Dripping Vision with Luke Simmons

[00:00:00] Yeah, so what I would say is we don't get to pick our mission. Jesus picked that, right? The great commission, Matthew 28, is the mission, right? Like it's make disciples.

[00:00:11] And that's the mission. So I don't get to pick that. To me, the vision is how might God want that mission to flesh out here in this context and this community among us with the gifts and the resources and the stewardship and the responsibility we have.

[00:00:28] Hey, welcome to the Expositors Collective Podcast episode 324. I'm your host Mike Neglia and our guest for this week is Luke Simmons.

[00:00:40] Luke is the founding and lead pastor of Ironwood Church in Phoenix, Arizona. And in this conversation we speak about vision. What is vision?

[00:00:55] Is vision even biblical? How do we communicate vision to the churches that we're a part of and is it better to have a vision Sunday once a year or is it better to drip it in

[00:01:09] to all aspects of our teaching, preaching announcements and so many more things? Luke is one of these incredibly wise guys who has learned a lot over the years and now is sharing it with people like me and people like you.

[00:01:26] He's the host of the preaching through podcast and I think it's an excellent companion to what we're doing. So if you like this sort of podcast episodes and expositors collective has been putting out for the past couple of years, well then I suggest that you work your way over to the preaching through podcast for a more like narrow and focused look at certain aspects of sermon prep.

[00:01:56] And delivery another way that you can improve and grow as a teacher or preacher of God's word is join us in California May 24th and 25th for our next in person preacher training event.

[00:02:14] I'm going to let Heath Hardesty invite you himself and then Luke's interview is automatically going to play.

[00:02:25] Hey everyone, he's hard to see here past or valley community church in Pleasanton, California. I want to invite you to come out on May 24th and 25th to the expositors collected interactive training event here in the beautiful Bay area. This will help you grow in your personal study and the public proclamation of God's word.

[00:02:44] This will be a joyful time where we learned new skills and we do it in community all for the glory of God. So bring your team come on out, it'll be a powerful time of learning how to preach God's word and a joyful and powerful way we hope to see you then.

[00:03:02] Welcome to the expositors collective podcast thrilled to be speaking with Luke Simmons. Good morning, welcome to the show.

[00:03:15] Hey Mike, it's good to be with you.

[00:03:18] I've been learning from you for quite a while. I just you showed up on Twitter one day and I said, hey, this guy is pretty smart.

[00:03:28] So thank you for letting me chase you down and talk you into coming onto this show. I appreciate that.

[00:03:35] I mean, let's be honest Mike, you didn't have to talk me into it very much. I love talking about preaching. I love the work you're doing and I feel like I mean, I guess to you, I popped up one day.

[00:03:45] I feel a lot like this turtle on a fence post that's a bunch of other people have put me in positions to learn a lot and grow a lot. And in the last year or two,

[00:03:55] I just feel a little more public about sharing some of those insights, but I feel like I'm just inheriting this great tradition of people who have poured into me.

[00:04:03] And so what you're doing with this podcast is you're helping put other people on the fence post and I appreciate that.

[00:04:10] Yeah, because yeah, those turtles they don't put themselves there do they? They do not.

[00:04:15] Yeah, well I have, I have friends even, you know, fellow elders here at my own church and they're not on Twitter.

[00:04:23] And so oftentimes I'm sending them links and say this is called the thread. So there's the personal friend and it links to these other things.

[00:04:30] And it's worth it to read all of these little great little bullet points that this guy looks Simmons has put together.

[00:04:38] And so that's kind and you know for people that are listening, if you want to track this and the stuff I'm doing, but you're not on Twitter.

[00:04:43] If you go to faithful and fruitful.com, you can subscribe to a newsletter. I do and a lot of the things that I tweet out.

[00:04:49] I also send out at different points as well as other stuff in that email. So if people are more email based than that Twitter and they want to connect.

[00:04:56] I'd love to connect that way.

[00:04:58] Yeah. Okay, so now the promotion is done.

[00:05:02] I'm actually believing this. I want people to benefit from it, but now I start every interview this way.

[00:05:09] Luke, what was your first like sermon? Like I know you've been in ministry since 04, but I'm sure that you were preaching before you and into full time ministry.

[00:05:20] Do you remember your first time teaching the Bible in public?

[00:05:23] I do. I have things like I kind of think of three different ones. So one was when I was in high school, I was part of young life and I was a new believer.

[00:05:33] And in young life, I don't know how much everyone listening knows about young life, but young lives kind of a Christian club for non Christians is how they describe it.

[00:05:41] The last club of everyone senior year, the seniors do like a takeover where they run it. And I wasn't willing to eat a blended up fish when I couldn't play brown.

[00:05:51] I'd grow on my guitar. So it was like, well, I guess you're going to do the talk. So I did the talk and I don't remember what it was about or what I did.

[00:05:58] Then my senior year of college, I did an independent study on preaching where I interviewed a bunch of preachers in the area and read some books about preaching.

[00:06:05] At some point I had to do a talk about preaching or I had to actually give a sermon. And again, I don't really remember what that was.

[00:06:11] I probably use the clip of Braveheart because I was kind of in that phase of life.

[00:06:15] In those days, the one I really remember was when I moved to Arizona and I was volunteering in a college ministry and the guy that was leading it said,

[00:06:24] I'm getting married and going on my honeymoon, will you cover for the next few weeks.

[00:06:28] And my first two sermons there were Philippians three and four all of Philippians three and one week all of Philippians four the next week.

[00:06:35] And it was a disaster. And those are the ones I have. I actually have tapes of and I can go back and listen to and to ask a brand new preacher to try to cover all that's in Philippians three.

[00:06:46] He's going to be dumb enough to try to do it. And I was and men those talks are boring.

[00:06:53] And I'm really grateful for the grace that God just showed me. I'm glad I got more chances. Maybe it's because he was out of town,

[00:07:00] and he didn't have to experience how bad it was that he gave me more opportunities.

[00:07:05] So what the recordings like, have you gone back and like, are they objectively bad or is just your memory of it that it's bad?

[00:07:14] It's been a long time since I went back and listen. I mean, I did some years ago.

