Easier to Read One

October 27, 2011October 27, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

The other day I spent a great morning with a friend reading through some fairly weighty church history. For a couple of hours we stretched our thinking and responded with heavy hearts to an in-depth overview of medieval theology. One paragraph in particular caught my attention and my mind went back to this blog, especially in light of the Lit! review a couple of days ago.

I won’t try to give all the details here, but essentially the book was engaging a debate over the state of theological thought in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Was the fourteenth century about decline into chaos, or was it heading toward the harvest of medieval theology? And then what happened in the fifteenth century? Was it all progress and growth, or was there largely a retreat to the great masters of the thirteenth century? And our thoughts should go on to consider what really happened in the sixteenth century as well – was that all progress, or was there some significant relapses there too?

Your brain might be stretching trying figure out who was around in those centuries, but that’s not the point, here’s the sentence:

[The intellectual decline is attributed to] “the indolence of ‘easy-going scholars,’ who found it ‘so much more convenient to study one author rather than ten or twenty.'”

Ok, one more bit, then back to today:

Like war-weary Europeans who surrendered to strong-arm rule in the late fifteenth century, many argument-weary scholars appear to have given their minds passively to the intellectual giants of the past on the eve of the Reformation.

So fast forward to today. For most Christians, the preacher is the closest they typically come to a Christian scholar. But the question that sits up to be answered is fairly obvious, I think. Is my church being fed by preacher(s) who are enriched by good reading, or by preacher(s) who are “easy-going scholars?” It is, after all, so much more convenient to study one author rather than ten or twenty.

If you’ve read this site with any sort of frequency, I’m sure you’ll have noticed that my real passion is to get preachers to genuinely preach the Word (rather than just preaching from, or using, or in association with, the Word).

But I would also encourage wider reading too. Some preachers hardly read anything, and there is a “thin-ness” to their ministry. Other preachers constantly read one author, and there is a “superficial tone of emulation” in their ministry. Let’s be preachers who read, who read widely, who read quality, and who read so as not to give our minds passively to intellectual giants of the past, or the present.

Tweaking Ingredients in Preaching

October 26, 2011October 23, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I spent my first few years in Italy. One enduring result on this is a long-term liking for Nutella. The original and best chocolate hazelnut spread! Australians might love their vegemite and the Americans their peanut butter, but this European can’t get away from Nutella. Except for when I see it in American shops, that is.

In recent years I have seen it appearing in the grocery store during my visits to the US, and have bought a jar or two. Same jar, same wrapping, same colour, but not same taste. One ingredient is different – just the oil. One ingredient on a long list, but it makes a difference.

The same is true with preaching. One ingredient modified slightly and the whole product can taste wrong. Here are some examples of tweaks that might ruin preaching:

1. Tweaking the tone from good news. Same passage, same illustrations, same length of sermon, but if you replace the good news aspect of the message with pressure to conform, guilt for failure or legalistic righteousness, I guarantee the message won’t taste the same!

2. Tweaking “of” to “from.” This is a common one. Instead of passionately pursuing the preaching of the message of the text, many preachers choose instead to preach their message from the text. That is, they use the biblical text as a starting point, but at the end the listeners don’t feel they know the text any better than at the beginning. Don’t preach from a text, preach the text. (I think this is the hardest one to spot in a mirror – every preacher thinks they are explaining the text. Perhaps you should ask someone who knows the Bible well and be ready to listen to what they tell you!)

3. Tweaking the text to fit an outline. Some preachers don’t go near this neighbourhood, but some seem to live there. Its where the text is twisted slightly to help it fit in a certain outline. Perhaps a three-point alliterated outline. Is that really what the writer was doing in the text? Was that his intended outline? If not, you may leave a sour taste for listeners who sense that you’ve done a bit of a number on the text!

These feel like relatively small adjustments, but they leave a very different impression.

Book Review: Lit! by Tony Reinke

October 25, 2011January 18, 2012 / Peter Mead / 3 Comments

Lit! – A Christian Guide to Reading Books by Tony Reinke is bordering on a must read for preachers and church leaders. Years ago it was a given that leaders have to be readers, but today I wonder if we’ve not bought into the notion that leaders have to be too busy to be real readers. Headlines? Yes. Emails? Of course. Web browser? Certainly. Blogs? Staying in touch. Books? Uh, too busy, sorry.

This book is a thoroughly enjoyable pithy little promo for the right kind of reading. The first half of the book lays a theological foundation for books and reading. The second half offers nine dynamite chapters of practical wisdom to help the motivated reader become a real reader.

