Although the benefits of feedback between theoretical and empirical research are widely acknowledged, this link is still not as strong as it could be in ecological research, and Modern Coexistence Theory (MCT) is no exception. In this talk I will kick off the symposium by outlining four ways that empiricists can use theory to motivate their research and discussing how these four approaches can be adopted in empirical application of MCT. For each approach, I will highlight where empiricists have made progress in using MCT to its fullest capacity, and where gaps and opportunities remain.