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Guest: Jay Thomas, Lead Pastor of Chapel Hill Bible Church
Challenges and Reflections:
- Jay shares the challenges faced by his church in the aftermath of significant societal events, including the presidency of Donald Trump, George Floyd's murder, and the Capitol raid, leading to a personal crisis of faith and purpose.
- Jay's journey from considering a career in finance to feeling called to preach while attending a Presbyterian church in Berkeley.
Preaching Style and Preparation:
- The influence of Dwayne Litvin and Kent Hughes on Jay's preaching style, emphasizing text-centric sermons.
- Jay discusses his sermon preparation process, including theological reflection and ensuring Christ is at the center of every message.
- The importance of community feedback and the practice of sermon planning within a team.
Personal Insights and Experiences:
- Jay opens up about his introverted nature and reliance on the Holy Spirit for effective preaching.
- The conversation covers the challenges and pressures of preaching, including dealing with public response and personal insecurities.
Conclusion:
- Jay and Chase discuss the importance of continuously improving preaching skills and the role of feedback in growth.
- The episode ends with a focus on the future of Jay's ministry and the ongoing healing of his church community.
Key Takeaways:
- The importance of contextualizing the gospel in every sermon.
- Strategies for effective sermon preparation and delivery.
- The role of personal faith and reliance on the Holy Spirit in overcoming challenges in ministry.
Creators & Guests
Host
What is SermonCraft?
Transform your preaching with SermonCraft! We interview some of today's best communicators to learn their secrets to captivating talks. Say goodbye to endless prep. Find your voice. Master your message.
Every episode is like a masterclass. Are you ready to revolutionize your sermons? Tune in to SermonCraft – where the art of preaching is made practical and tactical.
This is a podcast for communicators who teach regularly and want to become better and more confident in the art and craft of preaching.
We interview some of today's best communicators about their unique processes, habits, and secrets of turning a blank page into a captivating talk so that you can stop wasting valuable time in sermon prep, find your unique voice, and use the gift that God has given you with excellence and joy.
Join us as we unpack the concepts that helped us the most. Are you ready to change your approach to teaching?
Jay: [00:00:00] we as a church, were the poster child of what happened to Evangelicalism post Donald Trump presidency, George Floyd in the Capitol raid. And there. Public records where one can read about at least how some people responded to it.
And so that led to probably the dark night of my soul where I, like a lot of pastors wondered, can I keep going? Should I hang up my cleats is and is this worth it?
Chase: Well, welcome to the Sermon Craft Podcast. Uh, this is a podcast for communicators who wanna become better and more confident in the art and craft of preaching. And so we interview some of today's best communicators about their secrets of turning a blank page into a captivating talk. I. So that you can stop wasting valuable time and sermon prep finds your unique voice and use the gift that God has given you with excellence and joy.
My name's Chase Gardner. I'm a professional speaker with [00:01:00] about 10 years of preaching under my belt. This week we have Jay Thomas. Uh, he's the lead pastor of Chapel Hill Bible Church and has been a close friend of mine for years, and I wanted to have him on because he has this amazing ability to see the gospel so clearly in every text.
And his love for Jesus shines so clearly in every sermon that he gives. So he's been a mentor to me and I can't wait to get into the weeds of the art of preaching with him. Uh, thank you for joining us on this episode of the Sermon Craft Podcast.
Well, as I said in the intro when I had this idea to start the podcast you, Jay, were one of the first people that I thought about having in mind and having on. We went through kind of a hard time trying to transition in ministry a few years ago, and a friend introduced us, so we go way back.
We [00:02:00] were thinking about planting a church, weren't sure if it was God's call for a life. And a friend of a friend put me in touch with you and you took time outta your busy schedule to just counsel me a few times, which was crazy. And then we started attending your church when we could, and your sermons just spoke to us.
I think they were really a place of kind of refuge and a a really refreshing of my faith in the local church. Also just of the power of the word of God. And you can tell when you're listening to your sermons, they do a work inside your heart before they come out of your mouth. And I actually love listening to your sermons.
I still do because not only are they entertaining, your puns are especially entertaining but also you're super brilliant, all of that. But they stir up something in my heart that just is, is thankfulness and love for what Jesus has done for me. Every single one of your sermons you bring back to the gospel.
And so as we kind of get into this, I just want to dig deep into your sermon prep and how you prepare. But [00:03:00] first when did you kind of feel the call to be a preacher? Not just a pastor, but to actually preach the word? Did you have a call? Do you believe in that? JAY THOMAS
Jay: Hmm. Well first of all, thank you chase for your kind words and you're a good brother. I value you a lot and glad to be with you today. So calling I was a Jonah story. I did not want to be a pastor. I grew up in a Christian home, but was just very worldly until my freshman year of college at uc, Berkeley, where we all know it's a strong, traditional Christian environment.
And God got ahold of me and I had a renewal in my heart toward the Lord. And I remember sitting in a church one Sunday, I was going to a, a Presbyterian church that had a strong college ministry and a strong gospel witness in the town of Berkeley. And one day it wasn't even the main senior [00:04:00] pastor, it was an associate pastor who was probably in his late sixties, and he just delivered a solid biblical sermon.
And the service was over and everybody was shuffling out. And I stayed in the pew. And I just had this strong sense of, I think I want to do that one day. And then it hit me, whoa, where did that come from? Because that was not me. I did not want to go down that road. And I knew it was from something else, and I, I could tell obviously it was not from Satan and that was from God.
And it just started to roll from there my freshman year of college. And I, I think that's where that call began.
Chase: That's crazy. What were you studying at Berkeley originally.
Jay: Well, I was gonna probably be a finance major,
Chase: Oh, okay.
Jay: maybe go into the business world or law.
Chase: And did that make you switch that calling to go to
Jay: yeah, yeah. So I transferred to a, a small Christian [00:05:00] college outside of Chicago, Wheaton College. And that's where I still started as a business major there. And it was a little bit of negotiating with God and I realized that was not gonna work.
So a call is a call. And I submitted to him and switched to a Bible major. And that's where I was part of a really healthy local church.
Chase: What were some of the shaping influences early on, kind of shaped the way that you viewed preaching in the pulpit?
