Author: Peter Mead

Flat Preaching

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I recently was leading a preaching seminar where participants had the opportunity to preach and receive feedback.  The participant I listened to really did an outstanding job!  He preached the miracle at the end of John 4, and it was not a flat message.

Here’s what I mean.  There are tens of miracles in the gospels.  A lot of them are healings.  Chap with a problem comes to Jesus, Jesus says something, chap  trusts, Jesus heals, happily ever after.  They’re all a bit the same – if you preach them that way!  In reality each account is uniquely written with its own features and characteristics and context and purpose.

So in the miracle at the end of John 4, the writer includes several indicators pointing to his main thought in this unique passage.  He points the reader, consciously or sub-consciously back to John 2 and 3.  He points us back to Jesus’ earlier concern with people trusting in him, but his not entrusting himself to them.  He raises the matter of belief based on signs.  He underlines the issue of belief with a double reference to belief.  The writer is doing something unique in this passage.

So the good preacher will do something unique with this passage.  Actually, the good preacher will do the writer’s something unique with this passage.  (That last sentence probably needs to be read twice, cumbersome but deliberate!)  The task of the preacher is not to come up with their own clever message on the passage, but to really and truly and fairly and powerfully bring out the message of the passage.

How easily we preach a miracle story as just another miracle story.  Human interest problem, solved by Jesus, because Jesus is powerful and is the solution to the underlying sin problem, so let’s ponder the cross.  That’s fine, but sometimes it simply doesn’t honour the unique contours and features of the text itself.  Good preachers do.

A Post and a Free Book

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Today I am not including a post on this site, but a link to the post on Cor Deo . . . which should be helpful to us as we think about preaching (especially how we present and explain sin).  Also, on Cor Deo we are giving away three copies of Experiencing the Trinity to three people who post a comment on any post this month (and share the link to the book giveaway on facebook, twitter or by email).  Here’s the post:

 How Deep the Problem

In the Airport

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In the past three posts we have considered sermon conclusions – weak finishes and strong finishes.  We’ve also considered the elements included in the service after the sermon is over.  More could be said on all of these, but I’d like to push the airplane analogy slightly further and prompt our thinking on the post-service aspects of the passenger’s journey.  I mentioned the positive and negative effects of having music playing after the service is concluded.  There are other things to consider.  Whether the analogy works or not is somewhat unimportant, but these thoughts are worth pondering in our churches.

Some passengers want to get out of the plane and airport at breakneck speed – Like it or not, some people just want to, or need to flee from the church once things are over.  It doesn’t help them to make that difficult.  At the same time, no airline I’ve been on will let you leave without a friendly goodbye.  Some churches put a lot of energy into greeting/welcoming teams (a very good idea), but let people slip away without human interaction after the service.  On the other hand, some churches seem to put barriers to people leaving, or create an environment where people are rushed out before they need to be (the preacher at the door shaking hands with everyone can sometimes create an urgency to vacate the building).

Some passengers need to sit down and let it all sink in – This may be a slight stretch, but some airports (I’m thinking more of the US ones), have seats at the gate so passengers can sit down if they need to.  That doesn’t matter, but in church sometimes there is nowhere for someone to sit and soak for a while.  I mentioned the music signal in some places that blasts out an indication that its all over now and its time to interact (at high volume if you want to be heard).  This creates an environment very non-conducive to post-service reflection.

Some passengers need to access further information – I suppose its a bit like finding out about connecting flights, but how do people in church know who to go to in order to find out more?  Is the preacher accessible (or is he stuck at the door shaking hand after hand and smiling at polite feedback?)  Is there a way to get someone to pray with?  What about finding out about other aspects of church life that could be the next step after this service (I wonder about some church notice boards that simply offer a confusing array of meetings at other churches).

Most passengers will want to talk with someone about their journey – In travel world it seems like everyone is ready to say something about what they’ve just experienced (or endured) when they meet a human who actually knows them.  In church world it often seems like everyone is ready to talk about anything but what they’ve just experienced.  But actually, people need to reflect and reinforce and respond in community rather than in isolation.  Does your church encourage that kind of interaction?

After You Finish

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In the past couple of days we’ve pondered the art of sermon-stopping.  We have thought about weak finishes, and then about the elements in finishing strong.  It certainly is not easy to get the plane down comfortably and effectively.  Now a few thoughts relating to the post-landing phase of the journey.  I suppose that could apply to taxiing (i.e. don’t overdo what you say after you’ve essentially finished).  Actually I’m thinking about what comes after the landing in respect to post-sermon service elements.  (Tomorrow I’ll push this analogy further – perhaps beyond acceptable limits! – and consider what happens when people leave the plane completely – i.e. when the service is fully finished.)

So, after the sermon is over, but still within the confines of the service:

Sometimes it is helpful to have another person wrap things up, sometimes it can be disastrous (I can’t help but think of the “helpful” MC who undoes the impact of a global missions thrust with the typical and deeply annoying “and we can all be missionaries right where we are!” . . . thankfully no-one added that to the end of Matthew’s gospel or we’d never have read the New Testament!)

