Remember the teacher or seminary professor you had who lacked tact? Learning was regularly sacrificed on the altar of fear. You wondered each session if that was the day you’d be singled out and embarrassed through some public put-down.

Remember the salesman you encountered who lacked tact? Once you found that out (and it usually doesn’t take 60 seconds), you wanted only one thing—to get away!

Remember the boss you worked for who lacked tact? You never knew if he ever understood you or considered you to be a valuable person. And who could forget that tactless physician? You weren’t a human being; you were Case No. 36—a body with a blood pressure, a history of chronic diarrhea, and stones in your gall bladder—“and you need surgery immediately.” All this was spoken in perfect monotone as he stared at a folder stuffed with x-rays, charts, and papers covered with advanced hieroglyphics. Brilliant, capable, experienced, dignified, and respected . . . but no tact.

Ah, that’s bad . . . but you know what’s worse? A tactless pastor.

Back when I was a kid, I got a bellyache that wouldn’t go away. It hurt so badly I couldn’t stand up straight. Or sit down without increasing the pain. Finally, my folks hauled me over to a big house in West Houston where a doctor lived. He had turned the back section of his house into his office and a small clinic. It was a hot, muggy afternoon. I was scared.

The doc decided I needed a quick exam—but he really felt I was suffering from an attack of appendicitis. He had whispered that under his breath to my mom. I remember the fear that gripped me when I pictured myself having to go to Memorial Hospital, being put to sleep, getting cut on, then enduring those stitches being jerked out.

Application of the Bible is a priority in my preaching. I never leave the congregation to guess how the text applies. I plan the application of the message just as carefully as I work through its introduction and exposition.

I have discovered that if you cannot summarize the application of your sermon in a sentence or two, you don’t have a sermon. You may have a number of interesting and accurate thoughts, but you won’t have it drawn together into a cohesive whole. The result? No one will remember what was said.  You ought to be able to give your message in one or two sentences. Here’s an example: Christ has set us free, and we should enjoy the liberty that He’s provided for us through His death and resurrection.  Your message should state and restate that thought from various angles so that the theme pulsates through your sermon.

Some movies have quotes that have become so inimitable, so distinctive, that you could say the first part of the line, and most folks could finish it for you. Let’s try a few:

• “Houston, we have __ _______.”
• “Go ahead, make __ ____.”
• “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she ____ ____ ______.”
• “Frankly, my dear, I don’t . . .” (Well, let’s not go there.)

The movie Field of Dreams has one of those lines as well: “If you build it”—can you finish the quote?—“he will come.” Some people think it’s “they will come.” In fact, when I graduated from seminary, long before the movie came out (back when the earth’s crust was cooling), I thought a similar line would be true in the church: if you preach it, they will come. Wow . . . was I wrong!

I have lived long enough to realize that while a strong pulpit is essential, a contagious church also requires a context of other distinctives. There must be more than preaching. More than one gift at work. More than the conviction of one person. A contagious church has a number of individuals living out clear, biblical principles with the result that people pause in the midst of their busy lives. They realize this is a place worth coming to and participating in.

When you look across the landscape of churches today, you find many congregations that have experienced phenomenal growth. Unbelievable growth. But upon closer examination, you discover that they have not committed themselves to the four biblical essentials for a church as prescribed in the book of Acts: teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer (see Acts 2:42). The church may have more than these four . . . but it must never have less.

It is precisely these four areas that the Adversary will attack so that he can disrupt and, if possible, destroy the church. That’s why it’s important to keep our priorities straight. It’s essential that we not get distracted by all that we can do as a church . . . and stay focused on only what we must do as a church. Otherwise, we may be attracting a crowd for the wrong reasons.

This emphasis on the essentials is what the apostle Paul had in mind when he passed on the torch of ministry to a young pastor named Timothy:

I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4:1-4)

Notice both the command . . . and the reason for it. The command is clear: “preach the word”—followed by an explanation of when and how to do it. But there’s also a why, a reason to proclaim boldly the Bible on a consistent basis: there will come a time when biblical truth will be rejected in favor of the stuff people want to hear. The biblical alternative? I have said before that the Lord will honor and bless any plan that upholds prayer and promotes His Word.

This is what Paul was affirming to Timothy.

—Chuck

I wish I could have been there to see it.

It was 7:51 a.m. on January 12, 2007. L’Enfant Plaza in Washington D.C., a busy subway station, had its usual morning rush of commuters.

A young man wearing a baseball cap, T-shirt, and faded jeans entered the plaza and quietly removed his violin from its case. He tossed in some seed money to bait the passersby then lifted the violin to his chin. The player? Joshua Bell, some would call the finest violinist of our generation. His instrument? The rare Gibson ex Huberman, handcrafted in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari . . . one of the most coveted and expensive violins in existence. The music? Bell began with “Chaconne,” from Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D Minor, hailed by some musicians as the one of the greatest pieces of music ever composed in history. The response? You will be surprised what was caught on camera.

Of the 1,097 commuters who passed Bell that morning, only seven stopped to listen. That’s right . . . seven. Just three days earlier, Bell had played to a sold-out crowd at Boston’s Symphony Hall where the average seat cost $100. His earnings that morning in the subway? A little over $32. Bell usually earns around $1000 a minute. (I should have stayed with the violin!)

The Washington Post sponsored Bell’s incognito performance in order to evaluate the public’s taste, priorities, and perception. But for me, the experience remains a powerful lesson on the importance of something else.

Context.

No matter how beautifully Joshua Bell played his Stradivarius, and no matter how exquisite his musical selection was, it took more. His giftedness wasn’t enough. It took a context that was conducive and favorable to it.

I find the same true of preaching.

Excellent exposition of the Scriptures alone isn’t enough to cause people to continue attending and to stick together as a church. It takes more.

Please don’t misunderstand. I’m certainly not diminishing the importance of preaching and teaching God’s Word. I simply mean that there are preachers all around the world who faithfully declare the truth . . . and yet their local church is not growing. In fact, many years ago I served at such a church. I preached just as passionately there as I do in my current ministry. But there wasn’t growth. The marks of an attractive church weren’t present. In fact, I remember one Fourth of July weekend when there were seven people in the entire congregation . . . and four of them were Swindolls! That was not an inviting context. I might as well have been preaching in a subway.

Why is it we will drive past any number of churches in order to worship at one particular church located farther from our house than all the rest? What is it that draws us in, causing us to stay excited about, invest our time and money in, and become an active participant of that church instead of some other? How can one ministry become so attractive, so meaningful to us, that we’re willing to adjust our lives to fit its schedule, rear our children in it, and even invite other people to come with us to it?

The best word to describe such an attraction is contagious. Webster defined the root word, contagion, as “an influence that spreads rapidly.” When a church is in this category, word quickly travels. People witness the passion in our enthusiasm as we talk together and listen well. They hear the excitement in our voices as we sing and laugh. They see characteristics that set our church apart. They finally become so curious that they can’t stay away; they have to come to see for themselves. One thing is for sure: they observe a set of distinctives being modeled like nothing the world around them has to offer. A contagious church is unique. It provides a magnetic context.

I’ll be sharing with you what makes a church contagious in the upcoming posts.

—Chuck

P.S. You can see Joshua Bell’s subway performance here.