What is the best long-term strategy for discipling your congregation? Glitzy programs? Seeker-friendly services? One-on-one weekly meetings?
I could go on, and many of these have their advantages. But when we think about a solid, sustainable, and long-term strategy for discipleship, the most central plan is word-driven discipleship through Christ-centered preaching.
Many preaching books focus on different aspects of preaching. Bryan Chapell’s Christ-Centered Preaching is a step-by-step guide to preparing a sermon that includes a gospel message, no matter what passage you’re preaching on. Books like Edmund Clowney’s Preaching Christ from All of Scripture and Sidney Greidanus’s Preaching Christ from the Old Testament are solid hermeneutical guides for preaching. Richard Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor focuses on the pastor’s heart.
This new book from Tony Merida, The Christ-Centered Expositor, brings together all the pieces of the puzzle in one place. Merida has given pastors a guide to guarding their own hearts and feeding the flock with Christ-centered expository preaching, week in and week out.
Part 1 covers the expositor’s heart. Much like Baxter’s Reformed Pastor, Merida exhorts pastors to watch their life and doctrine. He then pleads for preaching that both focuses on Christ and arises directly from authoritative Scriptures. But preaching must also rely on the Spirit’s power, who is active throughout the entire process of preparing and delivering sermons. Along with an embrace of the Spirit’s power must be a devoted prayer life, without which the pastor will bleed dry. And above all, we must preach for God’s glory alone, within a Trinitarian framework. Part 1 therefore lays the groundwork for a life of pastoral ministry and discipleship.
Part 2 provides a 5-stop process for putting together a Christ-centered sermon. This includes tips on studying the text in its context with specific resources, finding the redemptive theme of the passage through a Christocentric hermeneutic, constructing an outline with the sub-points that suppor the main proposition of the sermon, filling out the outline with with explanation, illustration, and application of each sub-point, and finally writing the introduction and the conclusion. For those who have not read a book on preaching before, Part 2 alone is worth the price of the book. For those who have read preaching books, they will still find many nuggets, tips, and reminders as they read through these chapters.
Throughout the book are also some useful charts and appendices. Page 191 has an “application grid” that can be printed off and used for sermon preparation. It helps you think through 11 different categories of potential application. Appendix 1 contains a historical overview of preaching. Appendix 2 gives advice on preaching in non-pulpit contexts, such as weddings and funerals. Appendix 3 provides a sermon outline sheet that can be used as a template to prepare the outline of a sermon. Appendix 4 is a 3-page sermon evaluation form that could usefully be filled out by a sermon evaluation team or selected individuals on any given Sunday.
Tony Merida’s The Christ-Centered Expositor provides the foundation and the mechanics for Word-driven discipleship. Students would do well if this were their first textbook on preaching, and pastors would do well to refresh themselves on the mechanics and re-align their focus on Christ-centered preaching. Thanks to Merida for his passion to equip a future generation of preachers to base their preaching on the exposition of Scripture with a Christ-centered hermeneutic.
Preview or buy it here on Amazon.
