Latest / Better Preaching Podcast / BP2 Season 1 Episode 4 – Mark Christian | Called to Preach
Transcript
- Frank Weller: On today's better preaching podcast, we talked with Mark Christian about his call to preaching and his approach to sermon planning and preparation. Let's do this. Christian, welcome to the Better Preaching Podcast. Mark Christian: Hey Frank. Frank Weller: Good to have you on. Yeah, good to have you on man. Hey, listen, ⁓ you've been out there in Missouri for ⁓ my man going on 20 years. Tell us a little bit about yourself and about the congregation that you serve. Mark Christian: Yeah, I was with you all in Michigan for 22 years in Mount Pleasant and loved every bit of that. Then had the opportunity to, pretty much an opportunity of a lifetime for me to be involved in a very healthy church in Missouri. And so in 2009, my family and I moved out here and it's a strange thing, Frank, to be honest with you. It is a church of size and a town of 2,100 people. And it's north of Joplin, Missouri. And I had a lot of connections with folks from C.I.Y., from Christ in Youth, who afforded me the opportunity to come out and be a part of it. And so it's been really good. We've loved being here. I think we've learned that it's the people you're with, not the location you're at. And we've been very fortunate to be at two churches our entire time in ministry. And both of them have been very loving and kind. And we've been able to grow. So yeah, that's a growing congregation in the middle of nowhere. And it's been quite the experience. Frank Weller: It's quite the name too, isn't it? Mark Christian: Yes, Christ Church of Orinogo. It's in a little mining town north of Joplin, Missouri. it took me a long time to realize, I thought it was an Indian name, but actually Orinogo was what the miners named it. When they got out there, they said that they were either going to find ore or there was going to be a no-go. And they actually named it. That's a true story. Frank Weller: What's the worst pronunciation or mispronunciation you've ever heard of that name? Mark Christian: Yeah, there's been a bunch of them. So we just call it Christ Church. It just takes away all the pain. Frank Weller: Yeah, that's great. But you know, look, every congregation is the same and every congregation is different. But you're looking at two significantly different experiences from Mount Pleasant, Michigan to Joplin and Orinogo, aren't you? Mark Christian: Thank Yeah, one's a college town, very white collar. ⁓ Everybody, yeah, in Michigan, know, nobody goes to Michigan by accident because you can't get out of it once you go up to it. So the Michiganders really kept Mount Pleasant alive with the university. And it was just a great experience for my oldest son to grow up in and be raised in there. And then we moved here and Joplin is a transient place. People come through Joplin on the way to Oklahoma, Texas and West Coast. So it's been quite unique and this is ⁓ quite a mix. It's ⁓ a relatively young church with a lot of young families. There a of baby carriers coming every week, which gets me really excited. And ⁓ yeah, it's just, it's different. There's not great industry in Joplin. So it's not like we have the auto industry like we did in Michigan. It's just been kind of a unique experience. It's a college town per se, but not as much as Mount Pleasant felt. Frank Weller: on it. Well, listen, we're going to dive into preaching here in just a moment. But before we do, I want to take a minute and pause and say that the Better Preaching podcast is powered by Great Lakes Christian College. GLCC is training the next generation of servant leaders for the church and world. GLCC's undergraduate programs and our new master's degree in practical theology bring together biblical depth and practical application. Students get authentic Christianity, excellent academics and affordability at GLCC. For more details, you can go to glcc. Now, Mark, you were at Great Lakes Christian College when you sensed that God was calling you to ministry, weren't you? Mark Christian: Yeah, it was between my sophomore and junior years. Frank Weller: And I think I read somewhere that a lot of the experience that you'd had at Michiana Christian Service Camp kind of all coalesced together. Was it at a C.I.Y. conference where you committed to ministry or did I mistake that? Mark Christian: No, I think you have it right. One of the weird parts of my story, Frank, that I've had guys, and maybe you're even one of those, who have had a clear call there to preach. I never actually got that. I never had a moment where it was like, you're supposed to do this. through my history, I got an opportunity of a lifetime in seventh grade. The camp manager at Missiana Christian Service Camp needed a work boy to wash dishes, cut grass, help out. during weeks, my dad, for the one year he was a camp booster for our church, went to a camp boosters meeting, he heard the camp manager say that, and he came home and said, would you be interested in that? And I loved camp, so I said, yeah. So I started from seventh grade all the way through my freshman year of college working at that camp. And I was surrounded by preachers and youth ministers and youth sponsors. And I think that's where God started to get my attention, where they were normal people. I know that that sounds strange when I say it, but I often pictured preachers as wearing a sweater vest every day of their lives and never having any fun and not caring about the cubs or the bears or anything I cared about. And so I thought, I just don't, that's not the way I'm wired. But I started to be surrounded by