Kelly
Williams grew up on a dairy farm in Kentucky in the home of a bi-vocational
pastor. After completing his education at Liberty University
in Lynchburg, Virginia and Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas Texas
he and his wife Tosha moved to Colorado Springs, CO to launch Vanguard
Church.
Vanguard means "the foremost
part of an army or fleet advancing or ready to do so." (Oxford Dictionary)
Williams is pastoring a “front lines” church. A church that
will take the hits to live out their mission: “Loving people into
a real relationship with Jesus Christ.”
Willimas sat down will
Fresh Ministry's Online Editor, Jim Wilson to give an interview for Wilson's
book, The Future Church.
Below is an edited excerpt from that interview: |
 |
FreshMinistry: I know that you grew up in church and that your father
is a pastor, how have the times changed preaching?
Kelly Williams: Positional authority does not have the same impact in
postmodernity as it did in modernity. But when people trust you,
you have more authority, when you are in, you are in much deeper.
FM: Is it personal authority, not positional authority?
KW: Exactly.
FM: So how does that play out in day to day ministry?
KW: I’m going to intentionally live my life, but I’m not going
to try to change people. But if they choose to trust me, then I will
be more than glad to be a part of the [change] process.
FM: How is preaching different today?
KW: I’m not focused on a transference of information or a process
of change, I’m focused on an experience of relationship. If that
relationship can take place, then the other things can take place.
FM: Flesh that out for me.
KW: I may say, “I believe God created you, now you may not believe
that, that’s a decision you have to make, but for me, I’ve made that decision.”
In the past, a modernistic thinker would say,
‘God created you, and if you’ll look at the world, you will see it, and
you’ll have to come to terms that God made you.”
It is trusting that there is a power within
people that will cause them to make a commitment.”
FM: It is believing your audience is intelligent.
KW: Yes, a generation ago we thought if they only had the information
they would believe. Today we don’t
FM: I noticed you showed a clip from Brave heart, an R-rated movie in
yesterday’s service. You did a good job of stopping the movie before
it showed any graphic violence, but I would imagine it takes a lot of judgment
to know what is appropriate to show and what isn’t.
KW: We choose to try to stay away from controversial clips unless we
feel they are necessary to make a point. But we did use the
half time show of Britney Spears and Aerosmith. Do we walk this way–the
world’s way or do we walk God’s way. That day, 17 people walked out.
FM: Wow. What did that do to you?
KW: It Freed me to be a man of conviction, not a people pleaser.
FM: Isn’t that like being a shock jock?
KW: Maybe . . . Being a shock jock is a calculated decision. It
will turn some people off. Using raw images and language troubles
the hypocrisy of people’s lives.
FM: OK, I understand that, but is it appropriate?
KW: I will never not say something because it is inappropriate, but
I wouldn’t say it because it is not profitable. Appropriateness is
about social customs, profitable creates a sense of God’s presence.
It makes you ask the question, would this be profitable to what He is trying
to accomplish in this context.
FM: But what does it do to the “sacred space” of worship?
KW: I’m not sure, but the “trade off” is worth it. I’ve seen people
shaken about the duplicity of their lives, in that they separate their
Christianity for their real world and assume what we do only has an impact
on eternity, and I am always looking for ways to show that it impacts us
today. We often have people asking, “should we be doing this in Church,”
when what they should be asking is “should we be doing this.”
What people see as “sacred” and “unsacred”
is more of a social issue than a Biblical one. I don’t want to create
sacred space, I want to create sacred lives.
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