EXCLUSIVE ARTICLE FROM JASON NICHOLLS

MEET JASON NICHOLLS

Jason hails originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and has also lived in Kentucky, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin. Currently lead pastor at Redeemer Missionary Church in South Bend, Indiana, Jason serves primarily in preaching and teaching roles. His formal education includes Vennard College, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in Historical Theology from Marquette University, where for a brief time he also taught as an adjunct lecturer in theology. In 2017 Jason was elected to the GOC as denominational secretary, a position that he currently holds. He is also a member of the Constitution Committee (chair), and is a fellow with the Center for Pastor Theologians. Jason and his wife, Terri, have four children, and together their family enjoys travel, sports, Bible quizzing, and long walks. 

What are you Promoting?

I’ve never been fired from a job, but to be fair, I’ve also never been promoted. Not once. From paper boy to farm hand, from factory worker to landscaper to adjunct lecturer—even as a pastor for going on 20 years now—I’ve never once had a single promotion.

But although I’ve never experienced a promotion, I do know what it’s like to promote things. To “promote,” by definition, means to further the growth, acceptance or development of something. It’s to advance, elevate, honor or push something forward. 

And when we think about “promotion” in this sense, we realize that all of us who work in ministry are “promoting” things in one way or another. We promote the things we devote our time and energy to. We promote what we pour our attention and resources into. We promote the things that we want to push forward and advance and show everybody—things we’re excited about, that we just can’t seem to stop talking about.

And what we promote affects our churches.

I’ll never forget the first day that my wife and I dropped off our eldest at her Christian college. It was a rough day! Being so far from home—all the harder! But amidst all the many promises of campus activities, spiritual life events, and chapels, what consoled us more than anything else was what we saw promoted all over that campus. Adorning the walls of every building, on each and every light post flanking every sidewalk, our eyes beheld very vivid and bold banners that featured these words: “For the WORD OF GOD and the TESTIMONY of JESUS CHRIST.” 

It was pretty clear what these folks were promoting. And they were promoting it really well. 

So the question for those of us in ministry is—what are we promoting? 

It could be ourselves: our personal gifts, style or talents. It could be our preferred ministry brand or culture. Maybe it’s the ministry team that’s around you. You’ve got that talented worship team or that amazing kid-min program or those inspiring community service initiatives. Some ministries pride themselves on featuring a unique, downhome small-church “vibe.” Whether it’s our facilities, programs and activities, or just our famous coffee roast, it’s easy to get caught up in promoting different things.

And while many of these things are fine (and perhaps even helpful as ministry tools), they can easily overtake and replace the more fundamental and eternal things we should be promoting. 

And what should we be promoting? 

A quick look over at the NT Gospels can be helpful. What did Jesus himself promote in his ministry? 

Well, it certainly wasn’t a coffee roast, or even those loaves and fishes that he multiplied. He didn’t promote any buildings (Matt. 24:1-2) or worship teams or even his miracles and healings (talk about meeting the practical needs of your community!). As a matter of fact, anytime the people’s focus started to drift toward and fixate on these things—Jesus quietly removed himself. 

And the reason our Lord did this is that he wanted people to focus on the far more important things he came to promote. Fundamentally and foremost, Jesus came to promote himself in his role as Savior of the world. He promoted his mission to seek and to save the lost, to die in our place for our sins, to rise again on the third day, and to go and prepare a place for us. In essence, he promoted the Gospel, the “good news” for us weak and weary sinners who deserve judgment.

Yet Jesus also came to promote the implications of his Gospel for how we should live our lives. This is why we see Jesus in the Gospel of Luke promoting things like kingdom love and peace, generosity, and the bearing of good fruit in our lives (Luke 10:5-6; 6:30; 6:43-45). He promoted the posture of discipleship and being fully committed to him (Luke 6:40; 9:23). Jesus promoted the importance of building one’s life on the firm foundation of God’s Word, with deep rooting that can withstand all the waves of life (Luke 6:46-49). He also promoted less popular things—such as the coming judgment, warnings to those who are complacent and self-content (Luke 6:24-26; 11:37-52), and growth through endurance in suffering (Luke 6:20-22). Jesus promoted repentance, forgiveness, selfless love, prayer, unity, inner purity, and boldness—not to mention more controversial things like being rich toward God and being willing to forgo even family commitments out of a higher loyalty to him (Luke 12:21; 9:57-62). All of these things were regularly “promoted” by Jesus throughout his ministry.

So the question is: Are these things that you and I are promoting week in and week out? 

Or is what’s being promoted up on that stage something that matches your own height and build and voice?

Still other things we might promote could have a semblance of merit, but they’re out of balance with Scripture. We might promote the notion that getting married and having a family will make us content, or that it will solve all our problems and give us temporal bliss. Or maybe we parents promote to our kids the idea that the most important thing they can do in life is to grow up, get a good education, be successful, and give us 2.5 grandchildren. Sometimes our churches promote the thinking that the Christian life will be pain-free and that God always wants to protect us and bless us, or that the world should like us and find us amazing and really compelling. 

But what we find in Scripture is that it’s difficult to align these things with the way of Jesus. In the Old Testament, God’s prophets were all routinely maligned and mistreated for the truth (Heb. 11:37-38). Men like John the Baptist understood that he needed to decrease so that Christ could increase (John 3:30). The Apostle James was willing to depart this world at the edge of Herod’s sword (Acts 12:2). And Paul himself made it his ambition to suffer the loss of all things for the sake of Christ (Phil. 3:8).

Maybe all of this leaves us with just one last question: How? 

If we know what we’re tempted to wrongly promote—and want to promote the right things of the Gospel—what’s this going to look like? 

Let me suggest to you that it starts with our weekly worship gatherings, but it also extends to all the other ministries in our churches throughout the week. What will we talk about and advocate for? What are we getting our people excited about? What do we model to them as really important? How are we investing our budget? What do we give bulletin space to or feature on our church app? These are the things that we are presenting and promoting to our people as a vision of the so-called good life.

So far as bringing any needed change, maybe one of the best places to start is with our weekly worship gatherings. What are its features, rhythms and priorities? Do we allow much time for prayer in service? Jesus prayed and promoted the practice of prayer quite heavily. Are God’s people actually singing in worship? Or is worship being performed for us by the most talented? Both Jesus and his apostles all delivered some rather robust exposition. Are we preachers and teachers willing to deliver that too? And as to the content: Are we willing to publicly read and then carefully divide God’s Word to faithfully deliver exhortation that will encourage, correct, challenge and edify our people who are listening?

It’s easy to promote what our world—and even our own people—might want us to promote. But we all stand or fall before our own Master (Rom. 14:4). And we will each give an account for everything we’ve ever promoted (Heb. 13:17). 

So no, I’ve never had a job promotion yet—but that’s not to say that as a local church pastor I’m not constantly promoting things in my job. 

And so are you. 

May God help each of us to be the kind of church leaders who are promoting things of eternal worth and kingdom value.