Latest / Better Preaching Podcast / BP2 Season 1 Episode 8 – Dr. Don Wilson | Church Planter & Preacher
Transcript
- Frank Weller: Dr. Don Wilson, welcome to the Better Preaching podcast. Donald J Wilson: Welcome, Frank. Glad to be here. Frank Weller: to have you on. Don, you founded Christ Church of the Valley in 1982. I'd love for you to tell us more about yourself and more about the congregation that you served for 35 plus years. Donald J Wilson: OK, I grew up in Kansas in a little rural country church. And then moved to Phoenix in 1975. You're right, end up started CCV in my living room in 1982. We went 15 years without owning property. We moved to a movie theater, a school, a strip mall back to a school and then were able to to a complete or acquire some property and then it. grew to be a significant minister. Frank Weller: and then it grew to be a did you do then before CCV? There were some years that, you know, ⁓ after you graduated from college, that before you founded were you preaching in another church then? Donald J Wilson: I will in Kansas. I worked for many Christian college for four years in public relations and I preached at three. We would call him student ministries. You know back then. When I came to Phoenix, I was the youth pastor at First Christian Church. Bill Boyce was the pastor. It was running about 800. And Frank Weller: When I came to Phoenix, I was the youth pastor at First Christian Church. Bill Boyce was the pastor. It was running about Donald J Wilson: I went to a church running 200 on two acres of land, and we grew from 200 to 703 years. And they decided to start a new church. And I said, I'll be glad to do that. They said, how much money you want? I wasn't too smart. I said nothing. If God's in it, it'll work. That's how I started CCB with no money. Frank Weller: I'll be glad to do that. said how much money you want. wasn't too smart. I said nothing. If God's in it, it'll work. And that's there in your living room, wasn't it? Donald J Wilson: Yes, three couples. Frank Weller: Yeah, that's just remarkable. And it grew to become one of the largest churches in our movement. think today it is the largest church in the independent Christian churches and churches of Christ, if I'm correct. Donald J Wilson: Yeah, it's done well. When I left was run about 25,000, which then was the largest church and the transition's done real good. And now they're over 50,000. Frank Weller: Yeah, it's done well. When I left, it was run about 25,000, which then was the largest church and the transition has done real That is remarkable. But you, you left there. Um, well, I'm not sure exactly when I 2017, I think. And what have you been doing since then? Donald J Wilson: Uh-huh. Basically for ⁓ several years, I worked with pastors and their wives. My wife and I decided we would do retreats, pay for everything, bring them in, try to work on their marriage. And out of that, ended up coaching several pastors across the United States. And then just a year and a half ago, I started a new ministry called M419, which is a little closer to an Axe II house church model. Frank Weller: Tell me more about that. Are you preaching there every week then? Donald J Wilson: No, we do it in homes and ⁓ we meet weekly in homes, but it's way more, it's not built on the preaching. It's really built on a lot more on community. We do Bible study or watch chosen or things like that. Frank Weller: So how often are you preaching these days? Donald J Wilson: Not that much, not that much. I've preached at CCB once since I left there and then I would say I probably preach now less than five times a year at different places. Frank Weller: Not that much, not that much. I preached at CCB one since I left there. then I would say I probably preach now less than You know, one of the benefits that in my job, you probably experienced this when you in advancement at Manhattan ⁓ is ⁓ you get one or two or maybe three really good sermons and then you can preach them everywhere. And after a while, you know, my wife says she could preach sermons. Donald J Wilson: Ha ha ha ha ha! Frank Weller: But you know, get a couple of good ones and they travel pretty well. Donald J Wilson: That's true. That's true. Yeah. Frank Weller: Well, want to dig into a little bit about ⁓ your calling to ministry some of the people that influenced you. But before I do, I want to take a moment and pause and say that the Better Preaching podcast ⁓ is powered by Great Lakes Christian College, where students encounter authentic Christianity, ⁓ excellent academics and affordability. Those three distinctives make GLCC a place where students will have their faith developed instead of merely deconstructed. Students can study for vocational ministry or marketplace ministry at GLCC, all with an eye to becoming servant leaders in the church and world. For more details, you can go to glcc.edu. Don, tell our listeners about some of the people that