Jay: At Wheaton was the first year of the president that had just come. His name was Dr. Dwayne Litvin. And I remember his first chapel, he said, if you know that I'm going to be leading chapel President's chapel, I'd love it if you would bring your Bible, because I will just be working through texts of scripture.
And at later I realized that was this massive messaging that he was giving. Sometimes President's Chapel are just updates on vision and direction of a [00:06:00] school, but he was coming from the pastorate and he felt like the best thing he could do with the student body is to do expositions of scripture.
And then I became a part of a church called College Church, and I sat under this guy named Kent Hughes. Never heard of him. But I'd never heard preaching like this where the text was read and then he started into the text and he stayed with the text. You know, sometimes the text is read and you, you have a little bit of a pointing to here and there in the passage, but the preacher's doing his own thing.
And it might be an amazing talk, but it's not a, a biblical sermon. So Kent Hughes and Dwayne Litvin were the two early and abiding influences on me in terms of the centrality of preaching and the what preaching should be. And then little did I know that Dr. Dne Litvin now is called Granddaddy in my house.
So
marrying, his daughter.
Chase: Now was [00:07:00] you said you grew up in a Christian home. Was that the type of preaching that you grew up underneath?
Jay: No I grew up in part of California called Marin County where churches go to die. Our culture now where we're freaking out about secularism Marin County, was that back when I was growing up very, very liberal and very not Christian. And we had churches that God used by his grace, but we, we went to a few different churches, but the one I stayed at the longest, if you can picture this, was a theologically progressive Southern Baptist church, did not affirm the truthfulness of scripture.
Was just pretty. Progressive God still used it, but not, not biblical sermons, expository sermons. There, I would call them narrative sermons where you kind of retell the story of the sermon and there's no actual concrete application. It's really up to you to [00:08:00] take, take it home and do with it what you will.
Chase: Kind of lifting up the symbolism of the text as opposed to like it being an actual event.
Jay: Yeah. The historicity was here, neither here nor there, and just kind of journeying with the Lord and here's, you know, just go and apply it yourself and then some. So my mom really was a prayer warrior and she would smuggle me some stuff. And I remember finding out about this guy named Chuck Swindoll, and I found him on the radio.
And so he was one of the first biblical preachers that, I heard and just started eating up Chuck Swindoll as a teenager, if you
Chase: yeah.
Jay: it.
Chase: No, I love Chuck Swindell. When I was growing up, I was 14 years old. No, I was probably 16 at this point, and I was working at a summer camp, and my mentor, Jerry Martin had some Tim Keller tapes. All the way through the Old Testament, genesis, and Exodus, and I would slip 'em in [00:09:00] 'cause the Walmart was about 30 minutes away.
And so I would just listen to Tim Keller. I'm like, no one knows about this small time like New York pastor. And I got that. That's funny. Well, what was, what was the first sermon you ever gave? Was it in a, a class? Was it an
Jay: Oh, man.
Chase: or,
Jay: Yeah, that's a good question. I, I gave talks. I would say in college I was a young life leader. I would not call those full-blown sermons. Probably the first one was when I was an intern at College Church with the college ministry. That's probably, you know, 1997.
Chase: Mm-Hmm.
Jay: I gave a actual sermon and it was rough.
Chase: What was on, do you remember the topic or anything, or,
Jay: I, I forget, I, we were going through some book,
Chase: yeah.
Jay: glad it was not recorded, so,
Chase: My first class, well, I preached some sermons, but I first taught a class, I guess way [00:10:00] back in 2009. And I had a friend, Gary, he was my boss, and he kinda came in and asked him to sit in, it was on First Corinthians and it was like my, we had 12 people sign up, which was so exciting for me. And I said, I want you to come and just listen to my teaching.
It was like 50 long minute class. And I walked out at the end and said, Gary, how do you think I did? And he said, man, that was the worst teaching I've ever heard in my entire life. He said, you have verbally vomited on people for the past 50 minutes. And actually having my journal where I wrote, I will never teach like that again.
And I started this process of, okay, I gotta figure out how to teach. Good. How has your teaching changed since your very first sermon until like the last one you gave last Sunday?
Jay: Oh, you know, at, at drastically. Hopefully it has imp improved in terms of communication. But one thing that Kent Hughe especially impressed upon me was always make progress. Never think you've [00:11:00] arrived. And I'm a part of an organization called the Simeon Trust that does workshops for biblical preaching, and that's a huge value of just make progress.
So hopefully year by year I make progress that I am. Getting a better handle on the passage, I am more effectively communicating it. But I think as I grow as a Christian and my love for Christ grows, I hope that is actually a very big part of the act of preaching itself. I think one of the things about preaching is it's, it's an accurate teaching of the passage, but it's also you worshiping in front of your people.
And I think one of my goals is that by the end of the sermon, they've been caught up with me.
Chase: Hmm.
Jay: And I think that's a sign of an effective preaching ministry is a regular habit of gathering people to worship with you.
Chase: Through your preaching. That's
awesome. How long did it take for you to find [00:12:00] your unique voice? Because you do have a unique voice. It's unique. It's,
Jay: Yeah. You know what?
Chase: in,
Jay: Well I'm, I'm thankful for that. I'm sure it expels other people, but, you know, chase, I. I think it's different for every guy, but I, I think preaching, I don't think every pastor is necessarily going to be a pulpit guy. I think every pastor should be apt to teach, you know, meet elder requirements.
But some -of the pastor like especially at the large multi staff church you and I are both at, those are gonna be the main teaching guys. And there's a pebble in your shoe, even though you're rough at first. I imagine you had that, like, even though you, according to your mentor, ver verbally vomited over everybody, I bet there was like, but God still wants me to do this and I, I still need to keep trying.
And so I would encourage guys to give it about 50 sermons
Chase: Mm-Hmm.
Jay: and then by [00:13:00] 200 you're starting to get your sea legs.
Chase: Yeah.
Jay: And so I, I would, I would say it was a few years into it that I stopped trying to replicate.
Guys and, and,
yeah. And I, you know, I'd still listen broadly and I still do, but that you have your own voice.
But I would also say God is gonna take you through different seasons where you're gonna iterate. So I was at a college, church is a very traditional church. And there's just a higher level of rhetoric. I mean, the architecture, the, the congregation, the culture, all of those things. It's an act of contextualization.
