Ed Stetzer has an article in Outreach on the top reproducing churches in America. Accompanying the article is a list of the top 25. Here are the criteria behind the list:
A “Top 25” list was compiled by ranking the top 40 respondents using self-reported criteria, such as:
the total number of church plants over the life of the church
the average number of churches planted each year
dollars and percentage of budget dedicated to church planting
the number of daughter churches that have planted a new church
We also factored in a church’s influence on the entire church-planting community. This list is ultimately a celebration and an evaluation of what all these churches are doing to reach people with the Gospel.
The Gospel Coalition Conference (schedule) is underway at TEDS in Deerfield, IL. You’ll probably want to read the Foundational Documents (RTF | PDF). Several people are blogging the event. Here’s what I’ve come across so far—basically in chronological order.
Colin Adams asks Thabiti Anyabwile, pastor of First Baptist Church in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, 10 questions about expository preaching. Here are a few selections:
Where do you place the importance of preaching in the grand scheme of church life?
I would rank preaching Christ and Him crucified as the most important commitment of the ministry. Everything else builds upon the exposition of God’s Word. . . .
How long (on average) does it take you to prepare a sermon?
Currently, I devote two full days to sermon preparation—Thursday and Friday. I’ll generally spend about twenty hours over those two days and a few hours through the week reading the text and making notes.
Is it important to you that a sermon contain one major theme or idea? If so, how do you crystallise it?
I think the sermon should contain the major themes or points of the text being considered. . . . I’d rather the number of themes or ideas from the text to determine the structure of my sermon than my “sermon framework/approach” to drive the number of themes or ideas I focus on in a text.
What is the most important aspect of a preacher’s style and what should he avoid?
I think it’s probably most important that a preacher be himself . . . whatever that means stylistically. Piper is Piper; MacArthur is MacArthur; Stott is Stott; Lloyd-Jones was Lloyd-Jones. I suppose Thabiti is Thabiti, though as a young preacher I’m still trying to figure out what that means. . . .
What notes, if any, do you use?
I take a full manuscript into the pulpit. I’ll probably deliver 85% of it. . . . I do this because I’m concerned about two things: 1) I want to be theologically more precise . . . . 2) Some of the most influential and prominent men in the history of the African American church left almost no record of their preaching ministries. . . .
Christian leadership entails telling people every day, “God is so wonderful!” You will constantly point people toward God’s worth and beauty, despite the fact that often your own heart is numb or dead to any sense of divine love and glory. What will you do in response to that?
. . .
The first (and right thing) to do is to watch your heart far more closely than you would have otherwise, being very disciplined to observe regular times of daily prayer.
. . .
The second (and wrong thing) to do is to rely not on prayer and your personal walk with God, but on the excitement of ministry activity and effectiveness.
. . .
The terrible danger is that we can look to our ministry activity as evidence that God is with us, or as a way to earn God’s favor and prove ourselves.
. . .
So examine yourself. Despite being effective in ministry—is our prayer life dead? Do we struggle with feeling slighted? Are our feelings always being hurt? Is there a lot of anxiety and joylessness in our work? Do we find ourselves being highly critical of other churches or ministers or co-workers? Is there a lot of self-pity? If these things are true, then our ministry may be skillful and successful, but it is hollow, and probably we are either a) headed for a breakdown, or b) doomed to produce crowds and funds but superficial long-term effects.
The whole article is worth reading and rereading—for pastors and anyone actively involved in ministry.
Where do you place the importance of preaching in the grand scheme of church life?
It is central, but not alone at the center. Pastoral ministry is as important as preaching ministry, and lay ‘every-member’ ministry is as crucial as ordained ministry. . . .
How long (on average) does it take you to prepare a sermon?
I pastor a large church and have a large staff and so I give special prominence to preparing the sermon. I give it 15-20 hours a week. . . . When I was a pastor without a large staff I put in 6-8 hours on a sermon.
What is the most important aspect of a preacher’s style and what should he avoid?
He should combine warmth and authority/force. That is hard to do, since tempermentally we incline one way or the other. . . .
What notes, if any, do you use?
I use a very detailed outline, with many key phrases in each sub-point written out word for word.
How do you fight to balance preparation for preaching with other important responsibilities (eg. pastoral care, leadership responsibilities)?
It is a very great mistake to pit pastoral care and leadership against preaching preparation. It is only through doing people-work that you become the preacher you need to be–someone who knows sin, how the heart works, what people’s struggles are, and so on. . . .
The Resurgence has a helpful piece by Tim Keller on preaching hell to postmoderns.
In contrast to the traditionalist, the postmodern person is hostile to the very idea of hell. People with more secular and postmodern mindsets tend to have (a) only a vague belief in the divine, if at all, and (b) little sense of moral absolutes, but rather a sense they need to be true to their dreams. They tend to be younger, from nominal Catholic or non-religious Jewish backgrounds, from liberal mainline Protestant backgrounds, from the western and northeastern U. S., and Europeans.
Here are the four big points that Keller believes are necessary to make with postmodern listeners:
Sin is slavery.
Hell is less exclusive than so-called tolerance.
Christianity’s view of hell is more personal than the alternative view.
High quality teaching from other pastors. In many situations, pastors hardly hear anything but their own voice in the pulpit. Now they have opportunity to hear God’s Word through somebody else. Its especially helpful that this is often from an extremely gifted expositor (in the last few years I’ve been privileged to hear the likes of John Piper, Tim Keller, Vaughan Roberts, Dick Lucas, and David Jackman).
Highly applicable teaching for pastors. One of the values of pastor’s conferences is that the expositions are especially targeted toward the needs of pastors. I know of no other setting where the preaching is aimed so specifically to our needy group.
Wonderful fellowship with other pastors. Could this be the best benefit at all? To know we’re not alone. To know that others labour and suffer. And who can quantify the value of ideas shared around the lunch table or encouragement shared from someone who’s ‘been there’?
Justin Taylor shares news about the upcoming Gospel Coalition Conference.
Several years ago, Don Carson and Tim Keller began rallying like-minded pastors who center their ministries on “the center”—Jesus Christ and him crucified. Fifty pastors—including John Piper, Mark Dever, Phil Ryken, Mark Driscoll, C. J. Mahaney, Ligon Duncan—comprised the initial meeting in Deerfield, Illinois.
They are now hosting a special 400-person-only conference for fellow pastors and laborers on May 23-24, 2007. I’ve been given permission now to post this information onto the blog.
To register, go to the Gospel Coalition registration page. Enter the username gospel and the password coalition. Lodging information is available on the website. Conference registration is $80.
Ed Stetzer has an article in Outreach on the top reproducing churches in America. Accompanying the article is a list of the top 25. Here are the criteria behind the list:
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Colin Adams asks 
Derek Thomas at Reformation21 