A Book and Sermon Series
Before laws are written, hearts are formed.
"Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot."Alexis de Tocqueville, 1830s
In the 1830s, this French observer traveled the young United States to understand why this republic was succeeding where so many others had failed. His answer was not political or military. It was faith.
Great Begins with Good is a historically grounded discipleship journey that traces how Christian virtue shaped America from the Great Awakening to the present day, not to canonize the past, but to recover what is genuinely worth remembering.
This is not a political manifesto. This is a moral invitation.
America became great not because she had a well-written Constitution, but because her citizens were capable of sustaining that covenant. Long before laws could enforce behavior, virtue formed conscience. That moral fire drove the fight against poverty, slavery, sexism, and bigotry.
Each chapter moves through American history, framed first by Scripture and illustrated by historical figures who practiced, contested, or recovered Christian virtue in their time and whose goodness reshaped the nation's trajectory.
Scripture. Virtue. History.
Companion sermon series, May 17 through July 5, America's 250th Birthday season
Before America was a nation, it experienced spiritual awakening. Renewal begins not with institutions but with hearts transformed by grace.
Respect is not weakness, but self-restrained power. Leadership that yields authority and acknowledges dependence on God.
Created in God's image, humans are called to cultivate creation. Work and innovation as acts of worship directed toward the common good.
Courage is obedience at great personal cost. Faith-driven bravery that confronts injustice and trusts God's presence in dangerous obedience.
Compassion matures when love organizes itself. Christian mercy moving beyond sentiment into hospitals, orphanages, and missions.
How people handle power, labor, and resources. What God entrusts to us is meant to bless others.
Justice flows from the conviction that every person bears God's image. The long struggle to align law with the dignity God has already declared.
The gospel insists failure is never final. Grace restores individuals and reshapes communities that believe in repentance and hope.
Eight Flags. Eight Weeks.
One Story of a Nation.
Throughout the series, eight historical American flags will fly on the FBC Kaufman campus, one for each week. Each flag tells the story of a different era of American history and a different expression of the virtues this series traces. Together they form a timeline stretching from colonial revival to the present, a visual reminder that freedom has always been carried by people of faith and character.
"An Appeal to Heaven." Carried by George Washington's naval fleet, declaring the colonial cause rested not in human power but in divine appeal.
"Join, or Die." Franklin's rattlesnake across thirteen stripes, a call to unity from a people learning what it meant to be one nation.
"Don't Tread on Me." A declaration that free people will not be ruled by force and that conscience cannot be coerced.
The first flag flown by the Continental Army. A nation not yet fully born but already reaching for something new.
Thirteen stars in a circle, no state above another. The founding conviction that dignity is declared by God, not granted by rank.
Gonzales, Texas, 1835. The courage of ordinary people who refused to surrender what had been given to them.
The flag that flew over Fort McHenry through a night of bombardment, still there at dawn. A nation that would not yield.
Fifty stars. Thirteen stripes. Handed forward by every generation who believed the promises it represented were worth the cost of keeping them.
The Pulpit That Helped Birth a Nation
In 1742, a young English preacher named George Whitefield had a portable oak pulpit built so he could preach outdoors, in fields, in city squares, wherever crowds would gather. He carried it across two continents, and from that pulpit he is believed to have preached approximately 2,000 sermons to crowds sometimes numbering 20,000 or more.
Whitefield was a central figure of the First Great Awakening. Historians credit his itinerant ministry with helping the American colonies see themselves, for the first time, as one people. His preaching did not just save souls. It shaped a civilization.
This Sunday, FBC Kaufman has been granted permission to bring George Whitefield's pulpit here, and Dr. Gentzel will preach the opening message of this series from it.
After Whitefield's death, the pulpit passed through private hands before coming into the care of the American Tract Society. It was loaned out only once, in New York in 1935, the last time anyone preached from it. When the Tract Society closed, it was transferred to the Texas Baptist Historical Collection in Dallas. Since then it has been on public display only twice: once at the Smithsonian Institution, and once at Baylor University.
We are not doing this as a gimmick or a spectacle. We are doing it as an act of remembrance, a tangible reminder that the God who moved powerfully in the 1740s is the same God we gather to worship today.
Choose Your Edition
All editions available in paperback on Amazon
The full text, ten chapters tracing Christian virtue through American history from the Great Awakening to the present. Includes Going Deeper study questions. $18.99
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Written for reading aloud at home, school, or church for ages 8 to 13. Each chapter ends with discussion questions for families and classrooms. $16.99
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Edicion Tejana en Espanol, bringing this call to spiritual renewal to Spanish-speaking communities and churches. Edicion para Leer Juntos. $14.99
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