Sometimes it is helpful to have a closing song, sometimes it is helpful to have a whole set of responsive songs, and sometimes it is better not to allow the singing of a song to help people switch back into their “real world” and leave the sermon behind.

Sometimes its helpful to leave space for silent response, sometimes that is just plain uncomfortable and overkill.

Sometimes quiet music played after can help the contemplative mood, sometimes music blasting out after the meeting can switch people into a frenzied chaos of raised voice fellowship (and the journey is forgotten, I fear!)

That last one is technically post-service . . . which leads me into tomorrow’s post . . .

Finishing Strong

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Yesterday I offered five examples of how to finish weakly as your sermon finishes weekly.  Let’s ponder what makes a conclusion strong:

Elements required in a conclusion – sometimes it is helpful to review the flow of the message, usually it is worth reviewing the main idea and intended applications of the message.  The conclusion is a great opportunity to encourage response to and application of the message.  The conclusion has to include, at some point, the phenomena known as stopping.  Review, encourage, stop.

Elements not required in a conclusion – standard teaching it may be, but worth mentioning nonetheless: generally it is not helpful to introduce new information during the conclusion.  A concluding story?  Maybe that’s ok.  But don’t suddenly throw in a new piece of exegetical insight into the preaching passage, or rush off to another passage for one last bit of sight-seeing.

Finishing the journey – as someone who has flown once or twice, let me continue with the airplane analogy since there are several thoughts that can be shared here.  Passengers who have had a great journey with a bad landing will leave with their focus entirely on the bad landing.  Passengers want the pilot to know where he is going and to take them straight there.  They don’t particularly want the pilot to finish a normal journey with a historic televised adrenaline landing.  Passengers like a smooth landing, but they’ll generally take a slight bump over repeated attempts to find the perfect one.  Once landed, extended taxi-ing is not appreciated.  A good landing that takes you by surprise always seems to have a pleasant effect.

Haddon’s Runway – one approach that I particularly appreciate and find hard to emulate, is Haddon Robinson’s oft-used approach.  It is evident after most Haddon sermons that he carefully planned his final sentence.  He flies the plane until he gets there and then quite naturally the plane lands on that landing strip of just ten to fifteen words and the journey is over.  Smooth, apparently effortless, immensely effective.  As he teaches in class, much better to finish two sentences before listeners think you should than two sentences after!

Tomorrow we’ll consider the post-sermon elements of the service, since these also have an effect on the journey.

Finishing Weak – Part 2

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Yesterday I started a series of four posts on sermon conclusions with a list of weak finishes.  Mike Doyle added a comment with several more examples that were so helpful I decided to include them today and make this a five-part series. I hope nobody minds two negative lists in a row (if you simply invert what is said in these lists, you already have two positive lists in respect to sermon conclusions!)

6. The “Machine Gun” Finish – wildly fire off a hundred different applications in the final minute in the hope of hitting something – no depth, very shallow, badly aimed, rarely hits the target, and often has nothing to do with the passage.

7. The “Salvation by Works” Finish – after preaching the wonders of God’s grace in Jesus Christ – undermine that grace by throwing doubt on the their own salvation because of their sin or not doing the application you suggest.

8. The “Left Field” Finish – where the conclusion and/or application has very little to do with the passage, your sermon, or anything else.

9. The “Not Again” Finish – where (for some funny reason) the conclusion is the same as every other conclusion you’ve given for the last 3 years – it also happens to be your hobby horse, and is often one of pray more, give more, evangelise more, read the bible more and come to church more.

Thanks, Mike, for adding these to the list – very helpful!

If I could just add some more to the growing list, what about…

10. The “Gospel out of Nowhere” Finish – where the preacher feels the absence of the gospel in the message and so levers it in at the conclusion without any sense of connection to what has gone before.  (To a thinking listener, this may feel a little forced and intellectually inconsistent.)

11. The “Tear Jerker” Finish – which is similar to the “overly climactic” one listed yesterday, but this is where the speaker seeks to cement emotional response by throwing in a random and largely disconnected tear jerker of a story (perhaps involving a child, an animal, a death, or whatever).  Strapped to this emotional bomb, the preacher hopes the truth of the message will strike home (even though in reality the truth will probably be smothered in the disconnected emotion of the anecdote).

Book Give-Away

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I thought you might like to know that over on the Cor Deo site, we are giving away three copies of Experiencing the Trinity by Darrell Johnson.  It’s an invitation to join us as we read this book together.  Three recipients will be selected at random, but we ask two favours in order to qualify:

1. Please comment on any Cor Deo blog post during November (preferably something helpful to the conversation, of course)

2. Please share the link below on facebook, twitter, or via email with a few friends (whatever channel you have that will get the word out to folks including some in the UK)

Here’s the link to include (to go there now, just click on the picture above) – http://www.cordeo.org.uk/book-intro-experiencing-the-trinity/

Finishing Weak

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Finishing a sermon is neither easy nor natural.  There are various approaches taken, and in this post I’d like to offer a few I’ve observed in myself and others.  In the next post I will try to offer some constructive alternatives.

