Audience Analysis

Holiday Post 1: Full Meal Deal

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Since I am going on holiday with my family, I am also not writing new material this week.  But here are a few posts from years ago that might be of interest . . .

I still remember the first pulpit advice I received.  I was a teenager and had been asked to lead a meeting.  I wasn’t preaching, but I was chairing the meeting, introducing songs, speaker, doing the reading, praying, etc.  Afterwards my youth leader came to me and encouraged me that I’d done well.  Then he offered this advice; “Don’t ever apologize for what you’re doing.  It doesn’t matter who asked you, or how incapable you may feel, God has allowed you to be there so don’t apologize.”

The ingredients to a pulpit introductory apology tend to include feelings of inadequacy, any lack of preparation, feelings of humility, a desire to appear humble, a lack of planning for opening comments, nervousness, etc.  The ingredients are understandable, but the result is not helpful.  Don’t apologize.  It grossly undermines credibility and can easily transfer your anxiety to your listeners.

If you are humble, it will show.  But if you are nervous, unprepared, unqualified, incapable, etc., people don’t need that pointed out to them.  They may notice, and they will usually be very gracious.  Or more often than you realize, they will not notice at all.  The first time I taught a lecture at seminary I mentioned that time was running low so I had to skip some material.  My prof followed up on that, “Don’t tell them you are cutting stuff out, let them think they’re getting the full meal deal!”

What was the first helpful pulpit advice you received?

Topical Preaching: Why Not?

/ Peter Mead / 5 Comments

Titles are intended to provoke interest.  This one is not intended to condemn all topical approaches to preaching.  I suppose I should probably call it “A brief discussion into why a topical approach to preaching should not be our default.”  But that would hardly make you want to read it.

I preached a topical message last Sunday.  I will do so again.  However, I don’t do this as a default approach.  I think the reason that people do is probably tied to the issue of interest or relevance.  Surely a topical approach allows the preaching to be relevant to the listeners?  Not necessarily.

1. The relevance of a message is not determined by sermon shape, but by preacher’s strategy.  That is, you can preach topically and be both dull and irrelevant.  You can preach a single text exposition and be both engaging and highly relevant.  The real issue is the heart of the preacher being in tune with God’s heart for His people, and in tune with the people to whom he preaches – both to know them, and to care for them.  If you care, it will show.

2. Relevance is not something we add, it is something we bring out.  It is something we emphasize.  All Scripture is God-breathed and it is useful, profitable.  Our task is not to add relevance, either by making up disconnected applications, or by piling up application-overt texts.  Our task is to show how whatever we preach makes a difference in the lives of the listeners.  Whether we choose to use multiple texts or not is a different matter, but it is not the key to relevance in our preaching.

3. Topical preaching, if it is to be truly expository, is a lot of work.  This is something I always tell beginning preachers.  It might seem like the only way to “fill time,” or a helpful short-cut, or even a means to relevant preaching.  In reality, good topical preaching is a lot of extra work.  Let’s say you choose four texts to be your four points, with an overarching biblical main idea to guide the message.  That’s four passages that you should study properly and handle properly.  Topical preaching multiplies work for the preacher (and sometimes it multiples work for the listener, just trying to keep it all together, find the passages, etc.).

4. Topical preaching, if it isn’t expository, can lead to dangerous imposition.  That is to say, if you aren’t diligently and carefully understanding passages according to their context, then you could well be imposing meaning that isn’t really there.  And let’s say you somehow manage to handle every text accurately, chances are that listeners will copy your approach to Scripture.  They will parachute in, grab a phrase, apply it according to their own agenda and they will get it wrong (even if you got it right).

I think we should preach topically.  But let’s do so judiciously.  It shouldn’t be our default.  And when we do it, let’s be sure to really let the texts be in charge of the message.

Review: A New Name

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

It might not seem like a normal book for this site.  A New Name is the brilliantly written and harrowing story of Emma Scrivener’s battle with anorexia.  Anorexia promises life, but has death as a side effect.  It is about control, but it constantly spirals dangerously out of control.  And why am I reviewing the book here?  Because we don’t preach to lives lived in the so-called bubble of Bible school.  We preach to lives lived in the self-contradictory world that Emma describes here.

Emma offers more than just a window into the turmoil and thinking of anorexia.  She also offers great theological insight into the motivations driving apparently insane behaviours.  Actually, she does a great job of grappling with what it is to be human.  And with more than just great writing ability, she offers crystal clear perspective on the rich fullness of the gospel.  As the NHS might try to shame a patient into recovery, so a poor gospel presentation might try to shame a sinner into repentance.  But the gospel is the need of the broken heart, for sin is the problem that traditional medicine can never cure.

