sermon at Sermon Cloud: How to Preach the Gospel to Yourself.  It includes (1) a Word document handout that outlines the process, a (2) PowerPoint slide (click on image to the right), (3) the sermon notes and (4) the mp3 for you to download.

How to Preach the Gospel to Yourself

The two critical events are repentance and faith.  Errors people commonly fall in are (1) only dealing with the surface sin instead of the root sin and (2) preaching moralism to ourself instead of the gospel.   

PART I  DOWN THE SLOPE OF REPENTANCE - Objective: To see and confess that I am a bigger sinner than I thought. 

1. See and Own Your Sin:  Examine yourself in the mirror of God's Word, your negative emotions and attitudes, and the responses of others to you.  Guard yourself against sin's deceitfulness: the tendency to water down God's standard, compare yourself to others, shift the blame or commit ourselves to trying harder.

2. See the Sin Beneath the Sin: Don't move too quickly to confess and receive forgiveness for the surface sin (cheap grace, "I'm just a sinner" attitude.  If you are anxious, yes go to Phil. 4, but what is causing your anxiousness?)  Push the 'Why?' question until you find what you are looking to other than Jesus (your functional messiah) for meaning and value in life.

3. Expose the Idols of your Heart: Idols always disappoint 

They are weak: They can't deliver when you succeed; they can only raise the bar. They can't forgive you when you fail; they can only lower the boom.
They are harmful: They hurt you spiritually, emotionally and physically.  They hurt others by undermining your ability to love.
They are Grievous: Most importantly, by going after these idols/other lovers you are saying to God: "Jesus is not enough.  I also need _________ in order to be happy.

EXAMPLE: Athletics
Sin: I get frustrated when I don't win at sports.
Sin beneath the sin: I need the approval of others to feel better about myself.
IDOL: ACCEPTANCE of others/Self Worship

Weak: The approval is always based on your performance.  If you fail, you get angry/rejected.  When you succeed you need more/to continue to perform and receive value.

These idols will lead you into slavery James 4:1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 2You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

CONCLUSION: I am a much bigger sinner than I thought.  I am a worthy recipient of God's judgment.  Trying harder won't cut it.  I am helpless and hopeless in myself.  BUT there is One… 

PART II UP THE SLOPE OF FAITH - Objective: To thank God that Jesus is a much bigger Savior than I thought.  

1. Repentance is a gift: Pray for the gift of repentance.  Do not 'try' to stop sinning, but ask God to change your heart.  If the Holy Spirit does not address your heart, your repentance is only 'horizontal' and true gospel change will not happen.  You may change for a season by your own 'will-power' but eventually you will become resentful or fall back into worshiping your false idols, which are your true 'functional messiahs'.

2. See Jesus as the only true Savior

Jesus lived for me.  Think about and give thanks for specific ways Jesus has lived obediently where I have failed.

Jesus died for me. Think about Jesus' death on the cross for my specific sins and idolatry.  Thank God that my sin has been punished once and for all.

God sees me in Jesus. Think about how God sees me in Jesus, clothed with His perfect righteousness.  Thank Him specifically for how He provides for me in Christ that all my idols promised but could not deliver.

Jesus lives in me.  Thank God that He does not leave me to live the Christian life on my own, but the Spirit of Christ now dwells in me.  Ask Him to live His righteous life through me, specifically in the areas where I have confessed sin.

3. Gospel-motivated living: Embrace and know that the gospel is how you change (2 Cor. 3:18b), it is the gospel that empowers you to serve (2 Cor 3:5) and it is through the gospel that you meet God (2 Cor 3:18a; 4:6)

CREDITS: The pastors of Harbor, Tim Keller @ Redeemer and David Fairchild at Kaleo. 

Should a pastor confess their sin behind the pulpit?  I have heard people tell pastors that they should not confess their sin while preaching.  These (often a-little-too Reformed) pastors believe it diminishes the office.  This conversation took place when a friend (Tim Berroth) was discussing  Confessions of a Pastor: Adventures in Dropping the Pose and Getting Real with God by pastor Craig Groeschel.  Groeschel states in his book that often the most impactful sermons he has are the ones where he offers real personal confessions of sin. In the book, Groeschel candidly describes the struggles and sins that he fights daily as a pastor–not surprisingly, the sins that beset him are the same ones that beset us all: lust, fear, worry, a judgmental spirit, selfishness and self-centerdness to name a few. In his effort to "drop the pose and get real," Groeschel paints a vivid picture of a reality that many in the church may not readily accept or choose to ignore altogether.

