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Follow one church's journey as they depart from modern church growth trends and reinvent themselves by equipping everyday Christians to live out their faith in real life. Find episodes and show notes at www.dereksanford.com/reinventingchurch
Grace Church (00:15.446)
Sermon, we're going to do this every worship service. We're going to take two minutes of silence. And in the two minutes of silence, we're going to answer two questions. And everyone's going to just write them down. One, what is God saying to me? And two, what am I going to do about it?
Welcome back to Reinventing Church. This is season four. My name's Danielle Hartland and this is Pastor Derek Sanford. Welcome back, everybody. Hello. Hi. Hi. So for reinventing church, we've been on a journey. We've been talking about what it means to go for our church, what it means to go from a purely s purely assimilation model to Attractional. Or sorry, assimilation. Attractional model. To missional multiplication model. And what that
You know, the story behind that, what we're looking at, the components. And I think this season will be cool because we're actually going to be talking about like, okay, how does that work? Yep. so that'll be kind of the difference for season four. We'll be talking to some people and yeah. We're gonna look at v some very specific ministries, see where they came from, see what how we've maybe gotten off track along the way, how we what our dream is going forward.
And then, you know, half of these episodes we're gonna be looking at real people who are living out their faith in their normal normal spaces. And I think that'll be fun too to see like how do we redefine, rethink about the church with people who are not technically pastors, right, but who are trying to do ministry in their everyday spaces. And so hopefully it'll be a a fun journey. Yeah. I think it'll be good. All right. So before Danielle, all it's always great to be with you. I mean, let's you know. I know it is. Yeah.
It's always great to be with you too. Well, and this actually s happened was was it last season or maybe even both seasons before you were gone for a long time before we started again. So you were on sabbatical again. So we we might be a little talky. Yeah. More talky than usual. Yeah. okay, but I do want to ask a question before we start. Okay. So when we first started working together, and I'll answer this two. wow. What did you think I would be like?
Grace Church (02:25.735)
And then And saying not like this is that enough? Yeah, what did you when you were like what I thought I was gonna get was this and what I got was that. Okay, so whatever. That's a that's a fun question. We don't pre-do these, so this is like this is coming at me cold. Yeah. my first impression of you, because you were a high schooler, one we met essentially, was this like fun, gregarious, like
Theater kid, into music, into yeah. And so, you know, just kind of a high energy ball of personality. Wow. Which is what I got. I mean that's pretty okay. But what did you think? Well, yeah. I thought, wow. I mean, I I don't mean to like be weird about it, but I do literally remember saying like, wow, he's gonna change the world.
well. Like I remember being like in eleventh grade and thinking that in like a big room of people. but yeah, I thought like, wow, this is gonna be like he's gonna be like funny, high energy, like that's gonna be like nonstop all the time. It's gonna be like an adventure, blah blah blah, you know. And it it it is and it was. And you are and you can be, but the older we've gotten. Right. Well and but the old well, the older we've gotten, the older we've gotten. But also Well, I think we are both
We probably didn't clock about each other that we're both introverts. Introverts, yeah. Which works because actually introverts when they're with people that they connect with are like extroverts. Yeah, exactly. That's why I think we picked that up in each other. Yeah. yeah, it still comes out when we're together, just not when we're with anybody else. No. In fact, a lot of people who have listened to this are like
Hey. Who is that person? Who are you? And why are you like that in meetings? Like, you know, I am who I am and I am who I am. I think, yeah, I think I I think obviously you've always been a person who's like you are who you are. Yeah. Like you're not gonna be one way in you know, so yeah. I think you proved to be who you are for sure. Who I thought you'd be. Same, same. Somehow we made it with the people around us. Did we? Okay, okay, yeah. Okay, yeah.
Grace Church (04:33.291)
All right. So, okay. So this season, another cool thing that we're gonna do is you're gonna jump into a little bit of like history on the topic that we're gonna approach. So I'm gonna let you just kind of like go. Okay. Set that up and yeah, we'll just talk about it. All right. So today we're talking about preaching. Yep. We're talking about the sermon. And we have a great guest on Dave Rhodes, who who's got just some brilliant things to say about this. But
Yeah, I wanna, I wanna my my little self-title of this little segment is Where the Heck Did This Idea Come From? Okay, this idea that somebody's gonna stand up for 30, 40, 5, 60 minutes on a Sunday morning with a room full of people and exposite the word of God. All right. So I wanna start by just saying preaching is a Christian distinctive. And so it's it's something that's uniquely Christian. So other religions have
Other things, clergy who maybe lead a recitation or guided meditation, or there are things like that, maybe read from some holy book of their religion or whatever. Some have scholars who lecture kind of from their texts or whatever. But really, cr Christianity is unique in this, that we build a weekly rhythm around this one practice and often around a preacher who is bringing that word. And so where did that?
come from and I want to trace it really kind of all the way back and and even talk about like why does it look like the way it looks today and when did we maybe get a a little off track with it and other things. So and really where we want to conclude is this interview with Dave and going our hope for the future, like where do we go now as we're reinventing church. How do we think about the sermon or how do we think about preaching kind of through a new lens. And so that's that's what I want to do. But here's the the the line that I want to plant at the very beginning.
I think scripture makes an overwhelming case for the centrality of preaching. Preaching is central to the church, but it never makes a case for the sufficiency of preaching. In other words, it's not enough as the totality of the system. It was never intended to carry the full weight of a Christian life. And so I think one of the traps that we've fallen into is to go, if I can get there on Sunday or or l hear my podcast and get my weekly sermon in.
Grace Church (06:50.965)
Like I've done my Christian duty kind of thing. And I don't think it was ever meant to do that. And so if we go all the way back and actually I just want to talk about the word for a second. I want to rehabilitate the word preaching for a moment because preaching in a in a way has become a dirty word in our society. Don't preach at me. And it's used not just of sermons, it's used just kind of as a regular dirty word. It's equated with shame, it's equated with condemnation, legalism.
And I just want to say at the outset, that is not God's heart for preaching. I think it's not most preachers' heart for preaching, even though that word has kind of been commandeered. And so this idea of proclamation of the word of God is very cent central to God's redemptive plan. And so when you just think about like the high moments, the high points of biblical history, like creation itself resulted from a first sermon. It says, By the word of the Lord the heavens were made. Okay. So God spoke a sermon.
And the world was created. Jesus' arrival was announced by preaching. John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness and he preached Jesus. Jesus ministry launches on preaching. It says, From that time Jesus began to preach. Matthew 4, 17. The church was born on a sermon. So Peter's you know, he preaches that in that first Pentecost, and 3,000 people are baptized in Acts 2. the last sermon of history will be preached by an angel.