Emma’s story isn’t just an insight into teenage anorexia.  A decade later she relapsed.  Now we are talking about a university student, or a young married lady with no apparent reason for such internal struggles.  There may be several in your church and you wouldn’t know it.  But that is part of why I recommend this book.  If we are to preach the real gospel to real people, then we need to know what that reality can look like.  Emma paints a self-portrait you won’t want to miss.

“For centuries, Christian thinkers have spoken of our will as being ‘bound’. They don’t mean that we’re robots and can’t do what we want. It’s a deeper imprisonment than this. The bondage of the will means that we only do what we want. We follow our desires all the way to the basement – and then we lock the door. That’s our slavery.”

You won’t want to put this book down.  Actually, you’ll want to give it away, but also read it again.  You will want to preach the gospel more effectively to the complex people hiding before you on Sunday.  More than that, you’ll want to spend more time with the Christ who knows how to be the master physician for all life’s messes.

The Struggle to Simplify

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Thank you to Matthew for this comment – I found your blog through the Church Leaders post you did on the 11 Types of Preachers. I find that I am in the “Professor Preacher” type and have been at a loss for some general principles to help simplify and bring clarity to my preaching. It is hard to remove pieces and connections that seem to grip me in the study. Help!

I am glad to see I am not the only one!  It is so hard to be gripped in the study, but then slim down the content in the message.  For one thing, nobody wants to come across as simplistic or uninformed.  More than that, the complex layers of interdependent history and texts makes a matrix of information that is fascinating for the student of biblical history.  But the challenge remains – we don’t want to overload listeners with good information that will keep them from feeling the impact of the text we are preaching.

Here are a few pointers for myself, Matthew and any other “Bible-history-oholics” that might be listening in.  My thoughts are slightly on the background issues as I am working on a message from Jonah and was in that phase, but will turn my thoughts to other aspects of co-textual complexity, perhaps tomorrow!)

1. We should never cut down our understanding of the complexity in order to preach simply.  This will only result in simplistic explanation and errors on our part.  This won’t help people.  We have to go the more difficult route of informed simplicity, rather than uninformed simplicity, if we are to handle the Bible well.

2. We need to make sure we allow time for clarification of information, not just accumulation.  It is so easy to steal time from prayerful consideration of listeners, from sermon formation, from family and even from sleep, when we have the scent of a good trail in biblical history and context.  There is seemingly no end to connections and facts and insights and maps and cross-references, etc.  We have to impose an end for the sake of everything else.

3. We must pause and consider the key threads of detail.  That is, stopping and thinking through this question – “If I only had a couple of minutes to explain the background and context of this passage, to someone who is neither super-informed, nor longing for me to impress them, what would I include?”  Later, in light of the main idea of the message, as the message is formed, we need to do this again (lest our historical background comments take the entire time and turn the sermon into a Bible school lecture!)  We do the same in sharpening the main idea itself, as well as the message shape.  It takes much more work to preach clear, than to be complex!

Tomorrow, let’s add some more thoughts related to this quest.

Clarity of Source

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

This seems so obvious, but I wonder if some preachers are self-deceived.  We need to preach the message of the text we are preaching.  This is not the same as preaching a message that only has points of connection with the text we claim to be preaching.  That is, reading a text and preaching a message that isn’t really the message of that text, simply isn’t acceptable.  But it is common.

As people look at the passage in the Bibles sitting on their laps, can they see how your message comes specifically from that text?

If people cannot see how we get our message from the text we are preaching, one of three things can happen.

Possibility number one is that they will be impressed and so want more of us, rather than more of the Bible.  They might be impressed because we can find things they would never have seen.  They might think we have special knowledge, or a direct hotline to God for new revelation.  They might even think we have a grasp of the Greek that far exceeds that of the entire translation committee for their Bible version!

Possibility number two is that they will feel intimidated and so not pursue Bible study for themselves, since they have no expectation of being able to get something so good out of the passage.  Might as well wait until next week.  Why bother trying in the meantime when all it takes is a bit of patience?

Possibility number three is that they will subconsciously lose trust in the Bible and begin to trust in the system we force on the text.  After all, the person they are looking to for spiritual leadership shows no real confidence in the Bible.  If he uses it as nothing more than a tool for preaching, then why should they submit to it in their lives?

If they can’t see how we get our message from the text, one of three things can happen, and all of them are bad.

