Preaching’s Biggest Assumption

September 29, 2011September 29, 2011 / Peter Mead / 9 Comments

I think the biggest assumption found in Christian preaching today might be this: that God is God.

Now I don’t mean that God has the right to be God, that is a different matter and a truth worth affirming. I mean that when the preacher says “God,” the listeners know who is meant. That is a big assumption.

It’s true that we live in an age of great religious confusion. After all, there may be Muslims, or Sikhs, or Hindus, or Buddhists, or New Age, or cult members present. There does seem to be an ever widening array of divinity options in our world today. But actually this isn’t my thinking in this post. Even when all present would call themselves Christians, I still think this is a big assumption to make.

Among Christians there are different “versions” of God at large, although they essentially do boil down to two main options. One is the monadic deity of philosophy – a God that tends to be assumed and agreed on in terms of his inherent attributes. This is the God that can be defined and described for chapter after chapter of some systematic theology texts before any reference to the Son or the Spirit or the Trinity are made. So many preachers refer to God, and assume all know what they mean . . . the God who made everything, is everywhere, judges everything, is all powerful, etc.

Somehow this power-God of philosophy is overlaid onto the Bible and assumed to be the same as the God of the Bible who is Father because of the eternal relationality of the Trinity, because of the Son and the Spirit. This God somehow seems to be slightly, and at times, radically different from the God that “everyone knows is God” of philosophy. My mind goes back to Mike Reeves’ talk at the Delighted By God conference in the summer where he contrasted the God of Arius and the God of Athanasius, offering both as the two options present in contemporary Christianity (here’s the link).

It isn’t only the increasing biblical illiteracy of our times that makes identifying the God we preach important. It is also the centuries’ old confusion of monadic and trinitarian understandings of God that makes this important. As we make sure our preaching is theocentric and pointing to God rather than humanity as its goal and focus, let’s be sure we are clear which God we are preaching.

More Help in the Vicinity

September 28, 2011September 25, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Yesterday we were thinking about texts that don’t sit up and easily offer engaging and interesting sermon spice. Perhaps they lack illustrative content, or engaging narratival features. The temptation is to relegate the text to a small role in the making of the sermon and break out a couple of humdinger illustrations that you know will stir the listeners. Before you resort to such tactics, I’m encouraging you to poke around in the neighbourhood of the text some more.

Yesterday we thought about the situation of the author and the recipients. Both point to narrative potential, even in the midst of an epistle. Here are a couple more leads to follow before you move on from the desk and get too creative in your sermon preparation:

3. What about a quotation? It’s hard to get through a paragraph in the New Testament without there being a quote or allusion or wording from the Old Testament. A bit of digging here might shine light on the text and offer more angles for the preaching of the text. Of course, good exegesis should have unearthed the quotes, but perhaps another look as a preacher will yield some potential colour for your sermon. Maybe Old Testament story, maybe something in the cross-over from back then to the day of the author.

4. What about the rest of the book? Seems strange to say it, but preachers can sometimes fall into the same trap many commentators seem to meet – atomistic Bible reading. That is, you are preaching from verses 5-11, so you only really focus on verses 5-11 (and in some cases, one verse at a time!) It is part of the flow of the whole, so look around again and see how your section works in the whole of the book. This might yield an angle from which to preach the text with greater engagement and interest.

There is always a danger that our passion to preach well can move us on from understanding the passage to the max. Don’t be in too much of a rush, but instead be sure to diligently dive into every detail in the text, and in the vicinity.

Help in the Vicinity

September 27, 2011September 25, 2011 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Some passages are sitting up and shouting “preach me! preach me!” Others are slightly less helpful. That is, the text is, of course, God-breathed and useful. But perhaps the author didn’t include any illustrations or pictorial language in the passage, or there is neither story in the passage or in the immediate context . . . it just reads like a logical progression of content that needs something to make it sing from the pulpit. Epistles tend to have sections like this.

Be careful! In this situation you are going to be tempted to preach less than biblically. You’ll be tempted to use the text as a springboard and bounce off it to preach your own message, using your own illustrations, etc. The text could become a very minor bit-part player making little more than a cameo appearance in your message. I’m assuming you’ve studied the passage and understand it, but I want to encourage you to search a little more in the vicinity of the text. It may yet yield a more thoroughgoing biblical sermon.

1. What about the author? Does his situation, life experience, background and story shine any light on the passage? If it does, then you have the hint of a narrative now . . . every life is a narrative, and this text might just tap into that in such a way that the message can be preached in an engaging manner with description and empathy and flow.