Should a pastor confess their sin behind the pulpit?  How should this be done?  I recall a pastors meeting here in San Diego with Dick Kaufmann who stated something to the effect:

A pastor who confesses sin without illustrating how the gospel dealt with the sin is doing a very harmful thing.   To say, "I struggle with lust" as a confession alone is mean.  Sin should be confessed behind the pulpit, only when the pastor has gone through the process and is able to communicate how they've been changed by the gospel. 

Richard Foster in The Celebration of the Disciplines writes:

Without the cross the discipline of confession would be only psychologically therapeutic.  But it is so much more.  It involves an objective change in our relationship with God and a subjective change in us.  It is a means of healing and transforming the inner spirit.

It's gotten to this. djchuang posts on Why I like Keller more than Piper.  A new wave of preacher Deathmatches are sweeping the internet, where will it go?

• Mark Driscoll vs. Joshua Harris
• John MacArthur vs. Andy Stanley
• Rick McKinely vs. Chris Seay
• Bill Hybels vs. Rick Warren
• Ed Young vs. Joel Osteen
• Mark Moore vs. David Fairchild

Oh the insanity… (HT: Reformissionary)

Any time a person 'attacks' preaching, it's bound to cause a stir.  Next Wave publishes an article, The Problem with Preaching that begins:

Preaching is a big problem. After many years of preaching, listening to sermons, studying the scriptures, participating in 'church' leadership & studying the western church (in New Zealand), I'm becoming convinced that preaching often does more harm than good. Preaching, as it is practiced in modern churches, is extra-biblical, a poor form of communication, and creates dependency.

It goes on to layout a number of reasons why their are problems with preaching:

1. Preaching is Extra-Biblical

2. Preaching is an Ineffective Form of Communication

3. Preaching Limits Learning, Discussion & Debate

4. Preaching Doesn't Usually Change Lives

5. Preaching Can Foster Biblical Illiteracy

6. Preaching Disempowers People 

(and the list goes on…)

I'm sure this will divide right down the 'pomo-emergent' vs. 'evangelical' lines as to how people respond to the post.   There are so many ways we could slice this.  (I don't know if the assumption is preaching is the magic bullet to solve all problems, but there seems there is a lot of straw man arguments. Eg.  'Preaching doesn't change lives' of course, the Holy Spirit does and it uses His Word.)

Preaching as the function of church is under attack and will continue to be under great scrutiny.  A post at Church Marketing Sucks about Making the Most of Your Sermon illicted responses such as, "To me the sermon is a pretty small percentage of the ministry of the church." Yet, I would venture that this is the majority of where preaching pastors spend their time.

At Faithworks, Tom Allen writes an article entitled, Is Our Preaching Out of Touch where he states, "In an emerging church culture that values authenticity above all else, such an approach to preaching creates an artificial distance with the congregation."  He goes on to quote Paggit:

For Pagitt, (preaching) is unhealthy — even abusive — to suggest that only a few, privileged individuals can speak for God. "Why do I get to speak for 30 minutes and you don't?"“A sermon is often a violent act,” says Pagitt, a key figure among emerging leaders. “It’s a violence toward the will of the people who have to sit there and take it.” To treat the sermon as an oratorical performance delivered by a paid and trained professional who claims to speak for God sets up an artificial power imbalance within the congregation, Pagitt says.

The Problem With Preaching article ends with this suggestion:

I believe that a better & more scriptural alternative (to preaching) is personal and corporate Bible study, listening to God, discussion, and working together in mutually-accountable community to help each other apply biblical truths in our lives, community and world.

Are you interested in a good Redemptive Historical work?  Promises and Deliverance is an English translation of the 19th century work by Reverend S. G. De Graaf in a 4 volume set that outlines and summaries of Bible stories. (You can also pick up the Drama of Scripture.)  Throughout De Graaf's work he focuses on the Kingdom of God being established and working out its means in human history. De Graaf does a great job moving beyond the 'moral lesson' or 'typical point' used in the stories of the Bible to seeing OT stories as foreshadows of Jesus and all part of the redemptive plan of God.  The New Testament work points out the Kingdom of God being established on earth.  For an OT example, volume 1, chapter 3 begins:

I have deliberately entitled this chapter "The Covenant of Grace" instead of "The Fall".  The fall certainly merits our attention, but if we put too much emphasis on it, the revelation of God's grace might become a mere afterthought.  When we read through Genesis 3, we see that the fall is described in just seven verses, while the rest of the chapter is devoted to God's grace.  Even more important for our purposes is the fact that the Scripture is not a book of the acts of men but the book of revelation of God.  Here in Genesis 3, God shows us how He opposed sin and conquered it by His grace when it entered His creation.

Or here, we see a sermon by Michael Horton on the Exodus where he quotes De Graaf's work:

According to S. F. De Graaf: "We should guard against overemphasizing the deliverance of the people from Egypt. This deliverance was only a means of reaching the goal–establishing the covenant. In a spiritual sense, the covenant comes first; the deliverance from Egypt must be seen as following from the covenant. Here too the Word of God holds: 'Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.'" 