people that had a clear calling for ministry and the gospel, and they were normal and cool and funny and had lives. And that opened my eyes and my mind. Then I went to Great Lakes. I like to tell you, I went to Great Lakes to go into ministry. I didn't know as much why I was going to Great Lakes as I was supposed to go. And Ron Kleppel, who I know is dear to both you and me, ⁓ Ron and Greg Steer and a few other people that I knew from Great Lakes really made ⁓ a dent in my heart about ministry. And so I thought I'll go there to see what happens. Then I was sitting at a CIY event in Adrian, Michigan, and a guy walked on stage and I want to be totally respectful, but he walked on stage and he was kind of Like he was middle-aged and it was unimpressive. And then he started to preach and it blew my mind. And for the first time in my life, a thought entered my heart and that was, if I could do what he's doing, I'd try that. It was just his clarity. And so the story gets a bit longer, but I hope it makes sense. Then I was traveling for the college at the time, Dave Kineine and I were on a camp team and we were at two weeks. of MOVES or CIO-Y Summer Conference. And we came back to do our laundry and sleep on campus before we went to the next church camp. And it was during that time that I went to get my mail in the mail room and President Kurt Lloyd saw me and I thought I was in trouble because I had shorts on in the ad building. And I was like, it's a Saturday and I just want my mail. I was ready to defend my position and I walked down the hallway and as I turned the corner he said, Mark, I'd like to introduce you to our new preaching professor. And it was that guy, Justin Shepard, who had preached that move. And in that moment, Justin and I developed a relationship. And Justin said, do you think you want to be a preacher? And I said, I don't think I do. And then he said, well, we'll find out. And he began a two-year investment in my life that I'm forever grateful for. So I'm actually, the call to ministry was more about opportunities God gave me than it was a specific moment in time. where I felt like I'm supposed to do this, but he surrounded me by great influences and I'm forever grateful for it. Frank Weller: Yeah. And I kind of envy those guys who just, you know, hear the voice from heaven with all the, you know, the baritone with the reverb and ⁓ you're supposed to preach, but you know, a lot of times it's God working through someone to communicate sort of the trajectory of your life. And it sounds like that's what you experienced. Mark Christian: Yeah, was just several people. can go back and I could bore you with 20 names of people that I look back on and thought their attention to me and their encouragement of me ⁓ was just, it was almost insurmountable. And so because of it, even when I had to come back and tell my girlfriend at the time who didn't want to marry a preacher, because I wasn't going to be one. And I had to come back and tell her that I... think I'm supposed to preach. She kind of laughed at me and I thought here's the breakup and she smiled at me and said, everybody sees it but you. And those words was the final confirmation. She's like, Mark, everybody sees it but you. And she needed, I mean, she gave me peace and my friends gave me space to figure it out on my own. Frank Weller: she ended up marrying a preacher. Mark Christian: And she did against her will. Frank Weller: So you mentioned your homiletics professor. We actually had the same homiletics prof. And it's interesting because I was a music major and wasn't even supposed to take homiletics, but I had a little extra room in my schedule. And so I thought, you know what? I'm just going to take this class. And really, ⁓ that was foundational for me becoming a preacher because I spent the first several years of my ministry doing youth work and leading worship before I moved into preaching. And so He was kind of foundational in helping me understand preaching. Tell me, take me inside that classroom. What are the things that you learned that stuck with you, that you're still applying today? What was so impactful about what he provided for you in homiletics here at GLCC? Mark Christian: Yeah, I think the thing that I got ⁓ in homiletics courses that I wasn't ready for was Justin did a great job of finding our voice and making us use our voice. ⁓ He didn't allow us to mimic anybody else in the room. And he would say, is that how you would say it? Is that how you would do it? I think probably, you know, 39 years of ministry later, I look back on and think the thing that he taught me was how to translate the scripture. to the people I'm preaching to. I don't know if you would agree, but I don't recall Justin teaching us how to do performative preaching. And I think there's a lot of the basic nuts and bolts of preaching, the structure, the substructures, the introductions, all of it. We needed to learn how to do that. We needed to develop that muscle. But one thing he did, I never saw Justin miss. And he was kind enough to invite me to go to revivals he was preaching or in the area. He would just ask anybody in class, hey, I'm preaching tonight, if anybody wants to go along. I didn't take enough advantage of that, but the times I went, I thought, I've never seen this guy miss. Like he knew how to translate the text to his audience. And again, I'm forever grateful for him showing me that it's not about how much eye contact and how much you move and all the performative things. It was actually about actually translating the text to the lives of the people in the room. And I thought he showed that brilliantly and I'm