Text and Context Conference: Session 5, Matt Chandler
Matt Chandler delivered Session 5, Preaching the Gospel in the Center of the Evangelical World. I’d been looking forward to this session as it’s the first time I’ve heard Matt preach live, having listened to him here and there for a year or two through his podcast. Matt pastors The Village Church in Texas, specifically Dallas, where “there’s nothing to do but shop and own Golden Retrievers.” Five years ago Matt became the lead pastor of this dying, declining Baptist church which has now, for the last five years under his leadership, grown by 1,000 people each year.
The first half of Matt’s message was a history lesson and analysis of the problematic evangelical culture he encounters in Texas and that he believes pervades much of America. The second half of his message was a 5-point call for how pastors ought lead their of the church and engage with a problematic evangelical culture:
- We must put to rest thoughts of bigness. Christian Hollywood is killing us…producing hundreds of twenty-something, thirty-something pastors who would rather gather gather people around them than boldly preach the gospel…everyone wants to be the next Mark Driscoll or John Piper…play your part well…if your wanting to draw a crowd you’re going to sell out…preach faithfully and preach well, let God decide what your mantle is.
- We must preach Christ in the text.
- We must preach the gospel with less combative language.
- We must reaffirm our faith in the sufficiency of Scripture and not just claim the inerrancy of it. The good news of the gospel is not that all my hurts go away, but that Jesus is enough regardless of all my hurts.
- We must teach, preach, and practice a biblical ecclesiology.
Pastors, so far the “must-listen-to-messages” from this conference, in my opinion, are C.J.’s message and this message from Matt. Young men especially need to let Matt’s first point sink in.
Some additional quotes from Matt:
Mainline evangelicalism has produced a reverse trauma, swelling our heads and shrinking our heart.
Engaging culture has very little to do with beer.
Historically the first sign of a dying movement is “how to” manuals.
How you wear your countercultural-ness matters.
Be patient with everyone.
I too was at the conference and was looking forward to hearing Chandler live as all I can do up here in Seattle is listen to his podcasts.
It was funny to talk to people who had never heard him preach, they were very surprised at how he brings it.
It was a great conference.
I remember when in college I could start preaching the gospel for any reason or no reason at all and people would engage weather critically or positively. Now that I am in the working world, I have a hard time finding in roads to begin a conversation. Partly it’s because we all have a job to do and we need to be busy; and finding time outside work is almost impossible with two children. There have been those rare opportunities that people have asked for more info about a topic that has come up, or more about my personal experience with Jesus and Church. I was never worried about offending someone in college and being kicked out or being given a lower grade because I was being to evangelical. Job security has however kept my evangelical tendencies in check. I notice every once in a while a topic will come up where we begin a conversation… The Da Vinci Code provided lots of those opportunities. I am in a sales environment so The Secret has provided other similar opportunities. Other than that there have been very few opportunities to open up about my faith or conviction in something. I am much more hesitant however to ask the question I used to get people to talk about Jesus in college; that was, “Who do you think Jesus is?”
People know I’m a Christian, but they don’t thing of me as the ‘crazy Christian’. I wouldn’t care if they did, but it’s much different than the way it was in college. Now question come up in my mind that didn’t come up before, and it’s the question of presumption: “Why do I think they want to hear about this?” The follow up question is, “Does it matter what they think?” The big question is “Does God want me to engage people with out any prior context?” Is it ok to bring up the gospel for no other reason than “just because…” I wonder if my fear of loosing my job is a reflection of the lack of trust I have in God.
My thought on the blog above was that if I don’t answer this question of how to engage the person next to me, I can easily put to rest our thoughts of ‘bigness’ because people won’t want to hear what I have to say if I don’t say it in context of our lives together. I’m sure I need to do a better job answering some of the questions Matt Chandler address, but I feel light years from that.
What kind of water cooler talk do people use out there to get people to talk about Christ. Jesus is offensive already. What do people out there do to not add offence to the way you bring the gospel to others. Are there people who truly have not worried about getting fired and have trusted God to work that out for them. Are there people out there that truly share the gospel that feely?
“Historically the first sign of a dying movement is “how to” manuals.”
Never heard that one before.