1. The “Searching for a Runway” Conclusion – This is a common one that we fall into when we fail to plan our conclusion before starting to preach.  As the sermon wears on we become aware of the need to land the plane, but have to search for a decent runway on which to land it.  Consequently as we’re coming in to land we remember that we haven’t reinforced a certain element of the message, so we pull out of the descent and circle around for another attempt.  Next time in we think of half a conclusion that might work better and so pull out again, circle around and turn in to another possible landing strip.  Needless to say, passengers don’t find this pursuit of a better runway to be particularly comfortable or helpful.  When the message drags on a couple of minutes or ten longer than it feels like it should, any good done in the sermon tends to be undone rather quickly!

2. The “Just Stop” Conclusion – There are some preachers who don’t seem to be aware of the possibility of a strong finish and so don’t bother to land the plane.  It simply drops out of the sky at a certain point.  Once all has been said, without any particular effort to conclude the message, its suddenly over.  This is a particular danger for those who go on to announce a closing hymn, I find.

3. The “Overly Climactic” Conclusion – At the other extreme are those who know the potential of a good finale and so overly ramp up the climactic crescendo in the closing stages.  After preaching a ho-hum message, they suddenly try to close it off with a fireworks display that will leave everyone stunned and standing open mouthed with barely a “ooo-aaah” on their lips.  Truth is that if the message hasn’t laid the foundation for such an ending, then people will be left stunned and unsure of what to say, “uuuugh?”

4. The “Uncomfortable Fade” Conclusion – Perhaps the domain of new, inexperienced and untrained preachers, this follows the general comfort rule of preaching: if you are not comfortable in your preaching, your listeners won’t be either.  So the message comes to what might be a decent ending, then the speaker, well, sort of, just adds something like, “that’s all I wanted to say, I think, yeah, so….” (like this paragraph, 20 words too long!)

5. The “Discouraging Finale” Conclusion – Another tendency among some is to preach what might be a generally encouraging message, but then undo that encouragement with a final discouraging comment.  People need to be left encouraged to respond to the Word and to apply the Word, but some have a peculiar knack for finishing with a motivational fizzle comment.

 

 

Manipulation in Disguise

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Manipulation in preaching is a subject I have visited periodically on this site.  Yesterday I touched on a new angle though (new to this site, although I wouldn’t claim anything on here is truly new, of course).  Here is that final sentence again – Am I really avoiding manipulation when I give the impression that Christianity is primarily about the commodity of knowledge and I am the dispenser of it?

This is a real issue that needs to be addressed.  I would hope that no preacher wants to manipulate, but that all good-willed preachers are doing the best they can.  Of course, I don’t want to accuse anyone of sinful motivation.  But I do want to undermine the logic supporting an approach to preaching that esteems the intellectual at the expense of any engagingly affective fare.  There is here, as so often is the case, a pendulum swing that goes too far.

At one extreme we have manipulative emotional preaching that stirs up the listeners, manipulates commitments and response, sways the feelings of listeners and then seals the deal while they are off balance.  There are ways to do this.  Certain rhythms of speech, stirring background music, heart-wrenching anecdotes, excessive passion in the preacher, tear-jerking vulnerability, etc.  It is certainly possible to go places the preaching text doesn’t go in order to manipulate reaction.

At the other extreme we have disaffected preaching that avoids any hint of manipulation, but leaves all response to the convicting work of the Holy Spirit.  (Did you see what I just did?  I presented this extreme in entirely justifiable and honourable terms.  Who would resist this approach?  What if I kept the excessive tones of the previous paragraph though?)

At the other extreme we have manipulative intellectual preaching that puffs up the preacher, manipulates affirmation and the fleshly desire to be as spiritual as the preacher, and then guarantees positive response by offering humble explanation of the approach to preaching that is being advocated (sometimes giving the impression that any other approach to preaching would be in direct violation of some clear mandate of God himself).  There are ways to manipulate listeners at the other extreme of the scale.  It is possible to present yourself and your ministry in ways that do not reflect the character and values of God, and do not truly represent the Word we preach.

Now I am deliberately pushing this issue to get us to think.  Again, I don’t know of many who are seeking to manipulate.  But what if our position is doing that and we are unaware?  We must be careful.  Perhaps when we see the pendulum has swung too far we need to come back closer to the centre.  The answer is not to disaffect our preaching, but to stick closer to the text.  When people are moved deeply by the truth of the text being preached, we represent God’s Word well.  We don’t need to add anything to it.  Neither do we need to strip it of all emotion.  Rather we need to re-present it to the best of our ability, while simultaneously leaning fully into God’s Spirit to do what our best efforts can never do – to transform us and our listeners as we preach the Word.