Video Transcript: Why preach topical sermons? David Shaw interviews Neil Powell

Video Transcript: Why preach topical sermons? David Shaw interviews Neil Powell 

David Shaw  

Neil Powell, welcome to the off white leather couch. You are posterous City church. And like many evangelical churches, the kind of mainstay of your preaching program is expositional preaching, working through books of the Bible. But a real feature of the preaching at City is topical series, where if you talk us through why that is what your approach to that is, in general.

Neil Powell  

I think over the years, I've come to realize that the value of expository preaching working through books of the Bible is to help members of our congregation, read the Bible for themselves, understand how to understand passages within context and to see that God has written the Bible in books. And therefore that is always always has been, and always will be the backbone of our of our preaching. And I think that is at the center of what we do year by year. But I'm also very conscious that people need a lot of practical help and advice in facing issues and questions that they face on on a daily basis either as individuals, or we might do as a society or as an a church culture. So at times, we've just felt like this is a time and an opportunity to teach, for example, on a Christian view of work, involving all types of work, whether those be paid or unpaid, or it might be looking at Christians and the environments, or Christians and our attitude to suffering and illness and so on. So they're very practical questions that members of the congregation are constantly asking, and struggling to find an individual passage or study that will help them know all that the Bible has to say, we say, well, actually there is room and place within the preaching program to say, well, let's bring all of what God has said in his word together in one place and consider this together as a single series or theme. So I think some you might say some of them are driven by practical theology, pragmatic questions, whether that's a series on marriage, singleness, and divorce, or something like that. Some of them are driven by us wanting to teach doctrine, and demonstrating, for example, the sovereignty of God, or his character, his attributes, we've just done a series this summer on knowing God, or a series that I'm currently preaching at the moments on the cross of Christ is recognizing the value in understanding what God's word says in all its fullness on a particular theme or doctrine. And so I think I'd want to argue There are three types of sermon there would be your standard, expository verse by verse book by book preaching, then some topical preaching, which we'll look at the practical questions that people are facing today, and then a doctrinal series, which we might do from time to time in which I'm currently doing on the cross of Christ.

David Shaw  

Okay, so yeah, have three categories that on the kind of practical side of things, a series at City recently focused on suffering and weakness. Tell us about that series, how it came about some of the fruits of that in the life of the congregation?

Neil Powell  

Thank you. Yes, I think we wanted to respond really, to what became an as an observation from one of the church leaders who was not a paid member of staff, but covers one ministry area in the church, that she felt that in the culture of the church, there wasn't really permission to demonstrate or to express our own vulnerabilities and weaknesses, as Christians, was almost as if we were not given permission to say that we struggled with an issue, whether that might be temptation or doubt, or weakness in all its forms. And I thought the only way in which we can really address this as a whole church is to preach on it. And so beginning really in two Corinthians chapter 12, and Paul's own expression, not merely that God is at work in our weaknesses, but sometimes God is surprisingly at work, through our weaknesses, to bring us to a humble dependence on him in a way that nothing other than our own weaknesses would, would demonstrate that there was a need and a place for that in the Christian life. To actually not say that, you may one day at some point, experience weakness as a Christian, but actually to see that God might be just particularly teaching you through an expression of that. So almost we thought there was a need to change the culture in the life of the church. So we structured a an eight week series, we called it perfected in weakness, and wanted to help people to recognize that weakness is not only the way into the Christian life by saying I'm a sinner in need of a Savior. Yeah, but weaknesses the way on in the Christian life, that we're always those who are humbly dependent on God. And then we began to sort of think what would be in a church like city, some of the ways in which people might be experiencing weakness. And we've got quite a large number of people, for example, in their 20s, and 30s. And for them, it's not going to be issues of physical illness may not even be issues about their own mortality or death may not be for many issues like depression, or even dance. But one of the ones that we thought was a surprise to us was the issue of disappointment, that a lot of guys in their 20s and 30s, were saying, I really thought, by this stage of my life, yeah, I might be married. Or I might have progressed this far in my job. And we found that in our context, we needed to look at questions of our own sense of weakness in a way that might be quite different from a church with a different demographic, different ages and stages of life. And for us, it was recognizing that life doesn't always work, the way we think it's going to work by looking at issues of our own disappointments and frustrations in life, as well as issues of struggling with sin, and so on. And we thought We'll track it in our HomeGroup. So we decided that we'd very deliberately, not only preach the series, but that we'd really try it and apply it sometimes I think when we do in home groups, or our midweek groups are completely different series, it takes you 30 to 40 minutes before you even get to questions of application. Whereas when you're following a sermon series, and the questions for the small group discussions midweek, have been prepared by the preacher. The expectation is, we've all at least have chance to listen, even if only online. To the sermon that we get to the nitty gritty of application quickly. And we thought on a series on what is the normal Christian experience? And how are we experiencing weakness? And how is God growing us and changes through weakness, so that we couldn't let each other off the hook? We thought, let's really bring this to bear in our lives, and through our midweek groups, as well as through the preaching of God's Word. On a Sunday.