When we commit ourselves to literature rather than a superficial spinning through surface hype, we find a richness of personal enlightenment that is truly of God. Reinke doesn’t advocate an only-Christian book approach to reading, but he does clearly recognize two categories of books in the world. The Bible. And everything else.

The book engages with what to read, as well as how to read. It addresses issues of conscience, of priorities, of benefits. And it does it all in an engaging energetic manner that makes you want to keep reading, and pick up something else, something good, to read at the same time (if only that were possible!)

Should we read non-Christian books? Absolutely – at least, the best of them, if we already have a well-formed biblical worldview (which I think he assumes too easily and most readers would also assume naively). In fact, Reinke gives biblical examples of reading non-biblical authors as well as a couple of giants from church history on the subject.

Actually, with a passionate commitment to reading like Reinke, we are having to leave behind over 10,000 books for every one that we choose. So we need to choose well, read discerningly, and benefit as fully as possible.

I’ve been struck many times by how many people do not read wisely. “I can’t buy another book until I’ve finished the last one I started . . . three years ago!” Bad logic. Preachers need to be reading and we can’t afford to get log-jammed by a bothersome book.

Randy Alcorn writes of Lit! : “Seldom have I enjoyed a book more than this one.” I concur. Hence I read it in a day. I think your ministry would be blessed if you enjoyed it too.

(If you are in the UK, click here to buy book.)

Eternal Preaching – Part 2

October 24, 2011October 21, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Last time I listed and rebutted five reasons that the future has been squeezed out of much of the preaching in our generation (not in every church, but in many). One accusation is that preaching about the future isn’t worth it because it doesn’t offer any contemporary relevance. You know the idea – “pie in the sky when you die” kind of talk, “too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use” and all that. (Support that idea biblically!)

Here’s an application shotgun blast:

Biblical teaching on the future gives us encouragement in trials (John 14:1); comfort in griefs (1Thess.4:13-18); motivation for purification (1John 2:28-3:3); it moves us toward morality (Col.3:1-5ff); it drives us to diligent spotlessness (2Peter 3:14); it leads us to lay aside lusts (Rom.13:11-14); encourages exemplary living (1Thess.5:1-11); fires our faith (Heb.10:35-39); spurs us to strengthen our hearts (James 5:7-8); produces perseverance in our service (1Cor.15:58); fires us to finish well (2Tim.4:7-8); focuses our passion for preaching (2Tim.4:1-2); stirs worship as we see the sovereign plan of God (Rom.11:25-32); and offers blessing for both reading and heeding (Rev.1:3).

I could have added more, but you get the point. (1) There is a lot of biblical content that points our thinking to future things and eternity. I didn’t touch on the gospels, or the Old Testament, in that blast. Two more mega rounds of applicational value. If we are going to preach the Bible, we can’t help but point our listeners to the future.

If we are going to seek biblical transformation in the lives of our listeners, we can’t help but speak of the future. As we see in the blast above, (2) the Bible assumes that our values are shaped by the future. Where you treasure is, there your heart will be also. Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Can a follower of Christ really represent Christ in this world without having eternally shaped values?

We live in a world marked by hopelessness. Whether it is the forlorn agony of poverty, or the vain emptiness of wealth, we are surrounded by the hopeless. (3) Of all people, followers of Christ should be marked by hope, which is a biblical fruit of future focus. If we preach a Christianity bereft of future reference, we snap a leg from the stool of truth on which we sit. Sadly too many believers are trying balance on faith and love, but hope is strangely absent.

Let’s be sure to preach the Bible, shaping values and stirring hope.

Eternal Preaching – Part 1

October 21, 2011October 21, 2011 / Peter Mead / 7 Comments

Some sermons do seem to drag on towards eternity, but perhaps too few preach in light of eternity. It seems to me that in many quarters the church has reacted against eschatological sensationalism by removing all reference to the end-times from the pulpit. Perhaps the subject is seen as being divisive, difficult, obscure, irrelevant or embarrassingly sensational and therefore best left alone.

Here are my responses to these five common reasons for avoiding the subject of the future, then next time I’ll offer some positive reasons to go eternal in your preaching.

1. Eschatology is divisive. After all, there are so many views on the millennium, the coming of Christ for the church, the details on the timeline, political implications today, etc. Actually, most issues in the Bible are potentially divisive – the nature of God, the person of Christ, the role of the believer in salvation, the work of the Holy Spirit, etc. If a subject is potentially divisive, surely we shouldn’t avoid it, but watch our attitudes and clarity when we do speak of it?