The Sweetest Agony

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Since we are in the midst of packing up and leaving the US to return to the UK (we being a family of seven!), I have decided to re-post an expanded piece from almost five years ago.  Apologies if you’ve recently read through the whole site, but I suspect most people haven’t joined you in this quest!

Somebody said that preaching is the sweetest agony.  It is sweet when lives are changed.  And it is agony all the rest of the time!

There is nothing as rewarding as seeing lives changed.  Sometimes this can occur through a one-off sermon.  Typically it occurs over the long haul.  Sometimes it is hard to measure.  Sometimes you receive a note that overtly expresses gratitude for the change that has occurred.  Often you hear nothing.

Since preaching is often more agony than sweetness, it is a good idea to keep some reminders of the sweetness of lives changed.  A drawer where those periodic notes or letters are dropped in, then sit there awaiting a time when you need a reminder of the sweetness of the preaching ministry.  A folder in your email entitled “Encouragements” that you can go back to when the inbox is overwhelming and discouraging.

I have written before of how we shouldn’t be overly encouraged by post-sermon politeness, but we should take note of feedback that comes after some time has passed.  After a sermon, people will usually be polite, and sometimes their politeness can stretch your confidence in their credibility!  I’ve seen genuinely poor preachers pressing on in the face of polite comments, as though these words are the very affirmation of gifting for which they had prayed.  But when someone comes to you months later with meaningful follow-up to a message, do take note.

In fact, make a note and stick it in your encouragements drawer.  There will be a time when you need it!

Tomorrow I’ll probe some of the other sweetnesses of the preaching ministry.

Neither Padded, Nor Dense – 4

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I don’t normally use the movie analogy, but perhaps I could linger with it slightly longer.  A good movie does not pad the main plot, nor does it make it impossibly dense.  In fact, every good movie can be boiled down to something more precise than a ten-minute plot.  It will have one main idea.  And that idea is driven home by the plot and every detail throughout.

I actually watched a movie in the cinema this week (I can’t remember the last time I did that!)  One crystal clear main idea, effectively communicated with every detail included to support it.

Robinson uses the analogy of the arrow and the target – the big idea and the sermon purpose.  I like that.  I add to that the strategy of the preacher.  How is the main idea  to be delivered?  Will it be up-front and repeated throughout?  Will it be built toward and revealed strategically?  There are several approaches.

However the bigger issue is not how it will be delivered, but whether it will be the control mechanism for the whole message.

If the biblical text determines the main idea, and if the main idea is the gatekeeper for every detail of the message, then the message should not be padded, nor dense.

It will not be a padded sermon because every element will be there on purpose.  The explanations will be there to help communicate the main idea.  The proofs will be there to reinforce and support the main idea.  The applications will be there to drive home the main idea.  There won’t be padding because padding makes no sense in a message designed to communicate a main idea.

And it will not be a dense sermon because over packing makes no sense when the goal is the effective applied communication of the main idea.  Over packing only makes sense if the goal is something else.  If we want to show off, we may over pack.  If we want to communicate multiple ideas, we will over pack.  But if our desire is to see the main idea do its job, then we won’t want anything to get in the way of that.

Neither Padded, Nor Dense – 3

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Yesterday I began a list.  The goal is to preach sermons that are not only heard, but also felt.  The first point was to recognize that cramming in information will squeeze out feeling.  Furthermore:

2. Take the time to let images form.  Whether you are explaining the context, making sense of the text, telling the story, or even illustrating a point, let the images form.  Imagine that inside your listeners there is a screen.  That screen is covered by smoke.  Quick propositions and statements won’t register on that screen.  It takes good description and a bit of time for the images to form there.  But once those images form, once people can see what you are saying, then something powerful starts to happen.  They empathise with characters.  They experience the plot.  They begin to feel.  And once they feel, then the truth being preached is a truth experienced, a truth driven deep.  It goes beyond cognition.  Truth felt tends to lead to lives changed.

3. Develop the skill of painting with words.  I mentioned this in passing, but it is worthy of its own point.  We need to develop our ability to describe.  Stories need to be effectively told, poems need to be carefully described, contexts of letters need to be engagingly presented.  Wherever we are in the Bible, we need to keep growing in our ability to describe effectively, vividly and engagingly.  Vocabulary matters.  Pace matters.  Expression matters.  I can describe something with 100% accurate facts, but leave you completely underwhelmed.  A good preacher can describe something so that you feel like you see it.

4. Find the balance between time/pace and content.  This is the challenge.  Every element of a message could potentially benefit from more time and slower pace.  But there is a balance to be found.  It is like the movie maker situation we pondered earlier in the week.  Too much time, too slow a development, too drawn out a scene, and the momentum is lost.  Too fast, too much information and too rapid a transition and the viewers are left behind.