Right? But then my church now, chapel Hill Bible Church is much more, conversational and, it's more casual, aesthetically. And so I had to really alter how I preached here, while still maintaining my commitment to exposition
Chase: [00:14:00] Yeah.
Jay: a theological vision that hasn't changed and
things like that.
Chase: 2009,
Jay: 2000,
Chase: 2011. Are those sermons still online? I wanna go check those out.
Jay: They're probably not online, but
Chase: Okay.
Jay: they're, probably available. I can get 'em for you. Yeah.
Chase: Well, I want to dig into your process. So I was I, Jay graciously offered to help me and my family plant a church. So he partnered with our church when we planted it in the mountains of North Carolina. And so I was on staff with Chapel Bible Church kind of part-time for about nine months. And I got to see kind of behind the scenes on how you prepared sermons.
I was graciously allowed to preach there as well, but we've never had an in-depth conversation. And I had noticed that whenever you get up on stage, you don't turn pages that often. And so I I, I ask all the guests to send me a sermon manuscript, and yours are the shortest by about 10 pages.
Jay: Wow.
Chase: We actually have a shot for you, but it's, it's a two page long, which I didn't know.
I thought that there was [00:15:00] like, I don't know, multiple small pages on that thing that you hold. But, so I wanna, I wanna figure out how you go from a blank page to something like this, which you use to speak and communicate pretty amazing 30, 35 minute messages. So where does it all start? What does the process look like?
First off, how do you guys plan sermon series throughout the year? Is that like a, take the elders away and pray through that? How far out do you calendar?
Jay: It's really a sermon planning team among some of our pastors and ministers, and we are just asking questions of what do we feel like we need to focus on.
Our series are almost books, always books, studies. But we will, we will interrupt those studies often in the summer. We might do a topical series or just here and there, we'll insert series, but we, we ask, have we been in the Old Testament, so we should go to the New Testament or vice versa? And we come, we really do ask the [00:16:00] question, what, what do we feel like our people need in terms of spiritual formation or cultural issues?
And then we try and find a book in the Bible that best speaks to that whenever possible, rather than putting a series together and finding individual texts throughout scripture to fit that. And
Chase: so once that's set
Jay: yeah,
Chase: okay. Is that set six months in advance or a year in advance?
Jay: well, for instance, right now we're, we've been in Genesis for about a year and a half, so it depends on how long it's gonna take.
Chase: Mm-Hmm
Jay: before the, about six months before we know we're gonna end a book, we want to be thinking about
the next book.
Chase: and a half of Genesis all the way out, or did you say,
Jay: No. Uh, about six. Yeah, we, we do about six months at a time. And to see how it goes. Yeah. And when I was here at beginning of my ministry, we took bigger chunks and now we're slowing it down knowing that we will interrupt the series. [00:17:00] There's Christmas, there's Easter, there's summer, there's things I've thrown in here and there.
And the, the way we preach is we are in texts, but we wanna be sensitive to how those texts speak to or in light of the story of the entire Bible. And so a lot of our preaching is bringing in New Testament if we're in the old or vice versa. And you end up giving people a pretty good palette of both testaments in different areas of the Bible.
Chase: Mm-Hmm. So once you have that planned out and you know, okay, my week's coming up, or my month's coming up, how do you start with a blank word page and get this? What's your first step?
Jay: Yeah. So I have tried to get a familiar grasp of the entire book, so I know the flow, the bigger chunks of that book. And so when I'm sitting with an individual text, there's context, right? And so my, my first [00:18:00] move is to read the text repeatedly and just get a sense of its flow. And then I'm gonna ask the question of what's the context, what's the structure of this passage?
Is there any link to the big picture of the storyline of the Bible? And then I want to, I'm hope, and I'm praying throughout this whole process, and prayer is definitely a. S massive part of preparation, asking the Holy Spirit to give me insight. I think it's a spiritual process. And then I, I, I want to do what I would call theological reflection of how is this leading to or flowing out of the person and work of Christ.
So I am, I would say Tim Keller, you mentioned him in the late nineties, he came on my radar and he was one of the more influential preachers on what it means to be a Christ-centered preacher. So that Christ is the sum of all the scriptures. And I got, [00:19:00] I have, I am committed to having a uniquely Christian message.
So how is the gospel in some way reasonably from this passage? I don't want to insert it in an artificial way, but how is
Chase: right.
Jay: truly and reasonably reflecting on the person of work of Jesus? So that's a theological
Chase: That's a, that's a hard question too. Some of our guys went down to a, a preaching conference. Louis Giglio put it on Atlanta, and I think it was Matt Chandler, that that posed the question. Every single sermon you give, you have to ask what makes this a Christian message, as opposed to just any other message.
And of course you're like, well, I'm teaching outta the Bible, but even so many of my messages, if I'm not careful, I'm like, well, this. This really is legalism. This really is pull yourself up by your bootstraps. It's a important and humbling question to ask, oh, could some other religion give this message?
Could someone that's not a Christ follower at all say the same thing? Just be a good person. And oftentimes they can, which is crazy. When you do sit down with a text and read [00:20:00] through it, you're saying that you let the text inform the outline of your sermon. So whatever
Jay: yeah.
Chase: is that true all the time or you try to let that be the case?
Jay: Well, there's, there's three things that make an exposition for me. So I don't think that every sermon has to be an expository sermon, but the. I, I am committed to the bread and butter of our church being expository sermon. So the structure, the emphasis and the tone of a passage should govern the structure, emphasis, and tone of your sermon.
That does not mean your exegetical outline has to basically be your homological outline using updated words. You have a, a significant amount of liberty, I think, with your holi outline, but it should be governed by the structure of that passage and that structure, you know, depends on what you're dealing with, poetry or discourse or historical, you know [00:21:00] narratives.
But, that's, that's what I'm, I'm setting out to do is to have that my sermon be totally governed by those realities.
Chase: there's something practical about that because this podcast is trying to be tribeless. We're gonna interview people from all sorts of different pockets of Christianity. Some don't even know what expository means. Some don't even know what topical means. But I do, I kind of run 'em both camps. We do topical series that are expository, I would say.