[00:07:19] Part of this, I don't have a cassette player anymore. Yeah, I mean the content was fine. Like there wasn't anything wrong with it, but it wasn't particularly interesting.

[00:07:29] It wasn't particularly insightful.

[00:07:31] You know, it wasn't what I would now consider a very concerned. So yeah, it was objectively bad.

[00:07:37] Okay. Okay, well essentially if you got a chance to time travel back and talk to yourself before what would you,

[00:07:46] what kind of advice would you give to young young Luke?

[00:07:51] Yeah, one would be just that you're going to have to seek out feedback.

[00:07:57] I mean, most environments in most places people thankfully will give you an opportunity.

[00:08:02] And I tried to say yes to every opportunity I had whether it was speaking at a sports chapel or any, you know,

[00:08:09] you come share your testimony at this high school thing or this youth group thing or

[00:08:14] but man, to actually get constructive feedback on it, you're going to have to really ask.

[00:08:18] Most people will not give you much other than hey, it was pretty good or it was okay or

[00:08:23] hey, think about this but to get real feedback, you're going to have to ask. So that's one thing.

[00:08:27] The other thing I would give myself advice on would be just to say, hey, you're going to have to try a bunch of stuff

[00:08:33] to actually see what fits you and to see what works and to see what connects with your voice.

[00:08:38] You know, don't try to be just like this person or just like that person.

[00:08:43] It's funny to me how in different environments the preachers all kind of sound the same.

[00:08:49] You know, depending on the tribe or the denomination or the mother church or whatever.

[00:08:53] And I think to listen a lot of people try a lot of different things do some stuff that you're going to totally bomb at and be okay with that so that you're then have the ability to keep improving.

[00:09:06] Yeah, I mean what if young Luke looked at you and said yeah, that sounds great but I'm preaching Philippians three in a couple days.

[00:09:14] Yeah, I'll get into the short term to get ready for this massive chunk of scripture.

[00:09:19] Yeah, yeah, there I would have just said hey, don't try to preach, don't try to preach through the whole chapter.

[00:09:25] Try to give me the big idea of the chapter explain it, illustrate it, apply it and have that be enough.

[00:09:33] You don't have to walk me through every single verse, try to illustrate and apply every single verse, try to just do one big chunk.

[00:09:43] Yeah, and hopefully things would have would have been a bit better but that's yeah I appreciate.

[00:09:48] Yeah, those kind of those big picture long term bits of advice and also that very practical thing on how to do a large perikopee of scripture.

[00:10:00] Then yeah, kind of what I'm kind of getting at is like well how have you like grown since then like in those years of even full time ministry or or various occasional preaching.

[00:10:11] What's something that you used to do that you deliberately put work into stopping or vice versa?

[00:10:18] Did you add something intentionally into your prep or delivery process?

[00:10:24] Man, that's a good question Mike. You know at the beginning the way I was trained we were required to manuscript as part of the training process which I think was actually a very good way to train because it made it where you had to articulate your thoughts.

[00:10:38] You had to think through the connective tissue of transitions and points and all that. And so that was really helpful when I started getting into a place where I was preaching every week for me.

[00:10:47] I was just spending so much time manuscript thing that I felt like for me I didn't preach weekly until I was also planting a church.

[00:10:54] And so when your church planting you don't have 20 hours to spend on your preparation.

[00:10:59] You've got maybe eight, maybe 10 if you really block it off and do it well.

[00:11:03] And so I just couldn't spend half of that time manuscripting so I had to cut that down.

[00:11:09] Another thing I tried once that I was really glad I did was I made myself do a sermon with no notes.

[00:11:14] Oh, okay.

[00:11:16] I don't think no notes is holier than a lot of notes but I thought man I'd like to give that a shot.

[00:11:22] And so what I realized from that was that actually in order to preach with no notes or fewer notes it's not that you have to memorize it it's you have to internalize it.

[00:11:33] I had to get so familiar with what I was going to say that really it would be like hey if I was just sitting with Mike at coffee and we could talk about the sermon I could say here it is.

[00:11:43] Here you go, here's what's in there. And so I think that helped me a lot.

[00:11:47] There was a season where I would actually preach the empty room most weeks.

[00:11:51] You know I finished a sermon on a Thursday and you know go in on a you know Thursday afternoon and just preach to the empty room.

[00:11:58] So I did that for a while. I don't really do that as much unless I'm really I know I'm going to be pressed for time or there's a particularly sensitive thing I want to talk through.

[00:12:07] But that was a helpful practice for a season just to help me get more reps helped me think through how to edit better.

[00:12:15] I'm now able almost as I write it to edit a little bit more because I think I did that practice so those are a few of the things that I that I tried along the way that I think have been really pretty helpful.

[00:12:26] What's it like to preach to an empty room? I think I think somebody another guest years ago mentioned that he's done that before and then you kind of moved on.

[00:12:36] But like what's the what's the value is it is it kind of muscle memory is it hearing it out loud.

[00:12:43] Yeah, what's great until the maintenance guy walks in in the middle of the thing and then it's super awkward because you're just standing up there talking to yourself.

[00:12:51] Yeah, yeah. I mean the value of it to me that the idea of it is I don't want to practice on people.

[00:12:59] And I'm in a situation now where I do three services and I think even in those days we did two and I didn't want it to be like well the first services might run through in the second service I actually dial it in.

[00:13:11] So it was going you know there's always things I tweak after the first service.

[00:13:16] Why wouldn't I do that beforehand so that was that was the idea of it.

[00:13:20] I'm also an auditory learner and so hearing myself say it.

[00:13:24] Okay, both helped me internalize it and it helped me go you know that part just doesn't actually flow with this part when I saw it on paper in these bullet points it made sense but when I'm saying it out loud it actually isn't the right path so.

[00:13:37] So that's the part that I think is good about it. The downside of it is I do think when you're preaching you should be connecting with the people sometimes you listen to a preacher and you kind of think you know if everybody in the room vanished I don't think he'd quit talking it's almost like he's just so he's more focused on his sermon then he is on connecting his sermon to these people and so the danger of if you preach to an empty room you get actually pretty good at talking without.