2. What about the situation? Bible writers didn’t write for a hobby. They were neither drunk nor wasteful. If they put it on papyrus, then it was for a purpose. What was going on with the recipients of the writing that prompted the author to write what he did. Again, you now are poking around in the bushes of a story, and stories will engage, allow description, create tension, offer resolution, empathy and intrigue. People are interested in people (that’s how many TV shows work).

I’ll add two more tomorrow…

Ministry Checkup: Loving Giver or Glory Seeker?

September 26, 2011September 27, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

What kind of ministry do you have? Are you a loving giver or a glory seeker?

Paul addresses his own motivations in 1Thessalonians 2 – a passage every preacher should meditate on periodically.

Don’t Minister as a Glory Seeker (2:1-6)

What did Paul do? He ministered boldly despite the suffering and conflict he faced. He was not after glory from man, but accepted shameful treatment. Why did he do this? His goal was to please God and not man. He knew God tests the hearts of those who serve Him, so Paul didn’t flatter, or greedily pursue gain. He was not after glory from people.

How are we doing? Chances are, if we are serving in a local church setting in the world today, that many of us are facing some level of discomfort and conflict in our ministry. Shameful treatment may be a bit of an overstatement for many, but it often isn’t completely off target either. Let’s not pursue glory from people, but serve with hearts pointed in the right direction – to please God.

Minister as a Loving Mother (2:7-8)

What did Paul do? He cared gently and tenderly like a good mother. Why did he do this? He loved them.

And us? When we minister to others we give of ourselves. When we preach the Word, we often feel spent. When serving a church, we will regularly find ourselves caring for broken and hurting individuals. They don’t tend to put it on the advertising, but it is often true, “Come as our minister and be a Mum to us!”

Minister as a Loving Father (2:9-12)

What did Paul do? He worked hard in their midst, setting a strong example, like a good father. Why did he do this? He was moved to motivate them for the end result that their lives would bring glory to God.

And us? Ministering in a church, whether full-time, part-time or whatever time, is hard work. Yet some do struggle with laziness. I read the other day a comment from Bill Hybels – if you want to improve your preaching, find a way to give an extra hour to the preparation. What level is your perspiration indicator showing as you labour in your ministry?

In the subsequent verses we see that Paul did have both glory and joy, but it was the Thessalonians in their response to the ministry. He didn’t pursue his own glory, but lovingly gave himself for their sakes through his ministry.

Interaction Flops – Part 2

September 24, 2011September 23, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Yesterday’s post was getting a bit long, so I’ve spilled over to today. Thinking about participative preaching, or interaction between pulpit and pew, that doesn’t really work. We thought about the cultural differences issue yesterday. Here are a few more warning flags:

Patronising the listeners – It is easy to cross a line from helpful invitation to participate vocally, to patronising listeners. It’s hard to get this right because assuming knowledge can be unhelpful:“We all know that Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament” . . . maybe, at a pastors conference, but in a normal church setting, what about the new young believer or visitor who doesn’t know that? Now they feel uniquely uninformed. But it can go the other way in participative preaching moments: “You finish the sentence if you can, ‘Jesus’ mother was called…?” As people mumble the name, Mary, chances are that they might be feeling like six year olds. Some preachers need to learn that getting people in a congregation to say something out loud is no great achievement, and it is no guarantee of attention or interest either. Sometimes it is just plain patronising.

Unnecessary invitations – You have to be sensitive to the congregation. Somehow you need to sense when asking for them to answer a question, or say something, or vocally agree, or whatever is simply unnecessary. I’ve sat in congregations where the preacher wasn’t really patronising, but perhaps just nervous. Everyone was with them, following, enjoying, appreciating, and suddenly the preacher seems to lose their nerve and start looking for vocal affirmation, or an answer to a question to “keep us engaged” when actually we were engaged, but now are getting a bit annoyed by the slowing of the pace and the loss of momentum. Tricky one to judge, but just don’t fall into the trap of thinking vocal response from the congregation is somehow always engaging or helpful.

Narrow answer requests– This is hard to take as a listener. When the preacher has a specific and narrow answer in mind and wants somebody else to say it. As we saw in the earlier posts, if you ask for participation, be open to the participation that may come back to you. Don’t frustrate listeners with a question that leaves them groping in the dark for “your” right answer!

What might you add to this list? Any other interaction flops that preachers should be wary of?