influenced you to pursue a calling to ministry when you were younger. Donald J Wilson: Well, my parents were always very encouraging. They were very active in that local church. I was good in sports. I had a chance to play college football. And one month before I was leaving to play college football, Bill Lown, who was the president at Manhattan Christian College, came and preached at My Little Country Church and really challenged young people to give their best in full-time ministry. And I can say I really felt a call that day. to not go pursue college sports, but give my life to being a pastor of the gospel. So he was profound in that. Frank Weller: My parents were always very encouraging. They were very active in that local church. I was good in sports. I had a chance to play college football. And one month before I was leaving to play college football, Bill Lown, who was the president of Christian College, came and preached at Middle Country Church and really challenged young people to give their best in full-time ministry. And I can say I really felt a call that day. to not go pursue college sports, but give my life to being a pastor of the gospel. So Were there others influenced you as you grew up? Maybe a church camp or people in your church who maybe had some ICNU of conversations? Donald J Wilson: Not really. mean, maybe yes. Our church was so small, we had weekend pastors. Many of them were student pastors at Manatee Christian College. We're just 30 miles away. So I observe them, but I really don't ⁓ know any of them that really consistently said, need to be a pastor, you need to be a pastor. Frank Weller: So probably biggest influence it sounds like were your mom and dad. Donald J Wilson: Yeah, correct. Frank Weller: Don, why do you think it seems to me that a lot of parents today take a different approach? They discourage their children from pursuing ministry. I find that frequently. I was just with a group of students in Southern Indiana and many of them said that at a CIO conference that they wanted to pursue vocational ministry. And some of them, frankly, are getting a lot of resistance from their parents. That seems to be different than what you experienced. Why do you think some parents today are discouraging their students to following a life and calling of ministry? Donald J Wilson: I think they're they know the financial reward might not be that great. They might have to put up with criticism, that sort of thing. ⁓ And so they're basically encouraging their children to be more ⁓ successful in the world's eyes, not in God's eyes. I'm blessed. My my son's a pastor. My two daughters are married to pastors. Three of them are for my grandsons or pastors. Three of my granddaughters are married to pastors, one granddaughter's a missionary. So I really try to model that and encourage my grandsons and my siblings to all be involved in ministry. This is really the greatest thing going. Frank Weller: Yeah, I wish more folks would do that because, you know, at the end of the day, it's really about becoming who God's called you to be and not necessarily pursuing a financial reward. I just tell those students that I encounter that ministry is one of the only vocations that you ever pursue that really has an eternal impact. Donald J Wilson: Yeah, I think one thing that's changed maybe a little bit, Frank, I might sound like an old guy here, but when I went to church camp, we didn't have youth pastors. So the senior pastor was there and he modeled it for us. Now, in the last 20 years, my experience is hardly no senior pastors go to camp. So the youth pastors go, so that's okay, but they're not having any senior pastor models there around because they're in youth worship for those. ⁓ formational years from junior high and high school and they don't have role models that are senior pastors and I think that's a big mistake. Frank Weller: Yeah, I've heard Bob Russell say the same thing, that we need to send more preachers to church camp. It seems like ⁓ we've delegated that to youth ministers. And so now what I'm seeing is students who pursue ⁓ ministry or feel called to ⁓ they typically say that they're feeling to youth ministry because those are the people that they're encountering. Donald J Wilson: Correct, correct. Or I find, we ran a residency for a few years at Christ Church of Valley, and I was surprised how many of the graduates came out and said, I want to be on a teaching team. And I'm going like, well, anybody can speak. Why don't you want to be a pastor? So the roles were kind of changed there in some of the larger churches. Frank Weller: So you were 35 when you planted CCV and you mentioned that you were in a couple of church staff roles there in the Valley prior to that. did God shape your preaching in those times? As a staff member, you probably didn't have a lot of opportunities to preach, but on those instances where you did, you know, how did God impact you or who