Author: Peter Mead

The Ache of Preaching

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I recently ended a post with a quote from William Willimon, in which he states, “On any Sunday you can give it your all and still know that the Word deserves more.”  How true that is!  In my experience, the majority of preachers, the majority of the time, do not feel great after they have finished preaching.  Sometimes a sermon may leave us energized and excited.  Yet so often we feel vulnerable, weak, drained, even regretful.

The post-sermon interactions with folks are complex.  Some people have used the analogy of giving birth in reference to preaching (to which I quickly add that a shorter gestation, a shorter delivery, and the fact that it is not the same experience at all does slightly undermine the analogy – it’s too easy to minimize what some people go through in this kind of analogy!  My wife deserves much more credit for her birth-work than I do for mine!)

Perhaps we could pull in another analogy and then reduce it appropriately?  Think of a time of emotional trauma – a car accident, a death, a major moment in life (the verdict of a judge, the pronouncement of pass or fail in a major examination), etc.  In the time after a major emotional event, there is that time when things aren’t quite real, when words people say don’t register properly, when the slightest thing can mean too much.  Now reduce that life-sized grief, tension, emotion…reduce that down to the weekly experience that is preaching.  Post-sermon interactions with folk are complex.

Post-sermon emotions are complex.  Swirling feelings of failure, of inadequacy in representing such an awesome God, of having fallen short of really teaching that passage as it deserves.  This swirl of emotions is not the time to evaluate in detail, to make decisions regarding the future, or over-react to a small thing that, at least in that moment, means too much.

Cling on to the Lord’s hand, make a few notes, get through the turmoil time and then evaluate the comments, feedback, etc. on Tuesday morning.  You’ll probably be thinking clearly and reacting appropriately by then!

Favorable, Yet Flawed Feedback

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I’ve mentioned before that it is not wise to evaluate your preaching by the polite pleasantries passed at the shaking of hands after preaching.  Now I’m reading an engaging and enjoyable book that I will review in due course, but it suggests several reasons for positive feedback in the post-sermon pleasantries that are worth taking into account:

1. Hopefully this doesn’t apply in your church, but many people are actually positive about poor preaching because they haven’t heard any better.

2. Certainly most Christians are relatively polite and pleasant.  Much post-sermon feedback is church culture speaking.

3. Christian listeners appreciate the character of their preachers, even if they are grossly lacking in competence.  That is to say, your preaching may be poor, but you care for their family, buried their grandfather, etc.

4. Most Christians are listening to sermons to have their own spiritual distinctives reinforced.  This writer calls this the reinforcement bells.  If a preacher rings the right bells, which they typically will since people choose the church that suits them, then they will feel “pats on the souls back.”

This is a helpful list.  I am looking forward to telling you more about the book, but I want to get further into it first.  (If you feel bad that I have not cited my source in this post, just ask and I will let you know – once I am back from my vacation/holiday! . . . or wait and the review will soon arrive!)

Thou Shalt Not Bore Through Preaching

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I can’t claim this as an inspired eleventh commandment.  But there have been times when I wished it were there in the text!  In reality I tend to hear myself preaching more than others now, so I need to be careful what I say here . . . but a lot of preaching is just really kind of, well, boring.

We could get into all sorts of reasons for that.  There are numerous ways to de-bore elements of preaching.  But I just want to raise the fundamental issue.  Let’s beware that we don’t bore.  Is it the content?  Sometimes.  Is it the delivery? Sometimes.  Is it the lack of “illustrations” (a common quick-fix diagnosis)?  Sometimes.  Is it the presence of predictable illustrations?  Sometimes.  Is it the attitude of the preacher?  Sometimes.  Is it the personality of the preacher?  Sometimes.  Is it the personal spiritual walk of  the preacher?  Sometimes.  Is it the reality about God?  Never.

There are many reasons why preachers commit the horrifying sin of boring listeners.  But lest I elongate this post and dilute the point unnecessarily, let’s just stop here with two comments.  Let us commit to never boring people with the Word of God.  Let us commit to genuinely responding to God convicting us on this issue (when He does), rather than simply sticking on a band-aid quick fix.

