Preaching the Big Idea: An Interview with Dave Ferguson...Continued from page 1

When the teaching pastor got up he took it and we used the scripture from Malachi and other places. Basically people came away with the one big idea that tithing really does tell you a lot about what you treasure. So we hit them with it in as many multiple ways, multi-sensory ways, as we possibly could -- this is what we want you to live out. I’m happy to report that this weekend we had the highest giving that we have had this year! That is what we are trying to see -- not just to communicate one big idea, but how do you communicate it for action, for living it out.

Preaching: The thing that is interesting is the way you’ve extended it beyond the sermon and even beyond the worship experience. Explain how you taken that concept of the big idea into the other settings.

Ferguson: If I was at home right now, tonight is when our small groups meet together in people’s homes. We have a discussion guide that facilitates the discussion based on the Bible and based on the teaching they heard the previous week. So we are following the same big idea: that tithing really says a lot about what you treasure.

I think that is really important. If you have small group material that is well written, it facilitates the conversation. You are able to bring in your story and other people’s stories, and that does make sure that life application is happening. That gets it in the large group and in the small group. It has taken us eight years to get us to this place. In the book we explain how you can incrementally begin to grow this.

Our student communities are using the same kind of series also called ATM, but they are doing it in a way that communicates effectively to junior and high school students, both in their large and small groups. In our Kid’s City, which is our children’s ministry, their series is called God’s Property. They have fun things that also communicate the same big idea. We also have a family page. Our hope is that it will foster communication in the family, really empower parents to feel a lot more confident: you have heard it in the large group and in the small group, and then you can enter into conversation with your kids when you have that question at home, “What have you learned at church this week?”

Preaching: You mentioned your collaborative arrangement in terms of the teaching process. How does that work, and how did you get into it?

Ferguson: I am the lead pastor at Community Christian Church (CCC), but I am not the point person on the teaching team; that’s a guy named Tim Sutherland. We teach about the same amount, then we have a couple of other guys on the teaching team. It started out of a friendship I had with Tim. Tim is probably one of the brightest people I know. When we first started the church I would call him every week and we would talk over the sermon back and forth. I would tell him, “Here is the topic we are going with,” and he would download – “Here are all my thoughts” -- and we would hash it back and forth. He was so taken with the vision of our church, what we were trying to do, he ended up moving his whole family to Chicago. He ended his practice; he was a marriage and family therapist at the time. We would do it on the phone and then we would do it over lunch and over tennis. Eventually he came on staff; now it is a much more formalized process.