What Is It Like Preaching to 60,000 People?
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:05.000 | Pastor John, you recently preached at Passion 2013 in Atlanta, in front of 60,000 students.
00:00:10.500 | A conference so large it was held in the Georgia Dome, which is the home of the NFL's Atlanta Falcons.
00:00:15.500 | And as I was watching your sermon back home via the livestream, I've been wanting to ask you,
00:00:20.500 | I mean, what was it like to preach in front of 60,000 students?
00:00:26.000 | Well, first of all, it's not just what it's like to stand in front of them.
00:00:30.500 | And you're only standing in front of about 30,000. You're standing behind this big bowl.
00:00:38.000 | And so you got your back to most of them.
00:00:40.000 | But first of all, you're up in the box where we eat, and you're looking down,
00:00:47.500 | and you're just, I am just blown away by the laser show sound.
00:00:57.000 | I mean, I've never, this is the biggest, most fancy production I've ever spoken into.
00:01:05.000 | And they asked me if I wanted to go down on the night I was speaking and sit by the stage.
00:01:11.000 | So I went down there while they were practicing, and I was 30 feet away from the speakers.
00:01:18.500 | And I said, "I don't think I can do this. I think not."
00:01:22.500 | So I didn't even sit down there because it's not that it hurt my ears.
00:01:27.500 | My ears are 67-year-old ears. They don't hear much anyway.
00:01:31.500 | It was what it was doing inside my chest that this, the magnitude of this sound
00:01:37.500 | was just, that made me so tense that I had to get up in the top.
00:01:44.500 | So the first thing is just a massive sense of intimidation.
00:01:48.500 | This is big. This is loud. This is amazing. This is beautiful.
00:01:53.500 | This is well done. And how in the world can I speak into this?
00:01:58.500 | So it's a big intimidation factor.
00:02:01.500 | And what the Lord did for me is providentially they asked me in the morning of that Thursday
00:02:09.500 | when I was speaking in the evening to speak to the leaders.
00:02:12.500 | So I got to speak to, I don't know, a couple thousand leaders of students in the morning, a little group.
00:02:21.500 | And I gave a talk, about 20 minutes, to them on anxiety from Matthew 6.
00:02:28.500 | Don't be anxious about your life, what you should eat or drink, or about your body, what you should wear.
00:02:33.500 | It's not life more than food and the body more than clothing.
00:02:36.500 | Consider the birds. Consider the lilies of the field.
00:02:39.500 | Your Heavenly Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
00:02:42.500 | Seek the kingdom. All your needs will be provided.
00:02:44.500 | Tomorrow will take care of itself.
00:02:46.500 | And I presented them eight arguments from that text of why Jesus doesn't want us to be anxious.
00:02:52.500 | And I said, "You know why I'm doing this, don't you?
00:02:54.500 | I'm anxious. I'm anxious about tonight. I want you to pray with me because the way I fight the faith."
00:03:03.500 | So this is, I think, the answer to your question.
00:03:05.500 | What's it like to walk the stairs, to wonder, "Can I do it? Am I going to get through it?"
00:03:14.500 | I am reciting to myself Jesus' words. I am listening to Jesus tell me,
00:03:22.500 | "I love you. I'll be with you. My Father will care for you. He will meet your needs."
00:03:28.500 | I'm just preaching promises to myself so that faith in future grace, meaning the next 45 minutes,
00:03:35.500 | is going to be there and I'm going to trust it to be there.
00:03:39.500 | And, Tony, this time I made it even harder for myself because not only do I feel some of those old,
00:03:47.500 | age-old nervousness creeping up inside of me, but I resolved that I would recite the entire
00:03:54.500 | fifth chapter of Revelation from memory to start. I wouldn't even look down.
00:04:00.500 | That was my button. "Lord, I'm going to do this. I don't want to ever look down.
00:04:04.500 | I want to look right at the students and recite to them the entire fifth chapter of Revelation from memory
00:04:10.500 | to capture the beauty of the worship that we've just sung and to lead into my talk on suffering."
00:04:17.500 | So I made it even harder for myself. And so all afternoon, sitting in a hotel room
00:04:22.500 | or walking back and forth in the hotel room, I'm reciting this to myself and just praying,
00:04:27.500 | "God, please, if it would be your will, let me complete this without stumbling.
00:04:34.500 | But if I stumble, then I'll assume that it's worth it because you're going to encourage some student
00:04:40.500 | that even John Piper stumbles or whatever, so I'll just trust you." And God was so, so kind to me.