But when I'm kind of helping the guys on my teaching team or guys at other churches. A lot of what they run in, in into a wall in is they're doing a topical series on serving or on generosity or on community, and they find some texts that help back them up. But really what they're doing is they're running out of content to fill a 30 minute sermon, really, because I think a lot of, and I've done this too, I'm relying on my wisdom or my brain to give a, a thoughtful, nuanced, culturally relevant sermon [00:22:00] on, you know, the marker vision that we're gonna talk about.
And I've always encouraged guys, and I say, it is theological for me. It's, it doesn't have to be theological for you if you will pick a text and let the content of your sermon flow from the text, it's just easier. It's practically, it's just easier because there's gonna be so much content and even one verse in Paul's epistle or like half of a psalm, you're gonna have more than enough.
To fill up 30 minutes and the flow's gonna be there and the tone's gonna be there, and the emphasis. So I love that, that you, you read and reread and reread the text to get the out. If you're ever struggling with content in a sermon or you're changing back and forth, you just need to spend more time in the text.
Jay: Oh yeah. Yeah. And I leave most of the work on the cutting room floor. There's, when
Chase: Oh, we're gonna get to that. I'm glad you said that.
Jay: just, there's no way outside of a two hour sermon that you can actually get in everything you [00:23:00] find in a text.
Chase: And you would think that would be the case for, I don't know, Genesis chapters 12, 13, 14. You know, that's way too much stuff. But even when you're talking about one verse out of James, sometimes it's like. So we're all right. I made a mental note to talk about cutting, 'cause I do that. My cutting day is on Wednesday.
Alright, so once you have the outline of the text do you do any group preparation? Once you've put thought into this,
Jay: Yeah.
Chase: speak into the actual preparation process. What does that look like?
Yeah. That's, so that's a significant value for me and our church. And I've, I've gotten this from my time under Kent Hughes. And then the Simeon Trust is really, has encouraged this of try and do your word work with other guys as much possible. I know if you're a solo pastor, it might be more challenging, but maybe figure out some creative ways.
So on Tuesday mornings, a segment of our staff gets together and, [00:24:00] somebody, usually one of our residents comes having filled out a. A worksheet with some basic questions of the main idea and the structure and the emphasis, and we just borrow it from the Simeon Trust. then we talk about the passage and we try and get to like what is the main argument?
What, what, what is the basic flow and what are the needs that we should apply toward what's going on in our church? Because application is extraordinarily important and guys in my camp the more the conservative reformed camp. There are even guys that defend not doing too much application or even illustration because they feel like you're adorning the sufficient work of God.
A word of God. And I, I totally disagreed it can get pulled into that kind of stuff. But we're so scared of you know, making a show that they, they preach great lectures. But it's a lecture. not a [00:25:00] sermon. And a sermon has significant amounts of application for your people. And I think another temptation is to try and preach for the ages, like Charles sermon or Charles Spurgeon,
Yeah.
Jay: sermon.
And, and I actually think the opposite. If God wants to use your preaching for the ages, that's fine, but the best pastors preach to their people.
Chase: That's so good. When once Covid went online. We saw a big jump in people, consuming sermons or watching sermons all over the world. And so automatically in a multi-site church, like we're at, we drop the, todays, you know, we drop, we, we don't say this evening, we don't say this morning, we don't say because we record on Thursdays and then show the video wherever.
We're not live on Sundays. So that kind of takes out a lot of the, the one person preaching to a per people in a, in a geographic location. Now we're in five different multi-sites. Now we're all over the world. And I actually had to make a conscious decision 'cause there are pastors that do that. That [00:26:00] they, they, they're the, there's more people watching them online that are actually in the room.
And I've talked to a few pastors that say they just miss that. They miss a, a pastor speaking to a people in a certain geographical space going through certain relational and cultural issues.
Jay: mm-Hmm.
Chase: a value that you think we should maintain? Yeah.
Jay: Oh yeah, I do. And I dunno is my, just my little suggestion. I think even if you're a multi-site, there is something that is actually more compelling and powerful about you speaking to the room and just letting those other people know I'm not in this room, but it, he, that concreteness. Of him speaking to those people in that room actually brings me in.
And that's
Chase: No.
Jay: of an illustration or a fine tuned application to a specific person
Chase: Mm-Hmm.
Jay: is actually rhetorically more powerful than a very broad application.
Chase: Oh, that's good. Alright, so you, you've done [00:27:00] some word work with the guys or the women as well and people on your staff, and then you've kind of figured out the shape of the text by rereading it and rereading it. And then do you start off with the blank page with bullet points how do you start typing
Jay: yeah. yeah. No, I, I like to get the most broad bullet points that reflect the structure down and
Chase: Okay.
Jay: back and fill them in. And again, it is really tempting to have a dynamite introduction
or a conclusion and.
Chase: with an intro or a conclusion, or do you
Jay: I, I mean, look, you're, you we're all very similar. Our minds are always, the preacher is always thinking about ideas for the sermon or in general, you know, stockpiling illustrations.
So you can have an illustration hit you and jot it down.
Chase: Yeah.
Jay: and avoid the temptation at building a sermon
Chase: Mm-Hmm.
Jay: follows from a great introduction.
Chase: [00:28:00] Yes. I've,
Jay: truly serve the text.
Chase: yes. I've actually switched in the past year. I do not write any introduction, and that's the very last thing that I write. So I even write like the gospel prayer at the end before I get into the introduction. And there's just so many different ways you can introduce a text. You can, rehearse the past few weeks.
There's all these choices to catch them up. You can do something that catches them off guard. You could tell a personal story. You can just make announcements about the church and then get into the text. So I just leave that to last. So you start with the broadest applications and then when you're typing so I actually manuscript, I write word for word.
So mine are probably 3000, 3,500 word manuscripts that I write as if I were talking. And I got that from the guy that I sat under at my church for years and years and years. I actually wrote small group studies for 'em. So I've read hundreds of those messages and I have a specific outline. So this would be, you know, like fifth or a 10th of what I [00:29:00] would take on the stage with me.
Jay: mm-Hmm.
Chase: more and then, you're just, and then cutting that out to bring this on stage, or this is what you write.
Jay: Now that's, that's what I write, but I run through it early Sunday morning, I have a good grasp of the sermon.