[00:14:06] Without making eye contact without really thinking through how is this landing and it can you know if you're not careful can lead to a little bit being too comfortable with more robotic generalized preaching.

[00:14:18] Yeah okay well thanks for yeah going into the logistics of that and the advantages as well as yeah possibly the the disadvantages I preached somewhere on Tuesday night last Tuesday as it a.

[00:14:32] Passers conference in Austria and I got to speak and I've just never spoken anywhere where the lights were so bright and the room was so dark it was.

[00:14:44] Yeah no I'm yeah I know what you mean yeah man like like what a like a disorienting thing to feel as if I'm preaching to an empty room when in fact I'm not and you know I also it was a real dud and I'm I'm not.

[00:15:01] I'm not a dud and I think that that was not the only factor but that was a factor just a sense of like it's kind of like like lockdown days like preaching in my living room to a video camera all over again but it's it's in front of it's in front of people peers that I really I really wanted to preach good to and instead it was kind of a you know the

[00:15:22] accurate exigenically correct flop you know it just didn't really get out there well great preaching even though it's monologue it really is actually more like dialogue right this is one of the riches especially if the black church preaching tradition is I mean they make explicit that it's a dialogue yeah

[00:15:41] even in environments where people aren't amenning and aren't you know talking back a lot it still is very dialogical and yeah when you're in that the cave of the bright lights in the giant room I actually preached at Grand Grand Grand Grand University they do a chapel and during COVID I preached in their arena and they if you remember during COVID all the arenas would have like these cardboard people all over the room so I preach to a room you know room full of cardboard people and so

[00:16:09] all the empty room preaching was good practice for that I guess yeah yeah we think after you think I'd be good at it by now but it was yeah I can't yeah and again there's a lot of things and it's like Lord why did you let that go so bad what's wrong with my heart you know I don't

[00:16:23] anyway does that's another thing I'm actually thinking of doing like a solo podcast of just like what to do when you preach a dud and how because I it's been a good process for me you know and I'm not a great preacher but like I I think I'm a good good preacher

[00:16:37] but it kind of it was a feeling of like man what I was hoping was so different than what actually came out and then like what is the how should I

[00:16:47] Christianly respond to that as not just as a preacher of sermons but as a child of God what's the expectations that I had what's the

[00:16:54] affirmation that I was hoping to get so that's another another private discussion probably well that would be a great topic because it would help a lot of people

[00:17:03] yeah it'd be hard to find a guess though to kind of dialogue about preaching bad sermons because nobody wants to admit that they do bad ones as well

[00:17:10] we'll have me back I'll talk about yeah well hey so speaking of bad sermons or speaking of mistakes I know that you are you're currently you're

[00:17:18] in the middle of running like a like a preaching lab helping people like me who evidently still have room to grow I know that you

[00:17:26] are talking through some of the theories and practice of preaching and then also giving feedback to people on their their sermons

[00:17:33] what are the sort of like big picture similarities that you're noticing these days like what's the kind of feedback that you're

[00:17:41] giving to people maybe more often than not yeah so I'm in my third round right now of running this preaching lab and there's video curriculum

[00:17:49] and then I do I watch guys sermons and one of the great advantages right now is since everybody has their sermons on video you can

[00:17:55] watch it see body language you know do the whole thing and like I said people don't get much feedback so to be

[00:18:01] able to offer feedback is good one thing that's encouraging is like there's a lot of good preaching at least at least the

[00:18:08] people who are signing up for this they're not terrible they're good and are going I just want to get a little bit

[00:18:13] better you know you hear all the people talk about I'll preaching today and it's so bad and I go who are you listening to I

[00:18:19] don't know like who has time to listen to a bunch of bad preaching but so that's one thing I'm just encourage

[00:18:24] that people are good they're working hard they're trying the craft the pieces of feedback I'm constantly giving

[00:18:31] a couple of them relate to clarity just making it easier to follow so I'm a pretty strong advocate for what I call a

[00:18:38] roadmap I think it's really helpful on the front of a sermon to give a short little roadmap because I think

[00:18:45] of people listening to a sermon is like getting in a car and going on a journey and everyone gets in the

[00:18:52] car and would like to know where are we going very few people go hey I'd like to get in the car and I just

[00:19:00] trust you you know when we're done we're done and so I think to give just a little road map along hey here here's

[00:19:07] what we're going to talk about today I'm going to I'm going to just tell the story of this passage and then I'm

[00:19:12] going to give you three key takeaways it can be that simple you don't have to explain what they all are but

[00:19:17] just to give people a little bit of a setting so I find that that is something I'm constantly telling

[00:19:23] people their sermons would be easier to follow easier to stay engaged with easier to go oh I know where

[00:19:29] we're at in this process so that's one thing another thing on the organization side is just I

[00:19:35] think it's important that people have clear organization in the message and one of

[00:19:42] the easiest ways to do it some of the architecture I talk about is that each point of your sermon almost

[00:19:48] all of them should have a statement they should have an explanation of that statement here's what

[00:19:53] I mean there should be some argumentation whether it's from the Bible or from culture or from

[00:19:58] other sources like here's why this is true you here's here's why you should believe it the

[00:20:03] argumentation there should be some illustration doesn't have to be big but some sort of word

[00:20:08] picture or something that helps bring that home and there should be some sort of application and it

[00:20:12] doesn't have to always be in that order but I think most good sermon points have all of those

[00:20:16] things and most of them don't need more than those things and so what I find is sometimes

[00:20:24] it sermons will feel a little bit more like a stream of consciousness everything they're saying

[00:20:29] is from the Bible it's all true and it could all be helpful but it's not organized in a very

[00:20:34] easy to follow sort of way so that's one that's one category is the organization stuff.

[00:20:41] And so sounds like you're saying it's it's not even enough for it to be organized well you need

[00:20:47] to show people that it's organized well or help them to see the organization so it might make sense

[00:20:52] in your brain but then do you even say guys here here's Oregon today where you go on here

[00:20:56] here and then here. Yeah the only thing you might need to actually show them might be the

[00:21:01] main point or the main statement or the main movement or whatever you want to call it.