2. It is difficult. I suspect many a preacher avoids all references to the future because they are pretty sure they aren’t sure where they stand on it all. Like most subjects in the Bible, it is both complicated enough for a doctoral research pursuit, yet simple enough for a child to understand. Avoiding a subject because it is difficult will lead us to missing out on the rich wonder of the Bible, and our listeners will never hear us mention the central subjects like the Triune God, the Incarnation, etc.

3. It is obscure. Uh, no. Biblical reference to the future is not limited to a couple of the more apocalyptic prophets. Every book in the New Testament except one includes reference to the return of Christ, let alone all the other aspects of future teaching. Obscure it certainly is not, if we read the Bible, that is. I suppose the challenge is that many don’t and so judge Christianity by their cultural worldview instead.

4. It is irrelevant. Again, no. We’ll look at applicational value of future thinking next time.

5. It is embarrassingly sensational. Sadly, it can be and often is. There is too much hype and puff coming from some. The solution to that is to offer our listeners the good example of being well grounded biblically, rather than leaving them to become newspaper and paperback theologians.

None of these reasons are enough to kick the future out of our present preaching. Next time, we’ll start stacking up the positive reasons to bring back future and eternal preaching.

I Like To Pick a Prophet or Two

October 20, 2011October 20, 2011 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

When did you last preach a series from one of the writing prophets? When did you last lay open a minor prophet in a single session? I think God gave us a great squad to choose from with the 16 in the canon. Here are five reasons why I like to pick a prophet or two:

1. God’s Heart on the Sleeve – This is the big one for me. The prophets don’t keep you waiting to let you know what is on God’s heart. They were wonderful communicators of God’s passion, concern, anger, love, etc. In a church deeply stained by centuries of stoic thinking, it is a delight to offer the fullness of God’s affections, passions, compassion, emotion.

2. Punchy Relevance in Abundance – The prophets weren’t under the impression that their job was to fill a sermon slot with an informative soliloquy. They cried out to God’s people in specific application to their pain, their misery, their complacency, their present reality. Preaching on overtly applied texts tends to stir greater levels of contemporary relevance today too.

3. Messianic Goldmine in Places – This is what they’re famous for, of course. It’s a delight to preach of the Servant of the Lord, or of Immanuel, or of Zerubbabel’s signet ring, or of the New Covenant blessings. I’d be careful not to cherry pick the messianic predictions, but to preach them in their full context for full effect. We have a wonderful Christ, so preach the prophets!

4. Thematic Contrasts and Crescendos Galore – Like a stunning diamond on black velvet, so read the prophets. Impending judgment flowing into kingdom hope. Human sin overwhelming, then God’s grace superabundant. Faithless people, faithful God. Doom! Salvation! Darkness! Glory! The bulging muscular arm and clenched fist of the Lord! The tender shepherd holding the little ones close to His beating heart!

5. Novelty Value for Jaded Listeners – Perhaps they’ve heard stories from the gospels for months on end. Maybe they are saturated in epistolary logic. Perchance they have experienced the odd dip into Isaiah 6, 40, and 53. But what about Ezekiel 16, or Jeremiah 20, or Hosea, or Zephaniah? Typically the prophets, presuming they are well preached, will get a good hearing because listeners aren’t used to hearing them.

There you go, five reasons why I like to pick a prophet or two.

Where Are The Signs of Life? Part 2

October 19, 2011October 18, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

We are daring to dream. Preachers discouraged by an apparent lack of response to the Word, imagining together what could happen, what should happen as the Word is preached in our churches. Yesterday we thought about gradual climate change and breakthrough moments in church life. Here are a couple more prompts for pondering and prayer. Imagine if . . .

3. The life injection. I have sat through prayer meetings in struggling churches where people have prayed that the Lord might “bring in a young couple to help us…” Certainly many churches have been helped by the arrival of a keen and helpful new couple or family. Imagine the difference salvation can make to a church! While it is great to receive ready-made church servants who move into the area, how much more exciting to receive newborn believers fresh from their spiritual delivery! When people get saved, they bring mess with them, baggage, issues, interesting perspectives, and lots and lots of joy for a church. Imagine what might happen in your church if God were to suddenly save some local folks. Perhaps people resistant to change might become advocates for change because they care about the nurture of these new believers. Perhaps people apparently dead in their pew might become invigorated by the thrill of seeing people coming to faith in Christ and start to share their faith in Christ. Just as a new baby transforms a home, so a new believer might transform your church. Preach the gospel, preach the Word, God continues to rescue the dead and bring them into the kingdom of the Son whom He loves!