Chase: Okay.
Jay: But Chase, I, I think I've seen you preach. You don't read,
Chase: No, I do not. No. So I,
Jay: it.
Chase: yeah, so I write the entire thing. Mine's due on Monday, so I write a good, you know, it's 80% of the way there and I'll tweak it and stuff. But pretty much every word that I write, I'm going to say out loud. I planned every single word, every transition that sort of stuff. And then I run it used to, I would have to run it five, 10 times before I hit stage.
Now I just have to run it two or three times. And I have it committed to memory. One thing that we probably do that you might not do, just because I started doing this, I mean, years ago, is I actually, we actually have a [00:30:00] Thursday afternoon run through. So I get in a room with four guys on staff and I run my sermon as if it's the real thing.
And then I get off stage and they critique me. And sometimes they have one or two points. Sometimes there's 102 different points of critique. And that way I have a few hours before we record on Thursday to actually change it and hear that feedback and I'll change it. And then when I get on the stage, that's not the first time I've given the sermon.
That's the second time I've actually given it in front of people,
Jay: Okay.
Chase: helpful. Do you get feedback between the first and second service that you preach?
Jay: Sometimes it's
Chase: you, do you ask for feedback?
Jay: no. That can be an awkward space to get feedback.
Um, so yeah, people have to be careful. I mean, obviously if your pastor's been heretical or a super unhelpful joke, particularly
Chase: Yes.
Jay: jokes are the highest risk in today's world. I think jokes are the highest [00:31:00] risk part of your sermon. And then of course, illustrations.
It can go south on you and to, to know that can be helpful. And it, the type of person that gives that feedback the best are the ones you trust. They know, you
Chase: yeah,
Jay: they love you, and they understand preaching. So,
Chase: We used to have Saturday night services and Sunday morning, so I would give the first sermon Saturday night. Then three trust, trusted individuals say, Hey,
Jay: Mm-Hmm.
Chase: happened? And then we would adjust it so I could rerecord it on Saturday.
Jay: Yeah.
Chase: you, you type this outline
Jay: Mm-Hmm.
Chase: you read through it, you go through it.
Do you speak it out loud?
Jay: Yes. Yeah. I mean, not the, obviously an outline is not going to be how you communicate it, but I will practice it once or twice on Sunday mornings so that I, I have a. The outline comes to life, right? So those sentences ref reflect actually many more [00:32:00] words, right? Now there are certain parts of it you can see that are full sentences that I want to get word for word.
There are some paragraphs that I,
Chase: Mm-Hmm.
Jay: really, if it's this as important point, I wanna get it word for word. So I'll write a little bit more, but otherwise I'm looking down and I'm seeing a sentence in that I know in my brain as a paragraph.
Chase: Right. And do you, so these, these these highlights in blue, that's stuff that you want to get word for word,
Jay: Yeah.
Chase: on Genesis 21, you cannot out
Jay: I would empathize God. Yeah. Sometimes word for word or I just want, I wanna make sure my eye sees that point because in, in, in doing the outline, you are missing some things and that's okay. The red portions are what's gonna go on the screen. So anything in red is gonna be on the, projected and I used to put on more, and I've, I've actually pared it down to major headings and scripture.[00:33:00]
And I am actually in a season of experimenting with shorter sermon, and for me shorter is like 35.
Chase: Right.
Jay: and
Chase: you've pared down what goes on the screen, is that what you're
saying? yeah, Right. And this is really interesting because I'm one of these podcasts, I'm gonna bring one of my manuscripts in, but I call it marking the text. So my, the person that I sat under, if you looked at one of his manuscripts, one word would be black, the next one would be yellow, then red, then blue, then green, and it would cycle through. And I was like, what is the, what is, what is all it's like? And he said, it's just to help my eyes see the word. So he would full manuscript as well, but you would never know it. He would look down quickly and look back up and hold eye contact and look down quickly. So I have anywhere from 12 to 14 pages.
I highlight everything in yellow. That's gonna be on the screen as well. So any point that I want on the screen, any verse that's highlighted in yellow, but then I will take a pin, a blue pin, [00:34:00] whatever, and I will mark this up. So I'll highlight certain things that I wanna remember. I'll circle certain things.
I'll draw random lines, I'll star, and my page is crazy if you saw it, but because I run through it two or three times, I'm like, oh, that's the page with the crazy star. I know where I'm at. Or once I get past that real big black line halfway through the page, I know I've crossed that point. So it's,
Jay: Hmm.
Chase: it makes it easier when I manuscript to know where I'm at and to bounce and to move on.
Jay: Yeah.
Chase: love this color coding. That's awesome.
Jay: Yeah. And it's eccentric. I think we're all eccentric. It just needs to make sense to You
Chase: Yeah,
Jay: you'll see ILL for illustration, ex
Chase: yeah, yeah.
Jay: application.
Chase: Yeah. I have BTW by the way, or,
Jay: Yep. I,
Chase: um, yeah, devoted follower of Christ, all that sort of stuff. So then you go up on stage with this. You've gone through it once or twice on Sunday [00:35:00] morning, and then when you hit the text when you hit the stage, you're so comfortable. You are so relaxed, and it really is like you're having, I'm not saying lighthearted, but it's easy to lean in to the conversational style that you have as
Jay: hmm.
Chase: or someone that's been a part of your church for a while as well.
Do you ever feel any nerves at this point in your career or,
Jay: Oh yeah. So I'm actually a, a naturally introverted guy. And, and I would say that most preachers and even many megachurch preachers are introverted. And I think that's God's sense of humor and actually his plan of getting glory because it's not me. By nature and I, so there's that, that I have to overcome my natural personality and I have to, I, so the beauty of it is I am forced then to say, God, you must show up.[00:36:00]
Like this is all for Naugh. If you don't meet me in that piece of real estate behind that podium this morning, and you don't up waken up parts this morning. So Mar Martin Lloyd Jones is one of my heroes and he was brilliant and he had done the homework, but man, that guy was so aware that the Holy Spirit needed to show up and work through the word.
And so I, I I have this Moses complex of, God, I don't want to do this. I'm not good at this. You have to show up.