Arrogance and Humility: Whose Definition?

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In my quick review of Piper’s Brothers We Are Not Professionals, I’m in chapter 22.  I presume I’m not the only one who resonates deeply with the issue raised in this chapter?  We live in a relativistic age where ‘arrogance’ is “the condemnation of choice in the political and religious arena for anyone who breaks the rules of relativism.”  (p160)  Any stand taken on biblical grounds will tend to lead to the charge of arrogance.

Piper cites G.K.Chesterton’s insightful description of that which is now fully fledged relativism.  The word ‘arrogance’ is used to hijack the term ‘conviction,’ and on the other side, ‘humility’ is used to hijack ‘uncertainty.’  In fact, the quote, from 1908, is so good, I will share it here:

“What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place.  Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition.  Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be.  A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed.  Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to asset – himself.  The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt – the Divine Reason . . . . We are on the road to producing a race of man too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table.” (Orthodoxy, 1908, quoted in Piper, 162).

We stand in a precarious position.  Any biblical stand we take will be shouted down as arrogant (and not just by the world, but by many in the church).  Detractors will not engage meaningfully, but rather quench discussion under a mask of modesty.  At the same time we must constantly ask God to convict us of any pride on our part, for true pride is insidious and always ready to creep in.  So what do we do?  Do we allow ourselves to be silenced by tactics carefully contrived to checkmate us?  Do we allow ourselves to be held back by a fear of inappropriate motivations on our part?

Pride is a problem, so is inappropriate uncertainty.  We need to stand with conviction, not allowing misapplied labels of arrogance to quench our courage.  We need to address uncertainty, not thwarted by the misuse of the label humility.

We will take some knocks, some blows, perhaps even some suffering.  But if we do not graciously, yet firmly stand for truth, then who will?

FYI: Comments Delayed

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Just a quick FYI – any comments submitted to the site during the second half of March will not be approved and appear until the end of the month.  I’ll be unable to access the internet for about two weeks, hence the delay.  I’ve pre-loaded posts to keep appearing, so please keep visiting and please keep commenting, even if there’s a delay before comments appear.  Thanks for making the site what it is!

Rethinking Reading

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Another helpful thought from Piper and the men he quotes.  Many people hesitate to start reading a solid book because they don’t have the blocks of time they believe it requires.

Piper’s advice? Get into the habit of reading for 20 minutes a day.  By his calculations an averagely slow reader can get through 15 good Christian books a year that way, or a good handful of weighty classics!  In fact, Piper goes on to suggest three blocks of twenty minutes a day.  (Peter’s advice? Don’t try to read for 20 minutes at a busy desk, it doesn’t work.  If you are not a hyper-clean desk person, go sit across the room or elsewhere!)

Having said that, there is always the danger of superficial skimming that results in a “keeping up with Pastor Jones” approach to reading.

Piper’s advice? Don’t superficially skim, instead bore down deep.  “Your people will know if you are walking with the giants (as Warren Wiersbe says) or watching television.”  (Peter’s advice? Get out of the habit of trying to read every word in a book.  Figure out what you want from a book and then dig deep there, but feel no guilt about leaving sections, chapters, etc., unread.)

And then there is the related tendency to only read modern books.  While there is much of value today, there is also a widespread lack of spiritually reviving, heart stirring, soul warming quality as you might find in someone like Richard Sibbes.

Piper’s advice? Don’t content yourself with excessively light, shallow, a-theological books that don’t carry a sense of the greatness of God.  (Peter’s advice? Ok, nothing to add here.  I suppose we would all do well to rethink our reading strategies.)

Not Every Passage is Easy

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I suppose many of us preachers have a desire to make every passage understandable.  This is good and right on many levels.  Yet some passages, and some details in passages, are tough.  I was leading a Bible study on Isaiah 49-50 the other night . . . there was a tough detail.  Should I force my understanding on people?  What if my understanding of it rests on a broader background than some of those present can draw on?  I’m intrigued by Piper’s point in chapter 14 of Brothers We Are Not Professionals – we should show people why God inspired hard texts.