4. The spreading ministry. One of the frustrations many preachers face is the feeling that they are alone. A bit of the Elijah syndrome in a local context. There may be the couple who put out the chairs and the lady who does the flowers, and even a Sunday school teacher or two, but somehow it feels like the burden is all yours. Now imagine if, through your preaching, and your example, and God’s Spirit stirring hearts, you discovered that several of the people in the church are becoming proactive in pastoral care, in counseling, in mentoring, in encouraging, in caring. Maybe nobody wants to preach (who would volunteer for public speaking unless they’re a bit weird anyway?), but imagine the difference it would make if the church had a band of on-fire ministers seeking out others to warm their hearts with the relational grace of the gospel. Imagine that spreading as your preaching fans the flames and the whole church community becoming a community of love and concern and trust and support and care . . . and by this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another . . . and imagine the community overcoming their preconceived ideas and media driven stereotypes and discovering that the church is a place where people really love each other!

Preach the Word, serve the church, look to Christ, don’t give up.

Where Are The Signs of Life?

October 18, 2011October 18, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

I often speak to preachers who are discouraged by the apparent lack of response to the Word in the congregation. For today’s post I’d like us to dream together about what may happen in the next months. After all, we have a God who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or even imagine. So let’s dare to dream together and pray for each other to see one or more of these scenarios working out in the church where you serve . . .

1. The climate change. You have probably heard this before, but most preachers overestimate what can be achieved in one sermon, but massively underestimate what can be achieved through consistent biblical preaching over the months and years. We hear a lot about climate change, but imagine if the whole ethos of your church were to gradually change. What if people in your church had their hearts warmed by the sunshine of the gospel? What if they became enlivened by the freshness of God’s grace and the Narnian winter of legalism began to thaw? What if people gradually started to see God for who He is and began to delight in Him, starting to move beyond a dutiful Christianity to a delightful responsiveness to Him? Keep preaching the Word and making much of the Lord and pray for climate change in the church!

2. The breakthrough moment. I suppose this is the one we hope for on a weekly basis! What if there is a long running conflict simmering under the surface in a key relationship and you don’t even know about it? And what if this Sunday one party went to the other in tears of repentance and brokenness? What if there is a deep seated sin issue in the church, and this Sunday hearts are broken in repentance and turning to the Lord and stepping into the light? What if one individual is a power broker and this Sunday they decide to finally let go of the reins and trust God with His church? Lots of what ifs, and if any Sunday can be the Sunday, then it might be this Sunday, or the next . . . so keep preaching the Word!

Tomorrow I’ll add a couple more. Let’s dream together and pray for each other. There are a lot of discouraged preachers out there. Preachers placed very strategically, by God, in situations where His Word, His Spirit, His preacher can make the world of difference!

Is Godliness Goodliness?

October 17, 2011October 17, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

As we preach, we both reflect God’s character and we target God’s character in our listeners. The question we have to ask is this – what is God’s character? Some seem to subsume every facet of character under holiness and piety, prioritising the presentation of and pursuit of a personal piety of pursed lips. Today’s post, as is the case every other Monday, is hosted on www.cordeo.org.uk – please click here to go there, thanks!

Strategic Application Saving

October 14, 2011October 14, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Yesterday I met with a good friend to talk through a passage he is going to preach soon. I love conversations like that! As usual, within a few minutes I was starting to wish I were also preaching that passage. Just a side comment, but pre-preaching conversations about a passage with another preacher can be so fruitful! Anyway, onto the point of today’s post…

I think application is generally best incorporated throughout a message. So instead of lengthy explanation followed by a block of application at the end, we can demonstrate the relevance of the message from the introduction onwards, and at every transition, within every movement of the message, etc. But with the passage we were looking at yesterday, I felt that this was an opportunity for strategic application saving.

His passage has two foci of potential application. One relates to the kind of people we will encounter as we go out into the world to share the gospel. The second relates to the kind of people we are within the church. My suggestion was to make the whole focus on the former, and save the latter until the very end. Why?

My sense was that if he hinted at, or overtly referred to, the possibility that there might be people with false motives in the church, then subconsciously the listeners would have their guard up. Instead, better to focus the application of the passage on “the big world out there and what we will encounter as we share the gospel” for the bulk of the message, allow the listeners to become engrossed in the narrative from Acts, and then at the end introduce the “but what about us in here” target.

Withholding an aspect of application can be very strategic when listeners drop their guard and are therefore more open to be struck by its relevance. Our tendency as preachers is to give away too much early on in the message. Even a little comment like, “this passage speaks to what we will meet out there, and also what kind of people we are…” – that mini comment early on could change the reception of the entire message.

If part of the relevance of a message might be resisted, pay special attention to when you introduce the thought. One option is to avoid early references to it, get the guard to drop, and then perhaps it will hit home more strategically.