Here is another article on preaching by Michael S. Horton (at Modern Reformation) based on De Graaf's work: What Are We Looking for in the Bible?

Volume 1: From Creation to the Conquest of Canaan

Volume 2: The Failure of Israel's Theocracy

Volume 3: Christ's Ministry and Death

Volume 4: Christ and the Nations

They are not always easy to find (we have a great bookstore in San Diego that has them, Evangelical Bookstore ).  I also saw them at Covenant Seminary Online Bookstore and Westminster Bookstore .

Pastors, would you like to have your (or another preachers) most recent sermons on your blog automatically?   Here is any easy guide to syndicating your latest sermons using Sermon Cloud.

1. Create a Sermon Cloud account.

2. Upload sermons.

3. Go to your Sermon Cloud church page.  Example Kaleo Church  http://www.sermoncloud.com/kaleo-church/

4. Click on the link: Find out how to link to Kaleo Church's sermons from your website or blog

5. Grab the code.  For most blogs you can grab the php code an put it in your sidebar: <?php include("http://www.sermoncloud.com/php/kaleo-church/recent/3"); ?> 

6. Enjoy.  See Recent Sermons on the right sidebar on David Fairchild's Blog

REMINDER: 2 more weeks to download free Christian Audio books through Sermon Cloud.

Over the years, I've had the opportunity to attend several church planting conferences.  Often, a session discusses whether preacher should preach topically, by text or if it should be expository.  What form of preaching is best, let's look at the options:

Topical Sermons: A topical message is a sermon where a preacher uses passages to support a thesis about a particular topic.  (eg. How to be a Godly Husband)  At a Purpose Driven Church Planting Conference,  one of the presenters said the very act of preaching expository sermons is a contradiction to the Bible.  To preach expository sermons was 'unBiblical' in the sense that the books were written to deal with specific issues & topics.  This is the model that a preacher should preach today.  Paul & Peter wrote topicaly and used 'texts' to support their points.

Text Sermons: A text message is one where a singular passage of the Bible is used as a jumping point to discuss a particular thesis. (eg. 1 Corinthians 13 to discuss Love is an Action)

Expository Sermons: An expository sermon is following a book of the Bible, passage-by-passage to allow the text to determine the point.  (eg. Galatians 1:1-4)  Most conservative churches would argue that expository preaching is the only way to preach.  Reformed churches stress lectio continua (preaching through whole books of the Bible in course).   Timothy Keller summarizes the sentiment as he writes why conservative churches feel non-expository preaching is theologically inferior; "1) First, other forms of preaching are considered 'man-pleasing' because we are choosing texts we prefer rather than preaching through the 'whole counsel of God' as God provides it in the Bible.  2) Second, other forms of preaching are more open to abuse since your thesis is not being controlled directly by the text.  3) Thirdly, other forms of preaching do not show as much honor to the text of Scripture.  The expositor focuses on the Biblical passage itself in a way that the others do not."

Haddon Robinson argues that expository preaching is essential in a postmodern context:

Twenty years ago it would have been almost impossible to bring a case to court against a minister. Today a lawyer that's defending a minister will do every thing that he can to keep the people in the jury from thinking of him as a minister. So we have lost a lot of the base, for a lot of different reasons. What we are really trying to say is, "O.K. if I can get people to study the Bible and to see the text, I believe that the Bible is self-authenticating." If I can get you to really read it, to look at it, to hear it, to understand it, it has its own power to convince and to convict and to change people.

Therefore in a postmodern age one reason that we work with the biblical text is to have the authority of the text — and behind that the authority of God — behind what we say. I've always believed that, but it has become clearer to me now than it has been in the past. That is not to say that the person in the pew has to accept my view of inspiration. It is simply to say that if the Bible is what I believe it to be — the word of God — and that the Spirit of God answers to the Word, then if I can lay that out before them in a relevant fashion it has the power to do what my authority today can't do. (source: Expository Preaching in a Narrative World: An Interview with Haddon Robinson)

Is there only one way to preach?  Tim Keller states that ultimately the method you chose is going to be selected for practical purposes.  (Often personal reasons & convictions that drive this.)  At the end of the day, preachers are going to tend to gravitate to what they are most comfortable with.

[Triperspectival Aside:  I would argue that Kings tend toward topical (and Purpose Driven Church plants), Priests toward text and Prophets toward Expository as part of their natural personality/gift structure.]