[00:21:04] Yeah. You know like in my in my you know I find that because people are visual I do use some slides

[00:21:10] I don't go crazy on a you know PowerPoint pro presenter slides but even just having a slide

[00:21:16] that has here's a main point you know makes it where people can follow along with that.

[00:21:20] Yeah.

[00:21:21] But if it's like you know I listen to sort of recently where it was like there were at

[00:21:26] least three different lists of number one number two number three and I just was like I couldn't

[00:21:32] I couldn't picture the outline in my head of like where are we.

[00:21:37] I thought we just did number one and now we're doing another number one like what it was just

[00:21:41] and all of it was great content it just was hard to follow and when something's hard

[00:21:45] to follow a listener gets anxious and they get nervous and they start kind of wondering how

[00:21:50] long is this going to be and they start sort of wanting it to end rather than staying interested

[00:21:57] in engaged.

[00:21:58] Yeah.

[00:21:59] Yeah.

[00:22:00] All right so the organizational piece is there another kind of thing that you keep on keep on noticing?

[00:22:05] Yeah a common thing is illustrations and a lot of us depending on how we think those come real naturally

[00:22:11] or they're really tough but I find a lot of sermons just go too long without one,

[00:22:17] too much time without some sort of illustration and sometimes feeling the pressure to have

[00:22:23] like some big long story for illustration rather than even just a word picture or something

[00:22:28] like that.

[00:22:29] So I'm often telling people you know hey more illustrations it's funny what happens is you

[00:22:35] have a long section with no illustrations and then you'll have like three or four in a row

[00:22:38] that all are kind of making the same point and it's like you know that's not super helpful.

[00:22:43] But what I do actually is I color code my notes where blue is always illustrations and that's just

[00:22:49] the simple way of looking at it and sometimes I can go you know there's just too much time

[00:22:53] here without illustration.

[00:22:55] Not only do illustrations help make your point but they provide a listener with a kind of commercial

[00:22:59] break where their mind is just able to kind of connect it in a different way and I think it helps people

[00:23:04] stay engaged.

[00:23:06] And then you know there's a lot of weird hand gestures you know a lot of hands in the pockets

[00:23:11] and what I'm always trying to encourage on the gestures and that sort of stuff is I watch guys

[00:23:14] is like make your gestures match what you're saying.

[00:23:17] Right so when you're saying a really important point with your hands in your pockets,

[00:23:21] you're saying with your body the opposite of what you're saying with your voice and you want it

[00:23:26] to be congruent.

[00:23:27] I don't put your hands in your pockets but put your hands in your pockets when you're telling a story

[00:23:31] about whatever and it's just not that big of a deal but when it's a big point that's when

[00:23:35] you're leading forward that's when your hands are on the pulpit that's when you're you know you're

[00:23:39] making you want your body to match so I'm often helping guys see you know hey what you're

[00:23:44] saying and what you're physically doing isn't congruent.

[00:23:47] And if it was it would just be a touch a touch better.

[00:23:51] So those are some other things.

[00:23:53] Yeah that's that's awesome.

[00:23:55] Here's kind of a question.

[00:23:56] Does it get what's it like to watch sermons with a critical eye?

[00:24:01] I didn't warn you about this question but like do you find it's like a danger to your soul

[00:24:07] to watch a sermon looking for what's wrong about what they did instead of like how can you be nourished by it

[00:24:14] personally or.

[00:24:17] Yeah well that's a good question and I don't look for I'm not looking for what's wrong.

[00:24:22] I'm looking for what's right and for what's wrong.

[00:24:24] Okay so I do want to just kind of start that like I'm not trying to like I'm trying to go hey here's

[00:24:29] what was really good do more of it and here's some things to tweak but you raise a really great point

[00:24:35] which is why I do tell people be careful about who you asked to give detailed sermon feedback

[00:24:40] because once someone starts listening that way it's really hard to turn that off.

[00:24:45] You know I'm going to be going on sabbatical soon and you know one of the things that will be a challenge for me when I go

[00:24:51] to church and maybe some other churches I don't you know normally part of and and I just want to go hey I just want to be a Christian

[00:24:58] before my pastor before my preacher and Christian heard a quote a long time ago I don't know who it's from that said

[00:25:03] you know mature believers are easily edified yeah that's right and so you know that is a danger

[00:25:10] and I'm trying to I try to listen evaluatively but not critically.

[00:25:17] Well yeah well thanks thank you for that.

[00:25:20] I appreciate that and it's kind of a small I would say the type of people who listen to a podcast like this

[00:25:27] or listen to preaching through or this kind of like little ecosystem of podcasts that are out there that we're all

[00:25:32] kind of focused on the same thing helping preachers improve.

[00:25:35] The people who listen to this might also be the types that would find fault in subpar preaching pretty easily so I wanted

[00:25:44] I wanted them to hear you say that yeah great so here's kind of moving on one of your recent like Twitter threads

[00:25:53] I don't like calling it X I don't think I'll ever it's always going to be Twitter to being but 20 recent Twitter threads was about like

[00:26:00] dripping vision into our teaching and and preaching I'd love to ask some questions about that.

[00:26:08] Like first off what's like the opportunities and then the downsides of just having like vision Sunday or a vision series

[00:26:18] why can't we just do all of it at once.

[00:26:23] Yeah well this the strength of having a vision series or vision Sunday is that you have to reflect on what is our vision and

[00:26:32] you typically then have to go through some sort of leadership process with your elders with your team with your

[00:26:38] key volunteers with your core of your church to buy into that and it forces you to articulate it clearly right so

[00:26:45] that's that's the advantage of it is a lot of times I think passers can think yeah why I kind of more or less know what my vision

[00:26:52] is but okay well what is it and so being able to say you know our vision is to be a community of people

[00:27:00] that has soft hearts and steel spines boom there it is.

