I’m a Pastor. Here’s What I’m Going to Say about Charlie Kirk Tomorrow from the Pulpit

Every time we preach, it’s a weighty task. But tomorrow is no normal Sunday in America.

This is my latest piece at Center for Baptist Leadership.

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Tomorrow, pastors across America will stand before their congregations in the wake of one of the most shocking and tragic political events in recent American history: The cold-blooded assassination of Charlie Kirk before a crowd of 3,000 college students on the campus of Utah Valley University.

As every pastor who properly understands the gravity of their calling before the eyes of God, taking the pulpit to preach the Word every Sunday is a weighty task. And that’s just on normal Sundays.

But tomorrow is no normal Lord’s Day.

There is no question that what occurred this week is a national tragedy. The sheep under your charge need to be shepherded through it—and that responsibility falls to you, brother pastor. Furthermore, given that Charlie was an outspoken Christian, pastors should rightly expect to see first-time visitors in the pews tomorrow, perhaps even many non-Christians, who are seeking answers and guidance as they process their anger, sorrow, grief, and confusion.

As I said, tomorrow is no normal Sunday.

Now, you may not plan on preaching about Charlie Kirk’s death tomorrow. That’s your call to make depending on the needs of your church.

To put my own cards on the table, I absolutely think you should at least address it. Remember, as a pastor, you teach your congregation just as much by what you don’t say as by what you do. A failure to speak to it all, in my opinion, would be a failure to “read the room” in a painful way.

But one thing is certain, though. Every Bible-believing church will have people in worship tomorrow who are scared, angry, and looking for answers.

You’ll see it in their eyes tomorrow morning. And those eyes will be looking to you. This is your calling. This is what you prepared for. God’s appointed means of shepherding his flock is through faithful elders preaching the Word, in season and out of season.

So give them Jesus. Give them the Bible. Give them the gospel. Give them hope. Help them apply God’s Word to their lives. Give them a vision for the supremacy of Christ in all things. Give them the grave-conquering power of the resurrected Christ. For apart from Christ, you can do nothing. But in the power of the Spirit, God can use your words to transform lives for eternity.

Tomorrow is a day to preach, as Richard Baxter put it, “as a dying man to dying men,” and to point your listeners to the eternal life that can only be found in Christ.

And tomorrow is a day to talk about Charlie Kirk, a man who found that life in Christ, and ultimately gave his life while working to share both the gospel and the political implications of the Christian faith.

With that said, here is what I plan to say at the start of my sermon tomorrow. I hope it is helpful for you. You’re free to use it, word for word, if you think it would bless your congregation (but to avoid any Ed Litton situations, it might be best to mention where you got it from). At least, perhaps this will inspire you to refine your own thoughts a bit more.

Whatever you do, I’m praying for you, brother pastor. Preach your guts out tomorrow. Remember Charlie. And above all else, honor Christ.

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After the events of the past week, I just couldn’t proceed with the sermon I’d planned on preaching to you today. So I’m going to do something I’ve never done before, and preach a different sermon based on what happened this week in our nation.

Here’s why. Charlie Kirk’s assassination has affected me deeply. His death has moved me personally. He is a legitimate Christian martyr, and many of us are grieving his death as a massive, personal loss.

I resonate deeply with what my friend Josh Daws recently wrote:

“Charlie Kirk has been a fixture in our home. I’d often hear the sounds of Charlie debating leftists coming from my 16-year-old’s room when he should have been doing schoolwork. More often than not, I’d let it slide because he was probably learning more from Charlie anyway… He was someone I could point to with complete confidence and say, “I want you to be like Charlie. I want you to be that kind of man who is willing to stand up and defend what he believes…” This is the silencing of a voice that shaped their understanding of courage, faith, and what it means to be a man in this generation.”

I call him a martyr because he was killed for his beliefs and his voice. He was not an elected official; he was a spokesman for and a voice on behalf of untold millions of young people desperately hungry for truth. He gave his life identifying the spiritual and social evils that are tearing our country apart and sending people to hell.