were the preachers in those churches? And did you model your preaching after them in any way? Just kind of walk me through that journey. Donald J Wilson: Yeah, I'm probably unique in that even now I don't listen to podcasts hardly at all. mean, preaching podcasts. read, I've always read books, maybe one a week, but a lot of those books that I read were sermons. If you look back, most preachers knew books are sermon series. And so growing up there and in being in Phoenix, I would say one person that I read his sermons a lot was Bob Russell. Another one would be Rick Warren. liked his use of words and how he put outlines together and stuff like that. So those would be a couple that I probably were influenced by. But ⁓ really what shaped my preaching as much as anything is I would have what they call secret shoppers. I'd go out and play golf with a man that I wanted to reach and then I would say, come visit our church. And I want you to evaluate everything. I'll take you out to lunch the next week and then you tell me what you liked, what you didn't like. Did I relate to you? Did I not relate to you? And most of those were unchurched. so learning how to communicate to unchurched people was really, I got that more from those unchurched guys that I invited every week to come and visit. ⁓ For example, I tried to reach athletes and businessmen. So I found out, was a farm boy. I had to start reading. I read the Wall Street Journal every week to relate more to a ⁓ businessman. I read USA Today cover to cover every day so that I would just be more informed. So when I'm speaking in a larger church to people from all kinds of different backgrounds, hopefully I could relate to them more. Cause I think one of the main things today, often preachers are concerned about content, which we should be concerned about content, but I believe the key in preaching is connection. Can you connect with the people in the pew? Frank Weller: Yeah, you know, that really ⁓ resonates with me, Don, because my doctoral work was built around the idea of contextualizing the Gospels. Specifically, my work looked at contextualizing the sermon to millennials. But what you're really talking about is understanding the context of business people and athletes so that you could translate the Gospel into language that they could hear and understand and that could impact them. Donald J Wilson: Yeah, because when I, goal was to reach the man so we could reach the whole family. And when I would have preachers come out and visit with CCV, they'd ask me, I want to reach men. And I would say, well, what kind of men do you want to reach? And they would go silent, meaning they thought I can preach one sermon and it appeals to all kinds of men. And I find that most preachers do not think that way at all. And so to me, you're really more effective when you narrow your focus a little bit. Now in a small church of a hundred where I grew up, you can't do that. But the larger the church, I think you will be more effective when you try to say, I'm going to narrow my focus and who can I relate to more from my own upbringing and then take the gospel and relate it to their life. Frank Weller: John, was there anybody else that was really intentionally focused on reaching men when you began that model or are you sort of a pioneer in that? Donald J Wilson: You know, I read a book from a businessman years ago on reaching men, but I would say, ⁓ no, I didn't get this from anybody else. No, I think maybe I was the first, and I think I go back unknowingly the impact my dad had on me and my family. And so growing up there, I saw the importance of ⁓ a man being able to ⁓ impact people. And, ⁓ cause I found out that when a junior high kid, if his dad doesn't go to church and his mom does about junior high, he's going to one Sunday say when his dad leaves to go play golf, Hey, I'm not, I want to go with you. I'm not going to church anymore. And that's where it usually breaks down. So I found out if I could reach the man, almost always the woman was ecstatic that her husband was going to be beside her in church. And the kids would naturally follow because mom and dad were both doing that. Frank Weller: well, ⁓ everything did CCV was sort of aimed in that direction too, wasn't it? mean, as you, you, ⁓ you know, began out the campus and designing the programs, I mean, it really was focused on reaching the husband, the father of that family. Donald J Wilson: Yeah, the design of our building ⁓ to ⁓ our sports ministry we started, which now has, I think, 25,000 kids playing in it. So everything was geared that way because I grew up as an athlete and most guys thought Christian athletes were wimps. And so we started a program where I didn't play in church leagues, I played in city leagues. So it forced us to relate to unchurched versus always getting upset when we played the Baptists and Lutherans and all that sort of thing. So it was a uniquely different