forever grateful. And so I've tried to be a translator more than a scholar. Or, you know, probably most homiletics preachers would look at what I do and think, ⁓ wow. But yeah, I just tried to take what I learned. And Justin really told us to take every opportunity we get to preach to develop that muscle. And I was probably five or six years into local church ministry where I felt like I'd found my voice and I was comfortable not preaching anymore for homiletics class, but actually preaching to the church that I got to be a part of. Frank Weller: Yeah, and I think one of the things that he really excelled at was starting with the text, right? I just am a firm believer that the power is in the text. if you try to start anywhere else other than the text, that's a miss, right? He starts with the text, but he was also really a master at contextualizing ⁓ the scriptures. I mean, he understood his audience. I mean, you said you were... You know, you're at a C.I.Y. conference, so you're surrounded by teenagers and maybe a handful of college students. And his message was impactful there. And yet at the same time, he's preaching at a local congregation on Sundays to everybody from age 15 to age 85. And he was really a master at contextualizing the gospel to his audience. And I think that's something you've been able to grab ahold of, too. I mean, how do you go about doing that? How do you go about? contextualizing the message to your audience. Mark Christian: Yeah, I do think there's a big distinction and I don't want to ride the horse too long, but there is present, there is performative preaching and there's pastoral preaching and the guys that can walk on big stages and wow, large crowds. I'm not one of those and I'm not jealous of that. I actually appreciate ⁓ traveling with CIWIs in the summer and I hear those guys walk on stage and they walk in and they crush it. I'm not, that's not the way I'm wired. ⁓ I'd actually rather walk with the group of people over and over and over and get to know their stories and look out in the room. And I know, Frankie, you have that same experience being at South Lansing all those years and previous to that in Indiana where you could look out, you knew the stories in the room, you knew how to tailor it to that. I think there's a place for both. And I kind of get a little bit worried about some of our Bible college students and I love them and I'm glad they're joining the team. We need them now, not in six months. We need them right now, but. ⁓ I want to really encourage them that pastoral preaching is just a blessing. it, you know, I joke and say it takes less work to walk in every Sunday to a group of people I love and who love me and have a conversation as a church family than it is to walk on a stage and earn the right to say a big thing and not only have to earn the right to say a big thing, but have to say it really well and memorable and all of that. Maybe I'm getting lazy as I get older, but I'd rather walk with the same group and have the have a repeated conversation that I would to kind of come in and, know, yeah, crop does somebody else's field and wonder if anything ever grew. I get to see the growth. get to see the life change. So that's why I think Justin was the right guy to teach me how to preach. And I have tried to not emulate his style, but emulate what he taught me. And yeah, I feel like it's allowed me to stay at places longer, not because I'm Frank Weller: It's a good process. Mark Christian: Talented, it's actually, I become part of that community and it becomes a part of us. And I think that's the richness of getting to preach in a place for a long time. Frank Weller: Well, listen, I'd push back a little bit, Mark. You are a talented communicator and don't sell yourself short. mean, you don't get to stay a place at a place for 17 and a half, 18 years if you if you're not a gifted communicator. And you certainly are. I think, you you mentioned being able to look out and see the same people over and over. I would find that that followed me into the sermon study, too, that as I'm preparing, I'm actually thinking of the people that are going to be in the room. And there are times where, you know, I'm I'm doing the work to prepare, but people are flashing through my mind that are going to be hearing what I'm saying. Did you have that experience? Or do you have that experience? Mark Christian: Yeah. Yeah. You try not to be a sniper from the bushes. I don't think God blesses that. That's manipulative. But I do think and I know stories. And so when you're looking for that embodied illustration, you when we you and I have done this long enough, we broke away from the canned illustrations that we reshaped. And now we get to tell people stories. And isn't that where community really grows is when you can champion someone who's come through a tough time. You can also encourage somebody who's going through a horrible time. and you're actually speaking to the context in which you live, that you don't get that ⁓ when you're somewhere not very long. Rick Warren had just a quote that I've never forgotten. He said, ⁓ long-term ministry doesn't guarantee a growing church, but a short-term ministry guarantees it won't grow. And I've always held that in my heart, like staying through the pain and staying through the hard times where you're not always loved and respected and you've earned that or not. ⁓ In those moments, staying allows you to know the story and they know your story and how many people think they know us better than they actually know us because of vulnerability and self-disclosure and actually journeying together. So there's a richness. If