Author: Peter Mead

Covered in Prayer?

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“It is no marvel that the pulpit is so powerless and ministers so often disheartened when there are so few who hold up their hands …. O, you blood bought churches, your ministers need your prayers!” (Gardiner Spring)

Is there any inconsistency between what we say and what we practice in regard to prayer and preaching?  If we, as preachers, genuinely believe that our preaching is dependent for its power not on technique, ability, skill, etc., but rather on the power of God Himself.  If we, as preachers, are aware of the spiritual battle that rages among believers and not-yet-believers during the weekly routine of church life.  If we, as preachers, are aware of our own struggles and weaknesses in the complex experience of life and ministry.  Well . . . shouldn’t the pursuit of prayer for the ministry be paramount in our many lists of priorities?

Do we diligently seek out prayer partners and ask them to stand with us?  Not because we are somehow special individuals, but because the ministry we are involved in is itself a special task for which we are inadequate?  Do we express to our listeners our need for prayer, or do we give the impression, even inadvertently, that we have it all together?

And finally, what about intercessory prayer meetings before and during and after the preaching of the Word?  In some circles this is standard practice.  In others it is unheard of.  Why?  If it is a spiritual battle, if it is by God’s strength alone, if it is a task too great for us to handle in our strength, then why not?  As I look back on last Sunday’s ministry, perhaps my greatest regret is that I didn’t request a simultaneous prayer gathering – even just two or three people praying for those listening, for the one speaking, for God’s power in it all.

(And just to be consistent with what I have written, here’s a link to our last couple of mini-updates . . . if you can spare a couple of minutes, I’d really value your prayers – http://pouredout.org/?page_id=580 – let me know if you’d like to receive our prayer letter regularly.)

Are We Rushing Headlong?

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I can’t get away from the fact that Mondays are strange days for people who preach.  Whether you earn your living through preaching/pastoral ministry, or whether you earn your living in another line of work, Mondays are strange.

It’s not that Mondays are particularly unique in themselves, it’s just that they come after Sundays.  Profound, I know.  After all the giving out on a Sunday, Monday comes with its strange mix of physical weariness, emotional vulnerability, spiritual mixed-feelings, and yet also a sense of subdued excitement about the week ahead, the opportunities to come, the adventure of knowing Christ and serving Him continues.  I’m very excited for this week and all that it holds, but tired too, probably not super productive in some respects today.

Whatever your approach to Mondays, it’s good to be aware of all that is going on.  Some people just rest, others do mindless admin tasks, others jump into new and exciting projects, others have no choice but to lift themselves for work.  Whatever your approach, recognize the complexity of the person God made you to be.  Recognize the physical needs for rest, relaxation, exercise.  Recognize the emotional needs for refreshment, fellowship, alone-time, laughter, or whatever else.  Recognize the spiritual needs for time with the Lord, alertness to temptation, renewed vision.  Recognize the mental needs for down-time, for reading, for something different, something stimulating.  Recognize the complexity of you, and prayerfully handle today well.

A Monday well-handled seems to make for a productive and energized week.  Somehow it’s not possible to rush headlong from a busy Sunday into Tuesday – we need a Monday first!

Time To Process?

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I have been enjoying listening to Howard Hendricks lately.  I’d like to intersperse some of his comments with my own.  It’s almost like an interview, except that I’ve never met him and it doesn’t quite work as a pseudo-interview.  Nevertheless, his words are in “quotes.”

“My great concern for my students is that they don’t have enough time to process what they’re getting at seminary . . . the firehose.”

This is a good point, for any seminary students reading this site, be sure to carve out some half-days or full-days during the year to reflect, to journal, to process, to pray, to think.  I’m not saying all of this can be done on a few days spread out through the year, but I am saying it cannot be done simply through daily devotions and journaling when the pressure is on, when the hose is blasting!

But what about the preacher?  Do we have preachers preaching when the well is dry?  What would Prof.Hendricks like to do for preachers and pastors?

“After every seven years, I would invest to have you come back to seminary for one year.  We’ll pay all the costs, transportation, food, etc.  You don’t have to pass anything, you just have to process.  I think we could transform the ministry!”

I tend to agree, although I haven’t found the seminary offering this form of sabbatical program yet.

“Because we’re not doing it, and that’s why we’re suffering.  We’re dumbing down the gospel, we’re dumbing down the Word of God.  Every year the basic knowledge drops.  Our churches are not teaching Bible.”

That’s a bit of a generalization, how do you support that?

“Their product is demonstrating that they’re not teaching the Bible.  Because people need time to process what’s going on, and what are you planning to do about it.”

Ok, good point.  This means we have gone from seminary students, to pastors, to people in the pew.   Are they getting time to process what they receive?  Is there space to process during the service?  Is there space to process during the church week?  Do we jump from one message to another, from one passage in preaching to another in home groups?  Where’s the time to process?

Perhaps we should consider the processing space in our own lives, and in the lives of others in the church.

Supreme Need

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Just one more quote from James Stewart’s, Heralds of God (p220-1):

When all is said and done, the supreme need of the Church is the same in the twentieth century as in the first: it is men on fire for Christ.

