THE REFLECTIONS OF A RECOVERING HOMILETICIAN

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GERRY MATHISEN

The Willow Creek Association

This paper explores the growth that occurred in the homiletical thinking of one listener - a Haddon Robinson-trained expositor and homiletics professor -- when he went through a divorce, left his teaching position as a result, and became a regular attendee and active member of seeker-oriented Willow Creek Community Church.

I am not an international traveler.  In fact, an afternoon in Mexico, while I was a seminary student almost thirty years ago, is the total of my travel abroad.  But in 1994, I embarked upon, what was for me, a truly cross-cultural experience.  I began attending Willow Creek Community Church.

Admittedly, this ecclesiastical version of a cross-cultural experience has involved a different set of issues. For someone like myself- raised in a fundamentalist church, graduated from Dallas Seminary, employed for a decade on the faculty of the Moody Bible Institute- the entrance into the Willow culture meant learning to adjust to differences in architecture and style of worship and an open-armed response to divorced people like myself. 

But I was a homiletician, and one of the greatest adjustments I found myself having to make in order to survive in this new environment was learning to deal with the fact that there were fundamental differences between the way Bill Hybels preached and the way Haddon Robinson had taught me to preach, which also was the methodology I had tried to practice myself and teach to my students. 

Eight years later, I not only have adapted to this new culture, but I have experienced  growth within it.  And a major piece of that adjustment has involved being able to understand and appreciate the homiletical distinctives I have experienced at Willow Creek. The primary objective of this paper, which admittedly is one man's experience-based, autobiographical perspective, is to describe some of the ways in which my ideas about preaching have advanced during my years at Willow. 

My culture of origin: the forming of a homiletician

 As I look back on my life, I realize that its first forty-five years generally pointed in one direction.  God wanted me to teach preaching.  The development of this vision for ministry occurred in several distinct stages.  For most of my formative years, the small fundamentalist church I attended in Wisconsin was the center of my life, a fact which helps to explain why Phil Yancey is my favorite author.  The preaching was simple and unsophisticated.  But despite the era and geographical setting, it did teach me some important homiletical lessons.   

My most significant learning during this stage of my life was that preaching was most effective when it was rooted firmly in Scripture.  Three times a week, year after year, I could attend church certain that I would hear a message that reflected hours of serious study of the Bible.  And through the encouragement of my church youth group leaders and my involvement in Youth for Christ, I also received opportunities to begin to practice this lesson. 

By the time I was a freshman in high school, I knew that God wanted me to pursue vocational ministry.  So when I finished high school, I began my college experience at a small Bible institute in Michigan.  My major was Pastoral Studies and I received my first classroom homiletical training.  The instructor taught enthusiastically and delighted in being able to demonstrate how to find a neat, three-point alliterated outline in a text.  But I learned the importance of being passionate about the task of preaching and of the value of putting structure to one’s ideas.   

After finishing my bachelor's degree at another college, my pursuit of ministry training took me to seminary, and there I was introduced to a concept that would revolutionize my thinking about preaching- "the big idea."  Haddon Robinson had not yet written his now-classic text, but he taught its basic content in the classroom.  The resulting experience was invaluable for those students, like myself, who chose to attempt to absorb and implement his insight into how to transform the primary message of a text into the focus of a sermon.   

So significant was my seminary experience that by the time I received my degree, I knew that I wanted to be a homiletician. Following the advice of Haddon and my other preaching professors, I went straight from seminary to graduate school to pursue a doctorate in communication.  While finishing my degree, I accepted my first appointment in higher education, teaching undergraduate speech at a college in Michigan. 

After five years of there, I finally reached my goal.  I was invited to join the faculty of the Moody Bible Institute, where I received the opportunity to teach students how to preach.  Haddon Robinson's text had been published.  Some of the students seemed eager to learn.  I had reached homiletical heaven. 

Why have I taken up this much space in a relatively short paper, with the risk of boring the reader, to relate all of this self-history?  First, I wanted to verify my earlier assertion that the trajectory of my life pointed in one direction- toward teaching preaching. But in describing the environments in which my homiletical thinking was formed, I also hope to have demonstrated to the reader that my eventual immersion in the culture of seeker-oriented Willow Creek did in fact take me into another world. 

The preaching culture of Willow Creek:

How a seeker church contributed to my homiletics

1994 was a turning-point year in my life.  In February, I sent a letter to the dean stating my decision to leave Moody at the end of the school year.  I indicated several reasons for my decision, but intentionally left out the most significant one.  My marriage was in disrepair, and since divorce was likely, I could not in good conscience continue to teach at Moody.  Depressed and ashamed, I left quietly in order to avoid any more humiliation than I already felt.

