We met Wade in Nashville at the Zoe Conference last fall. Really liked him. He’s heading down to Austin TX now and this is what the good folks down there can look forward to. You might think this is a top ten ways to know you’ve heard a cutting-edge sermon…

The Top Ten Ways You Know You Just Heard a Wade Hodges Sermon

1. At lunch, the topic of conversation centers around the question “Did he really just say what I think he said?”

2. You’re not quite sure yet, but you have either just been highly offended, or deeply challenged.

3. You leave the service wrestling with unanswered questions – most
glaringly, “Where did he get those Chuck Taylor tennis shoes – and why?”

4. People are seen fleeing the auditorium with ears covered, screaming “It can’t be, it can’t be”.

5. When confronting your teenage son about leaving his dirty clothes
on the bathroom floor, he argues that according to Wade’s “both -and”
theology, your job as a mother is to both pick up his clothes, and to
wash them. He is immediately grounded for life.

6. You contact the bulimia hot line to set up an intervention.

7. Your grandmother comments, “That sermon on sin was really great – do you think he was for it or against it?”

8. You have had your toes stepped on, your brain stretched, your
sensibilities shaken, your presuppositions shattered, your doctrinal
positions contested, your traditional thinking challenged, and all that
you hold dear called into question. But other than that, it was a good
morning.

9. You realize there might actually be democrats in heaven – they just have to sit with the Presbyterians.

10. You have a sudden and unyielding urge to do homework.