approach. And I got input from unchurched men on designing a building. What should be in here that makes you feel comfortable? What is in a church that makes you uncomfortable? I think today, most, a lot of the preaching that I hear is not geared to reaching men at all because it's way more feelings oriented in our. in our preaching today. Frank Weller: I want to go deeper with that idea. ⁓ Tell me more. If you're advising other preachers, hey, here's how you're going to reach men, here's how you're to reach husbands, fathers, community ⁓ leaders. What would you say to them? You mentioned that sermons today are often feelings oriented, but ⁓ how did you design your preaching specifically to reach men? Donald J Wilson: probably one of the questions that I ask churches now when I work with them, I say, tell me about your pastor. Is his sermon more know, feel or do? Now I believe you have all components in that, but my experience is, ⁓ I Andy Stanley has changed a lot of the younger generation's preaching style. I usually would have three points. ⁓ I a takeaway, which was very strong on action. To me, Andy Stanley was the one that started the one point sermon idea. Some of the research that I've even still reading, people remember more in threes than they do in one. I'm still a proponent of a three-part sermon. Basically, then, as I was thinking about developing my sermon, the key for me was always the takeaway, the action step. Now that I've tried to take the gospel and relate it to your life, what are you going to do with it? I would say by far today, when I visit churches and I visited hundreds of them, 90 % have no action step. They have a lot of stories about themselves, a lot of ⁓ fun stories, but ⁓ it doesn't, ⁓ I don't think it moves people to action, especially men. If I'm going to read businessmen and athletes, they want to win. in life. so they're used to takeaways, they're used to action. In fact, my greatest compliment, when I stepped aside from CCV, men would come up to me and say, Don, I use your sermon outline to train my employees. And so I was able to make it applicable to them, even in their business and their daily life. So that was a real compliment because that was one of my desires. Frank Weller: Yeah, I love that Don application application application. I think too many of our sermons you get to the end of them and nobody asks or at least the preacher doesn't ask the question. So what and so if you can't get the end of sermon and answer the question, so what then okay, nice talk, but no real application. No real no difference made. Donald J Wilson: Yeah, and that's what I see in today with so many people. I'm not trying to throw you a curve, but talking about discipleship. Discipleship, to me, the missing word in the Great Commission is obedience. He said, go and obey everything I've taught you. And so one reason I think discipleship is weak today, we give people a lot of content, come back next week, another lesson, another lesson, but there's no, how are you going to obey this and apply it in your life? And I think the same thing is true in the sermon. If that's the main thing people are coming for, we need to try and make sure that there's an obedience component or over time we'll develop consumers, not contributors. Frank Weller: And I love the way you frame that in terms of three aims. You we all learned those in college, no feel and do, right? The intellectual, the application and sort of that feeling component. I grew up with a lot of preaching that was no, no, no, no, no. Here's what you need to know. Here's what you need to know. Here's what you need to know. And it was very light on what you need to do, but Definitely had nothing to do with feelings and I think now we're seeing as you mentioned a lot of ⁓ Feelings component and certainly a strong dose of knowledge, but you know not as much do not as much application Donald J Wilson: Yeah, in fact, to me what's interesting now is they've gone from one extreme to the other. They've gone from a lot of them are doing feeling and now you have a lot of churches that are doing verse by verse preaching, which again is like you say almost totally no, but neither of them have a component, very strong component of obedience and action. Frank Weller: Okay, so you bring up ⁓ verse by verse preaching. You know, that's the age old question. Are we going to preach topically or we going to preach expository? As you encountered men, mean, was there one that seemed to work better than the other? there a frame that you adopted more topical or expository preaching? Donald J Wilson: ⁓ I would say I was more topical, but again, ⁓ you can preach verse by verse and bore people to death. You only do three verses in 30 minutes to me. That businessman sitting there, he's going, move on. You've already made your point. So to me, it's not so much ⁓ whether you do verse by verse or not, but can you relate it to normal life? How can