If you grew up going to Sunday School a few decades ago (as I did), you probably sang the kids' song Deep and Wide. I had no idea what the song meant back then. But even if I couldn't make sense of that line about a "fountain flowing deep and wide," I enjoyed the hand motions. Wide gave me the opportunity to throw both arms spread-eagle, smacking buddies on either side of me. Cool!
Today, the expression deep and wide carries far greater significance for me. It sums up my approach to ministry as lead pastor of a multi-site church. I planted Christ Community Church (CCC) about thirty years ago in a far western suburb of Chicago. Our initial strategy, which continues to this day, was to be a church that reached "seekers" (whom we now refer to as "explorers"). We aspired to be wide a la Willow Creek. In fact, Bill Hybels was my youth pastor back in the days before he launched Willow. His passion for reaching spiritually lost people has had a huge impact on my life.
So CCC has always been aggressively evangelistic. We do attractional events (such as outreach services with celebrity guests), as well as missional serving, to reach our community.
So we are definitely about wide. But we put an equal emphasis on deep. In fact, our unofficial motto has been to be a seeker church with depth. We don’t publicize that motto because it sounds a bit cheeky, as if we're accusing other seeker churches of lacking depth. Other churches are not my concern. I’m responsible for CCC. I want to make sure that we are not only reaching unbelievers, but are also helping Christ followers push roots deep into God's Word. We want them to flourish like the tree-planted-by-living-waters of Psalm 1.
Here is how our church, which is cutting-edge wide, attempts to be equally deep.
Evangelism. Deep begins with the way in which we invite people to begin a relationship with Christ. We challenge explorers to offer their lives to Jesus as King, as well as Savior (Rom. 10:9, 10). When I first read Scot McKnight's The King Jesus Gospel, I must admit that I thought Scot's attempt to combat easy-believe-ism had swung the pendulum too far in the opposite direction of works-righteousness. I expressed my concerns to Scot in a heated two-hour conversation. But after doing a thorough study of the content of the gospel in Scripture, I have grown in my appreciation of the sincere surrender it calls for.
Several years ago, I asked three of my staff pastors to help me rewrite the little booklet our people use for evangelism so that it would reflect a deeper gospel. We continue to emphasize that salvation is by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8, 9). But we also want explorers to understand what Paul adds in the very next verse (v.10)—that we are created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Salvation involves refocusing our lives on God's plans and purposes for us—not merely saying "yes" to an offer of forgiveness and eternal life.
We want the result of our outreach efforts to be disciples—not merely decisions. So every gospel presentation, live or in print, is rigorously biblical. To be perfectly honest, there are times when I'm tempted to water down the gospel just a bit in order to net a wider response from people (i.e. more hands raised and decisions counted). But I'm sticking to an appeal that is both deep and wide.
Preaching. While we occasionally do book-of-the-Bible expositional series at CCC, 80 percent of my preaching is topical. In some circles, that immediately qualifies my sermons as shallow or Bible-lite. For some, only verse-by-verse sermons are considered deep. I strongly disagree—but I concede that the critics of topical preaching raise a legitimate concern. Some topical sermons do have a tendency to underuse Scripture or to gravitate to familiar, well-worn texts.
But a downside of expositional preaching, from my perspective, is that it doesn't focus on any call to obedience long enough to produce life-change in its listeners. Let's say I'm preaching verse-by-verse through the book of James, and the text mentions prayer. I might touch on prayer as one of several points in my sermon. It might even be the sole focus of that sermon. But then we quickly move on to the next exhortation in James' epistle. How likely is that fleeting reference to prayer going to produce fervent pray-ers in my congregation? I've found, over the years, that a four-part topical series on prayer has a much greater chance of impacting people's prayer-lives than does a single-point or single-sermon in an expositional series.
So how do I keep my topical sermons from being Bible-lite? There are several ways in which I make certain that deep happens even with explorers.
First, I usually draw my topical sermon from a single passage of Scripture. I don't jump around from a proof-text here to a proof-text there (which often rips verses out of context). Instead, I hunker down in one passage and methodically work my way through it.
This not only enables me to cover the topic of the day, it also teaches my listeners how to study the Bible. Topical preachers who deftly jump around from text to text in a sermon tend to impress listeners with their communication skills. But when preachers stick to one passage, and listeners see life-changing truths emerging from the flow of that text, everyone is more likely to be impressed with God's Word than with the speaker—and they're better equipped to study it on their own.
Second, I aim at deep in my topical preaching by tracking the passages that I use and making an effort to systematically cover the entire Bible over time. So if I'm doing a six-part study on parenting and am inclined to use the well-worn Ephesians 6:1-4 passage for one of the sermons, I'll first check to see when I last preached that text. If it's been used recently, I'll hunt for a different passage that speaks to parenting.
