Preaching Reflections from Andrew Heard’s Growth and Change (Matthias Media, 2024)
PART 1 of 2: Growth and Change and what we preach
Recently during a week of study leave I had the privilege of reading Andrew Heard’s excellent new book, Growth and Change: The danger and necessity of a passion for church growth (Matthias Media, 2024). It receives the commendation of numerous respected pastors and scholars. D. A. Carson, reluctant to call any book the “best” in its field, suggests in the Foreword that Growth and Change might serve as an exception to his rule.
Reading through it over three consecutive days, I found myself praising God for its zealous, ambitious, and what I believe to be a scripturally faithful perspective. Self-help and how-to Christian books, if I finish them, leave me feeling uninspired, tired (“I probably should be doing more of this or that”) or just unconvinced.
But Heard kept me reading. He exhorts both warmly and sharply—warmly through his sympathetic appreciation for the difficulties of ministry, leadership and church growth; yet sharply by challenging church leaders to take enough responsibility for their church’s condition, and work hard in light of what is at stake. Heard centralises the gospel, allows Scripture to do much of the talking and, like the Lord Jesus before him, is concerned to save sinners from hell.
Heard effectively prosecutes this encouraging, difficult argument—that if most churches work hard at being effective in the most fundamental things, those churches might ordinarily expect to grow, spiritually and numerically, rather than to wither and decline. Importantly, Heard does acknowledge there will be exceptions for reasons beyond the leaders’ control. Some excellent pastors will lead churches in periods of numerical decline, even closure. But since God is still a saving God, the church is still His saving agent, and the gospel is still powerful to save, churches should be led by their leaders to anticipate and work towards some people, many people even, coming to a saving faith in Christ.
If Spurgeon’s warning is right, that “easy roads make sleepy travelers”, and if you’re feeling a little sleepy at your ministry wheel, Heard’s book offers a valuable wake-up call. He’ll have you prayerfully considering not just what you are doing (the “inputs”), but to ask what you’re actually aiming for in those activities (the “outputs”). Only then can we as churches and denominations better assess whether the things we’re doing are as effective as we’d like to think.
The wrestle, the partnership, the interplay, the dynamic between God’s work and ours is tricky. Heard encourages we press into that tricky dynamic to arrive at a true ministry conviction, lest we approach ministry simplistically and less effectively—settling with one false mindset or the other—“it’s all God’s work” or “it’s all up to me”.
One summary he provides of this vital principle is that “while we don’t control outcomes we do influence them” (p. 118, italics his). This is both sobering and deeply encouraging – within God’s sovereignty, what we do and how we do it truly matters!
Overall Heard prosecutes his argument with considerable exegetical and theological strength, expressed with a pastor’s empathy, a burning desire for Christ’s glory, and loving concern for the lost—and all in an accessible way for trained and lay leaders.
But since this is a preaching article, we move now to consider a few of Heard’s reflections on preaching within his broader argument and, more specifically, on the importance of what we preach.
The importance of what we preach
One of the great dangers churches face when desiring growth is that we can become what Heard calls “sinner-driven” churches. We begin to preach what we think our culture wants to hear to win them. While stressing the importance of exertion to save the lost, Heard devotes a whole chapter (ch. 2) to issue a warning:
The more passionate a person is to see their church or ministry grow, and the more their sympathies rest with the sinner, the more susceptible they become to the danger of silence or compromise. It is possibly an overstatement to suggest that all heresies find their genesis in a desire to make the Christian life more appealing to the unbelieving world, but there is a strong element of truth to this notion. (p. 23)
This pressure likely exists in most preaching ministries most of the time. I would feel it at weddings, funerals and Anzac Day ceremonies in my small country town—“pastor, just keep it short and sweet”. But a similar pressure exists in Drummoyne in Sydney’s Inner West to preach a palatable message. The way we preachers love the world into which God sent His beloved Son is not to preach what pleases people, but to declare, as clearly and as lovingly as we can, what God says, and even in the way He says it.
Heard (p. 25) quotes Iain Murray who said,
From apostolic times onwards, whenever the gospel has entered with discriminating power, it has been with disturbance, opposition and personal reproach for its preachers.
He then asks,
What kind of leaders do we aspire to be? The kind the world will respect? Or the kind who speak as a prophetic voice to a lost world, knowing it will bring much disturbance, opposition and personal reproach—even knowing [when declaring unpopular truths] that our voice may appear to hinder the growth of our churches? (p. 27).
And,
Our great need is leaders [and preachers] who not only understand the truths and the priorities of the gospel, but who are also emotionally bound up with these truths and priorities in such a way that a shift away from biblical faithfulness becomes unthinkable. (p. 28).
Heard acknowledges churches should seek to reduce unnecessary hurdles a person or culture must jump over to enter church life, and be “all things to all people in order to save some”. But seeking the world’s approval by softening and compromising the gospel is not in the end going to produce the lasting fruit we seek.
Be encouraged, preachers. In our efforts to see the Lord’s churches grow spiritually and numerically, there is no better path for us than to lovingly, unashamedly convey what He says. May what He says be what people hear from you.
Next, in Part 2, we will consider Growth and Change and how we preach