Joel Gregory faces an awesome task: to be only the third pastor this century of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. A church with 29,000 members and 7,000 in attendance each Sunday. A church that is the largest landowner in downtown Dallas (five city blocks). A church with a payroll bigger than most churches have members (400). A church where he follows two of the greatest expositors of this century: George W. Truett (pastor from 1897-1944) and W. A. Criswell (pastor from 1944-1991 and now senior pastor).
While that awesome task may be unique, he faces another awesome task that he shares with thousands of pastors: to preach the Word faithfully and effectively. LEADERSHIP editors Brian Larson and Marshall Shelley sat down with Joel Gregory in his second floor office and talked about preaching and following a great preacher.
Many people remark that your sermons are well-crafted, that they're an art form. Is that something you consciously strive for?
I spend a lot of time on a sermon's structure and framework, which may produce artistry as a byproduct. I'm a structuralist rather than a storyteller. I don't have any conscious desire to present the sermon as an aesthetic experience or a piece of art. Any artistry results from my desire to get the Word of God out of then into now.
Why is structure important to you?
Structure is pleasing and memorable. It's the way people think in Western civilization. Some good minds have said the Bible is more amorphous, more story-driven, and that's true, but I'm not certain the people I preach to receive truth best that way. We start classifying and categorizing with babies: we look at their toes and say, "This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home."
My goal is for the sermon to be biblical both in content and in structure. The shape of the text becomes the shape of the sermon. In the points and subpoints, in the movements and submovements, what dominates the text dominates the sermon; what is subordinate in the text is subordinate in the sermon.
In other words, no cookie cutters. By preaching through the words, phrases, clauses, the die of the text casts the die of the sermon.
What do you mean by preaching through the text?
A preacher can begin with the congregation and move to the text or begin with the text and move to the congregation. But all sustained biblical preaching begins with seriously addressing the text.
I discipline myself to do the groundwork of word-by-word, verse-by-verse exegesis, spading through the words, phrases, and clauses, the nuances of the text and the context. That research becomes the foundation of my sermon. I put one verse on a page and exegete that from the Greek New Testament or the Hebrew Old Testament, trying to learn everything I can about its words, phrases, and clauses. That gives me three to five times more material than I can ever use in a sermon.
But that is not a sermon. That material is like Genesis 1:2-without form, void, darkness over the face of the sermon. I've gathered a lot of facts and can stand up and give an exegetical lecture. What turns that into a sermon is moving material from the world of then into the world of now. A sermon is contemporary.
Therefore I outline in the present tense. I won't construct a two-word, adjective-and-noun point: He's the Coming Christ; The Crucified Christ; The Conquering Christ. Rather, in a sermon on Christ's cleansing of the temple, for example, my points would be, (1) Religion can forget its own purpose; (2) Christ can restore purpose to religion; (3) Religion can miss the presence of Christ. Outlining in the present tense is a homiletical trigger, a device that forces me from then into now.
What's the role of personality in preaching?
When is it a help and when a hindrance?
Eccentricity is a hindrance. All of us have mannerisms and personalities, but when those become caricatures of ourselves, they thwart communication.
For example, I have an analytical personality. I love to steep in the Scriptures and in words. I was born with a love for the English language, and I enjoy using a large vocabulary. I also love Greek, "the great language." I have an undergraduate major in classical Greek, and my Ph.D. dissertation was in patristic Greek exegesis and hermeneutics.
Earlier in my ministry, that sometimes hurt me when I preached. Some accused me of being pedantic and patronizing. I've had to simplify my pulpit vocabulary to avoid letting that aspect of my personality overbear the sermon. Today I don't use a Greek word in the pulpit or make reference to tense, voice, mood, or number. I state the significance of the Greek in some popular way. In effect, I have shut down aspects of my personality.
Some people in a church are attracted to absolute certainty in a preacher; others are turned off unless a preacher expresses some self-doubt-the "fellow struggler" approach. How authoritative do you try to be?
I want to have textual certainty-an absolute confidence in the Word of God-modified by a certain self-deprecation about my own living of that text. That helps the congregation identify with me.
A couple of years ago, when I was in Hawaii, someone gave me some coconuts. I had no idea how to get into a coconut. I took a hammer and hit one, succeeding only in embedding the hammer. I took an electric drill to one. I climbed on top of our house and hurled a coconut onto the ground. In desperation I tried to wedge one under the rear tire of my car and back over it. Finally T threw them away.
I have told that story in several places, and people love it. They can identify with my humanness. So some uncertainty about self can help-but never any doubts about the text. I would rather surrender the pulpit and the preaching task than question the historicity, validity, and relevance of the text.
Though I recognize the benefits of pulpit "humanity," I'm really not a "confessional" preacher. I'm more objective than subjective. It's not my personality to unveil my deepest secrets or practice autobiography from the pulpit.
Some who have urged me to share more of myself would say that's a minus. But that's just not my temperament. I express the gospel best through my personality, not someone else's personality.
You are only the third pastor of First Baptist Church this century. Most of our readers don't find themselves following a W. A. Criswell, but many are successors of a beloved predecessor. How aware ought a pastor be of the way people's ears have been conditioned to hear Scripture by a long-term predecessor?
I think a preacher is wise to stay aware of it. I grew up in Fort Worth. When I was in kindergarten, Dr. Criswell had been pastor here for ten years, so I grew up under his shadow. I heard him at the peak of his oratorical power, which was overwhelming.
From the earliest time (I started preaching at sixteen), my pulpit style was informed by Dr. Criswell. I'm less like him now than fifteen, twenty years ago, but we are similar in love for language and history. We differ much in our approach to illustration, application, and sermonic structure.
How does that affect the way people hear your sermons?