It was in that condition, in the summer of 1994,that I cleaned out my office at MBI and started to make the 40-minute drive every weekend to Willow Creek.  Yes, attending services occasionally on Saturday night also was part of the cross-cultural experience.  By the end of the year, my divorce was finalized, but my recovery and healing from it had begun. In ways that I did not always understand immediately, the distinctive manner in which Bill Hybels preached soon began to impact my life in important ways.

As a result of leaving the safety of the lectern and taking on the role of a broken listener, or believing seeker, I also began to learn some valuable lessons about preaching. I realized first-hand that teaching and preaching in seeker-oriented churches could lead to lives that truly are changed without sacrificing the basic principles of biblical preaching.  The remainder of this paper will focus on four of those lessons.

Preaching is most effective when the thorough integration of Scripture into life is its functioning, ultimate goal.

In the summer before my senior year of high school, my church was without a pastor.  In a moment of weakness, the elders of the church, obviously having difficulty filling all the speaking slots on the church calendar, asked me to speak at our midweek prayer and Bible study service.  Not once, but three consecutive weeks.

After one of those services, I had a brief telephone conversation with one of my brothers who at the time was teaching homiletics at the Bible institute I eventually would attend.  I remember him asking me if my message was topical, textual, or expository.  Since I had no clue as to what those words meant, I responded in the best way I knew to do.  I said, "I don't know.  But I think it was Biblical." 

I eventually would learn not only what those three words meant, but that they represented the categories in the most traditional typology of sermons.  My answer to my brother's question merely reflected what I had learned early on: that what ultimately mattered was that the sermon truly be Biblical in nature.  But by the time I had attended Willow Creek for a few months, I had abandoned that traditional system of categorizing messages in favor of one that looked at a message not in light of the nature of the text, but for what that message was meant to accomplish in the listener.

When I added my experience in my new church home to decades of listening to thousands of messages, what resulted was a new category system that defined sermons according to five common objectives.  They are:

1.     The message of invitation.  This is the message that is designed to lead to the conversion of the nonbeliever.  It was a popular form of preaching long before the term "seeker" was in vogue.

2.     The sermon of inspiration.  Full commitment to Christ is its goal, making it particularly common in churches that make a clear distinction between "conversion to Christ" and "commitment to Christ."  If John 3:16 is the cardinal text for the sermon of invitation, Romans 12:1 and 2 is most popular in this category.

3.     The sermon of indoctrination.  The term may carry a negative connotation for some.  Yet I believe that it is precisely the goal of messages that focus on the teaching of Biblical content and the instilling of right doctrine.  This is the "meat and potatoes" category for most of the expositors I have listened to.

4.     The sermon of insulation.  If the previous category focuses on "right thinking," then this one aims for "right living."  Where at one time this meant "no smoking, drinking, or dancing", today the thrust perhaps would be "no divorce, no homosexuality, and by no means anything that smacks of postmodernism."  Godliness is achieved in large part by separating oneself from evil.

5.     The sermon of integration.  This category represents the ultimate: the thorough integration of scripture into the mind, heart, and lifestyle of the believer.  Application must mean more than just generalized principles.  The preacher who chooses to make this category his or her focus will help the listener, whether believer or seeker, to see that the Bible speaks to life where they are.

You can see that I have not forgotten my Bible institute instructor's lessons on alliteration. But over the years, I have made several key observations regarding these messages types. The Bible commonly speaks, in various places, to all five objectives. Therefore, the self-described "Bible-teaching" church must speak to all five in some context in order to fit that description.  The genres of indoctrination, insulation, and integration reflect the progression of Biblical truth stated in II Timothy 3:17.

Most preachers are comfortable in one or two categories and generally will avoid the others. In my church, Bill Hybels typically combines "invitation" and "integration" in the seeker service.  John Ortberg, on the other hand, focuses on "indoctrination" and "integration" in his midweek teaching.  But until a preacher learns to teach in light of the fact that what God truly desires is that the listener learn to integrate truth thoroughly into his or her experience, God's full intent for Scripture will not be accomplished.

In my later years at Moody, I grew impatient because most of my preaching students just were not able to take application to a deeper, more integrated level.  While I attributed this failure to their youth (most of my students were in the 19-23 age category), it also occurred to me that most of them likely were preaching in the classroom in a manner that imitated the preacher they were most influenced by: their pastor back home, the popular radio speaker, or the latest chapel hit. Surface-level application breeds surface-level application. 

In sum, the teaching and preaching at Willow Creek not only introduced me to integrated preaching, but my life has been significantly changed by it.

Preaching is most effective when people, not issues, are its ongoing focus.

Obviously, I have learned meaningful lessons about preaching while sitting in the theater seats of my church.  But I was particularly struck by the lesson I learned one evening while sitting in a theater seat in an actual movie theater.  The "homiletician" that evening was none other than Robin Williams, or at least Patch Adams, the medical student portrayed by Williams in the film of the same name.  Though there were some scenes in the movie that probably will never make their way into sermon illustrations, the critique of the medical profession that Patch Adams offers in the film is worthy of consideration, given the parallels between medical school and seminary training.

