Summer 2009 | Volume 67, No. 4

Growth Rooted in Scripture: Text-Driven Church Planting

by Keith Collier

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What part does text-driven preaching play in the mission of Northeast Houston Baptist Church (NEHBC)? “It’s everything,” says Nathan Lino, pastor of the church and a Southwestern D.Min. student in expository preaching. Lino’s church represents one among a growing number of churches that are demonstrating the power of expository preaching in reaching the unchurched across the country. “We live in a culture where every authority is merely viewed by people as just another opinion being spoken into their lives,” says Lino. “When it’s just opinions being spoken, opinions change.”  Text-driven preaching, on the other hand, offers the unchurched more than just opinions, Lino says.

“I think they start to realize that when someone’s standing up and explaining what God’s Word says, His Word never changes. He’s an unchanging God, and therefore His Word is unchanging. What God loves in Genesis is what He loves in Mark. What God hates in Exodus is still what he hates in Acts.

“There’s a consistency, and as they come and they hear and they see the consistency through different cultures and centuries … I think they begin to sense that He’s a consistent God and He’s trustworthy. And they start putting their trust in Him. He becomes the only Being that they know in their entire life who is not just an opinion.”

Lino has witnessed the effectiveness of text-driven preaching his entire life. Originally from South Africa, Lino’s family moved to the United States when he was 11. His father, a pastor, modeled expository preaching.

When Lino attended Texas A&M University, he became a member of Central Baptist Church in College Station, where Chris Osborne, a graduate of Southwestern and current Ph.D. student, still serves as pastor.

“My dad is a text-driven preacher,” says Lino, “but Central was where I really saw the whole concept of preaching through books of the Bible. That’s when I really saw it modeled.”

Lino carried this concept into his first pastorate. During his senior year of college, he served as pastor of Union Baptist Church in Normangee, Texas. It was there that he experienced the power of text-driven preaching firsthand, as the church quickly grew from 20 to more than 120 in attendance.

“Really all we did was expository preaching,” says Lino. “It’s all we offered, and so I learned how effective it was there.”

Lino also learned the importance of the relationship between theology and pastoral ministry.

“I really believe that life change takes place at the intersection of pastoral ministry and expository preaching. I feel like pastoral ministry creates the relationship with the people that allows the hard truths of Scripture to be accepted and processed and digested into their lives.

“It’s one of the greatest lessons I learned there. When I loved on the people and had relationships with them and they knew that I truly cared about them, then when we would deal with hard things in Scripture, they knew that I loved them and wanted what was best for them. They were willing to listen.”

After college, Lino attended Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., where Paige Patterson served as president. He was inspired by the preachers in chapel who illustrated what text-driven preaching looks like.

Lino returned to Houston in 2002 to plant NEHBC. From day one, text-driven preaching has been foundational to their ministry, and today 70 percent of the church members are formerly unchurched. Lino also decided to strengthen his preaching ministry through enrolling in the D.Min. program at Southwestern Seminary with a concentration in expository preaching.

For a church that has more than 1,000 in regular attendance on Sundays, NEHBC has gone against all the trends, using door-to-door evangelism, expositional preaching, and prayer—what Lino refers to as “three core values.”

“That’s what we’re about, and that’s what we do. What Scripture says dictates how we do all three. Bible teaching, though it’s one of our three core values, is the one that is preeminent out of our core value system.

“I’m a big proponent of preaching through books of the Bible, but I don’t think you have to. I do think when you open Scripture, you’ve got to be walking through a passage, and not backing into the text from some kind of topic or idea.”

Maintaining the balance between expositional preaching and a strong pastoral ministry has guided Lino’s church through difficult times. When a minister in the church was dismissed because of moral failure a year ago, Lino recognized God’s sovereignty in connecting his preaching and pastoral care during the aftermath.

He was preaching through 1 Peter, and each week, the passage he was to preach lined up perfectly with the needs of the congregation, and he was able to deal with the tough issues of the church through his preaching. He realizes, though, that it would have been ineffective if the people did not trust that he genuinely cared for them.

Lino is fleshing out this balance through his D.Min. studies at Southwestern. His thesis addresses the issue of the problem of evil and suffering in the world as it relates to the sovereignty of God. He is focusing primarily on natural disasters and how to guide people spiritually through these immensely difficult times. Because Houston has been devastated by hurricanes, Lino sees this project aligning perfectly with his context of ministry.

Lino also believes that text-driven preaching produces a passion for missions in the congregation. Because Christ is central to everything that happens in Scripture, expositional preaching points people to Christ, whose greatest passion is to glorify the Father through reaching the world for Him.

“As you preach expositionally, every week you are putting into the people the understanding that we have a mandate and a duty and an obligation to reach the world for Christ,” Lino says.

“Expository preaching lays the foundation and inspires them to believe it and to go and do it.”

This statement is proven by NEHBC’s commitment to missions, both in North America and internationally. Lino, who also serves as a trustee for the International Mission Board (IMB), has led his church to work with IMB teams in street evangelism and helping lay the groundwork for new churches in Mexico, Brazil, and Estonia. This year, they have 11 mission trips planned to locations around the world.

Being a church-planting church ranks high among Lino’s priorities. Over the past couple of years, NEHBC has helped plant churches in New Hampshire, Las Vegas, and Texas.

“Christ’s strategy for reaching the world is churches planting churches,” says Lino. “We’re passionate about it, whether it’s starting a church from scratch or a church revitalization project.”

“Anytime we find people who believe what we do about the primacy of preaching in the life of a local church, we want to partner with them and plant as many churches as possible that are driven by good, text-driven preaching.”

Lino advises church planters to focus on three things to help ensure long-term success.

“I think the big three things are: You’ve got to have the foundation to be able to prepare a good sermon and understand Scripture and teach it; you’ve got to be a soul winner; and you’ve got to be able to deal with people and have a strong pastoral ministry.”

Nathan Lino models text-driven ministry in every aspect of his church. Through preaching, pastoral ministry, and missions, he has not only planted a vibrant church that is effective in reaching the unchurched, but he is also leading NEHBC to reproduce itself through church planting efforts around the world.

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