00:04:48.500 | You have preached in a lot of large gatherings before. I mean, was there anything inherently different
00:04:53.500 | for you on stage as you were preaching a Passion?
00:04:56.500 | Not inherently different. You know, once the crowd is so big that you can't see them anymore,
00:05:03.500 | and that would begin, say, at 10,000 maybe, depending on how the lighting works,
00:05:09.500 | it doesn't matter much anymore, it seems to me. So not intrinsically different.
00:05:16.500 | I just think the intimidation factor grows because the whole thing is run with so much more rigor.
00:05:25.500 | There's 30 people around you fixing your microphone and cameras are everywhere.
00:05:34.500 | It just feels like you're in a big technical pool, which can be very threatening to your own soul.
00:05:47.500 | But that's really not unique to 60,000. Anything that gets big is going to have that kind of pressure.
00:05:57.500 | Afterwards, after you were done with your sermon, your message on suffering,
00:06:02.500 | what's going on in your mind? How did you process the preaching event?
00:06:07.500 | I came out of it not feeling very good. I heard Don Carson say one time that generally when he's done
00:06:15.500 | he feels like he blew it. When I was done with that message, my first thought was, "It was too short.
00:06:21.500 | I'm not going to earn my pay. I didn't fill up my time." That really bothered me because I was so worried
00:06:28.500 | about going too long because they had warned me that it would be two big clocks.
00:06:32.500 | You have 45 minutes. I don't think I took anywhere near 45 minutes.
00:06:36.500 | So the devil kind of tormented me all through the evening with that.
00:06:41.500 | You always second-guess some words you used and some emphases you made and wish you'd said a little different.
00:06:49.500 | I just have to labor to lay that down and say, "God, it's done. I did what I could do.
00:06:55.500 | I pray that you take it and use it."
00:06:59.500 | Pastor John, what would you say to a pastor or speaker who sees you preaching before 60,000 people
00:07:04.500 | and they feel drawn to that? There's a layer maybe of glamour to it all.
00:07:08.500 | And they aspire to preach on a platform of that size. What would you say to them?
00:07:13.500 | Well, that's a very bad desire. That's what I would say.
00:07:19.500 | It would be bad for me to desire glamour and notoriety and celebrity.
00:07:27.500 | What we want, and I think we may talk about this in another podcast, is we want to have an effect on people's lives.
00:07:37.500 | For the glory of Christ.
00:07:39.500 | And wherever we are, like this morning I was at a prayer meeting with 12 people.
00:07:46.500 | Now in that setting, I want to pray with those people in a way that encourages those 12 people.
00:07:53.500 | That's what God will smile upon and bless.
00:07:57.500 | In the moment, with the ministry God's given you to do, are you doing it with all your might?
00:08:03.500 | And are you utterly devoted to Him and to the good of those people?
00:08:07.500 | That's what pastors should aspire to.
00:08:10.500 | Let the crowds and the sighs and the ripple effect be His.
00:08:14.500 | So what I always try to do is say, "God, I'm going to drop this pebble in this little group or this big group, whatever the group is,
00:08:22.500 | and I want the pebble to be a Bible pebble, a passionate pebble.
00:08:27.500 | And I ask that you would breathe upon that, blow upon the water so that those ripples"
00:08:33.500 | This is the picture I have in my mind.
00:08:35.500 | "The ripple of my little pebble dropping on a Sunday morning or a Wednesday night or a Friday morning prayer meeting,
00:08:41.500 | the ripple of that pebble dropping now would be breathed upon, blown upon by your Spirit,
00:08:48.500 | so that if you want it to become a wave that breaks over 60,000, so be it.
00:08:53.500 | If you want it to not be a wave, just breaks over these 12, that's fine. That's your doing.
00:08:59.500 | My job is faithfully speak the truth with love in that situation."
00:09:05.500 | And in the next episode, we'll get your thoughts on the Passion Conference overall.
00:09:08.500 | But thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:09:11.500 | If you have a question for Pastor John, please send it to us via email.
00:09:14.500 | Send those to askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org, and please include your first name and your hometown.
00:09:19.500 | You can find thousands of other resources from John Piper online at desiringgod.org.
00:09:24.500 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening.
00:09:26.500 | [End of Audio]
00:09:28.500 | Page 1 of 10
00:09:30.500 | Page 2 of 10
00:09:31.500 | [BLANK_AUDIO]