About the Event

Join us for the Expository Preaching Workshop

The doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture is the hallmark doctrine of the National Center for Family Integrated Churches. It is the pivotal principle around which all matters of faith and practice must revolve. Given this fact, our great desire at the NCFIC is that the people of God would be satisfied with Scripture alone and that we would foster a love for God’s Word by giving it the prominent place in the meeting of the church through expository preaching. To help encourage this, the NCFIC is pleased to present a Workshop on Expository Preaching to be held April 27-28, 200 in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

This special two-day workshop will include three key elements:

• Instruction on the Biblical foundations of expository preaching.
• Demonstration of the craft. We will be presenting examples of expository sermons.
• Personal time with the conference faculty, the people at Hope Baptist Church on Sunday, and the Brown home for a Sunday afternoon of fellowship and ministry.

After the conference, everyone is invited to attend Hope Baptist Church in Wake Forest and then to come to Scott Brown’s home for more discussion on Sunday afternoon. This will conclude with the traditional scrambled egg sandwiches and shakes — a weekly tradition in the Brown home.

Why the NCFIC is Committed to Expository Preaching

First, we believe that, over the years, our greatest impact will be teaching the content of scripture week after week giving a balanced diet of New and Old Testament instruction. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my Word will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35).

Second, we trust that God speaks directly to the human heart through the message of the Bible. The Bible is the Word of the Spirit of God for the church in every age.

Third, we believe that a steady diet of expositional preaching is the most effective way to build up the body of Christ and equip them for service.

Fourth, expository preaching forces us to take the direct messages of the passage instead of leaning toward our personal passions and preferred subjects. We avoid a topical approach, because we believe it gives too much license for our own opinions and personal inclinations. We believe that an expositional approach to our preaching will give a fuller, more balanced picture of the “counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). Fifth, we believe that expository preaching will provide greater leverage in training our children and ourselves in the ways of God’s kingdom. We believe it will provide them with a stronger and broader foundation than would be gained from a topical approach.

Sixth, topical preaching will most probably, after many years, leave the preacher not knowing much more than when he started. Because he often creates the message content with a reliance on his own inclinations, he is not as often stirred up and taken in directions that are counter-intuitive for him. We acknowledge that there will be times when church leaders need to address topics of theology and contemporary issues we are facing. But the predominant method we advocate will be to stick to the words of Scripture and explain them as best we can, attempting to be faithful to the message of the text. Expository teaching is not an end in itself. We trust that, in our churches, the heads of households will vigorously study the passages that those sharing the Word are preaching on and teach them daily to their families. We hope that all preaching in the church will be but a springboard to deeper daily study and education in the whole counsel of God in each household represented.

(See the following passages that are helpful resources on the subject: Deut 6:4-9; Ezra 7:10; Neh 8:1-12; Matt 4:4; 1 Tim 4:13; 2 Tim 3:14-4:5; Titus 1:3, 9; Heb 4:12; 1 Peter 1:22-2:3)