This week, I celebrate my fifteen year anniversary as pastor of Malvern Hill Baptist Church. Today, I get to pastor a church that many people would love to pastor. Fifteen years ago, God called me to pastor a church where many pastors had served for very short tenures. Fifteen years ago, I had no real belief that we would still be at Malvern Hill fifteen years later.
But, God has brought beauty and health here at Malvern Hill. What has happened at Malvern Hill is what many people refer to today as revitalization. God took a church that had been floundering for many years, filled with starts and stops and ministry failures and turned the ship around. But how did that happen?
The most important answer is God’s Holy Spirit moved among his people and brought new life. God acted in response to the prayers of his people and God acted for the sake of his church and his name. God acted to save sinners and to energize believers.
But, the Spirit blows where it will. There are aspects to the movement of God’s Holy Spirit in individual lives or in churches that cannot be controlled or contrived. We pray. We seek. But, what else can we do?
If you are a pastor seeking to bring revitalization to an unhealthy church, you must preach your way toward revitalization.
You can’t lead your way into health. You can’t work your way to health or organize your way into becoming a healthy church. All of those things are important, but none of them are most important.
As a pastor, your primary responsibility is to preach the whole counsel of God, in season and out of season. Remember Paul’s words to Timothy:
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom:2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound[a] teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
2 Timothy 4:1-5
Why is preaching so important for revitalization? Because the Word of God is the only tool you have in your arsenal to transform a local church. The Word of God is your only offensive weapon in Spiritual Warfare. So, you must preach.
You must preach the whole counsel of God faithfully, passionately, and with fervor. If you are pastoring an unhealthy church, they will want something else. Their ears will itch to be scratched. They may want you to avoid hard topics or to focus on politics or the latest news item. But, you must be resolute.
Writing a Theology for Ministry in honor of Sinclair Ferguson, Robert Letham recently penned these words to pastors, “The tyranny of the present is ever with us, never more than when the preacher is expected to be cool and to appeal to the latest passing fad.”
The tyranny of the present is different for everyone, but it is also the same. It is the control of the most seemingly urgent, pressing need. But, this task master of the present blinds us to the greatest need. The eternal need of your hearers is met by the proclamation of the Word of God.
Pastor, the church may desire for you to speak to every passing fad. They may be energized by new programs and strategies. But one thing is necessary. One thing is essential. Preach the word.
When disagreements threatened to divide the early church in Acts 6, the apostles did not wade into the controversy to resolve it. The apostles appointed deacons to serve tables and they committed themselves even more to the sacred task of proclaiming the Word of God.
Now in these days kwhen the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists1arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in lthe daily distribution. 2 And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. 3 mTherefore, brothers,2 pick out from among you seven men nof good repute, ofull of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. 4 But pwe will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
Acts 6:1-4
Pastor, you are more than a preacher. You must do more than preach. You must visit, care. pray, and serve. There is more to pastoral ministry than preaching, but if there is no preaching, the service has ceased to be pastoral ministry. You must never sacrifice the preaching of the Word to serve at tables, attend conferences, or create a new vision statement.
Do you desire to see your church revitalized? Then study. Read all the books you can read on revitalization. Attend conferences. Find a mentor. But, above all else, preach the Word.
Unhealthy churches are unhealthy because they are filled with unhealthy Christians. Christians are made healthy by being washed over and over again in the Word of God. The Word of God is powerful, and it is enough.
Get busy preaching. Saturate your church in the Word of God.
Nothing matters more.
Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash
