Choosing a church home is deeply personal. What you hear there will shape the way you think about God, yourself, and the life you have been given. The people you meet may become part of your life for years to come. Before you walk through the door, you should have a clear sense of what matters to the pastor and what guides the ministry of the church.
I’m David, the founding pastor of City Tabernacle in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. I believe the Bible is God’s Word, and teaching it is a responsibility I do not take lightly. A sermon occupies only a small part of your week, but you still have a life to live after the message ends. You return to your family, your work, your responsibilities, your questions, and sometimes your grief. What you hear from the pulpit should help you understand God more clearly and follow Christ faithfully in the circumstances waiting for you at home.
Maybe you have been searching for that kind of substance for a long time. Maybe you love the church and simply need a place where you can put down roots again. Perhaps you are returning after being away, or you are trying to understand Christianity for the first time. Whatever has brought you here, I want you to know what matters to me and what I believe a faithful ministry should offer.
At the center of everything is Jesus Christ. Christianity does not begin with advice about how to improve ourselves. It begins with the good news of what God has done for us in Christ. Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead. Through Him, there is forgiveness, reconciliation with God, a changed life, and a future beyond the grave. That hope is worth understanding, and it gives us reason for profound joy.
Why Theology And Faithful Teaching Matter To Me
When you open the Bible, bring the questions you genuinely need answered. What does forgiveness require when the wrong was real? How do you repent of something you keep defending? What gives a Christian confidence when death comes close? How can God be good when life has become painful? Questions like these deserve more than a slogan or a hurried answer. They deserve the time and care it takes to answer them faithfully.
My responsibility is to explain what Scripture says and show you how that explanation comes from the passage itself. That means paying attention to the words, the grammar, the historical setting, and the surrounding context. It also means being honest about the difference between what the text teaches and what I might prefer it to say. A pastor must live under the authority of the Word he teaches.
This careful work is often called exegesis. Proper exegesis draws the meaning out of the biblical text instead of placing our own ideas into it. It asks what the author intended to communicate, how the passage fits within the book in which it appears, and how it relates to the whole counsel of God revealed in Scripture. This is not merely an academic exercise for seminaries. It is essential to the ministry of the church.
When Scripture is handled carelessly, people can be burdened by commands God did not give, comforted by promises He did not make, or led by ideas that sound spiritual but do not come from the Bible. A preacher can be sincere and still be wrong. Good intentions do not remove the responsibility to handle the Word of truth faithfully.
Theology is equally essential. Theology is the careful study of what Scripture teaches about God, Christ, salvation, sin, grace, the church, and the hope of eternal life. It is not intellectual decoration added to practical ministry. Theology shapes the ministry itself. What we believe about God will affect how we worship. What we believe about sin and grace will affect how we respond to failure. What we believe about Christ will determine what we mean when we speak of salvation.
Exegesis and theology belong together. Exegesis keeps our theology accountable to the biblical text, while sound theology helps us understand each passage within the larger witness of Scripture. Without careful exegesis, theology can drift into human speculation. Without theology, individual passages can be isolated and made to say things they were never intended to say.
People sometimes hear the word theology and imagine something cold or disconnected from ordinary life. I understand the concern, but faithful theology should do the opposite. It gives pastoral care its substance. When someone is grieving, facing guilt, questioning God, or approaching death, that person needs more than a comforting tone. They need truth spoken with tenderness. Doctrine does not replace compassion. It gives compassion something trustworthy to say.
Consider repentance. It begins with honestly acknowledging our sin before God, turning toward Him, and turning away from the sin that separates us from Him. Repentance is more than feeling embarrassed, regretting the consequences, or promising to try harder. It is a truthful change of mind and direction before God.
That truth also changes the way we apologize to one another. We stop arranging the story to make ourselves look better. We name what we did, accept responsibility, and begin making the changes faithfulness requires. The forgiveness offered in Christ gives us somewhere to bring the truth about ourselves. We do not have to hide our sin in order to come to Him. We come because we need His mercy.
This is why theological depth matters to me. Understanding should make a difference in the way you live. As you learn who God is and what He has done, that truth reaches your conscience, your relationships, your decisions, and the person you are becoming.
There is also real joy in seeing how a difficult passage fits together. Even learning the meaning of a theological word can open a new door in your understanding. Anyone who has wrestled with a question knows the satisfaction of finally seeing something clearly. I want City Tabernacle to be a place where people are encouraged to ask serious questions and where Scripture is given the time and attention those questions deserve.
Faith In The Life You Are Living
The person at home deserves the same courtesy you would offer a stranger. A promise made when you felt generous still matters when keeping it becomes inconvenient. Someone with less influence than you still deserves to be treated with dignity. Following Jesus reaches into these ordinary decisions, where no one is applauding and someone else’s good is at stake.
Christian obedience is not an attempt to purchase God’s favor. We do not obey so that Christ will become willing to save us. We obey in response to the grace we have received. The same grace that forgives us also begins changing us. Scripture sometimes describes this continuing work as sanctification: God patiently forming His people into greater likeness to Christ.
Some of that growth will cost us. Pride is difficult to surrender. We may enjoy certain habits even while recognizing the damage they cause. We may be quick to see another person’s fault and slow to acknowledge our own. Scripture brings these things into the light, and Christ calls us to turn from them. His grace gives us the courage to face what needs to change without pretending that change will always be easy.
There is satisfaction in that growth. A conversation goes differently because you listened. Someone begins to trust your word again. You discover that generosity can bring more pleasure than holding everything for yourself. You learn to tell the truth sooner, forgive more freely, and accept correction without treating it as an attack. These are reasons to give thanks as God continues His work in an unfinished life.