you're privileged to get to stay, ⁓ man, it's worth fighting through the hard times to stay for a while. Frank Weller: Yeah. And I appreciate you making that distinction between sniping and just really understanding your audience because it's not so much of, this is really going to land well with so-and-so or, you know, I hate, this is the person I want to address with this particular point, but it's you thinking about, okay, in the same room, we have a 16 year old who's trying to figure out what she's going to do with the rest of her life. And we have a 60 year old who just lost his wife to, ⁓ you know, debilitating disease. And we have a couple who are newlyweds and are thrilled with the promise of the future and couples who are on the verge of breakup. And so you just realize what I'm, I have to contextualize whatever God's given me this week so that it lands in fertile soil so that every, as many of these people as possible can apply what I'm about to say. And that's really challenging. Mark Christian: And I think back to something you said earlier, not to belabor it, but one of the differences living in Missouri versus Michigan. In Michigan, when I met people in town from coaching Little League or just being a person who lived there for two decades, I had to find out if they went to church. I came down here to the central states and you find out what church they go to. It's a cultural thing. Like everybody believes they're a part of a church down here. It doesn't mean they are. but they have bought into the social Christianity. I was raised in this church, these are my people. Where in Michigan, we had a lot of people that I met that had no church affiliation ever in their life. And that was a different kind of discipleship. I enjoy both of them, but it's a challenge. So here I get to take away the myth of being involved in the church and actually drive deeper into discipleship. know, church attendance is a sign of being a disciple, but it's not discipleship. And ⁓ that's been fun for me because that's... allowed me to reshape the way I preach because this audience is hearing a different conversation than the people in Michigan were hearing. Frank Weller: That's really good stuff, Mark. And I want to dive back into that preaching and its role in discipleship in just a moment. But first, I just want to pause again and say a word about our sponsors at GLCC. Hey, listen, are you ready to answer God's call with greater confidence and a deeper biblical understanding? GLCC's Master of Arts in Practical Ministry is designed for today's church leaders. It's rooted in scripture and this program provides biblical depth with practical training to prepare you for real world ministry challenges. It's affordable, flexible and online. It's Christ centered study and will equip you to lead with wisdom, preach with clarity and serve with courage. You can get more details at glcc.edu. So I want to return to this ⁓ idea, Mark, about preaching as discipleship, because we often think of discipleship as ⁓ one-on-one, face to face, knee to knee kind of connections. But preaching obviously takes place in a much different setting. So how do you connect the two or how do you equate preaching with discipleship? Mark Christian: Yeah, you you said something earlier that I absolutely affirm has been a focus of mine. Expository preaching is discipleship. It allows the Word to do its work. It introduces people as generations become removed from reading. and actually knowing how to study for themselves. I think when we preach topically, if I can be so bold, I'm very concerned about a heavy diet of topical preaching because what it demonstrates is that the preacher knows what's in the Bible, but the people don't know what's in the Bible. They couldn't find it. So if we bounce all over page to page, we lose the context of the writing. We lose the general meta-narrative of scripture all the way through the church. ⁓ so I think Expository preaching produces a discipleship at a level that topical preaching doesn't. Are there moments for topical preaching? Absolutely. But if we live on a diet of that, I have not found it effective anecdotally in the ministries I've been involved in. But when we plow a text, then discipleship happens because the Spirit enters the room and does something with His words. that changes people's hearts and lives. And now we may have to take four swipes at them to get it embedded in their hearts and minds, but man, if we're in the Word, discipleship will be a product. If we're just entertaining them with witty sayings and showing them that we're persuasive, we're winning them to the wrong thing. And so, and the reason I say that, Frank, is a full disclosure. ⁓ I spent the first 12 years of my ministry ⁓ trying to draw a crowd thinking a crowd made discipleship and all through the church growth era. I'm glad I learned what I learned, but I'm glad I'm not doing that anymore either. Frank Weller: Yeah, we have a really similar path in that regard. even to the point of ⁓ being in the classroom. you taught communication for a number of years and ⁓ it certainly shows. I taught homiletics ⁓ for many years and like you, I just have a real appreciation for the text. And I would encourage our students, know, ask questions of the text, become an inquisitor, really roll around in the text because there's just such great texture and depth in the text. And when you preach topically, what I find is you just don't get to that depth. It's like the airplane making touch and goes. We're going to touch on this verse in the gospel and then we're going to touch on this in Acts and then one of the epistles. But