I also frequently scan my Bible-passage spreadsheet to note any Bible books that have been over-looked. When was the last time I preached out of Psalms or Nehemiah or one of the Minor Prophets or 2 Peter? If it's been a while, I'll consider a topical series that would give me an opportunity to draw from that neglected book. In the long run, this method results in as thorough a coverage of Scripture as any expositional approach does.
One final way in which I avoid shallowness in my topical preaching is by balancing the sorts of topics I deal with. On the one hand, I make no apologies for "how-to" series that provide practical insights for building strong marriages or taming too-busy lives or succeeding OTJ. God's Word addresses these issues with application-oriented wisdom. But interspersed with these series are others that address doctrinal issues (sin, heaven and hell, God's attributes, etc.) or mission-focused themes (concern for the poor, evangelism, creation care, and so on). And I do occasionally preach an expositional series through a Bible book (or portion of a book).
Discipleship. Our stated mission at CCC is: to make passionate disciples of Jesus Christ who are belonging, growing, serving and reaching. But like many churches, we have a tendency to provide too many growth-nurturing options for our people, to keep adding program after program, which leaves people confused by the array of selections. Where do they begin? Which activities are most important? In what order should these disciple-making opportunities be pursued?
Greg Hawkins' book, Move, has been of tremendous help to us in sorting out these issues. Greg was the executive pastor at Willow Creek when they conducted their Reveal survey, which brought to light their need to do a better job of discipling believers. Greg and his team then surveyed a thousand churches that have an effective disciple-making process in place and summarized the best learnings in Move. Here are some of the things we picked up from Greg and have implemented at CCC.
First, we've ruthlessly deleted programs and ministries that are not effectively helping us make disciples.
Second, we have developed clearly defined on-ramps. (Greg says that the discipleship path should be well-defined in the beginning stages, but may offer more options down the line.) If someone comes to CCC as an explorer, their on-ramp is Alpha. If someone becomes a believer at one of our services, their on-ramp is to pick up a Next Steps packet at the Welcome Center and to attend a Next Steps class. If a CCC newcomer is a Christ follower who has just transferred from another church, their on-ramp is our Begin to Belong seminar. And the next move for all of the above is to get into one of our many Community Groups. These clearly defined on-ramps help us move people along the discipleship path.
Third, we have tightened up the selection of curricula used by our Community Groups. We used to have a "free market" system. We trusted group leaders to choose a Christian book or topical study that was doctrinally sound. But Greg Hawkins' Move makes a strong case for the Bible being the #1 influencer in people's spiritual growth. (Surprise!) So we are now encouraging our Community Group leaders to choose from "approved" materials that we have scrutinized for solid biblical content. And we are requiring that every-other curriculum a group uses be a study of a book of the Bible.
Fourth, we constantly push daily personal Bible reading (in addition to one's Community Group preparation). We have adopted Scripture Union's Bible reading schedule, and hundreds of our people follow a hard copy of it or receive it electronically on their phone, tablet, or laptop. I frequently refer to this schedule in sermons and occasionally do a stand-alone message on the importance of Bible reading that directs people to the Scripture Union schedule.
Last, all of our seminar electives have now been carefully sorted into four categories that correspond to the marks of a disciple highlighted in our mission statement: belonging; growing; serving; reaching. Depending on which aspect of being a disciple is in greatest need of their attention, people can now choose their next step in a meaningful way.
Staff Theology Gatherings. Like many large churches, CCC has homegrown a significant portion of our staff. These people have left the marketplace to serve the local church full-time. But this means that most of them have no Bible school or seminary education. So we take seriously our responsibility to backfill this aspect of their ministry preparedness. Once a month our pastoral staff gathers for a two-hour theology study.
Every other month we cover 100 pages or so of a chosen "textbook," which everyone has read in advance. Study guides are provided and staff break into small groups to fill these out as they discuss the reading. Then teaching pastors do wrap-up presentations. We have covered both systematic theology textbooks (such as Wayne Grudem's excellent work), as well as books that drill down into specific theological issues (John Stott on the atonement; Christopher Wright on the church's mission; John Piper on justification).
The months in between these textbook discussions, we invite an outside presenter to address a theological issue of contemporary concern. Because we are close to Wheaton College and Moody Bible Institute, it's been fairly easy to have professors come and address a wide range of topics from a theological perspective: art; homosexuality; the role of the Old Testament law in the life of a New Testament believer; politics; hell; the need for proclamation evangelism; concern for the poor; and so on.
I occasionally hear from one of our staff that the reading for the theology gatherings was a bit laborious, or that the outside speaker didn't relate the topic well to the real world of ministry. But most often they express gratitude for being challenged to go deep in their understanding of God and his Word.
