I travel a lot and often get to teach and preach as a guest at a church or conference that someone else leads. I always strive to be the type of guest preacher I wanted when I was a local church pastor.
As a pastor and conference leader, I occasionally had guest preachers who did more harm than good. This usually happened because they “had a word from God” and thus felt obligated to ignore the theological framework, missional direction, or timetable that I gave them.
Don’t be that guy.
If you have the privilege of being a guest preacher somewhere, please do your best to show up with a word from God, but make sure that word is delivered in the context and within the framework of your host.
Some would say it is compromise to follow directions from the host rather than from the Holy Spirit.
I say . . .
- Contextualization is not compromise.
- Listening to locals is not compromise.
- Doing what local leaders ask is not compromise.
Be a humble guest and you might get invited back.
TRANSCRIPT
In the next few minutes, I want to tell you three stories, read ten Bible verses—one text, ten verses—and at the end of that, I want to give you three quick principles for visiting preacher protocols, okay? Or guest preacher protocols. Whether you are hosting a visiting preacher, a guest preacher, or whether you are traveling to someone else’s church or someone else’s campus ministry, or some other context that’s not your home base, there are some protocols and principles that are really helpful, but sometimes they’re sadly lacking in a lot of ministry situations.
So, story number one. Trigger warning—I’m going to mention a political thing, but listen to me. 2017 at Asbury Seminary Chapel, there was a visiting professor from Australia, an Aussie guy, and it’s hard to remember what he preached in that chapel because one of his points to a text I don’t remember, he went on a rant about American Christians. This is an Aussie, this is a foreigner, and a good man. But he went on a rant about—this is 2017—about how could any Christian ever vote for Donald Trump? And what happened when he went on this rant, I think, like me, many people forgot the text and listened to him, and he offended not only the MAGA people, the people who love President Trump, but also many of those who didn’t vote for Trump and never would because, as a foreigner coming into an American situation, chastising the local people was not a good move, especially politically. So that was one.
Another situation had to do with a visiting guest preacher at an Every Nation USA Conference. So, big conference we were having. And the guy preached a fantastic sermon. I mean, it was, it was really good. But he spent at least the first fifteen minutes, almost twenty minutes, in self-promotion and book selling, and so he didn’t count that as his sermon time. So we gave him forty minutes to preach, but he took fifteen to twenty and then still preached forty minutes. So he wrecked our schedule, went way over time doing something that he was not supposed to do, which was take fifteen minutes plus selling his books. Of course, we never invited him back again, even though, in my opinion, he preached a great sermon, but he violated some protocols. He broke some pretty clear principles when you’re in someone else’s world of what to do and what not to do, unless you’re asked to do that, unless you ask permission to do that, which we would have said no.
A third one happened in Manila, and this was an odd situation. It was a very accurate prophetic minister. I can still see him. A large guy from California with a big beard like you would imagine a prophet having, and really a large man but so kind. Ahe was a friend and a protege of a good friend of mine, someone I have worked with for many years up until that point. And so he came as a guest, and his prophecies, his prophetic words, were so accurate and so detailed. And day two, we were with some of our pastors down in the U-Belt in Manila, and he didn’t know anybody there. He knew nothing about any of these people, except that they were all in ministry. And he stood up a guy, and he said, “Are you his wife?” “Yes.” And they set them both up. And in front of everyone, in front of the wife, in front of the rest of the staff, he looked at that wife and said, “I feel sorry for you, that you have to live with this man.” And then he began to describe in detail character flaws of this man that me and others have been working with him on, and he was making improvement, and he was really embracing and humbling himself and trying to work out some ways of relating. And he was completely disrespected, dishonored, humiliated.
And I sat down with this prophetic voice after that, and I corrected him. Although I say corrected, he didn’t listen. He argued with me and said, “But was it an accurate word?” I said, “It was a really inaccurate word, and it was inappropriate. It was wrong, and it should not have happened, and you owe that man an apology.” And he refused. He said, “I heard from God, and I delivered the word from God.” I said, “Yeah, but you should have done it privately, and you should have talked to others before you did that, and what you did is inexcusable.” And it went back and forth, and I canceled the rest of his meetings. I told his friend, my friend who brought him along, I said he’s not doing anything else with us. And he was scheduled to speak that afternoon. He’s a really good speaker as well. And I canceled them all. One, because of what he did, but mainly because he was unteachable. If he had said, “Oh man, I am so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking,” and apologized, we probably would have gone on with the meetings. But I substituted the other guy, my friend, did the rest of the meetings, and I said, I don’t even want him at our meetings. And it was a big stink.
