Picking a launching-point in a new church

The first sermon I preached as pastor of Copperfield Bible Church was a (relatively!) short sermon on 1 Timothy 4:1-5, preached on March 18, 2012.

What next?

I knew I didn't have a straight run. There would be two sermons, and then Easter. Then I already had plans in place to go to T4G 2012, followed by a few days with my friend Pastor Ted Steen, and an opportunity to bring the Word to his flock in Alcoa, Tennessee.

Then I'd have the opportunity to launch an uninterrupted (God willing) series.  But what to do?

I had had one idea for the two pre-Easter sermons; then I had another one push the first out of the way. However, when I got here and just began to know our flock, I concluded that it would best serve them to preach two sermons on the church: one on the church in general as revealed in Scripture, and then a second on God's specific revealed priorities for the local church. Those seemed to combine well with the first sermon (as well as my candidating sermons on the church's focal person, and on the church's focal message) for a programmatic start to our ministry together. Then Easter of course would focus on the resurrection of Christ.

But what next?

As I told someone, I felt like a fisherman who'd just broken through to a jewel of a lake in the Sierra, trout rising everywhere, and not another fisherman on the shore.* Left, or right? Lures, flies, or bait? Where to start?

Here was a dear bunch of God's people, obviously well-taught in the past and looking for the Word, simply eager for the Word to be opened. And there's that Bible, brimming with revelation, each verse and each theme calling out "Preach me!" "Me first" "No no, start here!"

I finally decided to do as I've done before: begin with a sweeping overview of Biblical doctrine. In this, I would be able to use the church's doctrinal statement for the series' basic structure. I won't be preaching the statement of faith, per se; but I do plan generally to follow its structure, and will reflect its affirmations of Scriptural truths.

I picked this for several benefits:

1. It's important, period. Jude wants every last living believer to be committed to contending earnestly for "the faith" (Jude 3), which makes for pretty rough sledding if you don't have a clue as to what "the faith" includes and excludes.
2. It's Biblical in a bunch of ways, as I tried to lay out in the first sermon ("Doctrine — Why Bother?").
3. It will serve to help the congregation and me to start out on the same page, in spelling out the fundamentals (plus) of Biblical faith as I see them.
4. It will serve new attenders, and longtime attenders who haven't yet become members, to see what CBC's teaching position is.
5. It will serve future new attenders in providing a series to which we can always refer for instruction in the areas covered by our doctrinal statement.
6. The time invested in this series will help me discern and be able to make a wiser choice as to which book then to "camp out" in once the series is completed.

As I remarked in the sermon, it's conceivable that I'll never preach another series, though I may. I mainly have always expounded books, and expect to return to that next.

But in thinking this over, it once again occurred to me that the prophets, the apostles, and the Lord virtually always preached "topically." That is, they seldom took one text or passage and focused exclusively on it. What was the "text" for the church's birthday sermon, in Acts 2? Joel 2. Well, and Psalm 16. Oh, and Psalm 110. And 2 Samuel 7. See? Then just think about that "word of exhortation" known as Hebrews.

What is non-negotiable about a Christian sermon is that it must be Biblical. But the form can vary. That is, an attentive hearer should be able to walk away saying, "This is what the Bible says about X [subject]," or "This is what the Bible says in X [passage]."

That's my aim.

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*I refer to the regular use of the pulpit specifically, not to teaching in general. We're blessed with a number of very good teachers.