I beg you not to commit the fearful blunder of damping down that flame.  It is, of course, understandable and right that you who are going out into the ministry should distrust, and set your faces against, the spurious fervour which notoriously brings discredit on the faith.  But the pity is that there are preachers so frightened of this taint that they have actually done violence to the flame Christ has kindled within them, choosing deliberately an attitude of cool and imperturbable detachment, and perhaps even confounding frigidity with philosophic depth and logical precision with spiritual power.  Let us have precision of utterance and clarity of exposition by all means: but even precision and logic are bought too dear if they stifle the living flame.  The radical mistake, of course, is in supposing that precision and the heart on fire are somehow exclusive of each other.

I have thoroughly enjoyed these classic quotes.  Tomorrow I’ll move on to some other thoughts.  However, let’s recognize the value of these quotes, and let’s make sure we are not ignoring all that needs to be learned from writers who are no longer with us, but are waiting for us . . .

Appalling Responsibility

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I suppose this is the week of old quotes . . . lots from James Stewart (published in the 1940’s).  But today I am going older still.  This time Stewart, in Heralds of God (p207), quotes from the 17th century:

There is a great sermon of John Donne’s, delivered in the year 1624, in which he sets forth his conception of the awful burden on the preacher’s heart.  “What Sea,” cries Donne, “could furnish mine eyes with teares enough to poure out, if I should think, that of all this congregation, which lookes me in the face now, I should not meet one at the Resurrection, at the right hand of God!  When at any midnight I hear a bell toll from this steeple, must not I say to my self, what have I done at any time for the instructing or rectifying of that man’s Conscience, who lieth there now ready to deliver up his own account and my account to Almighty God?”  Is it to be wondered at that many a man of God besides Elijah and Jeremiah has tried to run away from a commission so crushing and intolerable?  Nothing but the grace of God can hold you to it.  The magnitude of the task is the first element in evangelical humility.

This is what Stewart calls the appalling responsibility of the minister of the Gospel.  Perhaps we would do well to ponder the burden of our calling.  We live in an age when many take the heavy things of ministry very lightly.  Yet some things have not changed.  Not least the impending reality of the judgment facing humanity after death.  It’s hard to justify levity in light of that.

Vast Trouble

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Permit me to persist in quoting from James Stewart’s, Heralds of God, although only briefly this time (p190):

“Preaching,” inquires Bishop Quayle, “is the art of making a sermon and delivering it?” – and he answers his own question: “Why, no, that is not preaching.  Preaching is the art of making a preacher and delivering that.  It is no trouble to preach, but a vast trouble to construct a preacher.”

I suspect this is a tension every homiletics instructor feels deeply.  It is possible to instruct the method of passage exegesis, sermon formation and effective delivery.  But what does it take to form a preacher?  Surely that is a lifetime work of God Himself.  A couple of comments to ponder:

Are you a preacher, or do you just preach? That is to say, does your life live up to the ministry you give from the pulpit?  Are you continuing to grow, to be shaped, to pursue maturity while resting in God’s work to shape you into the image of His Son?  Have you been so committed to studying preaching and ministry and hermeneutics and theology, but lost direction in your personal spirituality?

Are you pouring into the lives of other potential preachers, even long before they ever preach? Again I raise the issue of mentoring.  How can we claim to be involved in biblical ministry if we do not actively pursue opportunity to mentor others?  A preacher is not made in the course of a training course, although I affirm the value of good training as a good steward seeking to fan into flame the opportunity and gifting God has given.  A preacher is made in the course of a lifetime.  Let’s look with a long-term, strategic view . . . how can we invest ourselves into others?  It’s not ultimately about skill formation, but character formation, spiritual formation, life.

Let me encourage all of us to look for ways to help others develop in the necessary skills required for preaching.  But let’s also look with a greater goal, for ways to help shape the lives of those who can then minister (in whatever form) to others.  This is the vaster trouble, but surely the greater goal.

Tragedy

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I’d like to quote from James Stewart’s classic, Heralds of God (p20).  After this quote, I will only have the briefest of comments to share:

If you as preachers would speak a bracing, reinforcing word to the need of the age, there must be no place for the disillusioned mood in your own life.  Like your Master, you will have meat to eat that the world knows not of; and that spiritual sustenance, in so far as you partake of it daily, will strengthen your powers of resistance to the dangerous infection.  Surely there are few figures so pitiable as the disillusioned minister of the Gospel.  High hopes once cheered him on his way: but now the indifference and the recalcitrance of the world, the lack of striking visible results, the discovery of the appalling pettiness and spite and touchiness and complacency which can lodge in narrow hearts, the feeling of personal futility – all these have seared his soul.  No longer does the zeal of God’s House devour him.  No longer does he mount the pulpit steps in thrilled expectancy that Jesus Christ will come amongst His folk that day, travelling in the greatness of His strength, mighty to save.  Dully and drearily he speaks now about what once seemed to him the most dramatic tidings in the world.  the edge and verve and passion of the message of divine forgiveness, the exultant, lyrical assurance of the presence of the risen Lord, the amazement of supernatural grace, the urge to cry “Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel” – all have gone.  The man has lost heart.  He is disillusioned.  And that, for an ambassador of Christ, is tragedy.