And I know you're not gonna have Aaron, another dude up there with me. So I need the Holy Spirit to be my Aaron, and that's why I'm committed to exposition. If you ask me like, what's the point of preaching?
It's that the Holy Spirit through the word of God would create new life. And that, that, that preaching the Bible is where the Holy Spirit has said. I'll be loyal to that. And I [00:37:00] think the Holy Spirit works in, in other ways, of course. I mean, it can work through a TV show, but, he has inspired the word.
He's loyal to the word. And so I have a a dual respect of the spirit's work. He inspired the text to begin with, but I actually think he's loyal to the proclamation of it. And that doesn't mean you're yelling and you're highly animated. Some of the most reserved guys, it's just like sitting in front of a jet engine.
You know, you can just feel the spirit working through them. So you can't just like create this, you know, you, you, you can't control. It works through so many different personalities and, and men, but that's a huge conviction. So I get nerves, but I will say Sunday, by Sunday, and I, and I'll say even Chase, like this past Sunday, like I, I was, I often do not sleep well. Um, Saturday nights. I think there's a massive amount of spiritual [00:38:00] warfare in preaching.
Chase: Mm-Hmm
Jay: I come often tired and sometimes my heart is not awakened. And so I'm desperately pleading to God through worship that he would awaken my heart. And I will say every Sunday, by the time I get behind that podium, the Lord shows up.
Sometimes. It's like, Lord, you, you're gonna show up. You know? It's one, like there are certain Sundays where you're, you're ready, you're primed and ready to go. You're adoring the Lord in worship. There's Sundays where I, I've started crying in the introduction.
Chase: Yeah.
Jay: I'm so full of the Lord. But then there's other Sundays where the Lord is like, you'll, get it the exact moment.
You open your mouth.
Chase: Yeah. That's awesome. So I'm the same way I am. I'm kind of half introverted, half extroverted. I'm not one of these gregarious, you know, charismatic guys that loves to be in front of people. And people ask me, do you [00:39:00] enjoy speaking? And I really enjoy the preparation. I enjoy crafting the best sermon that I possibly can.
It is really hard to get on stage and then give it to me until I'm about five or 10 minutes in. And then once that 10 minutes in, then the spirit takes, takes over, then I'm excited. But yeah, I still get nerves. I talk, talk to you. Maybe this will be a whole nother episode. I dealt with anxiety for. Never had before for about a year.
I'm on the other side of it for a few months and still I get that stage fright. I've never actually gotten in front of people and not had a little bit of tingling in my stomach. A little bit of shortness of breath and I settle in five or 10 minutes. So then you just get up and you talk and you go through the outline and trust that God uses it.
And then you get off the stage and you get ready for the next week.
Jay: mm-Hmm
Chase: While we're on this topic, I wanted to ask how do you prepare the night before or the day of? 'cause I think that's something very that's, that a lot of pastors have in common, which is Saturday nights I'll, I'll tell my wife, I'm [00:40:00] gonna zone out if we go out to eat with family or with friends and it gets around, you know, six or 7:00 PM.
I'm gonna start zoning out 'cause I'm getting in the preaching zone. I'm not gonna be any good. Jenny can like say three or four sentences to me and she's like, are you listening? No, no.
Jay: mm-Hmm mm-Hmm.
Chase: is hard as well. So what are some things you found that help, that help the night before or the morning of to kind of prepare for the task of preaching?
Jay: Yeah, I, I probably could be better. And like you, I don't, I try and reserve Saturday nights away from like, social events, but sometimes you just can't
control it. But I try and say to Rebecca, my wife, and then the people we're going out with, I, I can't stay out very late. And they totally understand that.
Chase: Mm-Hmm
Jay: So doing your best to getting to bed at a reasonable time so you're rested. But as I said, that doesn't always work for me because I think I'm anticipating the following morning. I think there's some spiritual warfare as a part of that. I think in general, [00:41:00] trying to take care of yourself so you, you prepare by what you did on Monday, you know?
And so, trying to be in general physical condition, the morning of I don't have breakfast 'cause I don't have breakfast in general. I have coffee and I, you know, like I don't wanna make this a whole like suffering and preaching, but I think that, that those two things do go together. So I, I do have aging related but also back issues.
Chase: Mm-Hmm
Jay: so part of preaching is there's physically exhausting
Chase: mm-Hmm.
Jay: I have back pain and discomfort. And so I am done in the morning, I feel like I've run a marathon
Chase: Yeah.
Jay: and I am,
Chase: sentiment. Not with the back pain and stuff, but they've said even. With the, the different chemicals in your brain, the amount of
Jay: yeah,
Chase: that goes on [00:42:00] with public speaking, and you do that 2, 3, 4 sermons
Jay: yeah,
Chase: row, you really are exhausted on Sunday afternoon.
Jay: yeah.
Chase: Yeah. How do you feel on Mondays?
Jay: So. I have, I take Fridays off and Alistair Begg said this at a thing I was with with him. He said, you are not going to enjoy Mondays if you take it as your day off, because your body has not yet come down off of Sunday. So just get back into this study. Don't make it a big people day, but get back into the study.
And that's what I do. And that, that is helpful.
Chase: seems like it's easier on Mondays for me to start thinking about the next sermon. 'cause I've been in sermon world for a while, but I'm really bad at making staff decisions or having strategy conversations.
Jay: yeah. And so I'm, I'm the same way. So I, I maybe do a meeting for lunch or something with somebody, but I just get back in the study.
Chase: All right. Well, you kinda alluded to this. What's, what's your main goal [00:43:00] in preaching? You said it was to
Jay: Yeah. I mean, you know, you wanna be faithful to the passage.
Chase: Mm-Hmm.
Jay: He, but at the end of the day, through that truth, I want the Holy Spirit to work, and I want him to shape Christ into people's hearts. I think every pastor should come up with a personal vision statement, and it was a good task for me, and that mine is to enthone Christ on the human heart by proclaiming him from the, the scriptures.
So that's what I want. I want Christ to be enthroned on people's hearts as the word is preached. And again, I, I know people are like, you are a very systematic, theologically deep preacher, and it's, but you must want people to take notes, right? And I'm like, no, not really. And I, and I got that again from Martin Lloyd Jones who.
He encouraged his people not to take notes because he wanted them to be transformed in their seats.