And it's pretty hellfire and brimstone stone. I'm gonna read it to you. If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or his hand, he will also drink the wine of God's wrath. That's a Revelation 14. So this is kind of like the final sermon, the proclamation. J.I. Packer, I love this quote. He said, The proper aim of preaching is to mediate meetings with God. To mediate meetings with God. And so it kind of comes back to this idea that God is eager to communicate with his people.
And commune with his people. And sometimes people are oblivious to their need for that communion with God. And so the preacher kind of stands in the middle of those two, brokering the meeting between God and His people. So there's lots and lots of examples through the Bible. I'm gonna just at a very high level kind of run us through. I wanna pick one Old Testament example. It's in Nehemiah eight. it's kind of an unexpected preaching text, but
Grace Church (09:08.945)
in Nehemiah, if you remember, they're kind of rebuilding the city and Ezra is there. And then so they they kind of build this I'm sorry, it's in Ezra and Nehemiah. They build this wooden platform in the middle of the gathering of people for the purpose of of preaching. It's arguably the first pulpit that was ever created. It's in Nehemiah 8:4. And it says he read from daybreak until noon, so about roughly six hours.
And people stood the whole time. So no seats, no pews. Nehemiah 8.3 says that. And then it says as he's delivering the word that the Levites circulated among the people. And here's the here's the phrase that I love. Giving this giving the sense so that the people understood the reading. And so they're almost like they're reading God's word, and then there's these people circulating in the crowd, kind of translating or saying, here's what that means, or here's what, and so there's this.
from the from the start of this idea. There's this proclamation from a platform and then there's a processing in the crowd. And so it didn't end with the reading. And so and then chapter eight, the next chapter, moves to to obedience. So then they go and they build booths and they keep a feast. And then chapter nine moves to this corporate confession. They start confessing their sins. And then chapter ten moves to this written signed covenant, renewing the covenant with God with some specific
Commitments. And so we see in that example in Ezra and Nehemiah preaching, processing. I'm going to do a preacher thing here. Yeah, I was preaching, pro preaching, processing, practice, and then commitment. Covenant. Shoot. Okay. I ruined it. Yeah. Sorry. So then the prophets come. The prophets are essentially, they're not fortune tellers. People think of prophecy like they're telling the few. They're mostly preachers. They're they're proclaiming the word of God to specific audiences. And so they come and kind of pick up that.
movement. And then by Jesus Day, the pattern is kind of fixed to the synagogues. and so what they would do in the synagogues is they would read the law, they would read the prophets, and then a rabbi or teacher would sit down and expound. And so I always love these passages in the New Testament where it talks about Jesus either sitting or standing. Sitting was actually a posture of authority for a teacher or a preacher. And so when they would sit, they were showing their authority and then they would expound on the word. And so
Grace Church (11:32.673)
Jesus is doing this exact pattern you can see again and again as he would sit down and he was basically just doing the pattern of preaching that was common in the day in the synagogue. And then I mentioned earlier about Peter at Pentecost. So the first sermon is what what really kind of launches the early church in Acts chapter two. It's a fascinating sermon to study just sermonically if people want are interested in that. But again, I say scripture is overwhelmingly
Affirming of the centrality of preaching, the proclamation of the word, but it's silent on the sufficiency of preaching. It's always kind of surrounded by these other metrics and mechanisms. And so, it seems to always the proclamation of the word of God seems to always sit within a web. Yeah. a household, a table,
Sponsor, somebody who comes alongside another person who's reading an apprenticeship, sending and a debrief, a covenant that we just talked about. And so my concern for for us today is that in a lot of cases we've kept the sermon and we've lost the web. Yeah, we've lost these other structures that help people to process and live out the word of God kind of thing. So
I wanna g again take a quick run through history here. So if we go back to like 30 AD to 450, you know, this is the apostolic into the pat what's called the patristic age. Okay, you ready for it? Yeah. Okay. So the what's fascinating to me again, going back to the words that are used, the original words to describe this thing that we call preaching, were conversational words. Yeah. So we've turned mon you know, we've turned it into a monologue, but like homily, the word homily, which was an early word for this thing.
is a Greek word that just means conversation. the word sermon from the Latin is also means conversation. So that's interesting. So neither of those early words for what we do was considered a one-way speech. It was a conversation. Justin Martyr in 155 AD kind of gives the earliest description of a Christian service. And I think this is all fascinating.
Grace Church (13:47.7)
So he describes it this way he says, the writings are read as long as time permits, which I I think we should readopt. No. As long as time permits. And then the presider, okay, the presider verbally instructs and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Okay. So it brings exhortations that we would imitate these good things that we just read about. So this is the you know, this is early preaching.
But imitation is the stated goal. Yeah. Imitation. By 300, there's a a great chur church father, Chrysostom, and he has there's writings that he has his congregation interrupting him with cheering and waving of handkerchiefs. Okay. And so we get our first lively this is three hundred AD. Wow. Okay. And
That there's these great moments if you read some of those early writings where he stops and scolds them. because the the st he they had stenographers essentially that were taking down his sermons live and and so you can tell by his reactions that people are doing these things. And so he tells them that that their applause profits nothing and to show it in their lives. wow. Like, let's go. Okay. So then
In the medi medieval years there's a little bit of like a decline in in the idea of preaching. It actually goes quiet in church history for a pretty long stretch of times. and it's part partly when the mass became central to the church's weekend experience. And so liturgy is in Latin, so people aren't really understanding. people in the room don't speak Latin.
The visual. So this is where we have all these visual iconography. We've got stained glass. We've got stuff like that. So the visual replaces the verbal as the medium kind of thing. And so the people are seeing things. there are plays that that they would do to kind of act out scenes or whatever, but it's not it's not preaching. So it's like the eye took over for the ear for a time in church history.
Grace Church (15:55.978)
A lot of the parish priests, and so there was kind of a shortage on priests in some areas, and they would go into these country places where there were no trained clergy. And so this kind of parish priest, they were functionally unable to to preach or uneducated to preach. And this clerical education had kind of collapsed. And so anyway, in 1216, Dominic gets papal approval for an order whose actual legal name is the Order of Preacher Preachers.
And so he is kind of breathing new life into this this art form and he's training people specifically to preach in the languages that people spoke. And so this is I I think kind of the birth of the sermon as a as a as a discipline, something to be studied and and perfected. interesting go to our big idea here. Domic Dominic did not launch a preaching conference, he founded an order.