Amen.

Demand

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I’ve really been encouraged by reading James Stewart’s classic book, Heralds of God, again.  Here’s a quote that might be relevant before tomorrow’s message:

If you are wise, you will not in your preaching mask or minimize the overwhelming, absolute nature of Christ’s demand.  Men are ready for a Leader who will unhesitatingly claim the last ounce of His followers’ courage and fidelity.  Field-Marshal Wavell has told, in his notable lectures entitled Generals and Generalship, the story of how Napoleon, when an artillery officer at the siege of Toulon, built a battery in such an exposed position that he was told he would never find men to man it.  But Napoleon had a sure instinct for what was required.  He put up a placard – “The battery of men without fear”: and it was always manned.  This is no time to be offering a reduced, milk-and-water religion.  Far too often the world has been presented with a mild and undemanding half-Christianity.  The Gospel has been emasculated long enough.  Preach Christ today in the total challenge of His high, imperious claim.  Some will be scared, and some offended: but some, and they the most worth winning, will kneel in homage at His feet.

In the 63 years since this was published it is not just the length of sentence and complexity of punctuation that has changed.  I suppose it is almost impossible to write something like that today without being vilified from various sides.  Still, does he not have a point here?  From one side we hear that Christian preaching is too full of male dominated illustrations.  From the other side we hear that church is lacking in anything to attract men.  But actually, the calling on a life implicit in the gospel and biblical teaching is not a male versus female issue.  It is a captivated passionate pursuit of God versus a comfortably self-obsessed issue.  Whatever the terminology, let’s not preach a milk-and-water religion.

Generic Sermons

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Is it possible to have a generic sermon?  That is, a sermon that is applicable to all people, to any church?  A sermon that is essentially lacking in specific character?  A sermon that is essentially untargeted?  The question should not be, is it possible, but rather, is it beneficial?

A sermon that is generically targeted toward all Christians, or all possible audiences, does have some advantages.  It allows for repetition in multiple settings without consideration of the listeners this time.  It allows for a pastor to reuse a set of sermons from an old church in the new church.  It allows for time to be freed up from preparation for other exciting ministry pursuits.

However…and it’s a big however…generic preaching is essentially guaranteed to be inadequate preaching, incomplete preaching.  A generic sermon is in some ways a disabled sermon.  Why?  Because a genuine biblical sermon is not only made up of biblical truth presented through the words and life of a preacher.  It is also targeted at a specific group of listeners both in delivery and prayerful preparation.  A generic sermon may be complete in respect to the Bible element and the preacher element, but it will be lacking or completely shrivelled in respect to the listener element and the Holy Spirit element.

Next time you’re tempted to preach a generic, untargeted, audience non-specific, sermon . . . don’t.  That doesn’t mean you can’t preach that sermon again.  It does mean that we need to put in the time in prayerful consideration of the particular listeners in order to make sure the sermon is not generic, but is targeted.

Generic may be possible, and in certain circumstances maybe even permissible, but it is not beneficial.  If real estate is location, location, location . . . then for this post at least, preaching is target, target, target.

Tool of Inestimable Value

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There’s a tool in preparation that should not be overlooked.  Of course there are many aspects of preparation that matter, not least the preparation of the life of the preacher, plus the various aspects of Bible study skills, pastoral awareness and involvement, etc.  But there is one tool that many preachers neglect far too much.

Most of us were trained to prepare our messages on paper – study notes, outlines, manuscripts, preaching notes, etc.  All of this is good, but don’t miss the obvious.  The goal in preaching is not to write a good outline, or write a good manuscript.  The goal is to speak a message.  So don’t neglect the value of talking through the message.

There is nothing unspiritual about good preparation.  But there is something very sensible about it.  When you speak through a message you will find that some parts don’t flow as they seemed to on paper.  You’ll find that some transitions are clunky, while others are practically absent to the half-listening ear.  You’ll find that some sentences are too long, some thoughts are too convoluted, some thought processes are unclear.  Every negative discovered in pre-preaching speaking is a good thing for you can strengthen your message.

But then there’ll be positives too.  A different way of stating a key point, or phrasing a transition, or even a helpful image or support material that comes to mind as you are listening to yourself speak through the message.  Speaking through a message is a great way to break a log jam.  Recently I was wrestling with a passage, or actually, with a message.  I understood the passage to a certain extent, but was struggling to form the message in any way other than straight information (i.e. tedious sermon alert!)  I decided to preach it through, and in doing so was able to reformulate the main idea to be more engaging and memorable.  I also came up with another illustrative image that conveyed the sense of the passage much better than what I’d written in my outline.

It may sound simple, but sometimes the best thing you can do is leave your desk and preach through the message as it stands.  It will usually improve your message and motivate you to press on in your preparation.  Simple?  Yes.  But definitely a tool of inestimable value.