you how can you take the truth of the scripture and apply it to real life? That's what I see is missing even in both extremes of feeling verses ⁓ Verse by verse for example most sermons that I hear today It would say probably takes five to seven minutes Before they ever in my mind get to the point there start out by telling stories all that sort of stuff well My experience with a businessman, he checks out if I've not engaged him in the first minute. So to me, I can't take seven minutes of wasting his time to get where I want to go. I've got to say something in my opening statement in the first 30 seconds that grabs its attention and then try to lead him through that passage of scripture or whatever it is. At least that was more my style, Frank. Frank Weller: Yeah, that's helpful. Hey, Don, 35 years in one church is a long time. That's 35 Easter sermons. That's 35 Christmas series, 35 sermons for Mother's Day and Father's Day. How are you able to keep bringing fresh sermons to the pulpit year in and year out? And particularly if you know you have business people who are bottom line oriented. Hey, I've heard that before. How are you able to put a fresh spin on something that you had to preach 34 times previously? Donald J Wilson: Well, I would probably lie to you here and say the Holy Spirit just gave me new stuff every year, but that's not true. Because when you preach in a long, ⁓ some of the, like if you did a family series, if you did Easter, all that, the people that been with you for 15, 20 years, you have really very little new to give them. They know what you're going to say before you say it. So part of it is at least you're consistent, okay? And so I didn't try to make those events Easter no Easter we almost always focused on the resurrection how do we make that a little unique one of the ways that I probably tried to change some of those stories was I would interview different people that would give it a different twist each year like who's who's somebody uh about that Mother's Day I even though we're reaching men one day it hit me wait a minute I shouldn't be talking to Christian women I should have my wife talk to ⁓ women. So my mother, my wife started preaching on Mother's Day, which was a, was a huge win, even connecting with the men. She could say things to the men from a woman's perspective that I could, I didn't have the same impact on that. The one that I really tried to be unique over the years was Christmas. We would try not so, because what changed out here was when I grew up in Midwest and Kansas, we never had a Christmas Eve service. We never had it. We had Christmas Sunday and that's where the children's Christmas program was and all that. And so I was preaching in what we called the tent. seated a thousand people. I was doing six services, three on Saturday and three on Sunday live. And basically that hit me, wait a minute, how do I do this Christmas Eve service different? And so I was probably the first one that said, okay, I want you to sign up. Do you want to come on the 23rd or the 24th? I'm giving you a little pony trail here the opposite way. But what happened on that was, to my surprise, more people that were unchurched that came to CCV signed up for the 23rd than the 24th. I'm going, wait a minute. And what hit me was, if I was going to compete with mother or mother-in-law in their Christmas Eve traditions, I'm going to lose. So before I left we were doing like five nights a week of Christmas Eve. And that gave people many more options and they could invite their unchurched family to come and still go to mother-in-law one night and mother one night. So that was something that really changed for us with Christmas Eve, not so much Easter. We did a big sunrise service here at CCV because we have a nicer weather. I did a sunrise service in Kansas, but we always froze to death, you know, but we could do in Arizona, a huge outdoor sunrise service. And I would say probably. When we were running 25,000 on Christmas or on Easter sunrise, we would have from seven to 10,000 that come on the sunrise service. So those were some of the adjustments I had to make as we grew. Frank Weller: Yeah, when I was a youth minister in Northwest Ohio, we would always do a sunrise service at the cemetery that was right next to the church. And you're right, we froze. 