[00:27:04] Well whether that's the right vision or not isn't my point the point is the ability to articulate it is really valuable

[00:27:10] if you do like a vision Sunday or vision series. On the other hand the weakness is you can feel like

[00:27:17] you just got it all out there and you never have to talk about it again and reality is a bunch of people

[00:27:22] weren't there that Sunday yeah a bunch of people were sick a bunch of people were out of town a bunch of people you know

[00:27:27] and even if you did it in the three or four or five or how many week series you don't want to stop

[00:27:33] dripping it throughout so I think it's good to do both I think it's wonderful to have a vision

[00:27:38] Sunday or a vision series anytime someone's doing a vision or a building or a resource initiative

[00:27:43] where they're raising money it's always vision related and those are really helpful

[00:27:47] but we just can't count on that one Sunday to do the work that really should

[00:27:53] should find its way you know flavoring and trickling and dripping through lots of our preaching.

[00:27:59] Yeah yeah I think I first came across this notion of like dripping the vision I think in a Larry Osborne book years

[00:28:06] and years ago that actually Larry Larry doesn't think vision Sundays or good ideas for that reason

[00:28:13] he thinks they should drip throughout yeah exactly yeah and he spoke my language I think you can do both.

[00:28:19] Yeah he talked about how it's like you know like a percolator dripping water into coffee beans

[00:28:25] that is kind of drip drip drip drip drip is better than like a once off blast.

[00:28:30] Yeah yeah and I think a once off blast and a drip is even better.

[00:28:35] Okay and at the same time like I don't feel a burden like I don't have to have a vision Sunday every would gear

[00:28:43] you know but if you just sense as a leader and in plurality and with your leaders and your elders like hey we really need to clarify

[00:28:50] and cast our vision then do it but also keep dripping it.

[00:28:55] Yeah yeah well there is there is a coffee drink it's called the black guy where it's a it's a drip coffee

[00:29:02] it's like it's gone but then there's a shot of espresso poured in.

[00:29:06] Oh man yeah that sounds amazing.

[00:29:08] Let's go for the black guy yeah I suppose maybe I jump straight into this a bit too early

[00:29:14] maybe to back up a little bit like what is your understanding of of a church of a church vision

[00:29:21] you know not everyone's even bought in that it's a good thing to have at all.

[00:29:26] So when you're talking about vision what's what's vision mean to you?

[00:29:30] Yeah so what I would say Mike is we don't get to pick our mission.

[00:29:35] Jesus picked that right the church commission man 28 is the mission right like it's make disciples and that's the mission.

[00:29:44] So I don't get to pick that.

[00:29:46] To me the vision is how might God want that mission to flesh out here in this context in this community among us

[00:29:55] with the gifts and the resources and the stewardship and the responsibility we have right and so

[00:30:00] so I think the mission is predetermined we don't get to pick that we don't go on an elder retreat and go what's our mission.

[00:30:07] We might go on an elder retreat and say okay we're called to make disciples what's our specific contribution to that

[00:30:13] because we're not the only church in the world we're not the only church in our community.

[00:30:17] We are one little part of a bigger thing and so we have a particular role to play based on the gifts God's put in us.

[00:30:24] Now I would say that the scriptures then should direct and shape and restrain that vision right the scriptures should direct it.

[00:30:33] We shouldn't be doing things that are contrary to the scriptures but actually are flowing out of the scriptures they should be shaped and contorted

[00:30:39] and should be restrained by the vision.

[00:30:41] There's things that we might get real excited about and we might think boy we really ought to blah blah blah that the scriptures might say and not so fast.

[00:30:48] So I just don't agree sometimes people will say hey we're called to preach the word not cast a vision and I would say well yeah but also in a sense preaching is casting a vision.

[00:31:01] It is saying here's how you should think about the world here's how you should think about God here's how you should think about the way of your life.

[00:31:08] Here's how you should read the scriptures. It is casting a vision and so I just think it's inevitable and it's just important that the scriptures conform and shape the way we do it.

[00:31:22] Yeah and how does a like a church vision function or work you know you mentioned that preaching is casting the vision but like let's say a church vision statements or church vision it's saying like this is how we want to obey Jesus

[00:31:37] in this community at this time.

[00:31:40] Yeah you know I love the idea behind the book years ago from woman scenic called church unique where it was essentially saying you know what is what's your church do better than 10,000 other churches.

[00:31:53] And now I don't love about that as the competitive language of it like I don't think it's important that we rank ourselves over and against other people.

[00:32:02] Yeah but I went to a church in college that was maybe 120 130 people and they said you know our particular contribution to the kingdom of God is that there's a lot of people that are coming through the University of Illinois

[00:32:16] and they're going to be in our church for four or five years and we're going to send them out into greater kingdom fruitfulness.

[00:32:23] That's our contribution and so I love that that's a great that's a great vision. I'm the fruit of that vision among other people and so now is every church called to do it that way well no but they were looking at their particular gifts their particular location

[00:32:41] their particular sense of like the burden got to put on their heart and I think for them to flesh that out and to live that out is really great.

[00:32:49] Another church might say hey we're in a really strategic major metro area and we want to create a number of gospel outposts plant new churches so that you know this highly underserved under church community could okay great do that you know there's a million different specific ways that any church might live out the great commission

[00:33:10] and you know churches at best are really I mean unless revival breaks out any one church is kind of great at kind of one or two things right you have churches that are real word churches others that are real prayer churches others that are real like mercy ministry churches others that are great at you know careful the poor so it's just like all of that matters but not every church is equally called to be all of those things to its community.

[00:33:40] Yeah and so clarifying this is actually what we're about might be a way of helping those that are involved to even know what to expect or then even what to do their limited energy towards you know at this church we're super in the mercy ministries and because of that we're doing this this and this and you can get involved here and here.

[00:34:01] Yeah and it even gives you the ability to pass or go oh man you have a huge heart for that you know what that is such a cool thing but here's what you can do you can help us get a little bit better at it which would be really cool also if you go I need to be somewhere where like this is the main thing well here's another church word that's their main thing yeah all of its part of disciple making.

[00:34:25] And all of it is part of the kingdom of God so we value all of it but but the vision is saying here's how the disciple making mission here's how we're trying to express that as a local church yeah and this is you know I don't know who came up with this phrase but you know clarity is kindness and so being clear about who we believe God's called us to be as a church and what you can expect in the future is very good for new people coming along and then also people that have been here for generations just even.

[00:34:55] Can it be reminded this is what we're about.