Yeah. So he founded a community. And so poverty, community, study, rules of life, life on the road together, like this is how they learned. And the preaching came packaged inside of a way of living. Yeah. And I think that's a that's a good thing for us to take. The Reformation came along. So now we're in the 1500s. The pulpit physically moves to the center of the room. So this is an important moment. The pul pulpit was never kind of at the center of the stage or the center of the room in any way.
Pulpin moves to the center of the room. So architecture begins to follow theology. Okay. And is saying the sermon has now become kind of central again to our gatherings. there's a resurgence of preaching. So Zwingli and Calvin in in Geneva and others. Luther preached constantly, Martin Luther the reformer. most estimates say several thousand sermons across his lifetime, Luther preached. And so again, there's this resurgence of preaching.
But I I love this example, fifteen twenty eight. It's called the Saxon Visitation. So Luther begins walking around parish to parish of this new Protestant movement to see how it's going. And he finds ordinary people who can't recite the Lord's Prayer. they don't know the creeds and they have no idea what their baptism was for. This these were his findings. Wow.
Grace Church (18:13.93)
His own words say this. The common people have no knowledge whatever of Christian doctrine. Okay. So what the what he does next is what I what I want to talk about. He doesn't pre-charter. he doesn't launch a new series. Sure. he writes what's called the small catechism in 1529. So and here's what here's the stated goal. He writes it for fathers to teach their own households. That's cool. So he moves theology into the into the home.
Question and answer at the kitchen table all week long. He had it printed in placards. Yeah, they had put it on the wall, those sorts of things. So the the reformers recovered the centrality of the word of God and then deliberately built scaffolding around it. Yeah. in homes. So it's the the sermon plus catechism. then there was the Puritan Pietist movement, 1600s, 1700s. there was this kind of plain style of preaching that came into popularity, doctrine.
Reasons, uses. Well, those were the three sections. So doctrines, reasons, uses. Uses was the application section. That was our next step, you know, section. Yeah. Was often the lar longest part of the sermon in those days. So application was kind of structural to the message. It wasn't tacked on to the end. It was like this is the whole reason for this thing. And the best preachers of that era, when you look back, were also the best system builders. So they were.
They were building systems around the sermon, house to house visitation, groups for mutual accountability, those sorts of things. Then there's revivalism, and I think revivalism is the hinge to this whole story for where we are right now. Yeah. Because during revivalism, the purpose of the sh the sermon shifts from formation to decision. So we're working toward a decision. So instead of it being this kind of like regular diet of forming people that week to week people take in like meals.
And you don't really remember a particular meal, but you know you've had them because you're continuing to grow. It moves from that to being a moment of response. So that every sermon is built around we got to get to this pinnacle moment where people make a decision. so George Whitfield begins field preaching in 1739, out in fields. And Ben Franklin, the famous American, he he ran an experiment in Philadelphia where he kind of kept walking back and back and back to see how far he could hear him.
Grace Church (20:38.036)
Without a microphone, remember. Yep. And his estimate was that he could have been heard by thirty thousand people with no amplification. wow. Thirty thousand people. So again, we've got this whole new thing where it's like we're gathering large crowds, we're working toward a decision. John Wesley, by the way, preached in the same era as George Whitfield, but he built an infrastructure that lives to this day, by the way. They were called societies, and then classes, and these were classes about
12 people meeting weekly around one question, how is it with your soul? And so again, they're building infrastructure around this. And interestingly, Whitfield's own verdict near the end of his life, it's this quote: My brother Wesley acted wisely. The souls that were awakened under his ministry, he joined in classes and thus prov preserved the fruit of his labor. And so you almost hear this regret of like, I preached toward a decision, but there was no infrastructure for.
The last one, and I think we'll we'll just go mo modern attractional nineteen hundred until now. So now all of a sudden we have radio in the nineteen twenties, we have television in the nineteen fifties. Preaching becomes broadcast worthy. and the preacher becomes personality based. Okay. And so you have Billy Graham's crusades and decision cards and counselor training. Again, everything built around this decision. Now to his credit.
They also build a good infrastructure of referral to local churches. So I think Billy Graham had this in his mind. But Willow Creek in 1975, all of a sudden the weekend experience becomes the strategy. Yeah. You know, we remember these days. And so the message is at the center, a little bit more informational, a little TED talk-ish. Saddleback follows in 1980, purpose-driven church, nineteen ninety-five. And all of a sudden, with the advent of these kinds of churches, production value comes into play. And we've got videos and bands and lighting and
Multi-site in the nineteen nineties and two thousands, video venues where the sermon literally becomes kind of this transferable product that we can put in various churches. And now we live in the podcast and streaming era when you can get the best sermons in the whole world at at the blink of an eye. And so every era that got preaching right hung the sermon inside of a system and infrastructure.
Grace Church (22:59.316)
And I think every era that has drifted asked the sermon to be the whole. Yeah. And I think that's the question that we need to wrestle with today is has the sermon become the whole thing? Yeah. And I think when we think about how this drifted, it's when the sermon became the whole discipleship plan. Yeah. And and I don't think we meant it, but I think by default, in a lot of places it has become that.
Yeah, sure. In fact, I was just in a room fairly recently where I heard somebody say, We're getting back to discipleship. We're getting back to discipleship. I said, That's awesome. We are too. What does that mean for you? And he said, I'm gonna preach the Bible more. And so again, it was like still a preaching strategy. Yeah. And and yeah. That sounds like how a preacher gets himself back to discipleship. Not yeah. Right, right. And then the the the second thing I would just name in the drift, and then we're gonna go to this interview with Dave that I think is gonna shed some great light, but
I think we've also reached a place where preachers are are evaluated on their style and delivery. Sure. And we're so it's come back to that kind of personality thing. Yeah. And we're evaluating the quality of preaching based on that preacher's personality and the things that he brought to the table. And we're walking out going, Was that a good sermon or a bad sermon? Or evaluating and then like just kind of basing our spiritual growth on was it good or bad? Right. You know.
So that's great. There's a whole thing, Danielle. I love it. All right. That's cool. Let's yeah, let's go. We had a really cool conversation with Dave about this and let's talk to him for a little bit and we'll come back. Yep.