Late in the movie, Patch Adams goes before a panel of doctors to state his case for remaining in medical school despite his continued defiance of its policies.  At one point in his emotional appeal, he observed that in medicine "if you treat a disease, you win, you lose.  You treat a person, I guarantee you will win no matter what the outcome."

When I heard that comment, the movie ended for me and my mind began to race.

What struck me about his statement was what I perceived to be an obvious parallel to preaching.  I do not know exactly what it means "to win" in preaching.  But what I do feel is that preachers generally have gotten too involved with treating diseases, at the expense of people.  Of what types of diseases am I speaking?  There are theological diseases of all types.  Of course, what is a theological disease to one group may be a sign of health to another.  There are social diseases such as abortion and homosexuality and the Democratic Party.  There are ecclesiastical diseases.  Some would say the "seeker movement" is not just a disease.  It is a plague.

Of course, in my case, the disease is divorce.  I believe I have learned from my experience over the last eight years what it means for a preacher and a church to treat the person rather than the disease.  Do not read me incorrectly. Willow Creek places a premium on quality marriage.  In fact, it probably is more difficult to get married at my church than in any other church I have ever attended.

But in the process of elevating marriage, I have never felt that I was stigmatized as a divorced person.  Instead, I was given the opportunity to heal and recover in a safe environment.  Though I originally believed that my divorce had ended my life of ministry, my hope of serving and leading was restored.   

And this effort to treat the person has extended to the platform as well.  Every message series on marriage includes a sermon for divorced people like myself.  The Bible offers hope for all.  Why use the pulpit merely to inflict more pain?  When we express outrage over abortion, what hope do we offer to the woman in the audience who lives with the guilt of the death that occurred within her, perhaps years earlier?  When we rail against the evils of homosexuality, what about the man in the crowd who experiences constant shame over his own sexual identity issues. 

Patch Adams' perspective on life and on the medical profession was transformed when a patient in a mental hospital used a simple object lesson to help him see the value of looking beyond the issue in front of him to see the person behind the issue.  Come to think of, did not Jesus Himself do that when he met the woman at the well?

Preaching is most effective when grace and truth are held in balance.

In the spring of 1995, about five months after my divorce, I moved from the apartment I had rented for a year and a half to a much smaller place.  I realized it was time to do some needed "downsizing."  I had boxes and boxes of materials accumulated during my years as a student and as a professor and no place to store them after I moved.  So I dove into the pile and started to weed out what I no longer wanted or thought I would ever need.  The result was ten black trash bags of papers discarded by the curb for the trash man and only two or three boxes of materials I deemed worthy of saving.

Afterward, I sat back in my chair and asked myself what I had just done.  I was struck by the sense of relief and freedom that I felt inside me.  It occurred to me that I had spent many years of my life idolizing what those papers represented to me: the pursuit of truth.   Truth itself is vital, a very good thing.  And the papers were not evil.  But like any idol, this one had gotten in the way.  As I began to experience God's healing grace in my life, there was a yearning within me to find the same needed balance between truth and grace that Christ Himself demonstrated.

Balancing grace and truth in preaching is a tricky, but necessary task.  Thanks to the sciences of hermeneutics and exegesis, we have turned the pursuit of truth into a relatively scientific exercise in which objective truth seemingly can be determined and taught.  But everyday grace is slipperier and much more mysterious.  I believe it is harder to preach.

A few years ago, when I was essentially a full-time adjunct instructor teaching at as many as four colleges in the same semester, I spent a lot of time in my car listening to a local Christian radio station.  One day, my curiosity was aroused when I heard a well-known preacher announce that he was beginning a series on how a Christian should deal with trouble in his or her life.  Not surprisingly, his text for the series was the first part of James chapter 1.  

The messages focused on the listener's need to obey the text's three primary exhortations to the troubled person: rejoice in your trials, ask God for wisdom, and be faithful.  I was familiar with all of that because for years I had required my first-year homiletics students to preach from James.  But I was troubled by one matter:  the messages did not match up with what I was experiencing in my troubles as a divorced person wrestling with relational, professional, financial, and spiritual issues. 

Despite what the preacher said, I was receiving provision from God even though I was not doing much rejoicing; He was giving me direction even though I was not very good at asking for wisdom; He met my needs even when my faith appeared weak.  In summary, God was working in my life even though I was having a hard time being obedient to this preacher's text.  How does that happen?  I have only one explanation: it is the unexplainable mystery of God's grace.  But as unexplainable as it may appear, I believe that we have to do a better job of interjecting God's message of healing grace into our regular efforts at imparting truth.