22 people, brave souls who were just trying to survive. ⁓ I want to pause and say another word about our sponsors. One of the challenges students face in Christian higher ed is finding a program that balances deep theological training with practical application. And that's exactly what GLCC's new master's degree in practical theology provides. It offers convenience without sacrificing community, as well as real instructional support from professors with actual pastoral experience. It's built for leaders who want depth, not fluff. You can get more details at glcc.edu. Don, you're in a different place now. You've sort of become one of the wizened sages of the restoration movement. ⁓ As you peer through the lens of your experience and look at the horizon, what is it that excites you about the future of preaching in our movement? And what, anything, causes you concern? Donald J Wilson: Well, I think what excites me is right now what's going on in our country from everything I read, young men are looking for hope and meaning and purpose. And so the good news is we have a young generation growing up that really has what the church needs and they could be incredible pastors if we were able to turn their life around and train them. The key will be was almost like 9-11. 9-11 had about a six month revival to me and then it faded. And so the key will be when they come to now to these churches, are we going to be able to engage them and transform them to go out and be difference makers in the kingdom? If we don't, then I think we're still going to be struggling some. my prayer is with all the men specifically, they're looking for hope and meaning and purpose that our churches will be able to ⁓ re-engage them, but I think it's going to take more than preaching. I think they're going to have to figure out how can they do life in discipleship groups or whatever. How can they do life and let them see more than just the sermon, literally see what the pastors are going through. And I'm not sure that a lot of our young pastors want to spend that much time with them. But that would be an exciting thing that I see. Another thing, a lot of our large churches, for example, have a lot of people on staff that have no theological training hardly at all, and they're on staff. If we figured out a way to them more training, like maybe what you're doing at Great Lakes, you know, and through podcasts and what you're doing and making them aware of different styles of preaching and so on, ⁓ that has a lot of potential. Because if you're a young unchurched young guy or man and you grow up in the same church for 20 years my fear is you're not going to have a well-rounded image of what it means to be a preacher because you've only pretty much heard one style now with a teaching team you're going to hear more styles but normally when people grow up with just one preacher the bad news is he might not he might be more of a do preacher than a feel preacher but all he's ever heard is feel So he's probably going to develop his sermon similar to the person that he listened to, I think. Okay. So those are some exciting things that I think the possibility that we have, the danger that I see is definitely chat and AI. I read recently, it's almost 40 % of evangelical Christians listen to three podcasts a week. That blows me. away. Because what that means, at least for the first time in my ministry or my life, where just because they come to your church does not mean they really see you as their spiritual pastor. Because you maybe have taken too strong of a stand in politics, or not enough, a strong enough stand, and they're listening to somebody in California or Tennessee or whatever that they agree with more politically, they might even tie it to that person and listen to him every week. They come to your church probably because you have a great youth and children's program, but they really don't see you as the pastor that has, ⁓ is really impacting them right now. That scares, that really scares me. And with AI, I've talked to some guys, they can say, my son-in-law, excellent preacher. And he said, one day he decided to try AI and he said, here's my sermon text, ⁓ give a three point sermon, give me an action step. and small group discussion questions in five minutes, it came back unbelievable. He preached it and tried it just to see what it was going to be. And it went over great. The drawback for AI is, preachers today, you could develop a great sermon delivery-wise, but I don't believe the Holy Spirit has worked through you to help prepare that message. That's scary. I don't know where that's going to go, but there's the danger of that, that you can immediately get a perfect ⁓ sermon in 10 minutes versus 20 minutes of study and preparation. Frank Weller: Yeah, we could spend an entire episode and perhaps we need to on the implications of artificial intelligence with preaching. know, 20 years ago it was plagiarizing other preacher's sermons that was a concern. And now it's just, instead of baking your own bread, it's getting a Twinkie from the convenience store and tossing it out from the pulpit. But Hey, we're out of time. That half hour wet. really fast. I want to thank Dr. Don Wilson and our sponsor Great Lakes Christian College. And I want to thank you, our BP2 community for listening to and supporting the Better Preaching podcast. You can listen to past BP2 episodes, read our blog and find resources at www.betterpreaching.org. Join us next time on the Better Preaching podcast because better preaching makes a bigger impact.