This is our segment we're liking to call our hope for the church. And we have Dave Rhodes with us. Dave, hi. Good to see you. Great to be back with you guys. Yeah, look at what's going What's up, Rhodes? Yeah. Yeah. Good to see you. This will a good good conversation with two very good preachers. So I'm excited. so Dave, let's start with you first. just give us kind of like your thoughts on preaching, kind of like what what you feel about
Grace Church (25:06.518)
About the art of preaching, if you will, and just yeah, whatever you want to share on your heart, and we'll start there. Yeah, I mean, I I love preaching, number one. So I just want to say that out loud. I was trained by Dr. Robert Smith Jr., incredible African American preaching professor at Beeson Divinity School, maybe the best preacher I've ever heard. And he instilled in all of us a love for preaching, especially when it's done well, when it's done right.
so I I I love the moment that we get to step into with people where we're bringing a word in real time to real people and believe in the power and effectiveness of that moment. And you know, for me it's one of the favorite things that I get to do. I love training other people to preach, hopefully preach well. and for for me, you know, it's been one of those things that I've it's a craft I've worked at for a really, really long time.
not just because you know I like the craft, but because I believe in what God does in a moment in people's lives where one person is speaking a word, people are hearing the word, and the Holy Spirit is doing something between the speaker's mouth and the people's ears. and so for me, you know, I always go to Ezekiel chapter 37, where Ezekiel is in the valley of dry bones. And if I'm training communicators, for me, this is what preaching is all about.
in in the Valley of Dry Bones, God brings Ezekiel out there. It's a graveyard, not just any graveyard, it's Ezekiel's friends and families in the in the middle of exile. And God asks him a question. He says, Can these bones live? And if you've ever preached at the nine o'clock service, you've heard the Holy Spirit ask you that that question, right? so can these bones live? It's that question. And and it's an interesting thing there because
What God asks Ezekiel to do in that moment is he says, start speaking to the bones. Now, if you go back to Ezekiel chapter 37, if you're a Hebrew mind and and you're hearing this, Ezekiel 37, where he speaks and the bones come to, you know, come together, and then he speaks to the wind and the wind starts blowing. This is nothing less than read Genesis. It is Genesis 1, God speaks, everything's created. Then he breathes into man's nostrils the breath of life, and they come to
Grace Church (27:27.854)
in in and come to life. And and so what happens here in Ezekiel chapter 37, re-genesis happens not from the voice of God, but from the voice of Ezekiel. and so even when I'm training communicators, you know, we think about the power of this moment, it really is the moment of stepping into a graveyard and believing through our words things can come to life. And even as I break down great sermons, I think they got to be part bones and part breath, right? There's the bones of really
You know, what is it we're trying to communicate? But there's that Holy Spirit breath part of what we're doing. that is, you know, all the things in between the things that the Holy Spirit of God is doing in that moment. And so for me, you know, as I as I get up to preach and step into that moment, I that's the kind of passage of scripture that's always in my mind, that Ezekiel chapter thirty-seven. This is the opportunity of preaching. It's the significance of preaching that God actually can bring life from death in what we're doing.
So lots more I could go into there, but for me it's kind of formative. Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. let's talk a little bit. I think we want to start in this segment really talking about how you two have felt the drift that has happened from what was intended with preaching to where we are today and maybe where we might be going. let's just talk a little bit about that, Derek, if you wanna kick us off. Yeah. I I
So I'll just give a a a specific example. I was just at a gathering of a bunch of pastors, pastors of prominent churches this summer around the country and one of the pastors kind of started talking about this moment and recognizing that culturally we need a return to discipleship. That was his that was his words. And so he says, you know, we we we have to really return to discipleship and get back to the basics of discipleship. And I actually raised my hand and said, like what
What's your what's your plan for that? Like what's because we're we're in a similar moment, like yes, we need to do that. And his response was something around the idea of I'm gonna really start preaching the Bible instead of preaching topics. And so the solution came back to preaching. Like how how do we double down on discipleship? Well, we preach different kinds of sermons than we've been preaching before. And
Grace Church (29:50.866)
That's i I mean, if I were to put a finger on it, I I feel like that's kind of the drift of like we're gonna solve the discipleship problem with preaching because I'm not positive that was ever that the preaching was ever supposed to be sufficient for the whole discipleship journey for a person. And so I feel like as preachers, when it's like, you know,
When when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. You know, that that phrase of just like when this is when this is what we know, we're gonna solve every problem with this one tool that we have. And and so, you know, in my mind, that's that's kind of the the a description of the drift is like the the s the sermon has gone from this one tool in the toolbox to the only tool we have at our disposal. And I think you know, we we probably need to think a little bit more creatively about the other tools.
Yeah, I love Derek in your kind of overview of preaching. I love your perspective of the history of preaching and how it's morphed and changed a little bit. And one of the things that I that you said there is that preaching's become the default discipleship plan versus really the, you know, part of the design. And when I think about that, you know, I I go to First Timothy chapter four, where Paul's writ writing to Timothy, and he's, you know.
Talking to him about how to be a great pastor. And one of the things that he says there is to devote yourself to two things. One is good teaching, which is really important. We want to do teaching, want to do it well, we want to preach. We want that those Ezekiel 37. But but the second thing he says and godly training. And that's where I think we've we've missed in that drift. We've thought just good teaching alone can create the kind of disciples that we're trying to that that God wants us to create.
And what we're gonna say is, no, let's keep doing teaching well. Let's do good teaching. But on the other hand, what's it mean for us to really put our imagination to godly training? And for me, you know, as a communicator, because some of these both of these things are communication skills, you know, I I learned good teaching in seminary, but it was good training that I learned as a soccer coach. It's a whole different set of skills, yeah, whole different kind of environment.
Grace Church (32:10.102)
Where you go from tell how in the preaching moment to show how in the training moment. And that directive that Paul gives to Timothy there, I think, is important for us as we think about creating disciple-making cultures. Do good teaching well, but also there might be another environment where people need to be around you in a different kind of way, not just for good teaching, but for godly training. Hey, hey Dave, can you can you build on that soccer illustration a little bit? Like talk about talk about how
Training happens for a coach and how that might translate into the church environment. Yeah, it's interesting. You know, I mean, again, I I've spent a lot of time cultivating the preaching craft. And for the first probably six, seven years of my ministry, man, it was, you know, I was I was told in seminary it's one hour for every minute you're gonna speak, right? So you either speak in short and not doing much prep, but I mean, so much of my time and energy was there. and I think what was
disappointing, you know, even though that we were seeing God do some amazing things and services and different things like that, was it does is is what we're talking about in the moments that we're creating, is it translating into, you know, the development of people? And in some ways we could say yes, but in other ways there was that haunting within me that that made me no. And so I I started thinking about the way that people develop. And I remember I've been developing people for a long time in my life.
