I’m not a pastor, but I hope the Lord calls me to serve in that role someday. As I think about what kind of pastor I aim to be, there are plenty of things that come to mind. But perhaps most important is this: I want every aspect of my ministry to be consistently shaped by God’s Word, not my own innovative ideas.

Yes, I know this might seem obvious. After all, the Bible is as basic to Christianity as wheels are to a bicycle. Anyone who is engaged in the work of the church should on the Bible as his main tool. It just makes sense, right?

Sadly, many pastors today do not share this philosophy. I am often seeing examples of churches whose worship, discipleship, and outreach are built on everything but the Word of God. Growth plans, snappy mission statements, cultural engagement, great music, nice facilities, etc. Though none of these are bad in and of themselves, they have too often been elevated to become the very engine which is supposed to power the church’s effectiveness and growth.

Oftentimes, the result is a sickly church that is not the clear gospel witness God has intended it to be. Either it’s an underachieving church that preaches the gospel yet never reaches its full disciple-making potential, or it’s an apostate church that fails to preach the gospel at all. Though it may well have begun as a well-meaning effort to be creative and practical, it foolishly neglects the greatest tool we have at our disposal—the Word of God.

How can we avoid, or even reverse, this trajectory of neglecting God’s Word? Ultimately, it is the whole church’s responsibility. But it starts with the leadership. The elders must set a clear tone of relying on the Bible to provide wisdom and direction in every aspect of the church’s life. Most fundamentally, the elders set this tone through teaching.

Along these lines, the most practical, foundational means by which elders can cultivate such a reliance on God’s Word is through expositional preaching—that is, preaching that plainly exposes the main point of God’s Word and makes that the main point of the sermon.

Who Sets the Agenda?

In expositional preaching, we aim to let the Bible speak for itself. This stands in contrast to a method of preaching in which we begin with our own presuppositions and then point to biblical passages that validate those presuppositions.

In some cases, the preacher routinely teaches on a series of topics, rather than preaching straight through books or sections of Scripture. Depending on the content of the sermons, this is not always the worst thing in the world. However, to do this habitually sets a precedent in which the preacher (perhaps in consultation with the elders) decides for himself what topics he thinks the flock needs to hear about.

Instead of plainly delivering to the people what God would have them hear, this preacher uses the Word as a platform for his own theological hobby horses. The result is that the congregation’s theological knowledge and interests only rise to the level of the preacher’s theological knowledge and interests.

By doing so, however, the preacher fails in his God-given responsibility to “rightly handle the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). Why? Simply put, the preacher who primarily preaches topically is setting the agenda, rather than allowing God himself to determine what his people need to hear.

Getting the Vision Right

Furthermore, the pastor who only preaches topically runs the risk of building a church that is self-consciously united around a vision that is good but not ultimate. If you ask Christians today what their church is all about, many will say their church is most fundamentally about grace or justice or stewardship or love or community. These are all essential aspects of the church’s mandate, but not one of them on its own constitutes the entirety of what the local church is called to be.

However, churches that rely solely on topical sermon series tend to be more susceptible to the mistake of adopting a vision that is too narrow or theologically off-center. It is all to common for a topical-preaching church to be adamantly defined by a single theological concept while remaining weak in other essential biblical concepts.  Again, this points back to the topical preacher’s tendency to teach his congregation only those things that he is most passionate or knowledgeable about.

A congregation that only hears sermons about God’s grace, for example, may not receive much robust, biblical teaching on God’s justice. Thus, grace becomes central to the church’s vision while justice is, at best, a peripheral concern. On the contrary, the congregation that regularly hears expositional sermons covering a variety of topics is much more likely to articulate a more comprehensive vision rooted in the worship of God Almighty and proclaiming his glory through the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20).

A church that is confused in its vision is likely to be confused in its theological understanding. The best way to prevent or correct such a problem is by offering the church a regular, well-rounded diet of perspective on all of Scripture, including the more difficult or lesser-known parts.

Is Expositional Preaching the Only Way?

Expositional preaching is predicated on the assumption that the Word of God should set the preaching agenda. So instead of a preacher presenting a sermon series on stewardship, he might just decide to preach a series straight through the book of Galatians and see what topics come up. Invariably, both the congregation and the preacher will encounter topics they might never have considered otherwise. As a result, the sermon becomes a tool to challenge and instruct the church in surprising ways.

To be clear, faithfulness does not necessarily demand book-by-book expositional preaching 100% of the time. In fact, it often does make sense to occasionally preach sermons or series that are more topical in nature. At times, the elders might use topical preaching to address particular challenges, circumstances, or questions facing the church.

Still, this should not be viewed as a replacement for a straightforward expositional approach. The main preaching diet a congregation is receiving should be expositional sermons. In order for a church to be all that it is called to be, there must be a firm commitment to understanding, obeying, and proclaiming “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20: 27). As with many things in the life of the local church, this begins in the pulpit.