[00:34:59] Yeah absolutely I agree you know I appreciate the instinct that says just preach the word don't cast vision because I think that it's easy to be overly pragmatic overly business centric I also think just preach the word is a vision yeah yeah you know like it just is if not spoken like because behind that's you know just

[00:35:24] preach the word because we believe this in this and this so yeah and that's fine that's okay I just want to go hey that that actually is a vision you know so so every time you say that like you're communicating here's the way

[00:35:38] disciples of looks at our church yeah and that's great yeah so I'm kind of a later doctor of the whole like vision thing I think because of my upbringing or even like my

[00:35:48] church tradition that I'm a part of or like my punk rock attitude it's like I want to avoid like corporate speak you know however like corporate means people together you know corporate prayer where we're

[00:36:03] corporeal and I've just seen that it's actually quite quite important there's changes that I made even in how I'm leading my family and raising my kids that were that came first

[00:36:15] I saw the importance of clarifying what's important to us as a family and then where we're going as a family and then seeing that really benefit

[00:36:23] the neglias and then I thought well hey this works for my house maybe it'll work for the church so I had kind of a back door entrance into seeing the importance

[00:36:33] of this and you know now we have our church values solidified we have our vision kind of repeated every Sunday in different ways

[00:36:43] but it started in this house with my wife and kids and it worked there so why should I keep this from the bigger broader church community that I get to be part of

[00:36:54] yeah well my friends just a great example of continuing to be willing to learn continuing to you know question your previously held

[00:37:01] yeah instincts you know what I would say is I remember reading an article years ago by John Piper where he said in the Christian life we use means but we don't trust in means

[00:37:13] you know we we use prayer to connect with God but we don't trust prayer

[00:37:18] we we use fasting to develop more discipline but we don't trust fasting we trust God and I think it's the same thing right you

[00:37:26] use vision but we're not trusting vision you use the values you come up with but you're not trusting in your

[00:37:32] articulation of those you're trusting God and so I think I think what people react against is people who it doesn't

[00:37:39] feel like you actually are trusting God it feels like you are trusting the pragmatic stuff and I want to go no that we don't have to

[00:37:46] you don't have to do it that way yeah thank you yeah I've heard John Piper say something similar even about homiletics

[00:37:52] you know he believes in athletics but not much he believes in the power of God to use to use foulable words from

[00:38:00] foulable preachers to communicate timeless truth so and yet and yet he's written two books about preaching

[00:38:05] yes he should be so he believes in it enough to write two books I'm preaching so yep yep well good okay so

[00:38:12] how do we do that how do we do this drip thing so like if vision is good with I think it is a long

[00:38:20] process but eventually I've gotten there it's good you knew this all along but then how how can we do

[00:38:24] this beyond just visions on day we talked about dripping it in you kind of listed out a bunch of

[00:38:31] great little ideas to communicate the vision of the church to the people in in surprisingly ways

[00:38:38] I'd love to hear those again well there's a number of ways to do it what I would say in it is that

[00:38:44] stories are king you know what what you celebrate is what people sense you value and the stories

[00:38:52] that you share and the things that you highlight do tell you you know I mean they say what gets

[00:38:57] celebrated gets repeated and so I think there is something and celebrating sounds a little too

[00:39:03] over the top for me probably but it's just to say hey there's stuff that you want to highlight I like

[00:39:09] to ask this question myself and frequently in our staff meetings I'll ask our team and I'll say

[00:39:15] listen if you had to prove that God was at work here what would you point to what would you use

[00:39:22] to prove that God's alive in our church and you start talking through those stories now I do

[00:39:27] that with our team because so much of the time we're doing stuff that makes us go does any of this

[00:39:32] matter I don't know and to be able to just it reminds you oh yeah this matters this makes a big

[00:39:36] difference now sometimes those stories are appropriate to be able to actually share with the whole

[00:39:41] church and they might come up as a sermon illustration so I'd be a way to drip it another thing that

[00:39:47] and I mentioned in the thread that you referred to earlier the the master of this as far as I can

[00:39:51] tell is Josh Howard and at Lake Point and Dallas he will frequently before his sermon say hey open

[00:39:57] up to Luke 11 hey why you turned there let me just remind you here's something that happened you know

[00:40:03] blah blah and he'll just give a little 90 second you know let's celebrate that and I think that's

[00:40:08] a that's a good way to do it the danger I think potentially of doing that all the time is it

[00:40:14] can start to feel a little raw raw raw raw raw raw raw all the time so every week for me personally

[00:40:21] and for my personality starts to feel a little bit like a lot and at the same time I bet if you

[00:40:27] talk to Josh he hasn't told me this but I bet Josh would say that the discipline of trying to do

[00:40:34] that every week keeps him on the lookout for the ways God's working yeah keeps him and every time

[00:40:39] you talk with other people hey how's God it work it reinforces oh wow God's doing something oh wow

[00:40:44] we're seeing disciples mate we're seeing lives change so that process of even unearthing possible

[00:40:51] things to talk about feels really significant so stories I think are a big part of dripping vision

[00:40:58] another thing would be slogans and well crafted phrases so these are just things like you know

[00:41:06] we've said here hey we believe that all of life is all for Jesus and that phrase

[00:41:13] do we just say it over and over and over and over and over we know that it's working when people make

[00:41:18] fun of it because they'll say yeah yeah yeah I know that all of life is all for Jesus but you know

[00:41:24] and it's like I don't get discouraged when they make fun of it I go oh they get it it's actually

[00:41:30] sinking in and so that's something I mentioned earlier you know a big thing we're talking about

[00:41:34] right now is that we're people with soft hearts and steel spines well all that is Mike is that's

[00:41:41] another way of saying we're people of grace and truth soft heart steel spine it's grace and truth

[00:41:50] it's John 114 but there's something about saying soft heart steel spine and I mean I literally

[00:41:56] you know we we've just made these these new kids volunteer t-shirts and it says ironwood kids

[00:42:01] and there's like a kind of circle around it like these kind of inner 20 circles some people have

[00:42:06] been embroidering onto their volunteer t-shirts little hearts and little spines wow wow and I'm like