My own experience growing up with the excesses of legalism made me familiar with the performance mentality common in churches. When truth is not balanced with grace, the Christian life can become like a pole-vaulting contest.  As long as the bar is crossed, the contestant can continue.  But what happens when the inevitable occurs and the bar is knocked off?  The pole-vaulter must drop out of the competition.

I knew all about the Christian version of the pole vault.  Do the right thing and everything is fine.  God is satisfied.  But what happens when the inevitable occurs and we sin and knock off the bar.  No one ever taught me about the safety net of God's grace while I was growing up.  So when I was divorced and I failed to get over the bar, I needed to hear about God's healing grace that did not render me disqualified. Fortunately, the message came through loudly and clearly.  People not only need to know what God's expectations are of us.  They also need to hear the full story of grace and forgiveness.

Preaching is most effective when the preacher is an active, vulnerable participant in the process, not a disconnected conduit.

Not long ago, John Ortberg taught through the book of Revelation in our midweek service.  Yes, you read correctly: the book of Revelation at Willow Creek.  One evening, he was discussing the matter of the timing of Christ's return as related to the tribulation.  After expressing his opinion, he acknowledged that this was a subject of great debate and that he could be wrong.  So he asked each of us in the audience to turn to the person next to us and say, "He could be wrong."  While his request produced much laughter in the audience, it meant something more to me. He could be wrong.  I do not think I had ever heard a preacher or teacher admit that before.  Preachers are not allowed to be wrong on matters of prophecy.

But more significantly, his comment represented something deeper.  Coming to Willow Creek exposed me on a regular basis to teachers who allowed themselves to be vulnerable in front of their audience.  When I went through my divorce, I resisted allowing myself to be vulnerable because I felt guilty and ashamed.  I did not feel that I could not seek counsel from my colleagues, much less my superiors, because that was too risky.

Over the least eight years, I often have been asked if I miss teaching.  My normal response is that I do not.  My experience as a full-time adjunct burned me out.  I enjoy the job God has given me for this time.  And I still do teach a little.  But I do have one regret about not teaching full-time.  I believe that if I were to return to the classroom, I would be a much better teacher.

Ironically, I feel that the very event that disqualified me from teaching in many schools has led me to a growth process that has enabled me to be a much more authentic, passionate instructor capable of helping me relate better to my hurting students.  My experience in the community college classroom has demonstrated that to me.  By listening to authentic speakers at Willow, I have learned to be a more authentic teacher and person.

In January of 2000, Bill Hybels presented a series of messages titled "Tools for the New Millennium."  It was the type of topical series likely to irritate the proponent of exposition.  But in one message, Bill used the metaphor of the palm pilot to address the problem of time management.  In his message, he spoke at length about his own personal struggle with managing his time in ministry.  He spoke of the effects that this problem had on his relationship with his family and how it eventually drove him into receiving professional counseling.  While most preachers probably would never admit even to needing counseling, much less seek it out and then be vulnerable and open about it, Bill's willingness to be honest about his own personal struggle has been freeing for me and helped to give me hope. 

I believe that effective application of Scripture in teaching begins when the preacher is able to answer honestly, with great self-awareness, one question: How does this text relate to my life?  In the traditional models of preaching, God speaks through His word and Spirit to the listener.  The role of the preacher is that of a conduit whose importance is minimized.  The message is to be well organized and clearly stated, with the preacher avoiding becoming a hindrance to the fidelity of the message.  Unfortunately, such an approach allows and even encourages the preacher to project himself as someone who has his theology right and his act together.  I believe we have an epidemic of impression management in the pulpit and our traditional model of preaching has allowed it to happen.  

But when a preacher teaches on a pertinent subject, whether it be prayer, marriage, or stewardship, and does not allow his warts to show, he misses an opportunity to connect with his audience in ways that can be life-changing.  I personally believe that it is absolutely necessary for a preacher to engage the text at the deepest possible level during his sermon preparation, and that to fail to do so can lead to a preaching that expects great things of the listener and little of oneself. 

What of expository preaching and the seeker?

Can expository preaching be seeker-oriented?  Changes in the church have forced homileticians to wrestle with this question, whether or not they really want to ask it, and whether or not it needs to be answered.  Having been a seeker of sorts for much of the last eight years, I believe the answer to the question is obvious. 

The real question, I believe, is whether or not preachers can preach as if seekers do not exist.  For the truth is that the same problems that plague the nonbeliever, whether or not he is termed a "seeker," often also plague the believers who make up the larger part of the typical audience in an evangelical church.  To ignore the "seeker," even in exposition, also likely means ignoring the believer sitting next to him or her. 

The preaching of God's word can change lives when it is faithfully applied to life's deepest needs; when it displays a heart for people, a heart filled with grace; and even when the human messenger is a self-acknowledged work in progress.  To preach in this manner may require a significant change in the mindset in the preacher.  Please take the word of one believing seeker: the change is worth the effort.