You know, before I went to seminary, I was a soccer coach. I know how to make soccer players. And it really just kind of dawned on me that, you know, if I if I I mean, I had one guy when we talk about this, say it, he said, if I if I coached my baseball team the way that my I pastored my church, my baseball team would suck. I love that. I love that. And I felt the same way about me and in my ministry, in that is, man, I'm I'm inspiring people.
Things are happening in the service, but I know how to develop people. Why have I parked all of my people development skills, you know, in the parking lot when it comes to ministry and word? And so I just began to go back to say how how do we coach soccer players? And I remember the way that we would we would really put together every single
Grace Church (34:21.566)
Soccer practice was was four things. We would say it, which was important. They need to understand what we're doing. Hey guys, we're going work on shooting today because we shot 38 times and only three of them were on frame last game. So we're going to work on shooting. There's some things they need to hear. Say it. See it. I remember how powerful it was for them to get a demo that they could look at at high quality so that they could imitate that practice. So we would always give a demo on what we were going to do so I could put a picture in their mind that they could imitate.
Then we're going to design some exercise, some some things for some drills for them to come into. They're going to try it. While they're trying it, we're going to give real time affirmation and critique. We're going to slow it down where we need to. We're going to rehearse things. We're going to affirm where we need to. And then we're going to tie it, you know, to a fulfilled soccer practice. So it's say it, see it, try it, tie it, and begin to say, what if we could create more environments where we were actually having those kinds of practices? Because what I found with the people everyday person.
It's really hard to go live on Monday with what they heard on Sunday. I need a fail-safe environment for me to practice in so that I build confidence that I can go in real time with that. And so, you know, part of what we we've done at Clarity House is take the best of sports training, adult learning, and trade skill apprenticeship and say, could we begin to reimagine the godly training environments through that lens? Still, you know.
Do the good teaching stuff on Sunday, that kind of thing. But is there another environment where we could do some of the show how learning? Mm-hmm. That's incredible. and and you guys are so good at this, Dave, and and we've learned so much from you in terms of just cre creating those environments. One of the things that you challenged us with is to say, you know, well what if you what if you invested as much kind of creative energy toward training environments as we do toward teaching environments? Not that we diminish the
The teaching environments would just go, man, what if some of that creative energy could go toward training environments where we're getting people in rooms and actually developing skills and showing them those high quality examples of what it looks like? I mean, it's just incredible. Let let me say one more thing, Danielle, about the drift and then we can maybe start to dream about the future a little bit. But like I I think one of the the dangers, and I I
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I talked about this a long time ago, but I as I was I'm thinking about this again, James, in James one twenty-two says, you know, do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. And so that it's like a really crazy he's saying it's actual actually possible for us to listen to the word of God and deceive ourselves in the process. And then he goes on to describe what that is. He says, Do what it says, because anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says
is like someone who looks at his face in the mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. And so it's kind of a weird analogy, but but he's saying like that it when you're a hearer only, when you're a hearer only and not a doer, it's like looking in the mirror, seeing what's wrong, and then walking away and not doing anything about it. That that's essentially the analogy. And I think when we think about
Preaching through this lens that it's like preaching can actually be dangerous, preaching can actually be deceptive, as James describes here, both I I've found for the preacher and for the hearers. Because as a preacher, I can walk away from preaching deceiving myself because what what preaching does is it provides an environment for people to feel spiritual without really being spiritual.
And and that and that goes for the preacher and the congregation. So I when I stand up there to preach, I feel deeply spiritual, proclaiming the word of God. Like it's a moving spiritual experience. But there's an enormous difference between preaching God's word and practicing God's word. And that goes for me and the hearers. And so the danger for this for sermons for me is that I can become a professional talker. Yes. and and the danger
for the congregation is that people can become professional hearers. and well not even professional hearers, but just even in today's culture, like we have learned the skill of like sound biting. Mm-hmm. And so not even professional hearers, it's just like professional editors. Like you just take what feels good and then magnify that.
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without the context. It's super dangerous. Yeah. And here's the gap that it it creates. First of all, Derek, you're taking me back to my formative experience in my high school career as a junior in high school, God gets in my grill basically, you know, I'm reading the book of James and and it's like he that y what you just said was diagnosing me. You hear, but you don't do anything. My and I've just felt the Holy Spirit say, My biggest problem with you, Dave, is that you don't do anything.
And so it was a it was a big moment, you know, in my life, formative moment. But here's what happens when we create that kind of here's the gap it creates. when you're doing hearing but not doing, at best you're creating knowledge. But you're not creating wisdom because wisdom isn't the absence of knowledge, it's knowledge plus revelation that's been lived out in life. And so what ends up happening is that, you know.
We create a culture that is knowledge rich and wisdom poor. And the way that Jesus would diagnose that in Matthew chapter six at the end of the of the Sermon on the Mount, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, he says, anyone who hears these words and put that puts them into practice is the wise man. The fool is the one who hears the words and doesn't put them into practice. They both hear, but the fool hears it and doesn't do.
And so at best, when we're doing a hearing only culture, at best we're creating spiritual knowledge. At worst, we're creating spiritual foolishness. But even if we're creating spiritual knowledge, there's a gap between knowledge and wisdom. And what I believe we need more believers to become today is not just simply knowledge rich and wisdom poor, but wisdom rich. How do I live with wisdom and supernatural power in my life?
And that create that that that creates a need for something more than just hearing. For sure. Yeah, let's talk about then. Let's talk about that. as we look toward what we see in the future, the horizon, what's on the horizon for preaching in your guys' opinion? How can we maximize these learnings? Well, I I think I I mean I'd I'd love to talk and and hear Dave talk. I'll I'll share a little example that we're doing, but like, you know.
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thinking about what does it look like to design sermons with with skills in mind, you know, so that it's not just information, but there's this wisdom component. I I've I've been grabbing a hold of the word activation, you know, that we need to move beyond information, even move beyond inspiration. I would even argue move beyond spiritual formation, which has become very popular today, with John Mark Comer and other people doing lots of great work in that. But
is to go, we need to reclaim activation. Like how do we get this in the streets? You know, how do we do this in real life? And so I'm just thinking about what does it look like to design sermons that build skills and not just feed that information thing in us. And so we're doing an experiment, for example, in early October this year with with one of our young leaders at the church. And we're looking at
you know, one of our dream disciple skills. And so part of the process is kind of naming what is a disciple so that we can keep coming back to those kind of skills. so, you know, Dave and Clarity House have helped us to kind of name these dream disciple roles. But, you know, we're doing a short two weeker in early October where I'm going to talk about one of those roles and teach on it. And we're going to introduce a very basic skill, but I've had one of our young leaders who's going to join me for week two.