I've been here one year, so it may be too early to say. For thousands of long-time members and deacons here, the only pastor they've known is W. A. Criswell. He has had a phenomenal influence on their lives. After hearing sermons from one man that long, they have to bend and accommodate to hear a new voice. They have been gracious, and I think they do hear me.
Dr. Criswell will tell you that when he came here from Oklahoma, he was fiery, red-headed, and bombastic. George W. Truett, Dr. Criswell's predecessor and a great preacher in his own right, stood behind the pulpit motionless in a black suit, like a block of granite. Truett's face, they say, looked as though it was chiseled out of marble. In the pulpit he was stately, unsmiling and without humor, his voice never raised.
When Dr. Criswell came here fresh from Oklahoma, one member said that George Truett resembled a mellow sunset and Dr. Criswell an atomic bomb. That was a change.
I, too, am a change, maybe less so since I heard Dr. Criswell from boyhood. I was steeped in his approach to exegesis and his love of history.
How does your style differ from his?
One of Dr. Criswell's great attributes in the pulpit all these years has been empathy and pathos. He could describe the temple of Diana, giving the dimensions, the content, the number of pillars, and do it with such pathos that he'd give an invitation and twenty-five people would come forward. Everybody felt so sorry for those poor Greeks worshiping that goddess that they came to Christ. He puts heart into his preaching, at times weeping in the pulpit. He moves people.
My style, as I mentioned, is more analytical and objective. Not better or worse, I trust. But because of our distinct personalities, definitely different.
Is it harder to follow a preaching legend or someone weak in the pulpit?
My observation has been if you follow a strong man and you're a fairly strong leader, you'll have difficulties up front because of the shock of change. But then things settle down and go on. If you follow a weak man, for a year or two they're delighted to see you because they're starved for leadership, but then because changes are made, conflicts arise.
How would you describe the transition between George Truett and W. A. Criswell?
George Truett died in office. At his funeral the people elected a pastoral search committee. Five months later they presented Dr. Criswell.
It was the end of one ministry, the beginning of another. But keep in mind the church had grown for twenty-nine years and then declined for eighteen years. When W. A. Criswell came, the Sunday morning attendance was down to 1,800, so it was nothing like the church where 7,000 now attend.
It was less complex. When Dr. Criswell came, the church had three staff members. Now we write payroll checks annually to more than 400 people. With five city blocks of property, we're the largest landowner in downtown Dallas. This is an enterprise, the church has become is a projection of Dr. Criswell's vision, the projection of an indomitable personality for forty-seven years.
How would you describe the transition taking place now?
We're doing something never tried in any other Southern Baptist megachurch: no such church has had an overlapping transition from a patriarch- the visionary, long-term pastor-to his successor.
Dr. Criswell didn't want to die and leave the church in a hiatus without a pastor; he wanted a transitional period. He felt if he were disabled or died and there was a long pastoral search, people would leave here by the thousands. So he took senior status and brought in a pastor. At 82 years of age, Dr. Criswell is still a presence.
You have to guard against competitiveness, jealousy, envy. You can't try to out-do him. It's been easy for me because no one is going to top what these two legends have accomplished. In Baptist life, Truett is on Mount Olympus; he's seen in mythological proportions both in this church and in this city. Dr. Criswell is almost there and soon will be. So it would be absurd to come in here and think I'm going to try to surpass them.
For instance, my tenure will not equal theirs. I came here at age 42; they took this church in their early thirties. I'm not going to minister here forty-seven years; I'd be 90. So I don't have to compete with them, and that helps me to relax.
Finally, if your predecessor is still around, you must avoid getting ruffled. You need to show honor and deference. If you get ruffled, you are in a loselose situation.
What would you tell pastors who are having difficulty following that advice?
It begins inside you. I give homage and love to my predecessor, but I cannot be threatened by him. I guess that's one reason why, in the sovereignty of God, I'm here. I believe in the integrity of my own spiritual gifts and have not let myself feel threatened.
You can't work that from the outside in. That has to work from the inside out as you come to grips with yourself, your uniqueness, your gifts, your assets and liabilities. You can't mount a PR campaign. You get in touch with who you are.
I'll never approach aspects of W. A. Criswell that have endeared him to the people. He is an uninhibited character-he'll say anything and do anything in public.
I recognize people have loved that bombastic spontaneity, but I can't be threatened by it.
I'm more introverted, less inclined to spontaneous public acts, statements, gestures. If I got up and imitated him, it would be so phony and unnatural, people would either be stunned or they'd fall over laughing. So, you must have a sense of,security about your gifts, calling, and role in that church.
What's your vision for the future of this congregation?
I see two things especially that I want us to move forward on.
We have two services in the morning, and we're going to start a third. My dream is that it will be a service with a more contemporary idiom. Our other two services are churchy: we have a robed choir, an orchestra.
I have a dream of reaching another generation of downtown Dallas residents. Our church has stayed downtown, where 51 percent of the adults are now single. We recently began a new ministry to singles, and I project our church will have to undergo a virtual revolution to incorporate them.
Right now, with 7,000 people here each week in Sunday school, perhaps only 500 are single. In a few years 1,500 singles must attend here if we're to keep faith with this county. So I dream of reaching who is out there.
What this church does with excellence, we must continue to do. We own and operate thirty-one missions in Dallas, ministering to ten different language groups. The pulpit of this church is a world pulpit, reaching beyond this church weekly through radio and national television. That ministry will continue.
I dream of the church members becoming more evangelistic. Even the deacons would say there's been a tendency over the years to feel that since the church has such a large staff, let the staff do it. We're going to have to focus on people's giftedness and emphasize that everyone is part of the evangelistic task.
That's part of the dream before us. The best days of this congregation are ahead.
Copyright © 1992 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