As a political activist, he articulated an explicitly Christian vision for America, true to our founding principles. He was massively popular with Gen Z, particularly inspiring millions of young men to get married, start families, work hard, and be responsible. He set the example with his own life. He was a 31-year-old husband and father of two. And he founded one of the most important conservative political organizations in the country. Many said Donald Trump would not have been elected without Charlie’s influence. Those closest to him said, “Charlie would have been President one day.”

But more importantly, Charlie was a Christian man of God—an evangelist who defended biblical truth with clarity and conviction. He followed in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul, going to the Aereopagus to discuss and debate ideas in front of hostile crowds. Now, he’s followed in the footsteps of the martyr Stephen, cut down in his youth for boldly proclaiming Christ to a world that didn’t want to hear it.

Just scroll through his social media feed and you’ll find him incessantly talking about Jesus, the Christian gospel, and what it means to follow Christ. Grok estimates that some 200 million people heard the gospel because of Charlie Kirk. My friend, pastor, and leading abortion activist Jeff Durbin said he was working with Kirk’s Turning Point USA organization to partner in the fight to abolish abortion.

As a debater, Charlie would talk to anyone. He masterfully and respectfully articulated courageous, firm, and humble engagement in the public square. And the ideas he articulated were not fringe ideas. They were our ideas. In fact, I could easily imagine Charlie Kirk being a member of our church. He’s exactly the kind of man I pray our church produces.

Charlie Kirk was undoubtedly one of the most influential voices for the Protestant faith in many years. If you didn’t know who he was before this week, it’s probably because you’re older than his target audience. But your kids and grandkids knew him. Many young people watched countless hours of his videos on YouTube, saying things you probably already knew but didn’t have the words to say. Charlie did that.

And now, it has become clear to everyone that being a faithful, biblical Christian who charitably engages ideas in the public square can get you shot in the throat in front of a crowd of thousands, not to mention his own wife and children. In the hours and days that followed, millions of people around the country laughed, smiled, danced, mocked, and openly celebrated his death.

Charlie Kirk was not some “radical extremist.” He was a regular, Christian, conservative—the kind that your grandma would love. He believed things and said things that every boringly biblical Christian believed 20 years ago. Charlie Kirk was you. And Charlie Kirk was me. Charlie Kirk believed what we believe. And when Tyler Robinson attacked him, he was attacking all of us.

The difference between Charlie Kirk and ordinary, conservative, Saturday-grill-on-the-patio conservatives was this: he was a once-in-a-generation talent, and he had the unflinching courage to speak the truth. That’s it.

Charlie wasn’t simply hated for being Charlie Kirk. They hated Charlie because they hate us. They hated him because he was the best of us. They hated Charlie because he followed Jesus Christ.

He showed the world that the people the left calls “fascist!” and “Nazi!” are just ordinary, decent Americans trying to be responsible citizens. Most of them are Christians. Every day, Charlie’s next-level persuasiveness convinced more and more people to abandon Leftism and consider biblically faithful conservative Christianity afresh.

Charlie’s enemies saw him the same way I did: he was one man who was so decent, so unusually gifted by God, and so uniquely attractive to young people, that he could lead a movement that would radically alter the cultural landscape for a generation. That’s a threat the Left cannot tolerate. So they killed him.

Everything I’ve seen and heard from Charlie Kirk inspires me to be a better man. And I’m sure many of you feel the same way. That’s why I could not let this moment pass without reflecting together on the ideology that prompted Charlie’s murder, and how we as Christians can respond with warm hearts, sharp minds, and steel spines.

Charlie’s organization was called Turning Point, and that’s what this moment feels like. A turning point in America.

What will we do with this moment? How will we respond? That is the question I will answer in the rest of my sermon today. Please open your Bibles to Romans 1:28-32.

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