Chase: Yeah.
Jay: So yeah, we are the main theologian of the church. [00:44:00] We are gonna be teaching people about the Bible and forming their biblical literacy, but at the end of the day, I want them formed into Christ,
Chase: Yeah.
Jay: and, and ready for the week ahead.
Chase: And you can tell that when you listen to one of your sermons, you'll be going, when you give the outline, a lot of times you will tell people where you're going and then go there and tell 'em what you told them. But there's always this moment where you step away from the podium and like, here's the Jay moment.
And usually it's personal first. Usually it's, hey. I've spent time in this text. Here's how these verses wrecked me this week or five years ago. It was a matter of life and death, and this is what this truth meant. And then you apply it. So you have this, this masterful way of taking really deep theology that you've gotten from a systematic study of the text and making it so beautiful and desirous and wanting me to apply that to my life where if, if someone was yelling at me to do it, I wouldn't want to do it.
But it's just the way that you take these massive truths [00:45:00] and make them so personal. I encourage anyone listening to go and listen to some of Jay's sermons. Well, as we kind of wrap up in all these interviews, I do some quick fire questions and I sent you a few, but I hid some from you.
Jay: Oh boy.
Chase: fun part of the podcast, but real quick, I just gonna ask these.
Have you ever bombed during a sermon?
Jay: Oh yeah,
absolutely.
Chase: out in your memory?
Jay: Well, I mean, gosh, sometimes it's just a, you don't feel composed. You feel like you're just herky jerky and you just don't know what to do with mornings where there's no feedback. Right. And I don't, I don't have the most con charismatic. Church in the world. So a lot of serious gazes or mornings where people are nodding off left and, and right.
And, you know, you're just like, did that connect at all? You know? And so I, there's too many to count, you [00:46:00] know, like, I, I am not one, I, I don't know if I would cross the street to hear myself. And, it is just a mystery to me that in one service it really connects
Chase: Mm-Hmm.
Jay: it, it does not.
Chase: Yeah.
Jay: So I
Chase: the,
Jay: know what constitutes a bomb.
Chase: A bomb.
Jay: feels like, ugh, that was just like, Hmm,
Chase: I did one, the one that sticks out. I mean, obviously my first few were pretty bad. There was one my very first sermon in, in a, in a big church on the platform. I started telling a story as the introduction and it had this cliffhanger and I never resolved it. I never ever resolved it. I just forgot about it.
And people, pay attention to the next 20 minutes of my talking 'cause they wanted to know how the
Jay: hmm.
Chase: resolved. And I did the next service. And there was one time at, at a college that I just bombed like crazy. And that was probably five years ago. So pretty recently. What's the most distracting thing to happen in the audience as you were preaching?
Jay: Oh, well, probably we had a elder, an elderly [00:47:00] elder who got up and he, he has a cane and he tripped over it and he goes down and it makes the biggest noise. And so our congregation is full of medical people and if one of the best places to have a medical con problem, but all these people rush over. He had just tripped, but they didn't know, is he having a heart attack?
Is he having a stroke? And it, it so disrupted everybody. It was so hard for them to like regain their composure and focus back on the message. But regularly, I don't know if your church is like this because our architecture. It is very casual. People feel comfortable getting up and just going to the bathroom, but it can be at the most awkward moments
Chase: Yeah.
Jay: people are like, are they insulted?
And they're walking out and it's
Chase: Yes.
Jay: a parent that has to go get their child from the nursery, or it's someone that has to go use the bathroom.
Chase: Yeah. And [00:48:00] it tends to be from the first three
rows for some reason. yeah.
Jay: in front of everybody and like, like, go to the bathroom before you come in here. Like, ugh.
Chase: I've had some stuff happen to me, but you were a part of one of the most distracting things when you came to visit our church plant. We were in a room, it's actually a beautiful 1920s church building. You remember a w Tozer preached there. It was beautiful. And but the people before it had converted it into an MMA fighting gym, the actual atrium of the church.
So we had pipe and draped the octagon off.
Jay: mm-Hmm.
Chase: remember this? You brought all the elders with
you and we had all the windows open. 'cause we didn't have AC in Asheville. You don't really need it. A gust of wind came through and the pipe and drape fell completely on the one row of Chapel Hill Bible pastors and
Jay: Oh man, I forgot about that.
Chase: Yeah. Do you remember that?
It hits them,
Jay: judging us. Yeah,
Chase: hits you in the head, all that sort of stuff. Well, what are, what is [00:49:00] a, a pastor that you're excited about, who do you listen to in your spare time? Mm-Hmm.
Jay: mean, I try and be varied. So I, I'm gonna lean in toward Expositors. I love Alistair Begg, HP Charles is someone worth
listening to. Dave David Helm, who wrote the book Exposition in the Nine Mark series is just a really great expositor. I mean, I love Kent Hughes. Still my father-in-Law, Dwayne Litvin.
You can get old recordings of Martin Lloyd Jones.
Chase: mm-Hmm
Jay: I. Tim Keller, of course. But you know, Tim is a quasi expositor and quasi cultural apolo apologist,
Chase: mm-Hmm.
Jay: that into account. So I would not, for many reasons, I would say don't try and imitate Tim, but of course imitate his heart in his rugged commitment to, to be on mission with the gospel.
Chase: You ever dealt with anxiety or depression?
Jay: Yes.
Chase: Yeah.
Jay: [00:50:00] Yeah. Uh, well, I,
Chase: or was it a one time event?
Jay: I think it, I think it runs in my family. So I always have a low grade, an anxiousness. But we as a church, were the poster child of what happened to Evangelicalism post Donald Trump presidency, George Floyd in the Capitol raid. And there. Public records where one can read about at least how some people responded to it.
And so that led to probably the dark night of my soul where I, like a lot of pastors wondered, can I keep going? Should I hang up my cleats is and is this worth it? And again, this is a, this can be a whole other podcast, but I think a lot of the guys that have left ministry had wives that felt like they were done.
And I, [00:51:00] God's grace, but also his grace through my wife who said, I don't think we're done. And Jay, you know that your sermons and your preaching is a burden you carry, and you would not know what to do with that if you went into the financial industry or became a trim carpenter. You know, you would bear this this burden that you would have to get out of you.
