If pressed for a quick summary of my philosophy of ministry, I would probably express it something like this:

• Get the Gospel Right
• Get the Gospel Out
• Get the Gospel Out Right

Without a message there is no mission.

Unfortunately, it seems, many are so zealous to get about the mission that they make little time getting the message of the gospel right.  They do not stand amazed at what God has done for us in the person of Christ. Consequently, they are not being formed or transformed by the gospel.  They are more anxious about what they will do for God than excited by what God has done for us, and what he is doing in us, and what God has promised to do through us – if only we would root ourselves in the gospel.  And because some are neither formed or being transformed, they go out uninformed.

If we are not conscious of what God is doing in us, what do we think we have to offer those who are around us?

While no doubt knowledge without zeal is dead.  It is equally true that zeal without knowledge is deadly.