O.S. Hawkins is pastor of the largest congregation in the nation's largest Protestant denomination. Since 1993 he has been pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas -- a congregation known not only as the flagship church of Southern Baptists but also known for its most famous member: Billy Graham. Hawkins came to Dallas from the First Baptist Church of Fort Louderdale, Florida, where he became widely known for his effective preaching that featured an expository model with a distinctively contemporary flavor. He was recently interviewed by Preaching editor Michael Duduit.

Preaching: You came to First Baptist, Dallas -- a historic church in the buckle of the Bible belt -- from Fort Lauderdale, much more of a resort community. Now you find yourself in a downtown church, with skyscrapers all around you. How has that affected your preaching? What kind of adjustments have you had to make in changing contexts?

Hawkins: We were downtown in Fort Lauderdale, too, in the middle of the city. But there's a world of difference between Fort Lauderdale and Dallas. Fort Lauderdale is virtually a new city. Money magazine recently said it was in one of the most transient counties in America. A third of the population moves in and out every year. Very few people move there from the Bible Belt. Everybody's from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania -- they're mostly from the Northeast. Many of them -- if they've had any church background at all -- have been from a liturgical background. And so much of what we did at First Baptist was refreshing to them because they had never heard it. I pastored there 15 years and we never had the same Sunday schedule more than 18 months at a time. We would constantly change because we could do that.

Here, it's a much more traditional part of the world -- we're in more of the Bible Belt here. We have a tremendous pulpit heritage here for 100 years and the church is full of Biblically literate laymen and women. So the challenge is to reach, as Stott would say, "between two worlds."

I've always been an expository preacher, but I've always fancied being expository in a contemporary way. It's been a good discipline for me to be here because I cannot wing-it here like you can get away winging-it at some other places. I've not noticed a tremendous difference in my own technique or style.

I think if anything it's helped me to come back to some real basics of preaching. There's a subtle danger out there among young conservative preachers; they're hearing it in some of the conferences or it's being interpreted as such. They're very subtly being told to avoid four things. They are being told to avoid context -- there's almost a pride among some of not preaching expository sermons. I heard one large church Southern Baptist pastor say he never preaches an expository sermon as though that were a badge of honor. So they are being told to avoid context almost; to market the church in such a way to find out what people want and then seek to meet their need. And if they can find a text to tag to it, fine.