We're gonna co preach that second week, but he's kind of been working on assignment with that skill that that we're gonna introduce to the congregation. And he's been putting it into practice for a month and he's gonna come and talk about here's how this skill looks in real life. Here's what here's how I tried to integrate this into my workspace, and here's how I tried to integrate this into my actual life, and here's what I found, and he's gonna talk about it. And so that's one thing we're it's not gonna happen every week, but that's one thing we're experimenting with.
to go, can we get some people from our congregation to implement, activate, and then actually talk about it as part of that preaching teaching moment, so that we are developing skills and and it becomes that what what Dave you called the see it part, you know, not just say it, but see it. And we're going to provide that illustration in real time of like we want you to see what this actually looks like when you when you live it out. So that's one of the things that we're playing with that
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this year. We're gonna do that four different times for each of the disciple roles. But Dave, I'm I'm curious to hear you talk about just like what what does it look like to design sermons that don't just deliver content but that actually inspire people to build skills. Yeah, no, I mean I think I mean there's so many things that we could talk about here. And also I I do wanna acknowledge there is a limitation to what you can do in a
Room that's a public space environment with a lot of people. So there is a little bit of limitation, but we can also have some imagination. And I do think it it it actually is a return to what I would call parabolic preaching. and you know, when we think about a parable, I love the way that you know Warren Wearsby used to talk about it. It it starts as a picture. the picture though turns into a mirror. So like it's just a guy going from Jerusalem to Jericho. Well
it the the parable becomes a mirror when it's like, well, who am I? Am I the priest? Am I the Levite? Am or I am I the Good Samaritan? But eventually the parable become a window. It changes the way that we see everything. So how do I live my whole life through the lens of the good Sam Good Samaritan? And so I think we've got to put some parabolic imagination into our preaching. One of the ways we can do that is tools that we're accessing the people that they can actually put into practice. But
It they can diagnose themselves. They can also begin to see the future in a different way. but it in case, you know, you're listening and you're like, well, man, I don't even have a toolkit, that kind of thing. There are just also some very simple approaches. I have one guy that's a good friend of mine that was wanting to create a little bit more training space in their in their Sunday morning service. Here's here's a simple adjustment that he made. He said, after the sermon, we're gonna do this every worship service. We're gonna take two minutes of silence.
And in the two minutes of silence, we're going to answer two questions. And everyone's going to just write them down. One, what is God saying to me? And two, what am I going to do about it? It's a programming shift that literally takes two minutes. But instead of just, you know, hearing the word and then going on with the rest of the program, it's a significant pause that for a minute or two.
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Write down as well as you can in a sentence, what is God saying to me? And in that second piece, what am I gonna do about that this week? And he was, you know, it's amazing how just that little two-minute pause actually began to shape the room in a different kind of way. So you're not just hearing, you're actually digesting, saying, Here's what I think God's saying to me in one sentence. And by the way, you're you're helping people learn the skill of what it means to hear from God.
So you're developing the skill of hearing from God, not just hearing a talk.
Yeah, that's awesome. I've I've I've said for a long time, I think one of the best gifts we can give people on a Sunday is time to breathe. Right. It's that's even yeah. Yeah, process and think and that's awesome. Yeah. I think the other thing that I would just say, I mean, again, we we did a whole preaching school and one of the things we talked about was five essentials of communication. And one of those is
Preaching is the beginning, but discipleship is the end, right? So preaching be can begin something, but it can't end something. And so how do I preach with discipleship in mind, knowing the limitation of the service, but also, you know, saying, Well, what is it that we are providing beyond the service that actually helps put these things into practice? So I think if we can go with that.
you know, as in in our imagination that preaching is part of it. It's not the default discipleship plan. It's part of the design. But then how are we creating other environments beyond the worship service for for the things that can't happen in the worship service to happen in people's lives? But preaching in that goal, which I day Derek, I love the way that you just set that up by saying, do we even know the kind of disciple that we're trying to design? We've got to have that endpoint in mind as preachers.
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and we got to put that in front of people so they actually know what we're asking them to become. You know, what is it that I'm trying to become more of, do more of, what capabilities it, you know, is that gonna require? And then how do I get access to those things? Yeah, that's good. And I I do think for the preachers, and I know, Danielle, I think we want to also talk to some of the people who are listening to this who are not preachers and to say what but I know for the preachers, like
The shift I've been trying to make in our even our sermon calendaring is to ask different questions. You know, so I've always asked, what does God, what does God want to say to our church? That's the most important question for sure. It still is to this day. what does God want to say? I will confess that sometimes it creeps in there the selfish motivation of what do I want to say? which, you know, there's a little attitude there, I think, for leaders and preachers to be like, hey, this is something God's putting on my heart and I'm I want to talk about it.
But I do think that the question that needs to kind of prominently come to the surface is who who do we want our people to become? And that question needs to kind of come at least come into the mix of going, not just what does God want to say, not just what do I want to say, but who do who does God want our people to become and how are we creating that? Yeah, and I I would think in the preparation of that too, Derek, in in light of, you know.
Well again, one of the other essentials that we train preachers in is speak up, not down. And one of the things that we talk about is how am I creating an empowering environment? And here's where that comes into the preparation piece of what you're talking about is it's easy to spend all week in the struggle of the sermon and come out and preach the resolve of the sermon. But what people need, if we're gonna empower them is they need to be brought into the struggle of the sermon.
Like they don't need me to come struggle for a week and come give the resolve because what I'm trying to do when I preach is not just tell them what I what God is saying, but invite them in a process of how to read your Bible. And part of reading your Bible is a struggle, and I don't like this. I how does that mean? This doesn't make sense to me. And so sometimes, even when we think about our sermon prep, we come out and our sermon is only the resolve of what we've struggled with.
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Versus no, how do I bring people into the struggle of the sermon so they can struggle with me before we get to the resolve? And all part of that, while we're doing that, we're training them how to how to read their Bibles. Yeah, that's cool. I think too, like that's sort of Derek, I liked how you said in the history you talked a little bit about how preaching was always embedded in like apprenticeship, accountability, like community, being with people and
I think like as a normal person, like walking through your calling, like a lot of times, you know, we might hear people say things as leaders, we might s hear like, you know, like the terms just really aren't like feeding me or like this isn't like deep enough for me or something like that. And as I've been reflecting on that, I think my challenge is like looking at the ecosystem like that you've built around yourself. So like are not even just only a life group, but like, are you mentoring somebody? Is somebody mentoring you?
