Erwin Lutzer has served since 1980 as pastor of the historic Moody Church in Chicago. A native of Canada, he taught Bible and theology at Moody Bible Institute before assuming his present pastorate. He is featured speaker on "The Moody Church Hour" and "Songs in the Night," and is author of several books.

Preaching: As pastor of the Moody Church, you serve right in the middle of a major urban area. What are some of the particular dynamics or issues that are involved in preaching in that kind of urban context?

Lutzer: I think there are a number of things that are very important when you preach in the city. You need to be able to preach to broken people. I just came back from a seminar last week at which I spoke for Exodus International, which works with homosexuals and gays, and I gave a report to the congregation on Sunday. I told them how we saw people who have given their sexuality to God and I explained what happened at this meeting. It's interesting the number of people who came up later and thanked me because that's where they are at.

Whenever you are dealing with the city you need to be able to preach to people on a number of different levels. First of all, you think of brokenness, with broken families, sexuality, problems in terms of where people are at. Secondly though, you are also speaking to a business community. So, you have issues of ethics, witnessing in the work place, how to really live out your life on Monday morning. I believe that if a revival ever comes to the United States of America it is going to have to come with a revival of the lay people. The reason for that is because we as preachers are heard only by a very small segment of the community, mostly people who agree with us. The life lived in banks and hospitals and factories and so forth -- and the integrity of the life lived in those contexts -- is the way in which I believe that the gospel is able to spread in the city. So, there are two areas in which I think preaching in the city has its challenges.

But there also is the need for reconciliation. There are things that we can do as pastors to help people see that the church is bigger than our local congregation -- to see the bigger picture of the body. Last year, for example, I switched pulpits for one Sunday with Raleigh Washington, who is pastor of a black church in the neighborhood. He came to Moody Church and I went to his. There are things that I think can be done to help people to see that if you were to think of circles -- and each circle is a local congregation -- God's work in the city encompasses all of those circles of evangelical churches that preach the gospel. Those are the special challenges of the city.

Beyond that, when you think about human need, whenever I prepare a message, I usually have one or two people in mind to whom I'm preaching. Because this helps me be realistic, this helps me to think in terms of the person in the pew rather than just the content on the desk. Human need is so universal that if you are ministering to people where they are and showing the relevance of doctrine, then preaching in the city is not that different than preaching anywhere else.