The difference between a summary and the real deal should not be padding, and it can’t be just information crammed in.  There has to be careful planning to engage not only the heads of the listeners, but also their hearts.

Neither Padded, Nor Dense – 2

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

When information is crammed in, it is not just information that will be lost.  For example, I used to have a laptop that allowed me to watch DVD’s in normal speed and 1.2x, 1.4x and 2x, and all without losing sound.  This was great.  It meant I could watch a 40 minute episode of some crime drama or other in less than 30 minutes.  I saw everything.  I heard everything.  But something was different.

The faster transfer of information somehow meant that while I could follow the story and get the details, I didn’t feel it.  That tense moment when the detective entered the abandoned warehouse, gun drawn, eyes wide . . . it wasn’t tense.  That shocking moment when the body was found, well it wasn’t really shocking.   All of the emotion seemed to be drained by amping up the content transfer density.

So back to preaching.  What is our goal?  Is it to transfer information as efficiently as possible?  I was reading about Jonathan Edwards and his preaching style.  He wasn’t flamboyant and flashy like his contemporary, George Whitefield.  Edwards had a quiet intensity.  His goal wasn’t just that people learn, or even that they act on what they heard.  He wanted them to feel the truth of the doctrine being presented.

But does the Bible intend to be felt?  Or is it just information transfer?  It seems to me that every genre incarnates truth in the non-vacuum of reality.  Narratives, poems, prophecies, letters, etc., are all theological truth wrapped up in human experience and story and description.  It seems as if the Bible wasn’t given as an inspired collection of abstract truths, but as theology in concrete.

So how do we preach sermons to be felt?  This is a question worth pondering.  Here are some suggestions:

1. Recognize that cramming in information squeezes out feeling.  I am not reducing the value of information.  Hopefully our exegetical work generates great information.  But putting too much information in the sermon will not only make it harder for people to take any of it in.  It will also mean they don’t feel the truth of it.  We are not in a race to speak all truth as exhaustively and as rapidly as possible.  We need to grow in our ability to be selective.  Every time we preach we will not be exhaustive.  There will always be more good information that could be said.  But there has to be a balancing of content density with other factors for maximum effectiveness.

More tomorrow…

Neither Padded, Nor Dense

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

It takes more than a good story, good actors and good visual effects to make a hit movie.  Think of a movie you particularly liked.  In most cases that movie could have been made in the form of a 10-minute featurette.  It would have been a whole lot cheaper to make, but it never would have made any money.  Why is that?

What is the difference between a 10-minute featurette and a full two-hour blockbuster?  The answer is not padding.  It is almost the opposite.  It is careful development of characters and scenes, giving space for the audience to grow into the plot.  But it is also numerous scenes cut and omitted to keep the flow from being too dense or too long.  All padding is typically cut out, but room to breathe is carefully included.

The same is true of good preaching.  You could take a decent sermon and hammer out the bottom line in a 10-minute sermonette.  You could include the main idea, the outline, etc., but you’d be missing a lot.  And the difference between that and a fuller version of the same sermon shouldn’t be 20-30 minutes of padding, nor should it be 20-30 minutes of dense information.

It is only the beginning preacher that wonders how they will fill the time.  Experienced preachers know the real challenge is in what to leave out.

This week I was speaking with a good friend who has trouble keeping his sermons from becoming overwhelming monsters of content.  All good stuff, but too much to take in for the listener.  We spoke of the main idea and its role in sermon development.  And we also pondered the possibilities of having a three step process.  First, define the main idea.  Second, work out a 10-minute development of that idea.  Third, move up to the full length.

So, how to go from the 10-minute to the full message?  The temptation here is to cram in the information.  But when information is crammed in, then there is a real problem for the listeners.  Actually, there are several problems:

1. They will have to be selective in what they take in.  It isn’t possible to grasp everything when there is too much.  Do you want listeners to pick and choose, or to be gripped by the whole?

2. They may select elements as take home material that was incidental in your eyes.  For instance, the passing remark, the humourous illustration, or the side point, could all become their memorable take home gem.

3. They may check out altogether if it is overwhelming.  While some may selectively choose highlights, others will switch to something their mind is motivated to cope with: their plans for the afternoon, their challenges at work, etc.

4. Their hearts are unlikely to engage.  This one suddenly takes us to a whole new level.  Not only is the issue with their ability to mentally grasp information, there is an issue with their experience of that information.

Tomorrow we’ll probe this fourth point some more.