But if any one of these three situations—whether the prophetic voice in Manila, whether the Aussie at Asbury Chapel, or whether the guy that we brought in to preach, but he ended up turning it into a book-selling convention at our conference—if they had followed some basic guest speaker, visiting preacher protocols, I wouldn’t be telling this story. But I want to look at a scripture and then go back and make some comments and give three principles about either hosting a visiting preacher, a guest preacher, or when you are in a situation, what are these principles and protocols that we should follow? So here we go.
Acts chapter 21, and Paul is the visiting preacher at the church in Jerusalem. And he’s coming in and giving reports. There have been amazing things [that] have happened among the Gentiles, and now Paul is coming here to James and the leaders at the church in Jerusalem. We pick it up in verse 17, we’ll read to verse 26, then I’ll go back and make some cultural comments.
“When we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly. On the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present. After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. And when they heard it, they glorified God. And they said to him, ‘You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law, and they have been told about you,’” about Paul, these zealous Jews who believe they’ve been told about Paul, “‘that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs. What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. Do therefore what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow; take these men and purify yourself along with them and pay their expenses, so that they may shave their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law. But as for the Gentiles who have believed, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality.’” This is referring back to Acts 15, that theological council when they sent this message of how the Gentiles should behave themselves and what would be acceptable and not acceptable. So this is the letter they’re referring to. Now, verse 28.
“Then Paul took the men, and the next day he purified himself along with them and went into the temple, giving notice when the days of purification would be fulfilled and the offering presented for each one of them.”
So, here’s what happened. Paul is coming back after this trip around the world that they had, and all these Gentiles coming to faith. And in verse 20, it says there were “many thousands.” Many thousands are coming to faith. Oh, I love that phrase, “many thousands,” in the context of discipleship and evangelism, in the context of missional movements, in the context of a missionary journey. Many thousands. Oh, may God give us many thousands who hear the gospel and turn in faith toward Christ. This is what’s happening, many thousands. And they’re Jewish people, most of them. But it says in verse 21, they’ve been told about you, about Paul, lies. They’re making up stuff that [is] not true. So we’ve got many thousands coming to faith. And there are many lies about Paul being told.
And so now he’s visiting the church in Jerusalem. So the local elders, the local leaders, the local people say, Paul, you may not understand this whole situation, what’s going on, but people are saying that you’re teaching things that are anti-Jewish. We know you’re not teaching these things. I’m filling in the gaps, but you’re being accused of something that’s not true. So, look at verse 23. “Do therefore what we tell you.”
Now, that phrase would end the conversation for, unfortunately, a lot of apostolic or so-called apostolic leaders today. When a local leadership team looks at the visiting preacher, the guest preacher, the traveling apostolic leader, or the traveling prophetic leader, and they look at that person and say, “We welcome you in to come here and minister, but do what we say.”
I know there are people who say, “No, I do what God says. I don’t do what you say.” As a local pastor, when I hear any hint of that, I’m going, okay, well, you just go on to where God tells you to go, because if you’re coming into my world, you will listen to me and do what I say. And those who don’t really don’t get invited back.
But Paul was not that kind. We see this apostolic model that everyone who’s an apostolic leader today or claims to be or wants to be, or thinks in terms of that, or anyone who’s a traveling prophetic leader or an evangelist, or whatever you are when you go from your location to someone else’s, I’d plead with you to listen to what the local leaders tell you. Listen to them. Don’t pull the apostolic card, and go, I don’t need to listen to local leaders. If anyone does that to you as a local pastor, you don’t need to have those people in there. But look what he says. They said, “Do what we tell you,” and then they tell him to go and do this Jewish purification rite that led to something that’s very biblical and very spiritual and very important. It says, “that they may shave their heads,” so mark that. I don’t want to go too deep in that passage, but it’s there. A very significant thing.
So, they asked him to do this, and they said the reason is down here in verse 24. It says, “Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they’ve been told about you.” So they’re simply asking Paul. They knew he didn’t normally do these Jewish rituals, but they said, “Look, will you go with these four men and go through this ritual that will signal to all the Jews you’re not anti-Jewish. You’re just pro-Jesus.”