Are you is there someone that you're, Dave to your point, kind of wrestling through this with, whether it's a spouse or a friend or whatever? I like the idea of the sermon and the preaching of the word being part of this big ecosystem that you guys are talking about. But those I think those personal connections and accountability is what we as growing disciples can control and build around those things that the church offers. If you know what I mean. Yeah.
Absolutely. And and I think, you know, as part of that, even as we're thinking about putt imagination in the preaching, is part of that is people just need space to ask questions do QA. Like so, like one of the big things is that's cool, you know, in a worship service, when do you get to ever just do QA? Like when like, yeah, you just spoke on this. Here's the things that are popping up, you know, that I wanna ask questions about. And and part of having someone that you are struggling with scripture over.
is the opportunity to ask each other questions and to hear answers and to see what God does, not just in the talking, but in the QA time. Because what QA does, I I can't hide behind my notes in QA. Like I ha you get to see how the sermon or how, you know, got my my relationship with God is actually affecting me versus me giving you a prepared talk. And so giving access for critical QA, I think is just even another small way if can bring imagination.
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things. Yeah. And I I would just say that, you know, I I do think thinking about those webs of of relationship, you know, I I said in that history that, you know, every every instance of powerful preaching kind of sits inside of a web. And so whether that's a household or a kitchen table or, you know, a an apprenticeship or a sponsor or whatever it may be, like that ma for for our everyday influencers, everyday leaders to go
I'm gonna take that gift of that sermon and what God spoke and help to translate that into actionable, accountable Christian community, you know, with the people who are in my sphere of influence. and and you know, because like Dave said, you can't do all that from the stage necessarily. You can't do all that from the pulpit. And so it it it's the beginning of this, you know, flow outward.
to outside the walls of the church, but but sometimes that translation needs to happen in these like smaller communities where people are processing. What does this mean for us? you know, what what did God say and what am I going to do about it? You know, that whole that whole construct. It's good. Dave, I think we're coming toward the end of our time here, but I think we want to maybe give you the last word here. So is there anything else you want to share just for anyone listening?
Well over what we've talked about and learned today. Yeah. I mean, may maybe one other thing, and this is just comes from my training from Dr. Robert Smith Jr., and maybe what we can learn from the black church and in in the black church preaching is not a monologue. It is a dialogue. True. And just even as hearers, what what part of being in the congregation in a black church, they are communicating with the communicator.
And there are places where they're gonna say, slow down, stay there. And what they're gonna do is they're gonna they're gonna what they're what they're saying is we want more than what you prepared, and we're calling that out of you in this moment. And so your job as the preacher is to step into the dialogue. And so I think even as we think about the environments of preaching, there is a sense that yes, the communicator, but also the congregation, how how do we approach dialogue?
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better so that it actually is a conversation and not a monologue. And again, I think from our black brothers and and sisters, we can learn a lot or you you know, you almost go anywhere overseas and preaching doesn't exactly look like what we've turned it into here in America. There is that sense of give and take from the congregation to the communicator. And I what I've often found is that that those are some of the best places that the Holy Spirit shows up because you're not prepared for it.
But he pulls something out of you that was there that you didn't even know was there. And so maybe that's a good place to, you know, just kind of kind of land the plane to just say, really, all of church is supposed to be a dialogue. And for too much of church, we've turned it into a monologue. It's a one-way street from, you know, the professionals to the lay people. And what we want to do in the future of the church is to make church much more of a dialogue than a monologue.
We love that. That's great. Love it. Well, thank you, Dave. Thanks for spending time with us today. really appreciate you and and your ministry. And again, just want to remind people about Clarity House and I think it's Clarity House dot com, right? Yes. Clarityhouse button finds dot us. dot us. no. Clarityhouse dot us, lower third
It's our attempt at dialogue. Us. beautiful. that's easy to remember. yeah. So reach out to to Dave, Dave and Shane and and if you want to talk further about them and learn about what they do. we found great value in it in our church. So just wanna call that out. We love you, Dave. Thank you so much. Love you guys too. And Derek, man, I I and and Danielle, I'd love to just continue this conversation at some point. You know, Derek, you're one of the best preachers I know, and so I love I love learning from you. Thanks, brother.
Okay, that was really cool to be able to talk to Dave like that. Yeah. one thing I was thinking about from what you said and from what hi what he said, like I know a lot of this is gonna be like applicable for preachers. Yeah. And we'll get there, I'm sure. But when you said the thing about life groups and like or like groups and like these the scaffolding like throughout history, I immediately thought of the phrase that we use we
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used it and other churches I think have used it. This whole idea of like doing life together, quote unquote, with life group. Okay. Yeah. But like to me, the more compelling reason is literally working out this injection that you might get every seven days. Right. So I don't know. I've just my brain has just been spinning about how do we like change the messaging around that like those formation places. Yeah.
So that they realize what they're actually leveraging. Yeah. If that makes sense. No, it does. And I th I think that yeah. 'Cause I think the frustrating thing about that phrase, a phrase like let's do life together is that in our modern world that it doesn't that's not really how it works. Like if you lived in an ancient society where everything was built around a village or even the cities in those days where everybody w lived within ten feet of each other, you know, sharing common, you know whatever. Yeah.
It was possible that you would walk through a an entire life with a g but now we live miles and miles apart and we have all very you know. So yeah, I think that's a I think that's interesting. Yeah. To go what what do we actually when we gather, what are we actually working out? Right. because we're probably not living our lives fully together, intertwined. No. But we can work out our faith together. Yeah. You know. Yeah, which I love the thought of. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. and I wanna talk too a little bit more. You and Dave hit on this, but let's
Talk about it again, just like the whole centrality idea. So how do you feel like if someone's listening right now, like what could you take away? Like right now? Yeah. I I want to make sure that, and I know we've talked about it, but like I want to make sure that the non-preachers listening, yeah, ha have a sense of, yeah, I think the church I said started this whole thing. This is a distinctly Christian practice. Yeah. And it needs to be central to who we are and what we do. But
when it comes to that scaffolding that we put around it and to go, man, if you if you come in to a to a sermon at your church this weekend, to not make that the sum total of your Christian faith for the week, but that like you said, it becomes kind of this spark or this lightning bolt where you go, Okay, that's the word of God proclaimed to me for this moment in this time. What
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What is the scaffolding in my life that I can take this to? Either to live it out with or to share it with others or, you know, whatever. But that without that infrastructure around it, it just becomes this flash in the pan. You know, I said the danger for me and for people is that we judge our whole spiritual lives around how well did that 30 minutes go? Right. Right. Right. That was never meant to do that. Yeah. You know. And so, yes, it needs to be central, but it's not sufficient. Yeah. For the to carry the whole of a Christian life. Yeah.
