► Listen on Amazon
► Listen on Apple
► Listen on Spotify
► Listen on YouTube
You can find previous episodes of “The Stone Chapel Podcast” at Lanier Theological Library.
“The Stone Chapel Podcast” is part of the ChurchLeaders Podcast Network.
This episode has been edited for clarity and space.
Chris Dolson
I’m Chris Dolson, and I am the Executive Director of The Didasko Seminars. I was formerly the lead pastor of Blackhawk Church in Madison, Wisconsin, for 27 years. And I was the lead pastor of a small church in Shreveport, Louisiana.
David Capes
Chris Dolson, good to see you, my friend. Welcome to “The Stone Chapel Podcast.” It’s your first appearance.
Chris Dolson
Yes. It’s great to be on the podcast with you.
David Capes
We’ve been talking for a while now, and I had the great opportunity to come to a seminar in Glen Rose, Texas, and walk among the dinosaurs! You had a pastor’s seminar there called Didasko. We’re going to be talking about that today. You’ve been doing this for a number of years. It’s a great idea and I love it! We’re going to be hosting one here at the Lanier Theological Library in October of 2026. But first of all, for those who don’t know you, Chris, tell us about you.
Chris Dolson
I have been a lead pastor of two local churches, one small church in Louisiana from 1984 to 1994 and it was a really a small church. And then in 1994 my wife and family and I, moved to Madison, Wisconsin, and became the pastor of Blackhawk Church. It’s a university town so we have 50,000 students at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. The church had about 300 people when I got here and then it grew to about 600 the next year, and then 800, 900 and 1000. It started to grow really rapidly, and I had no idea what I was doing. I made every mistake you could possibly make as a pastor.
During that time, when it was rapidly growing, I was getting my doctorate from Gordon Conwell under Haddon Robinson. I didn’t really care if I got a doctorate. I just wanted to be under that guy!
David Capes
He’s a legend. I mean, he’s really a legend, and a legend in preaching circles.
Chris Dolson
The whole idea of Didasko was really born there, because when we finished my class in 1999, we wanted to continue to be with Haddon. And he asked why. We just wanted to hang out, you with him. And so said he had a bunch of friends that might be interested. So he invited one of his friends, getting Bruce Waltke. Bruce came to a retreat center with Haddon. Bruce talked about Proverbs, and then Haddon talked about how we might preach it. That’s basically what we do. And we’ve been doing it since 2000.
It was always associated with Gordon Conwell until Haddon passed away in 2017. I gave up being the lead pastor here at Blackhawk Church in 2021 because it seemed like the next chapter for me would be to take the seminar that we were doing and offer it to more people. Because my peers would say, hey, I want to come to it. And we’d have to say you can’t. We don’t have room, because we only did one. I hated to say no to a bunch of friends who wanted to be a partner.
So we asked ourselves if we could do this in different places of the country. Preachers are busy people. Many have too much on their plate but they come. We bring in a scholar who’s at the top of their game. We’ve had Doug Moo, Craig Blomberg, Nijay Gupta, and Lynn Cohick. They’re published scholars. We ask them to focus on their book, whatever they’re doing. I’m going to do a seminar with Nijay in a couple of weeks in Eugene, Oregon, and we’re going to do Philippians. Nijay will take us through a segment of Philippians. Then I’ll come in and ask all the pastors. how are we going to preach that in our churches. Every seminar has about 30 to 45 pastors, and we just start talking about preaching. How would we actually preach that?
We break for coffee, exchange stories, and then the scholar comes back up, does the next passage, and we discuss how we are going to preach that. So it’s very practical. It’s basically meeting the needs that preaching pastors have. We like to say it like this, David. When you’re a pastor, and go to a seminar, you come back inspired, and it’s really cool. But you feel behind because you’ve been gone three or four days. When you come to a Didasko seminar, you go back to your church, and feel ahead because you now have the gist of a sermon series on the book of Philippians. And you know your worship leaders rise up and call you blessed!
David Capes
Because now you know that for the next number of weeks, you’re going to be speaking about these themes, these passages.
Chris Dolson
Right, it’s basically continuing education for pastors.
David Capes
And boy, they need it. Pastors need that, and they know they need that. Pastors need pastors too. They need other pastors, but they also need someone like you who has a great deal of experience and has been preaching for a long time. They need someone who can help them think through the kinds of issues that they’re going to be facing as they preach this text. Because some passages are difficult to preach.
Chris Dolson
Absolutely, the scholar is the expert on the Bible. These scholars wrote the commentaries on our shelf, or on our computer. But now you have the scholars right there in front of you. You can ask questions while you have lunch with Doug Moo. And scholars love it. They just love to be with people who run on the front lines. The scholar is the expert on the Bible. But the pastor is the expert on their church. What’s going to be preached in a church in Memphis might be different than a church in Madison. You take what we just talked about, and ask how are you going to translate that for your congregation? Now, in your situation, you’re ahead. Then when you go back, you have the gist of a series for the book of Philippians, or Genesis, or whatever book we’re doing.
David Capes
What kind of sermons are these guys going to create after the seminar? Are they expository sermons?
Chris Dolson
Mainly, yes. That a great question and it reminds me of a story. I want to say expository messages. When I did my thesis project for Haddon, I wanted to interview five different expositors. Haddon said the first questions you ask these people (and they are well-known people at that time) is what they mean by expository preaching. He told me I would get five different answers.
David Capes
Oh, wow. Yes, that’s fair. That’s fair.
Chris Dolson
I interviewed Will Willimon. And he said don’t call me an expository preacher, because everybody thinks that’s means verse by verse. That’s not what I do. Earl Palmer had a completely different definition of expository preaching. And Mark Labberton who was the president of Fuller Seminary, he had a different definition. So, to answer your question, yes, expository preaching. What we mean by that is that the sermon is driven by the text, so that the speaker bends their words around the text of Scripture. They don’t bend the text around their word.
David Capes
I like that image.
Chris Dolson
Yes, my message is driven by the text. Whatever Paul is saying in Philippians, or whatever the book is, I’m asking the question, what’s the author talking about. What’s Paul saying about the subject and complement. These are Hadden’s terms. That’s the big idea. And then we talk about how this is going to translate to my audience. We talk about coming up with a purpose statement, and thinking about things which we call depravity factors, and all these homiletical things that we talk about. We ask what’s going to be the payoff of a talk like that, as you’re doing Philippians 1:1-11, or whatever the passage is.
David Capes
You are doing these seminars all over the United States, right? On average how many of these do you do in a given year?
Chris Dolson
Right now, we’re a young organization of about two years, because remember, it was originally an event of Gordon Conwell. It was a legacy event. Basically, we did it every year, for graduates from Gordon Conwell. In 2024 we had four seminars. In 2025 we had seven, and then next year, in 2026 we should have nine.