You know Paul? He didn’t say, “Look, I’m not compromising. I used to do that. I don’t do it anymore.” You know what he did in verse 26? Here’s the attitude. The local leaders looked at this apostle, this apostle with a global ministry, [this] apostle who’s seeing many thousands coming to faith and many miracles with that. But, yet he listened to the local leaders out of respect for their calling and out of respect for the local church. He listened to them, and they said, “Look, if you could just do this, it would really help the accusations people are making. It’ll cause us to not have a bunch of sideways energy. So can you just do this?”
And here’s what it says in verse 26. It doesn’t say Paul got offended and dusted off his feet and left. It didn’t say Paul said I’m never going to compromise. No, here’s what it says, verse 26. “Then Paul took the men, and the next day purified himself along with them.”
Paul did exactly what they asked him to do. It’s not something he would have done. It’s something he did in deference to the local leaders, what they wanted, what would make their lives easier, what would avoid them from having to get caught up in some controversy. It was a simple thing, but Paul listened, and he complied. And again, it seems simple, it seems logical, it seems very Christian, that if we’re the visitors, we do the wishes of the people hosting us. We come to serve.
Do we come with a word from God? I hope so. Everywhere I go, when I have the privilege of speaking, I try my best to get a word from God for them. But a lot of getting that word from God is talking to those leaders and asking, “What is God doing? What is God saying? What do you feel the Lord saying? What can I do to serve you?” And I take all of that, I look at what’s been going on in that church and in that community and in that nation if it’s another nation, or that city or that campus, and then I take all that and try to get a word from God for that situation. It’s not getting a word for God in a vacuum. It’s for specific people.
We want people coming in from the outside who love the church and respect the local leadership. But what we don’t want are people like the illustrations I gave you, the stories I told you when we started this talk. But Paul wasn’t like that. He listened to them, and he just did what they asked.
A couple of principles that might help when we’re traveling somewhere else and local leaders are asking us to do something. Contextualization is not compromise. So, contextualization is looking at your context and getting the same gospel message, being faithful to Scripture, but trying to communicate it in a way that makes more sense to the local people, and that’s all they asked him to do. It wasn’t even with the sermon, but with certain things. Could you do these customary cultural things? Could you step into our context and understand the things we deal with as Jewish people, and we’re trying to reach the Jews, and there are these false accusations. So if you could just do a couple of things,contextualize some of what you do, it’s not compromise. They didn’t ask him to sin. They didn’t ask him to preach a false gospel. I’m sure he wouldn’t have done that, but to just conform to the local needs. It’s not a lot to ask of a guest speaker.
Secondly, if you’re a visiting speaker, protocol number one—understand contextualization is not compromise. Secondly, listening to local leaders is not compromise. Like I said, you need to come anywhere you go with a word from God. But it doesn’t mean you don’t listen to local leaders. Very few people ever get direct downloads from God. We work out what we feel God’s word and God’s will for these people [is] by studying scripture but also by studying the people and the context where we’re invited to minister. So listening to the local leaders is not compromise. It’s actually wise leadership.
And thirdly, doing what local leaders ask us to do is not compromise. It’s just loving. It’s an act of love and of respect and dignifying them. Again, if a local leader asks you to leave out part of the gospel or to preach in a way that isn’t faithful to Scripture, the answer is obviously no, but to listen to their heart and respect and dignify their experience as people on the ground and having the attitude of we’re coming to serve you and doing whatever we can to help you accomplish what God’s called you to do there.
So listen, as a local leader, I hope your church is blessed with people coming from somewhere else and bringing a deposit or a gifting or perspective that you may not get locally. That’s important for churches because we are local, but we’re also part of a global church, and to have input from other places is fantastic. But it doesn’t mean that you put up with people who break godly, biblical, just wise protocols. You’re the local leaders, and you should expect anyone who comes in as a guest, as an invited guest, to conform to your direction and to serve in a way that you want.
If you’re a visiting speaker, preacher, apostolic leader, evangelist, prophetic voice, or whatever context it is—if that’s you, please pay attention to the local protocols and be honoring and respectful, and go to serve. Go with the word of God, absolutely. Go with a word from God, absolutely. But it’s got to work in that context.