Building a Healthy Church: Preaching That Forms, Leadership That Transforms | Rev. Dr. John Guns

“You can’t eat before you feed.”

For 30 years, Rev. Dr. John Guns drove past the same bus stop on his way to church. Then he preached Matthew 25 and could no longer drive past it. Now he and his wife feed someone every Sunday before worship. Eventually, his congregation started doing the same without being asked. For Dr. Guns, that is how you know a church is healthy: the people begin to live the gospel without the preacher’s prompting.

Dr. Guns is dean of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University and has pastored the same congregation for more than three decades. In this session at the 5th Annual Midwest Gospel Preaching Summit, he brings both of those roles to one question: how do preaching and leadership work together to form people who look more like Christ? His answer starts with a distinction. The goal was never a megachurch. The goal is a healthy church, one that is “not filled with people, but people filled with Christ.”

Key ideas from the session:

· Three definitions of preaching: truth through personality (as taught by Dr. Miles Jones), Samuel DeWitt Proctor’s “behavioral objective,” and Dr. Guns' own definition built around formation

· Why a sermon should be measured by who you are a year later, not by the shout in the moment

· The movement from truth to life to formation: preaching forms people

· Transactional vs. transformational leadership: “How do we get people to do?” vs. “Who are people becoming?”

· Why you can’t build a church on your personal brand

· “Emerging” leadership: outgrowing yourself at every stage and no longer being afraid of where you came from

· Spiritual intelligence and self-awareness: a healthy church starts with a spiritually and emotionally healthy pastor

· Preaching announces the future; leadership builds it

· A candid word on the state of seminary education and what the church and the world need from its leaders now

Scripture referenced: Matthew 25; Luke 10; Acts 10; Romans 12:2

The session closes with prayer and a short Q&A on visible change and on the church’s calling at a discouraging moment for the country.

About the Summit

The 2026 Midwest Gospel Preaching Summit met October 7–9 in Madison, Wisconsin, under the theme “Preach the Word: The Preacher’s Charge in a Changing World.” Upper House Commons hosts the annual gathering of preachers, pastors and ministry leaders in partnership with Mt. Zion Baptist Church.