You and I right now could never crack another book, never read, never have another scriptural study and spend the rest of our lives trying to act on what we already know and not achieve it. The goal is helping people take knowledge, new or old, and then let it be transformational in their lives. Don’t tell me one more thing about what I need to know. Tell me how I can become more like Jesus.
That’s one of the things hurting the evangelical church today. I’m certainly not the first to say it, but it’s that pivotal question: Are people more like Jesus now than they were a year ago? Well, if they’re not then something’s wrong. Being biblical at its best in both message, content and church means people becoming more like Jesus.
Preaching: I remember Rick Warren commenting on the idea of preaching being to give people Bible knowledge. He said, “Some of the people I know who are the meanest cusses around know the most about the Bible! But somehow it doesn’t change their lives.”White: Let’s go ahead and say a few names here. I think I know that person!
Preaching: It’s been 15 years since you founded this church, and you’ve learned a lot about leadership over the years. How do you see preaching as a tool of leadership?White: The most powerful tool in a church leader’s arsenal is the podium, the pulpit. We say: “Here’s your preaching class,” then, “Here’s your leadership class.” Wait a minute. They ought to be the same in some ways because that’s the way you lead a church most effectively—largely through teaching and through vision casting, through upholding values.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s a management level to that. And there’s an administrative dynamic to that. And there’s a leadership level one on one with staff and so forth. But when I am able to most optimally and most influentially lead this church is when I get up there and address the church, when I speak to it.
That’s why we have—once or twice a year—what we call “A Vision Night” where it’s 100 percent pure leadership vision casting. But it’s woven through a lot of series and a lot of talks—upholding a value, upholding a particular way of living, addressing a particular issue. It’s leadership all the way through.
A lot of people who are struggling with leading their churches or helping their churches take a kingdom hill—maybe giving is down or serving is down—I’ll say, “Well, tell me what you’re doing in terms of teaching in that area.”
“What do you mean?”
And I say, “Man, if my giving was down, it would be time for a six-week stewardship series, or five weeks on what it means to be a servant if I felt like volunteers were low.”
In other words, the way you address that is through leadership, and the quickest way to address it from a leadership perspective is to teach and communicate and vision cast and speak to it directly.