David Shaw  

Did you find did people embrace that in home groups? Was there an openness? And was there a bit of a mindset change in, in how they think about the Christian life and how they feel they have to present themselves at church?

Neil Powell  

I think the key was giving in the services space for testimony alongside the preaching, it seems to me it almost doesn't matter what you say, as a preacher, if people can't see how this has been lived out in the life of a believer. So when I did talk, for example, in one instance, about the weakness of physical pain, and illness, to then in that same service, hear from a lady who suffers from Parkinson's disease, and her struggles with that just brought the truth of God's Word home to bear in a very, very real way. So she was modeling what it means to be free to talk about how God has grown us in our weaknesses. And I felt that those testimonies really unlocked people's hearts to be willing to be able to talk much more freely, then midweek in their groups. Yeah, we had someone talk, for example, in, in the weakness of moral failure, talked about the tragedy of their own divorce as a believer, and they were very brave in some ways to be willing to say that in the life of the church, they felt they were able to because the preaching was giving them that given that confidence that they could bring these things, and talk about how God had had used even failure to grow them. And then they encourage everyone else to feel able to get that same response by modeling that for us.

David Shaw  

Yeah. Great. I mean, that that sounds like cemeteries have blessed a lot of churches. I'm interested to know, I mean, you said that's a kind of practical theology model. It sounds enormously practical. It also sounds very theological in terms of helping people think through God's purposes and those things and how we respond to them the nature of the world in which we live. How did you find preparing that series? What kind of resource to you to do that? How did you how did you kind of grow yourself through that?

Neil Powell  

I think the, one of the things that makes verse by verse book by book expository preaching easier in some measure, is that there are lots of good resources and commentaries to guide you through that process. Or even listening to how others have preached it either at a conference or online to get a sense of, of how to preach Colossians or Ephesians or something else. When you construct your own series, you realize that you're on your own a lot more, especially if in this instance, where we were looking at weaknesses that might not be the Typical ones you might expect in this series because we were reflecting where we were at as a church. So I found it took a lot longer to prepare. I wanted to consult more widely with others to say. Well, what are the questions that people are asking? And I think it was the end of the day, something I'm glad I didn't try to do too early in my preaching. Now, as someone who's preached regularly for 15 years, I felt more competent and experienced. I think, undoubtedly, a theological training that I received helped me a great deal I say to people, if they asked me the value of theological college, I try and suggest that theological college won't give you all of the answers. But it will equip you to ask the right questions. And what I came away from my time of training at Bible college was was a sense of a tool belt or toolbox. That said, whatever the topic or the issue is, I instinctively think I know how I want to begin to look at how the Bible addresses this. And in its all its complexity, and diversity of themes. I think, I've got a sense of how to put this together. And in one sense, I hope, whatever the topic that someone gave me to speak on whether it was Christians in the environments which we were looking at a few years ago, or work Christians and work and themes such as such as ambition at work, and what that looks like that it was feeling equipped to know how the gospel addresses those issues, that with enough time, and certainly with some advice and help from others, I began to feel and find my way through to put a series together.

David Shaw  

Great, Neil, thanks very much. Thank you.