The Summit Woods Pulpit

When our church moved into our present facility, founding member and deacon, Steve Patterson gifted the congregation a focal piece of furniture for the sanctuary: a large, finely crafted pulpit. The entire room is situated with the pulpit as the centerpiece, not primarily because of its beauty, but because of its priority.

Summit Woods has always prized the exposition of God’s Word and our beautiful pulpit is a solid expression of that value. When I arrived, I was eager to continue and deepen that heritage of Bible exposition. The weekly preaching of Scripture influences and sets the tone for every other ministry in our church. Each year, I consider how we can deepen our value of expository preaching, considering three elements: establishing, extending and expanding the pulpit.

Establishing the Pulpit

When I began ministry at SWBC, my aim was to deepen an already strong conviction about exposition. One of my goals has been to expositionally preach through all of the Bible. In the past fourteen years, we have preached through all 39 of the Old Testament books and all but 4 New Testament books. We have worked through long expositional series in Genesis, Exodus (in progress), Malachi, Matthew, 1 Corinthians, Hebrews, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, Titus, Hebrews and Revelation (in progress). On Sunday evenings we have taught Mark, Ephesians, Philippians (almost twice), Colossians (twice), 1 & 2 Timothy, Philemon, James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1, 2, 3 John and Jude.

Accessible from our website, we actually have sermons from every book of the Bible. With new people regularly attending and joining our church, we will continually need to give attention to strengthening the kind of expositional pulpit ministry we have established.

Extending the Pulpit

Because every ministry is impacted by our preaching, another element of our pulpit ministry we think through every year is how we can extend the use of what is preached each week.

In 2012, we established Growth Groups who, when they meet, discuss practical applications of what we all heard on Sunday morning. Group leaders receive questions they can use to stimulate our thinking about applying what we heard preached. We now have 23 groups, with plans to expand.

In 2016, we launched the Sermon Study Equipping Class, where members inductively study Sunday morning’s sermon passage then meet to talk through their work before hearing it preached. Class members strengthen how they study the Bible and stimulate how they listen on the Lord’s Day.

Another pulpit extension ministry is our “Preparing for Sunday” blog posts. Since 2011, an article is posted every Thursday that helps us intentionally consider what will be preached (as well as praying for leaders and preparing for what we will sing). Some use these articles for personal and family worship in preparation to meet on Sunday.

Expanding the Pulpit

A third element we think through each year is how we equip others to preach. In 2013, we began training other men to preach using our Sunday evening gatherings. Every year since, we assign a portion of a biblical book to those participating and meet with them in advance to work through their message. After the service, the participants meet and provide feedback.

As more men began to participate, we launched a half-day preaching workshop, providing practical tools in how to study and produce an expository sermon. Typically held in August, the workshop has expanded to a Friday evening through-Saturday seminar, open to anyone, both within and outside our church. Training other men to preach provided us the opportunity to have only two outside guest preachers when I was away for a three-month sabbatical in 2019. We have also been able to provide pulpit supply to other area churches.

By God’s design, the public preaching of His Word is a primary tool by which God grows His church. Pray that SWBC will continue to love the Scriptures and apply them faithfully to all of life. Pray we will have wisdom in how to further establish, extend and expand the pulpit ministry of our church. Consider how you might grow in your hearing and use of God’s Word as it is preached here each week.