NEXT SERMON SERIES POST: Moving Beyond Method to Form: Propositional vs. Narrative Preaching 

This weekend I performed a wedding. I was looking for a good gospel-centered wedding message. I ended up tailoring the message from CJ Mahaney’s Sex, Romance and the Glory of God from chapter 2: The Divine Purpose for Your Marriage. Feel free to grab the Wedding Message (Word Document).

…we have an incredible privilege of knowing the ultimate purpose for marriage. We can see that the purpose of marriage goes beyond personal fulfillment. The biblical purpose of marriage is not man-centered. It’s God’s centered. Your marriage is meant to point to the truth of the crucified and risen Savior who will return for his Bride, the church.

By the grace of God, your marriage is meant to be the best echo, the most faithful reflection of that relationship you can possibly be. It’s about being genuinely united in a strong, godly, intimate relationship that echoes the one between Christ and the Church.

Please don’t think of this as merely a helpful illustration or an interesting perspective. It’s much more than that. This is the essence of your marriage. This is the divine purpose of your marriage….

Anyone else have a gospel-centered wedding message they care to share?

We just launched Sermon Cloud as a tool to help churches use advanced sermon syndication. It is in BETA form with a handful of churches (12 and counting) signed up to start using it. Features include:

- Resampling mp3’s to be optimized for the internet.
- Syndicating content
- Podcasting mp3
- Tags (as sermons are added you can see the tag cloud on this site)
- Commenting on sermons
- Community voting to recommend sermons
- Searching for sermons
- and more…

NOTE: We have paused the release to get our first round of BETA churches up and running. We are still taking 100 add’l churches for our next round of BETA’s.

The Reformissionary had a post pointing to Keller’s writings on Informational vs Experiential Preaching, which brings up a great illustration of how to apply multiperspectivalism in preaching. Here is the quote:

The “informational” view of preaching conceives of preaching as changing people’s lives after the sermon. They listen to the sermon, take notes, and then apply the Biblical principles during the week. But this assumes that our main problem is a lack of compliance to Biblical principles, when (as we saw above) all our problems are actually due to a lack of joy and belief in the gospel. Our real problem is that Jesus’ salvation is not as real to our hearts as the significance and security our idols promise us. If that’s our real problem, then the purpose of preaching is to make Christ so real to the heart that in the sermon people have an experience of his grace, and the false saviors that drive us lose their power and grip on us on the spot. That’s the “experiential” view of preaching (Jonathan Edwards.)

Multiperspectivalism Application: The difference of ‘Christ-centered‘ preaching (norm, information) versus ‘gospel-centered‘ preaching (which uses a multi-perspectival approach) is HUGE. You can preach Christ and crush your people with the news, law and perfection of Christ. (I’ve seen a number of FUNdamentalist pastors do this.) It is only gospel that brings hope. Here’s how the perspetives play out in gospel preaching:

Norm: the “news” in the Bible (NOT advice which implies works)
Situation: The change of identity, worldview
Existential: The application of grace/hope

You can see this in one of David Fairchild’s recent sermons on Biblical Masculinity. (David is working through this at a level far beyond my meager brain. He should be releasing a series of articles about this and why going beyond tri to mulit is necessary to see through a series of lenses in the norm, situation and existential views. Piper fans have already seen some thought of this in his ‘doctrine’ feeding ‘passion’ to ‘Christian living’ which is part of the triperspectival view.)

Kaleo is about to begin the book of Galatians for our next sermon series. Many consider Martin Luther’s Commentary on Galatians as the one of the best (if not the best commentary). John Bunyan said this was the book that he would give up last save for his Bible.

This classic commentary on Galations enables you to study under the great reformer who not only reveals sound scholarship but also an intense personal identification with these profound Pauline truths. Clearly written and understandable, this verse-by-verse exposition offers a careful interpretation of Galations.

Buy it at Amazon: Martin Luther’s Commentary on Galatians

Many Christians have come to a position of seeing mercy ministry as “secondary duty”. It is something that we try to do if we have enough time or resources to dedicate to “social work”. The Bible doesn’t portray mercy ministry as secondary. Jesus Christ taught that man not only receives and experiences the mercy of God, but that he is also called to practice mercy toward others.

Full Sermon: The Call to Mercy Ministry

How do we as Christians create a social revolution? If we lived as scripture calls us to and prayed for our cities, while we radically seek their physical, economical, social and spiritual welfare. The Christian Social Revolution is Part 1 of a two part series I’m preaching at Kaleo Church.

Kaleo began a new series about angels and demons. There are so many questions and confusion about what exactly angels and demons are. What is the involvement in our lives? What are demons? Is it possible for them to possess us? What are angels? Can we communicate with them? These are questions that many of us have and yet getting answers can sometimes be frustrating and confusing. Come and explore these questions with us as we attempt to find answers from the most definitive source on these subjects, the Bible.

Sermon: Angels