Bedhead Theology

When you think about attending church, what motivates you to go? What stands out that sets your church apart from other churches? What about the church stands out and draws you there? Whether you attend Power Verb Church or First Baptist Hometown, specific distinctives draw you there. But how do we develop the criteria we use to choose a church? In 1993, sociologist George Ritzer published The McDonaldization of Society . In his book, he argued that the fast-food industry has infiltrated society in four key areas: Efficiency, Calculability, Predictability, and Control. To say that the church has remained unaffected by this shift would be naive. The question before us is how much. Efficiency  Ritzer generally sees efficiency as an advantage. [1] Essentially, it seeks to find the single, optimum method for completing a task. In a fast-food model, this means moving a customer from hungry to full as quickly as possible. In the church, it becomes the most effective way to attract new v...

  Evangelism must be tethered to the gospel, and the gospel message proclaimed must be doctrinally clear and biblically grounded. Without a gospel message, we cannot win souls. The gospel’s central essence is the person and work of Christ. The gospel is not about me; it is about Him. The gospel is for His Glory! Our ultimate need is to enthrone Him upon our hearts. R. C. Sproul declared, “We need Christ. We need a real Christ. A Christ born of empty speculation or created to squeeze into the philosopher’s pattern simply won’t do. A recycled Christ, a Christ of compromise, can redeem no one. A Christ watered down, stripped of power, debased of glory, reduced to a symbol, or made impotent by scholarly surgery is not Christ but Antichrist.” [1] We must speak clearly to honor Christ as willing ambassadors for Christ’s cause. Therefore, the gospel stands upon these four objective truths: the gospel reveals that God is Holy, it declares that the whole of mankind has fallen under God’s...

  Growing up, during the monsoon season, it seemed that every evening the skies would roil and thunderstorms would roll in. Growing up in the country, we basked in the beauty and terror of the tumultuous rain, blinding flashes of light, and—occasionally—the destructive power of tornadoes. I went to school where we would practice tornado drills. Nevertheless, warning signs exist if you know what to look for. Often, the sky turns an ominous shade of green. Larger-than-normal hail will often fall, usually without any rain. Clouds then develop funnel shapes long before they touch the ground. More obvious signs are debris in the clouds, a loud rumbling sound, and, oftentimes, a calmness right before a tornado hits. Recognizing the warning signs is crucial in averting disaster. We stand on the precipice of such a disaster. Can we see the warning signs? I am deeply convinced that the conversations surrounding the gospel within the church need clarity. The theology we hold—especially aro...

One of the greatest struggles for preachers today is preaching that transcends time. Yes, difficulties abound in preaching. There is difficulty contextualizing for a modern audience, the opaqueness of seeking to meet the congregation’s needs, and even struggles in captivating the fleeting attention spans of modern audiences. Nevertheless, pride is one of the greatest perils preachers face in the pulpit. This struggle is two-fold. First, let me address the obvious. The tendency to conflate the greatness of God’s Word with our oratory genius is a common temptation among all preachers. As far as I can tell, this has been that way since the beginning. John the Baptist asserted, “He must increase; I must decrease” (John 3:30). He was acutely aware that he must exalt Christ above all else. This necessity has followed the church throughout history. Gregory the Great (540-604) astutely drew attention to the source of the problem. He wrote, “Since it is often the case that when a sermon is deli...

  The church is in desperate need of gospel clarity. Rampant on every social media platform is a barrage of claims about Christianity rife with compromise. Gospel clarity must be anchored in biblical and theological consistency. Ultimately, that clarity must begin in the pulpit. An old preaching adage I first heard in my expositional preaching class asserts, “If there is a mist in the pulpit, then there will be a fog in the pew.” [1] The lack of gospel clarity among Christians stems from a lack of clarity within the local churches’ leadership. A church devoid of conversions is, plainly speaking, a dying church. A church with no gospel conviction—no evangelistic vision, passion for reaching the lost, nor any fervor for the Great Commission—has succumbed to apathy and complacency. Too often, local churches look to secular business models for church growth tactics and lose sight of their missional mandate—make disciples. Business models become transfixed on numerical growth that ...

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–1892) was undoubtedly evangelistic in his preaching. He was known as the “Prince of Preachers” because he arranged his sermons around the text and was only occasionally textual-topical and highly typological.  Within his Lectures to My Students resides a treasure trove of wisdom that illuminates the man and his unwavering confidence in Christ. Spurgeon noted in his journal that someone tricked him into preaching his first sermon. Despite his lack of formal education, he was ahead of his time and emphatically Christ-centered in his preaching. What is more, the humanity of Spurgeon shone through in his openness about his bouts with depression. I want to offer three observations about the preaching of Charles Spurgeon. Persuasive Exposition Spurgeon sought to persuade the unrepentant in his sermons and his writing. In All of Grace, he demonstrated the significance of his desire for the lost. Specifically, he did not conceal his intentions toward the lost....

John of Antioch (349–407), often referred to as Chrysostom (meaning the “golden-mouthed”), stands as a bulwark in early Christian preaching. Larsen declared him “unquestionably the greatest preacher of the early church.” [1] His dedication to biblical exposition characterized his preaching. Chrysostom would take a passage of Scripture and provide an exegetical address with application. He had a keen ability to take the text’s literal meaning and apply it pastorally to his congregation’s needs. [2] Chrysostom’s preaching demonstrated his position as an astute student of rhetoric. His rhetoric demonstrated animated expressions as he traversed from exposition to appeal. Thus, he established that the sermon began with exegesis and concluded with its exhortation. Rhetorically trained by Libanius, Chrysostom was prolific in his oratory ability, and his rhetorical approach was grounded in his conviction toward holiness ( ethos ), his exegetical work ( logos ), and culminated in the exhortati...