[00:42:14] what yeah wow you know but that's where you start to go oh wow they they it connected you know

[00:42:21] or other things like just other illustrations you know we've used illustration I think we got

[00:42:24] this from Amy Sherman years ago that we want to be pink spoon people and the idea here is if you

[00:42:30] go to a basking robins the ice cream store you know they'll say would you like a sample you say

[00:42:35] sure and and they give you a sample using a little pink spoon they give you a sample of the real ice

[00:42:40] cream like they don't go to some just knock off lousy ice cream they give you a sample of the real

[00:42:45] thing and you get a real taste of the real thing and we're saying hey part of what we are as

[00:42:50] the people of God is we are the pink spoon people to give people a taste of Jesus a taste of the kingdom

[00:42:56] of God a taste of what they would experience if they gave their whole life into him and so we're

[00:43:00] pink spoon people and so we've used that illustration we refer to that you know at different points

[00:43:05] same thing I've had people get that tattooed on their arms and like and that's insane to me like I

[00:43:13] never think like oh man they'll really they'll tattoo this one yeah you know but it's it's

[00:43:18] thinking through well crafted phrases ideas illustrations that make people start to go oh yeah

[00:43:24] that's that's what it is and so all of those are just little ways that you can drip

[00:43:30] vision and highlight the things that God's doing that really demonstrate yeah this is the

[00:43:34] disciple making work that God's up to yeah but with slogans sometimes sometimes you know I would

[00:43:41] have like a pushback against slogans because sometimes a slogan can be a substitute for deep thought

[00:43:48] and but a slogan that summarizes deep thought a slogan that connects to

[00:43:55] scriptural truth in kind of a tangible portable catchy reminder is so valuable and so cold

[00:44:03] and it's great to if you come across with yeah soft hearts seal spines that's good it's almost

[00:44:10] kind of a waste to just say that once you know you want to do it again and again because it's never

[00:44:17] going to get into anyone's t-shirt or arm that's not a goal obviously but if you just say something good

[00:44:25] only once and then move on but it's worth circling back to yeah and again that's why having the

[00:44:31] times where you do get away as a team and think through what what is our vision what is our heart

[00:44:37] what does this look like and being able to you know do the work to try to edit down and craft

[00:44:44] you know a vision that's got a hundred commas in it you know and the sand this and this and this

[00:44:50] no one's going to remember that it's not sticky um you know it just doesn't it doesn't so

[00:44:57] so you know it's it's things like um you know I knew one church where they they wanted to say

[00:45:02] hey one of the things we value here is service well what's a better way everyone says they value

[00:45:08] service so what they said instead was we're willing to sweep floors let's say the exact same thing

[00:45:15] but it's a it's a it's a way of yeah saying it in a way that sticks in a way that you can refer to

[00:45:21] and come back to so some of that is just the intentionality of how you think through communication

[00:45:25] and how you repeat it yeah well I do I do appreciate that um I'm I'm getting ready to preach this

[00:45:32] coming Sunday and I'm trying to even like there's a story that I want that I learned of just

[00:45:40] recently that has nothing to do with with me or my ministry but it is a cool thing happening

[00:45:46] in the life of the church and and I want to put that forward and I'm these you know about the stage

[00:45:53] of the sermon prep where I know where I'm gonna I know what I'm gonna say about the passage

[00:45:58] but now I'm trying to find how can I put this story in there that does justice at the text but

[00:46:03] also honors that part of the ministry that also reminds people that God is at work in our community

[00:46:09] and I'm not sure exactly where it's gonna fit so I might just take your advice and just say it

[00:46:15] at the very beginning hey guys here's something cool and then let's start the sermon in about

[00:46:20] 90s against after I finished the story yeah I think that's a good way to do it you know you you do have

[00:46:25] to be careful as you tell the stories you got to get people's permission sometimes yeah you know

[00:46:30] there's there's things that like hey is this really appropriate how much level of detail

[00:46:36] but I love what you're trying to do there might because if you can make an illustration of something

[00:46:39] that is already in the text you're preaching I mean that's gold uh but if it's like no I can't quite

[00:46:46] do that but this is worth sharing it's important if to share now then yeah by all means just put

[00:46:52] it at the front yeah well okay I mean the story actually has to do with or or the other thing

[00:46:57] you can do is go like make that another part of the service I mean so that's what I think about

[00:47:02] too is it preaching isn't the only way that a church strips vision right so we will do God's story

[00:47:08] interviews with people this is where churches will do videos that tell God stories and different

[00:47:12] things um this is where you highlight stuff on social media I mean there's just there's lots of

[00:47:18] different ways for a church to keep dripping vision if you're gonna think about it you know mostly

[00:47:22] through what we're talking about mostly is how how through the pulpit you drip the vision yeah but

[00:47:27] there's other ways that you could probably also tell that story yeah that's that's gold um like

[00:47:33] the situation is yeah we have like a kind of an addiction recovery um discipleship program I sat

[00:47:40] in on it on Monday night somebody was talking about various temptations that come across and

[00:47:46] you know this individual you know felt like tempted to end their own life and was um was talking

[00:47:55] through that this happened a couple of years ago and the way that God helped her to fight for her

[00:48:00] life um during that and overcoming that temptation and I'm actually preaching on Jesus being tempted

[00:48:07] in the wilderness this coming Sunday and there is a surface level parallel with the devil taking

[00:48:16] Jesus to the high place and saying throw yourself off you know but it's only a surface it's only

[00:48:22] like that's not he actually isn't tempting Jesus to take his own life he's actually tempting him

[00:48:27] to be publicly vindicated before the time because the angels will come and pick him up so like my

[00:48:33] tempt temptation my thought is like that would work really well there on the surface but it actually

[00:48:39] doesn't it's like it's a whole different thought that has some parallels so I'm trying to figure

[00:48:45] how to do honor to the passage and honor to this person and then yeah so help me out Luke what do I

[00:48:51] do well one one idea is if if really the part of how you always are trying to start a sermon is how

[00:48:57] do I draw people into some sort of hook connected to this text the hook could be

[00:49:03] temptation and that could be your introduction you tell this person's story hey I heard this story