Honesty And Responsibility
I care about honesty that goes beyond sounding sincere. If I am wrong, the truth still matters. If a question reveals a weakness in an explanation, that weakness deserves attention. The people listening should be free to think, examine, and ask again. A church should help people grow in understanding and judgment, not train them to mistake confidence for truth.
A pastor has real responsibility, but he does not possess unlimited personal authority. His teaching carries authority only as it faithfully communicates the Word of God. That is one reason proper exegesis matters so deeply. The pulpit must never become a place where personal preferences, political loyalties, or emotional reactions are presented as though they were commands from God.
I become angry when cruelty is excused, when someone with influence avoids accountability, or when a suffering person is treated as an inconvenience. Those things should be confronted. At the same time, my anger must answer to Christ. It must never become permission to humiliate someone, exaggerate another person’s wrong, or refuse correction in my own life. Conviction carries responsibility for the person expressing it.
I believe Christianity is true. Because I believe that, I have a responsibility to give reasons for faith and to listen carefully enough to understand a disagreement accurately. Faith is not strengthened by avoiding honest questions. If a Christian answer has left you unconvinced, tell me where it loses you. If you believe the Bible contradicts itself or that Christianity fails to make sense of suffering, say so plainly. An honest objection gives us something worthwhile to discuss.
There Should Be Joy
There ought to be laughter in a church. We should take pleasure in seeing someone we care about and celebrate wholeheartedly when something good happens in that person’s life. A person who has found joy has something worth sharing.
Christian seriousness should not become a suspicion of happiness. God is the giver of every good gift. Enjoy the company of the people you love. Take pleasure in something made well. Let beauty hold your attention. A good life has room for affection and celebration, for the ambition to do something worthwhile, and for the happiness that comes from sharing it with others.
Ecclesiastes speaks of doing good and enjoying the fruit of our labor as gifts from God. Gratitude belongs in the living of an ordinary day. Meals, work, friendship, rest, beauty, and laughter can all be received with thanksgiving. We have good reason to receive what God gives us with gladness. Ecclesiastes 3:12–13
I welcome that gladness. I also know that the same room can hold people who are celebrating and people who are grieving. Fellowship asks us to care about both. We can rejoice wholeheartedly with one person while still noticing the person for whom this has been a difficult week. Christian joy does not require us to deny sorrow. It gives us hope that sorrow will not have the final word.
The Good We Leave In Other Lives
I care about what our lives leave behind in the lives of others. When our earthly work is finished, someone else will live with its effects. I want my life to leave my family and community better cared for. That desire matters now, while there is still time to make choices about it.
Much of that legacy will be deeply personal. Someone learns how to treat others by watching us. Someone carries a word of encouragement into a decision we may never hear about. A child remembers whether we were present. Money can help provide for the future, but attention and affection have a lasting reach of their own. The people we love need to receive some of that care while we are still here to give it.
There is also room to take responsibility for the wrongs in our story. We cannot go back and live those years again, and some damage will remain beyond our power to repair. Still, a truthful apology, a change in conduct, restitution where possible, or a return to a neglected responsibility may be within our reach. Grace gives us the courage to begin without pretending the past was different.
I also think of the person who reads all of this and feels exhausted. Your value is not the sum of what you have accomplished. Some people have little strength left to give, and some spend years receiving care. They remain people to love. Human dignity is not earned through productivity, influence, independence, or success. It is given by God and cannot be measured by what someone is able to produce.
Our hope of salvation rests in Christ, not in our record of usefulness. Fellowship therefore includes both giving help and receiving it. There may be seasons when serving others comes naturally, and seasons when faithfulness means allowing someone else to carry part of the burden with you.
A Hope Beyond Death
When life hurts, the words we use matter. The loss you carry deserves more care than a hurried explanation. A person can believe in the resurrection and still ache for someone who has died. They can trust God and still ask difficult questions. They can pray and still struggle to find the words. That sorrow deserves patience.
Grief is not necessarily a failure of faith. Jesus Himself wept in the presence of death. Christian hope does not ask us to pretend that death is harmless. Scripture calls death an enemy, while also declaring that Christ has defeated it.
Jesus Christ rose from the grave. The Christian hope is not merely that some part of us continues in a vague spiritual existence. We look forward to resurrection and to life in the presence of God. Christ promises everlasting life to those who trust Him, and He will complete His saving work. Suffering and death will not continue forever.
I believe that future is real. It gives me confidence to speak about eternity, but it also gives me a reason to care deeply about the life before us now. Because people matter eternally, their suffering matters now. Because resurrection is our hope, the life of the body is not insignificant. Because Christ has conquered death, we can face it honestly without surrendering to despair.
Peter describes believers as having a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, even as they endure grief in the present. That gives us reason to worship with gladness and to pray with honesty. We can thank God for what is good and cry out to Him about what hurts. Faith makes room for both. 1 Peter 1:3–9
A Place To Begin
There is good to enjoy here, people to love, truth to understand, and work worth giving our strength to. Following Christ brings purpose to the years we are given and directs our hope beyond them. If this is the faith you have been seeking to understand and live, spend some time with the teaching at City Tabernacle.
Listen carefully. Open the Bible and examine the passages for yourself. Ask whether the teaching comes from the text and whether it presents Christ faithfully. A church should not be afraid of that kind of examination.
You may already know what you are looking for in a church. You may still need time to find the words for it. You may be carrying questions that have never received a serious answer. Get to know City Tabernacle, and tell us what matters to you. I would be glad to meet you.