It is amazing that so much of Christianity rests on the shoulders of a “book,” and some parts of that “book” (technically 66 of them I suppose) are hard to understand.  Why did God do this?  Piper offers four reasons.  1. To stir in us a sense of desperation (utter dependence on God’s enablement).  2. To move us to supplication (prayer to God for help).  3. To prompt real cogitation (thinking hard about Biblical texts – which is no alternative to praying for help!)  4. To stimulate genuine education (the training of young people and adults to pray earnestly, read well and think hard.)

As preachers we must wrestle with hard texts and not simply skirt around them in our preaching, nor avoid them in our scheduling.  On the one hand it is up to us to help make the message of the text clear.  At the same time, we may do our listeners a disservice if we don’t point out when a passage is tough, and look for ways to let that be a motivation for study, rather than a hindrance.

Don’t Dilute By Distraction – Part 2

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In the closing stages of a message, the last leg of the journey, it is easy to lose the focus and momentum of a message.  Yesterday I raised the issue of introducing other texts, which can (not always, but often) dilute the force of the ending of a message.  Here’s another:

Don’t dilute by adding unnecessary new images. After twenty or thirty minutes where the overarching image has been the tender care of a mother for her child, the preacher decides to throw another image into the mix in the closing moments – perhaps the care of a shepherd for the lambs, or a coach for his team, or whatever.  Often a new image, a new illustration, a new set of vocabulary, when introduced in the final leg of a sermon will undermine the strength of what has gone before, or totally overwhelm the message (such as a moving story that is so powerful it makes every other element of the message, including the Bible, mere introduction).  Again, it is not always true.  Sometimes a pithy anecdote, a moving illustration, a well turned phrase, may serve to close a message well…but only sometimes…and not a very big sometimes either.

The final thrust of a message is a critical leg of the journey.  It’s the time to consolidate, not dilute.  A time to pull elements together and drive them home, not add new information that shatters the unity of the whole.

Don’t Dilute By Distraction

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Just a quick thought relating to the concluding movement of a message. This includes the conclusion, but might also bring in the final movement or point of the message. During the final thrust, the crescendo of the message, do not dilute the focus of listeners. It is so easy to unnecessarily add new elements to a message at a time when the need is not variation, nor interest, but focus. For instance:

Don’t dilute by adding distracting texts. It’s so tempting to refer to another verse somewhere or other in the Bible. Often, not always, but often, this is a distraction rather than a help. Evaluate carefully before redirecting the gaze of the listeners to a passage, to wording, to a story, to a psalm, to anything that has not been the primary focus of the message. You may mention one verse, but their minds may blossom out in all sorts of bunny trails, or at the very least, the new information may dilute their focus. Be wary of adding texts in this final leg of the journey. (Sometimes a specific text, painstakingly chosen, and carefully used, may serve to close a message well…but only sometimes…a small sometimes.)

Tomorrow I will bring up another source of distraction that can dilute the end of a message.

Sacred Substitutes

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Just following up on Monday’s post on prayer . . . I appreciate the next chapter in Piper’s Brothers We Are Not Professionals – Beware of Sacred Substitutes.  What is the greatest threat to genuine prayer and true meditation on the Word?  It is ministry activity.  “Ministry is its own worst enemy.”  (p59)

How true this is!  Turning to Acts 6:2-4, Piper exhorts the reader to guard against the many sacred substitutes, the real needs, the pressing concerns of ministry.  “Without extended, concentrated prayer, the ministry of the Word withers.” (p60)

Consider what must be sacrificed in order to take genuinely focused time in prayer this week.  Don’t leave prayer until your message is prepared.  Don’t leave prayer until the unplanned needs are addressed.  Don’t leave prayer until your next day off.  Don’t even leave prayer until it can be used to “redeem the time” in the car journey between appointments.

There are many sacred substitutes that come our way.  Even apart from the flesh, laziness, entertainment, and the enemy himself.  Just in the good and the right and the needy and the appropriate – there are many substitutes that will steal us away from the real priority.  “Without extended, concentrated prayer, the ministry of the Word withers.”