Interaction Flops

September 23, 2011September 23, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

For the past two days I have been blogging about a type of interactive preaching, or participative preaching if you prefer. This is not the same as preacher and listeners together discovering the meaning of a text (I’m not convinced about that in a preaching setting). It is the preacher having a specific destination, but allowing the listeners to participate in a significant stage of that journey. In the case of my message on Tuesday, I invited them to imagine what Peter and John might have thought back to during their years with Jesus as they anticipated a trial before the Sanhedrin in Acts 4. They shaped the message in respect to which aspects of the apostles’ experience we imagined together, but I still controlled how the message would end. Anyway, there are numerous approaches to inviting participation from the listeners while preaching. I’d like to wave a red flag at some approaches that seem to flop.

As I mentioned in the previous two-part post, all good preaching should feel somewhat participative, even if the listeners never vocally participate. But problems come when the preacher decides that getting noise out of the listeners’ mouths equates to a higher level of preaching or an automatically more engaged listener. This is too simplistic by half. For instance:

Cultural/Personality Differences – Last year I sat under the preaching of Dr Joe Stowell at Keswick, a preacher I appreciate very much. Joe is an American preacher who invites vocal response and vocal affirmation and audience participation, etc. I don’t know if it is the American versus British difference, or just the warmth of Joe’s personality, but his preaching really was very effective. I’ve seen British preachers doing the same thing in Britain and it fell very flat. Many British listeners aren’t readily participative like other cultures. “Can I hear an amen?” can grate deeply on some congregations. What would naturally and spontaneously stimulate hearty amens and approval in some settings might barely get a low level grunt in others. Trying to whip up a congregation into a non-natural vocal response is generally unwise. They will make some effort to do what you ask, but their discomfort will override their external compliance and have a net negative effect.

Cross-Cultural Issues – When speaking of audience participation, naturally the subject of African-American preaching comes up. There is something very compelling about the rhythmic, call and response, high energy type of preaching popular in some settings (cultural and denominational). But it takes a whole congregation and preacher combination for it to work. Two examples stand out in my memory.

1) I was in Nigeria some years ago and noticed how the believers at this conference responded to the closing prayers of the African preachers – very physical, high movement, verbal agreement, etc. And I noticed how the white preachers couldn’t get the same response when they prayed – congregation standing stock still with hands folded in front of them. Something was different in the mix.

2) I’ll never forget the white preacher preaching in the chapel service of the Bible school where I was a visiting lecturer in Kenya. These listeners did respond vocally, and he couldn’t contain himself. He got swept away on the wave of energy and ended up giving an appalling example of show-off preaching. I think it takes a consistency of preacher and listeners for patricipative preaching to work. Either preacher and listeners are coming from the same tradition, or the listeners are responsive rather than resistant when the preacher is different to them (and the preacher also needs to be understanding when the listeners are different to him in some way!)

This has become a long post, so I’ll spill over to tomorrow . . .

Let’s Interact Some More . . .

September 22, 2011September 22, 2011 / Peter Mead / 4 Comments

Yesterday I began with three thoughts about interactive preaching. Following on from the importance of knowing the congregation and knowing the content, here are some more thoughts:

4. Expansive questions work better than only one possible answer. Listeners don’t like being asked for something very specific – who wants to get it wrong? They know you want them to say something specific, so chances are stacked against them. Tuesday night’s message worked well because the invitation was for input from a vast array of possible answers. I was primarily asking for examples of incidents in the gospels where Peter and John would have learned from being with Jesus (and since they were almost always there, there weren’t many “wrong answers”). I would be more guarded about asking for input on a single text, since the first comment could give away the whole resolution to the tension of the narrative, or whatever. It can be done, but carefully.

5. Graciousness is key. But how you deal with “wrong answers” matters deeply. If someone had referred to an incident where Peter & John weren’t present, it really wouldn’t help anyone to respond harshly, “uh, no! That was only Nathaniel with Jesus on that occasion!” Making the contributor feel foolish hurts everyone. They would feel for him, they would be less likely to risk talking, they would lose interest in your message (since you don’t seem to care about them). Much better to receive all input positively, “Great thought. Thinking about it, I’m with you on that, I’m sure Nathaniel would have told the others about that even though they weren’t physically present. Thanks.” I was at a conference earlier this summer where the presenter chose to take questions, but was then harsh and sometimes bordering on brutal in how he responded to them. Not helpful at all. (And maybe some preachers simply shouldn’t do interaction.)