Worship. At CCC, we enjoy worship that is loud and emotional, that lifts our hearts, hands, and voices to the Lord. But we also try to avoid the rut of some contemporary worship services, which consist of little more than 20 minutes of one rockin' song after another. We plan our worship times around a theme—either a theme that corresponds to the topic of the day's sermon, or the theme of the gospel (creation, fall, redemption, restoration).
Our songs, then, are thematically chosen. Amid the songs we pause for a "worship focus" that may consist of: Scripture reading (done antiphonally, or in "reader's theater" style, or rapped by a soloist); confession (possibly on our knees, sometimes in silence, occasionally read in unison); the recitation of a creed; prayer (thanksgiving or petition); or an explanation of the lyrics that we're about to sing (what is meant by "my anchor holds within the veil" from the contemporary worship song Cornerstone).
At least one of our four worship songs for the day is a hymn—usually with an upbeat vamp, or a bridge that one of our musicians has composed. We have about 30 hymns from which we draw. We have put these great, deep hymns back into circulation by contemporizing them a bit (in most cases without changing the basic melody line). You should hear our versions of Join All the Glorious Names and To God Be the Glory.
One last word about worship that goes deep. Both of our teaching pastors (me being one of them) are part of the team that plans the first half of our services. We bring an extra measure of discernment to song selection—we're not going endorse those that lack good theology, that don’t support the message of the day, or are simplistic (same line repeated a dozen times), or whose lyrics are a hodge-podge of ideas (we call these "burritos"). We thank God for the giftedness our musicians bring to worship—but we don't depend upon them to safeguard the theological depth of our services.
Personal Study. CCC generously provides me with two months of summer study break. In addition to using this time to lay out sermon series for the coming ministry season, I also try to drill down into a couple of pertinent theological topics. These are issues that I don't have time to study in depth during the course of the year—but they are relevant to the life of our church.
This past summer, for example, I explored the nature of "Israel" in Old Testament prophecies about the future. Do these prophecies refer to a literal nation-state that will be refashioned in the end times? Or are they about the Church—God's new Israel? I confess that I'm not really into Bible prophecy—I especially avoid adopting a partisan view. But I am a huge proponent of daily Bible reading and application. Well, it's pretty hard to know how to apply Old Testament prophecies regarding Israel (are they for me and my friends at CCC or primarily for Jews residing in the Middle East?) unless I resolve this matter. So I read books on both sides of the issue.
Similarly, I researched the spiritual gift of prophecy. There are several staff at CCC who come from charismatic backgrounds, and they've occasionally expressed a desire for us to be more open to spontaneous messages from the Lord (i.e. prophecies). So I waded into the topic. We are definitely not a cessationist church, but neither do we provide settings in which words of prophecy are welcome. Knowing that Wayne Grudem did his doctoral work on this spiritual gift, I read his book carefully, passed on highlights of his conclusions to our elders, and discussed ways in which we might be more prophecy-friendly at CCC.
You get the idea. The previous summer my two study projects were homosexuality and spiritual warfare! The former topic led to a four-week sermon series at CCC. The latter topic ended up as a staff training, equipping our pastors to deal with the demonic while avoiding the extremes of: (a) seeing a demon behind every bush, or (b) ignoring demons completely.
Not all my reading is saved for the summer. I put together a reading list for the year that includes books on: leadership, contemporary culture, theology, history and biography, and upcoming series topics. Although I occasionally read blogs and online articles, I've found that books give me a deeper grasp of subject matter.
Well, there you have it. I may have made CCC sound like a typical "Gospel Coalition" church with our emphasis on deep. But we are as wide as any Willow Creek "seeker-driven" model in our pursuit of the lost. We're going to keep shooting for deep AND wide.
Does this dual-pursuit ever create tensions for us? You bet it does. I am especially sensitive to staff complaints when it is felt that we are sacrificing wide due to our insistence on deep. A worship leader objects that we nixed a "great" song because the lyrics didn't meet our standard. A Community Group leader bristles at our insistence that her next study be a book of the Bible instead of the topical workbook she wants to use.
An evangelism pastor wonders why we won't let a celebrity guest at one of our outreach weekends do his own gospel invitation. In this case, two weeks before the guest appeared at CCC I watched a YouTube presentation he did at another church, where scores of people came forward at his invitation. Unfortunately, that invitation was more emotion than gospel—so I decided to handle that part of the service myself. Was I forfeiting a wide evangelistic response? Was I trying to control the work of the Holy Spirit? Ouch! Nobody wants to be suspected of such.
These are the sorts of tensions created by a determination to be deep as well as wide. But they are worth wrestling with.
One Summer Study and Subsequent Sermon Series on Homosexuality
Jim Nicodem is lead pastor of Christ Community Church in St. Charles, Illinois.