[00:49:09] this is really cool really interesting now that's a really intense kind of temptation is and not all

[00:49:15] of you have necessarily faced that level of temptation or those specific things but actually

[00:49:20] you're not the only one who's been tempted Jesus also was tempted and today we're going to look at

[00:49:25] example of when Jesus was tempted in some ways that were different than that story but really

[00:49:30] significant for him and significant for us right so that could be an introduction with a hook into

[00:49:35] the sermon so that's one idea thanks Luke I'll do that yeah that sounds great well that's awesome

[00:49:43] well that's that's my next sermon sorted kind of as a final question I always want to ask like the

[00:49:49] guests like I've heard about your first sermon but then I always I want to hear about your next

[00:49:53] sermon like what what's something that you're still trying to improve in so you've made some

[00:49:58] conscious choices in the past I'm sure that you haven't you're not convinced that you've like arrived

[00:50:04] finally but like how do you want to keep improving yeah one of the blessings of doing this preaching

[00:50:11] lab is it's keeping me sharp it's keeping me thinking about that very question so one thing I'm

[00:50:16] working on is continuing to improve micro illustrations ward pictures analogies those sorts of things

[00:50:26] where you know having more of those sprinkled in throughout so that's something that I'm paying

[00:50:31] attention to when we're he on another one that I've been experimenting with over the last year

[00:50:35] so I'm still trying to dial in is we went ahead and got a touchscreen that occasionally I will have

[00:50:43] on stage with me I don't have it all the time yeah but what I'll do is I'll use it sometimes to

[00:50:48] break down a passage where I'll circle keywords highlight things draw connections kind of a you know

[00:50:54] look at the book kind of break down of stuff and so that's something I'm playing with and experimenting

[00:51:00] with and trying to figure out how to do that when to bring it in when to leave it out how to keep

[00:51:08] the communication with it while I turn around to the screen and you know so that's some stuff that

[00:51:12] I'm I'm working on and then the last one is is really just always trying to think through what's

[00:51:18] the next layer or two of thinking through implication application how does this connect

[00:51:25] I'm at a stage in my life and ministry and just understanding the scripture where

[00:51:30] it's not hard to come up pretty quickly with here's the big idea of whatever I'm studying

[00:51:35] but to go but what's the next layer of what that means or what the implication of that is for

[00:51:42] people or what the you know so like just for example you talk about your next sermon my next sermon

[00:51:47] this week is we're going through Genesis and we're at the beginning and we're in Genesis 2

[00:51:52] and so this is related to Christianity and sex last week we looked at Christianity and gender

[00:51:57] why I've done a lot of different sermons over the years related to the Christian sexual ethic

[00:52:03] so this one I'm thinking through okay well what would this look to apply this for people who are

[00:52:08] already you know yeah I'll have to talk a little bit about the Christian sexual ethic I'm happy

[00:52:12] to do that but for people who already convinced on that how does how does this vision of

[00:52:19] of one flesh intimacy that's in Genesis 2 what does that mean for the couples who already are

[00:52:24] convinced about what God says about sexuality and and they just want to actually find more of God

[00:52:31] in it for them right so trying to think through those next layers it's not hard to peel stuff off

[00:52:37] the surface but if if I can give a little more digging into the depth of where it might land in

[00:52:43] people's lives I find that it connects better yeah yeah well it's encouraging that yeah you who

[00:52:49] have helped so many are also working towards getting help going deeper being more faithful and

[00:52:57] more fruitful so yeah thanks Mike yeah well of course in the show notes there'll be you know links to

[00:53:03] your twitter account also faithful and fruitful.com is that the website yeah that's correct okay

[00:53:09] and other ways that people can yeah get connected um and I'm not sure exactly when this episode

[00:53:14] will release so there might be a chance to get on the waiting list for your next preaching lab

[00:53:19] or or there might not but we'll make sure that get people get pointed towards where they should

[00:53:25] be waiting to find out more about this yeah yeah so the preaching lab is a there's a video course

[00:53:31] that people can buy and do on demand at their own pace anytime and then there's the preaching lab

[00:53:37] live which is where it we add to it the cohort and I plan to do that a few times a year

[00:53:44] and so depending on when this comes out and you know what where that looks like there's a pretty good

[00:53:48] chance that one will be about to start or coming up in the next few months and so yeah I'd be

[00:53:54] delighted to you know work with anybody and try to help it's been also just a fun little network

[00:53:59] you know we developed this little community and share ideas about other stuff and it's it's been

[00:54:03] pretty fun that's awesome that's real cool well Luke I really appreciate your time I wish you

[00:54:08] all the best on your upcoming sabbatical and for the listeners of this podcast I hope that

[00:54:14] this conversation and all that we do at expositators collective help you to grow in your personal

[00:54:18] study and public proclamation of God's word thanks again Luke yeah thanks Mike well thanks so much

[00:54:25] for listening all the way to the end I know that you're going to want to rush out and just go start

[00:54:31] dripping some vision right after that do make sure to check out the show notes because there is a

[00:54:38] link to Luke's podcast preaching through also there's a link that will bring you to the preaching lab

[00:54:48] interest page if you want to keep on learning from him in a smaller group environment you know he

[00:54:56] helped me craft my sermon intro right there on the episode so you you know that he could help you

[00:55:03] as well and then also when they're showing out there's a link to another episode that I did with

[00:55:10] Pastor Todd Peoples about the way that communicating the vision of the church can actually be a way

[00:55:18] of showing love to God's people so if you want to dig deeper into the topic of vision as I mentioned

[00:55:26] in the conversation I was pretty skeptical about the validity or the importance of communicating

[00:55:33] values or vision or this that or the other and so if you want to go deeper into this go into the

[00:55:39] show notes so then check out the Todd Peoples episode well I hope to see you face to face in

[00:55:46] Northern California a May 24th and 25th but in the meantime I hope that this conversation

[00:55:54] this training event this collective of expositors I hope it helps you grow in your personal study

[00:56:01] and public proclamation of God's word this podcast is a part of CG and media a podcast network

[00:56:06] that points to Christ we are supported by listeners like you to help us create more great shows

[00:56:11] visit cgmedia.org slash support