6. Non-traditional journeys still need a destination. To put it another way, an interactive message is not a short-cut to avoid preparation. You can’t be at the mercy of those present to make sure it goes somewhere worthwhile. You have to know where you are going and make sure they get there. They are at your mercy, not the other way around. A meandering walk through the forest isn’t good if it ends somewhere in the middle and you then walk away. Make sure you get them to the right place at the right time.

7. Interaction takes time. It is hard to gauge how long a contributor will talk once they start. You have to be able to graciously stop lengthy input, but it isn’t easy. I wouldn’t consider significant interaction unless there was time available for it. Good interaction can be wasted if there is then a panicked rush at the end to get to the destination.

What would you add to this list?

Let’s Interact . . .

September 21, 2011September 21, 2011 / Peter Mead / 6 Comments

Last night I had a great time at a church I’ve visited many times before. I had about 85 minutes and decided to do an interactive message. Here are some reflections and thoughts from me, but feel free to chip in:

1. All messages should be somewhat interactive. Even if you don’t expect the listeners to say anything, good preaching will always be stirring response and comments within the listeners. Good preachers know what listeners are probably thinking and respond accordingly. In these two posts I am thinking about overt congregational participation.

2. Knowing the congregation matters. It does help to know who you’ll be preaching to when you choose to go much more interactive. A few years ago I chose to do an interactive sermon in a church that I hardly knew. I certainly was unaware of the group brought along from a nearby “home” that interacted in an entirely different way than the elderly folks who made up the rest of the congregation! Knowing them matters, them knowing you care matters just as much, but we’ll come to that issue tomorrow.

3. Knowing the content matters even more. This one is massive. As the preacher you have to know the subject and the range of potential input. Taking a comment from the crowd that changes your understanding of the text could be complicated. You get to choose how wide the net is thrown for input, but it is important that you can handle whatever may come from within that range of Bible text (and theology/history/whatever else you open yourself up to). If you are genuinely struck by new insight, great, but if you seem to be informed by everything you hear, you’ll lose their confidence!

I’ll finish this post tomorrow, but feel free to chip in with your thoughts . . .

Encouraging News

September 20, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Just wanted to share that this site has been nominated as a finalist in the Christian New Media Awards for 2011. This is really encouraging and I thought I’d add a note to thank the panel for the honour. It is encouraging to look at some of the other finalists in various categories and see some of the good things being offered online.

Deep Conviction

September 20, 2011September 20, 2011 / Peter Mead / 3 Comments

As I waited for my children to get showered and dressed after their swimming lessons I scanned through an old notebook. I took these notes about 15 years ago as I listened to a Howard Hendricks cassette on leadership. As ever with him, good stuff. At one point he was speaking of the need to develop deep personal conviction.

“We live in a day without a cause. Some churches have programs instead of building convictions in people. Only beliefs are not good enough to get job done. The people in your church need to fill their minds with solid Bible study. They need to develop an appetite for meditating and thinking, for praying and pursuing God.” (Rough quote from old notes)

This gives me pause for thought.

First, am I a man of deep conviction? Have I not only learned, but tested and retested in non-cotton wool environments? Do I fire my belief into conviction not only in the furnace of life’s experience, but also in the quiet place of prayer, face to face with my God? Are my convictions genuine so that those I get near have a chance of becoming infected with them? (As Hendricks put it, ‘you don’t catch anything from a man who doesn’t even have a cold!’)

Second, is my preaching delivered with deep conviction or with performance hype? I think the difference comes from two factors, among others. 1 – Are there years of study and ministry and life experience standing behind each sermon. And 2 – Have I given this particular sermon preparation enough days to start to take a fresh hold in my heart and life? If I start to prepare this Sunday’s sermon on Saturday, or Friday, then I will be unable to speak out of deep contemporary conviction and will have to rely on long-term life conviction only. Start early enough so this message can really take hold and start to work in me before it is spoken through me.

Third, do I preach and lead and mentor for more than assent? It is easy to preach in order to educate, but it takes much more to preach in order to deeply persuade, to infect, to stir the hearts of those listening so that lives are touched. For a start it takes something more than I can do as a teacher, it takes God at work in the hearts of those listening, so I must be a pray-er if I am to be a true preacher. More than that, I will need to get alongside some people in the church and infect them close up. That gets into mentoring, building a team, mobilising and equipping others. Another post for another day.

Let’s pray that we will be preachers of deep genuine conviction, and that we will be used to spark other genuine deep conviction Christians too.