And I love too you and Dave got around this idea about what an individual can do. Yeah. and I th actually I think this probably goes for like preachers as well as individuals, but like I'll I'll speak to the individual side of it. It's just the idea that even if you're in a church where this is not possible, maybe you don't even have groups, maybe you don't have like full connection with people yet.
You can still take this to the next level and like bring it into your life by asking those critical questions you guys were talking about. So, like, what did God say to me in this last whatever 20 minutes if you're blessed, 50 minutes if you're not, sermon. Just kidding. Depends on the quality of preaching. It does. It does. but what did God say to me and and what am I going to do about it? That's something you can do by yourself. Yeah. It's something you can do with one other person. And like you said, it could be around your table.
At dinner. And if you do have friends that you're, you know, blessed to kind of walk through parts of life with, that's a really easy start to get you on the right track. Yeah. And I want to say to preachers too, because then there are some of them that listen to this podcast that, you know, I hope this w this wasn't intended to be a critique. I'm I'm gonna shine a light on good scone, man. This is our hope for the church coming forward. But like those same two questions apply to preachers. Yeah. And if we're not careful
We just see ourselves as the proclaimers and not the appliers of the word of God. And so I think going through the whole sermon writing process, the whole sermon preparation, the presentation, that those two questions need to be nagging us the whole time of what is God saying to me? Not just what does God want to say through me, what is God saying to me and what am I going to do about it? So that I'm never found to be that one.
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That asks a bunch of other people to do something I'm not willing to do myself. Yeah, that's really good. Because that then becomes the height of hypocrisy. That's then when we start to go off the rails and start thinking that we're more important than we are above above certain principles that we should probably be living out ourselves. And so I think asking those same two probing questions throughout the whole process, was God saying to me, what am I gonna do about it?
It also makes us better preachers because now we're personalizing the message. Yeah. And the church can see us processing it ourselves and going, I don't know about you guys. Here's what I'm gonna do about this word. Yeah, that's great. And all of a sudden we're we're living by example and not just proclamation. That's great. Cool. Okay. well, in light of what we were talking about, I did a quick like news search. Yeah. And Barna, as they are known to do, came out with some new stuff. And this summer, twenty twenty six.
they did a study and they found out that twenty-four percent of Protestant pastors use AI to either edit or help create sermons. And so probably some of you might be thinking, yeah, duh, of course they do, because that's a really great tool to help you save time. And other ones of you are probably thinking, excuse me, no, you know. So like where where would you draw the line with something like that? Yeah.
So yeah, it's it it is an incredible tool. Yeah. like all tools, you know, it could be used for great good or great harm. so a hammer can be used to build a house or it could be used to murder somebody at the you know. As can a robot. That's right. We've seen the movies. So I I think that yeah, you know, you and I were talking the other day about in another yeah r field here about AI and some s implications and
You said even in the creative space, and I think this applies to pastors and sermons as well, of if you remove the struggle of creating something. And so whatever that looks like in whatever field, when it's something as important as a sermon, you've missed the whole essence of it. Like a pastor could never ask those two questions. What was it? Yeah. Was God saying to me, What what am I gonna do about it if you haven't gone through the struggle of a text?
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Right. And wrestling with God through the meaning of what his word says and what am I supposed to tell our church about it. And so I think anything that removes that struggle is out of bounds for sermon creation. I've found it to be a great research tool. Sure. Yeah, check, check, check, check, check to make sure it's real. Yeah. I ha I told you I built a research library from my own. I've been doing this for thirty one years. I've been wanting to do this for a long time.
And I used AI head to help me build a research library from my own sermons, leadership trainings, and notes of conferences that I've taken over the years. I've got like eighteen thousand pieces of usable information from all of those resources. But like I can actually research if I'm writing a sermon to go, when have I talked about this passage before? Yeah. What did I say? That's cool. Remind me. Yes. Maybe I've changed my mind, maybe it's the same, but I can kind of borrow from my own struggle from other parts parts of my life. Yeah. To help
to build the thing. Yeah. I think it's also an amazing editing tool. Yeah. So and we talked jokingly about length. Yeah. But yeah. I don't know about others listening. My first draft usually comes in about 60 minutes. And I found it very helpful to go, here's a paragraph. Help me say it in less words. Yeah. And I'm just the fluff for the yeah. yeah. Why did I I didn't need that many words in that sentence. So even just kind of helping to tighten yeah things, it's a very great tool. Yeah. But I but I think, you know, yeah.
On that front end with research. I mean it it takes all of the concordance. I I would say this logos software, which is what we used to do a lot of research. I think the thing about logos they have an AI as part of the thing, but it limits the scope of where it goes for information to these books and these resources. Yeah. That I trust. Yes. And so I think like that sort of a thing. That's always my first go to. Like if I'm I
Then then you're using it like a concordance and a word study thing. Yeah. Just faster. Right. You know, than pulling it off your shelf and going through. Yeah. So, you know, so I think on the research side and I think on the editing side. It's good. But like during that creative process where there's this push and pull with God and a struggle over a text and like, we have to do that work or we're we're missing the whole point of this thing. And I I liked what you said too about just not not then using that extra time for like
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Extra more AI time, but like you're you're giving yourself time more time with God. Yeah. You're giving yourself potentially more time with people. People can stand it. I'm just joking. But yeah, you know, like more time to do the stuff that only humans can do. Right. And the wrestling is part of that. So yeah, I thought there was people. Okay. Yeah. And the church I mean, the church ultimately, you know, yes, as we do our work, we are still ultimately a people organization. And so if AI can help us do some of that work easier. Sure.
And free up some time like some of our task time that we would normally spend and use it as people time. Mm-hmm. Giddy up. Yeah, a hundred percent. Okay, cool. All right. That's it for today. I want to direct you guys to DerekSanford.com, because Derek has this kind of r it's a really cool, like retooled email that he sends out. It's called Ordinary Altar. I love it. It's such a great read. It's quick read, really good insights, and some like fun
fun little moments too. I won't spoil it for you, but if you go to DerekSamford dot com, you can sign up for that there. And we'll be back next week and please share this with someone that you think might find it. Bye. Next week bye