Like it's giving birth every week. You know, like Martin Lloyd Jones would slump in the chair after his Sunday morning preaching and say, that is the closest to man will ever get
Chase: Right.
Jay: giving birth. I totally get that. So, yes. But I wonder, chase, if some of the most, we haven't really talked about unction or anointing, that's a whole other topic,
Chase: Mm-Hmm.
Jay: if unction and anointing come upon broken preachers.
Chase: The more, the more I talk to, the more you know [00:52:00] professional teachers that teach regularly depression, anxiety, I don't think I've ever talked to one that hasn't wanted to quit
Jay: Mm-Hmm.
Chase: in their life.
Jay: Yeah.
Chase: it really is sun every like Sundays, every seven days, which is crazy
Jay: Yeah. I, and I, I feel,
oh.
Chase: happens and is that burden that burning in your heart of burning in, in your bones that just has to get out and
Jay: Yeah,
Chase: it's crazy.
Jay: it, it's Alistair Begg jokes about this, but I agree with him. Like on the drive home after Sunday morning, you're ready to tender your resignation. Like every week you're like, why am I doing this? And then by Sunday night, you're the Lord has regathered
you. You know,
Chase: about next week. Well, let me just ask you four last questions before we leave. What do you think the biggest that all preachers are facing? Like what is the preaching dilemma of our day?
Jay: I think being sucked into [00:53:00] relevance in an unhealthy way. Obviously you want to connect with your people and their issues. Like I said, lo be local, but relevance can so guide everything and it pulls you away, I think, from preaching the text. I mean, we have so many issues right now that are trying to take center stage in American Christianity, justice, male female relationships economics, immigration, the next president, all of these things.
And just to say, I can trust the line of scripture and I can apply the line of scripture to those things when appropriate.
But just really believing the Holy Spirit has we himself to the text. I
Chase: Yeah.
Jay: the power of relevance in an unhealthy way is, is the one of the biggest challenges as well as your own heart, right?
Like no preacher's perfect, but, trying to be a man of [00:54:00] integrity, I do think the, the Lord honors that
Chase: What is one or two or three things that you would tell young preachers?
So
Jay: Mm-Hmm.
Chase: guy that's just stepping in the pulpit for the first 50 sermons, as you say, before you get your legs under you, what's some words of advice?
Jay: Yep. So I'm gonna say, I, I think you should be an expositor, that bread and butter, that your backbone of your ministry should be preaching, text in context and the power of the Holy Spirit. And again, there's room for textual preaching and systematic preaching. But just give yourself the exposition.
The second thing, is get feedback and try to do your, some of your word work with other men whenever possible. And then I would say. Develop other preachers. I've taken courses and all of that, but I, I was nurtured under a man who [00:55:00] was developing other PE people. And you don't even have to be in a multiple staff church, just other guys at younger guys in your community develop.
I think that's what the church needs is pastors committing to developing other guys, because some of the most, well-known preachers are not passing on their, their trade.
Chase: Right.
Jay: they're kind of either you got it or you don't type.
Chase: Mm-Hmm.
Jay: like, yeah, God has like anointed preachers. You can't replicate that.
But the, the kingdom just needs competent preachers and you should develop that. And so I invest in Simeon trust, but there's avenues for every guy to be developing younger preachers.
Chase: No, that's so good. how can me and the the people listening right now, pray for you? Pray for your ministry. Pray for your preaching ministry, pray for
Jay: Mm-Hmm,
Chase: And then I just want to end in prayer over you.
Jay: sure. You know, I think what I need [00:56:00] most of all is, heart, a greater heart for Christ. I just pray that I, I grow in the Lord. The other thing is our church is still healing after a really rough season and good things are happening, but that we don't it's tempting to want to go back to what it used to be like because right before Covid where everything blew up, we were having what seemed to be some of the most fruitful months
Chase: Mm-Hmm
Jay: here so far.
And so it feels like, oh, let's just go back to that. But that's not what the Lord wants. And so the, our most fruitful season would be ahead, but we would be more dependent on the Lord. Than ever before for that. And our church has always been known as like, if you want to go deep, go to the to the Bible Church.
That's fine. I don't want to be known as the shallow church. But,
Chase: Yeah.
Jay: I would love it if the Lord graciously gave us the opportunity to be a [00:57:00] midwife in the kingdom and that we would be a church of evangelists. And I can't make my people do that.
Chase: Mm-Hmm.
Jay: Lord can do that. So
Chase: Well, that's good. Would do you mind if we pray for you real quick? Jay?
Jay: I would love it.
Chase: Father, thank you so much for Jay Thomas and his just the impact that he is made in my life and countless of other, people, local and all over the country and all over the world. We pray that you would do that in his heart, that you would develop a deeper.
And more profound sense of love and thankfulness and gratefulness for Christ. Would you do it in all of our hearts as we see your holiness clear more clearly and more clearly as the years go by and the, the layers and depth of our sin more clearly and more clearly with the cross just shine brighter and the sacrifice in the work of Jesus.
We just wake up in the mornings with know sins forgiven eternity assured just on our lips. We also pray for Chapel Hill, Bible [00:58:00] Church. We pray for all the churches that went through and just hard times, just spirits of division just running headlong into the cultural issues. And we pray for continued healing.
We pray for continued unity as it calls us to and, and Paul's letters to the church in Corinth. And we pray that you would give us words that are seasoned with salt and with grace, a heart to go out into the harvest field. To chase after those that are far from you, but close to us.
Would you do that in his church? And would you do that in all of our churches? We thank you for the privilege and the honor of standing before your people and really in between you and your people and speaking and teaching and translating your word. I pray that this podcast has beneficial and a tool to let other pastors know, Hey, it is hard work and it's okay to be quirky as well because we're artists, but also if they are feeling depressed or [00:59:00] anxious or they've had these thoughts of giving up, just to know that they're not alone.
But that it's a calling. It's a calling that you've given our lives. And you'll provide the grace and you'll provide the strength in our weakness, and you'll provide the wisdom. And so we love you and we praise you, and it's in Christ thing we pray. Amen.
Jay: Oh
Chase: Jay. Thank you so much.
Jay: Wonderful to be with you, brother.