to really dive in and roll around and be covered in the text, I think, is where the power is in preaching. Mark Christian: Yeah, I firmly believe it. And once we revisited here, in fact, when I came to the church here, ⁓ I said to the elders, I know what not to do. I'm not sure I know what to do, but if we can eliminate all the what not to do's, I think we'll be in a better posture. And I just think that it's more refreshing for me and the body and what I get feedback from the leadership team and the people of our church. ⁓ They love knowing what the Word of God teaches. Frank Weller: Yeah, I love that. Mark, so obviously you're a preacher and you spend time in the classroom, but you're still around a lot of students today, both in the work that you do at Joplin. You're part of the leadership team, as I recall, at Ozark Christian College. I'd just be interested to know what excites you about the students that you see coming up today who have a trajectory that is aimed at ministry. Mark Christian: ⁓ Yeah, I think when I left Bible College, and I'm past the age of, I used to say this when I was younger, I'm sure you did too, I hear Bible College kids say it, well they never taught me that in school, and now I just tease them, I go, do you want to be here seven years? Because if you want to be here seven years, we can teach you everything we know you want to be here for. And I think I left college very pragmatic. Frank Weller: Yeah. Mark Christian: I was a practitioner of ministry as taught. the thing that I love now is there is such a quest for good theology where 19, 20 year old Mark would have rolled his eyes at this conversation. I now value a level of theological. underpinings that allows preaching to be good and ministry to be discipleship oriented. And I really love the hunger of this generation, the students that I've met through the summers traveling with Christ in Youth. get students from Great Lakes and from, you know, ⁓ Johnson and from Ozark. And when I meet these kids, they have a level of theology I didn't have at their age. And I'm really excited about what that'll mean. I keep telling them, your sermons cannot be term papers. That's not what your audience needs. But man, write those term papers in your heart and mind as you're presenting the text and then you can take them deeper than they ever imagined they could go. So I'm really excited about the level of theology kids are getting today. Frank Weller: Yeah, I agree. I just feel like there's a renewed hunger from Generation Z and it would be interesting to see if that carries through to the next generation cohort. I think we're moving towards a good place. In fact, I've told people that I think we might be moving towards another golden era in Christian higher education. And I'm excited that the students are going to be driving that. listen, we're close to wrapping up, but I want to ask you one more question. What's one piece of preaching advice? One piece of preaching advice that you would offer to your younger self. Mark Christian: Yeah, stop worrying about ⁓ how well your preaching is being received and spend a little more time in the text letting it shape your preaching. So it's a convoluted thought, but the more I think about that question, the more I've said to myself, if I could... First of all, Sunday school, Sunday morning, you two Sunday morning sermons, the same though, Sunday school, Sunday night, Wednesday night. I was so intimidated by four new lessons every week that I actually worked so hard to have something to say that I never let the text teach me what to say and how to slow down and focus. And so I would look at a young preacher and say, it is better to take a smaller bite. and make sure everybody enjoys that bite than to try to do it all in every sermon, in every lesson, in every class. Lord willing, we're gonna get a long season with these folks to walk them through the text and allow the Spirit to work. And so I would say, don't be in a hurry. Don't be such a practitioner. Have something to say because the text has led you to say it. And ⁓ also, last thing is, don't do it alone. ⁓ Because I was so intimidated by four new lessons a week, with two whole weeks of vacation, right? That meant 50 weeks of four lessons. And I just tried to man up to prove that I was trained and I was willing to work hard. I would say have a community of people that you're journeying with. Meet with preachers regularly who love to preach, love good theology, sharpen each other. You can write the same series together. ⁓ actually grow in community rather than make all of your Bible study just what you think and what you know about a text. So those two thoughts is what I would challenge. And I get to do this in my class at Ozark. I get to challenge these kids. Don't live in isolation and let the text win every single time and you won't run out of things to say. Frank Weller: Yeah, that's just really, really good stuff, Mark. So ⁓ smaller bites of scripture and more thorough chewing and, you know, practice, practice your craft in community. And we're to spend some more time talking about that in another episode, because this idea of writing sermons in community is really intriguing to me. And I look forward to sharing with our listeners in another episode how you go about doing that. So we're out of time, but before I go, hey, I want to thank you, Mark Christian. I want to thank our sponsor, Great Lakes Christian College. And I want to thank you, our BP2 community for listening and supporting the Better Preaching podcast. Join us next time for an insightful conversation because better preaching makes a bigger impact.