Bible Story: Read or Tell?

February 15, 2012February 13, 2012 / Peter Mead / 5 Comments

Let’s assume that the reading is taken care of, and as I suggested yesterday this might not mean the reading of the text itself. Now, what to do with the telling of the story? Should we just read it, or should we tell it? I say we should tell it, and we should tell it well (and typically in the telling of it we may add detail not included in the text). Typically we will tell it with certain sections, or even the whole text, read along the way. Why tell and not just read?

1. The preacher’s task is to present the text by way of explanation. A big part of the explanation of the story is the effective telling of the story, and the effective telling of the story requires the preacher to describe the action, the scene, the situation in vivid colour so that the image can form in the hearts of the listeners.

2. The preacher’s task includes applying the story with contemporary relevance emphasized. A big part of the application of the story is helping listeners inhabit the tension of the story, identifying with the characters as they wrestle with life in response to the Word of God. A well told story carries a significant proportion of the explanation and the application of the message.

3. The preacher’s task includes not only saying what the text says, but doing what the text does. To put it another way, we need to honour the genre inspired by God’s Spirit. By telling story, we honour story as the genre of God’s own choosing.

4. The Bible text tends to be both lean and distant. It is lean in that every detail counts and every detail carries significance in the telling of the story. It is distant in that the original writers could assume awareness of culture, politics, history, geography, flora/fauna, etc. To simply read the text is, in some cases, to dishonour the inspired story by not allowing it to hit home in the imaginations and hearts of the listeners.

I could probably offer more reasons to tell the story and to tell it well, but I’ve gone long enough for today!

Preaching Story to Children and Adults

February 13, 2012February 13, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

As I was sharing about preaching Bible stories recently a friend jumped in and exclaimed their encouragement. “What you are describing as an approach to preaching to adults is what we do in the school ministry with the children!” What I had suggested was a basic outline from which to build. Here’s the outline:

Tell the Story
Make the Main Idea Clear
Apply the Main Idea

In a bit more detail, here’s my suggested “default” starter outline:

Introduction – whatever is needed to make people want to listen to you and to the passage and message.

Tell the story – tell the story so people can imagine it happening. Tell it accurately, tell it engagingly, tell it with energy.
Main Idea – make it clear what we are supposed to learn from this story. What is the main point the author is trying to communicate?
Application – take some time to describe the difference this idea could make, should make, to our lives. Be specific.

Conclusion – review the main point, encourage application, stop.

So here’s a question from Philip on this site the other day: What differences should their be when preaching narrative passages to an audience of children as opposed to an audience of adults? Will the differences be in the manner the story is told or taught? Or only in the truths the story teaches?

Difference in Manner? I would say not especially. While we might feel the need to be more exaggerated and “hyped” to keep the attention of children, I suspect they can be gripped by a well told story minus excessive clowning from us. On the other hand, perhaps we need to utilize more energy and motion in our story telling to adults!?

Difference in Truth? I would say not especially. We might state the truth more simply to children, but a story has one main idea. That is the main idea whoever the audience. A story isn’t theologically loaded for adults, but a simple moral instruction for children. What changes is how we present and apply that specific truth.

Difference in Application? Yes, this would be different. We don’t need to help children imagine trusting God’s goodness in the face of employment challenges. But the same truth is needed in their school and home experiences.

Difference in Awareness? Yes, this is the main thing that comes to my mind. Children don’t have the same historical and geographical/spatial awareness that adults tend to have. We need to beware of assuming too much knowledge with adults too (in an increasingly biblically illiterate society), but I think details in a text that may be fascinating to adults can be confusing to children.

Same passage, same truth, but differing levels of detail, and differing specifics of application.

What do you think?

The Bible Story – Plots in Plot

February 9, 2012February 7, 2012 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

We tend to be trained, both by Sunday school instruction and by NIV section headings, to separate out each individual story and treat it as a stand alone. But the Bible always presents plots in the context of larger plots.

I’ve been trying to get hold of a commentary series on the books of Samuel that does a stunning job of demonstrating the interconnectedness of the individual stories (a rarity in commentaries on narrative books!)

I’ve been pondering how the gospel writers wove together events and parables in a way that honoured their historicity, yet communicated their own theological emphases under the inspiration of God. The gospels are not simply four perspectives on a car accident, it’s much richer than that!

So as we engage a story, we must break open the blinkers of the section headings and get a sense of what is going on around our focus text. The context almost always sheds light on the point of our focus.

What is true on a local level, is also true on a macro level. To be effective preachers, we need to be whole Bible people. That is, we need to have a sense of how the whole fits together, not just historically, but as a greater plot.

The tension underlying every narrative is the fall of Genesis 3. The characters in every plot are people responding to God as they hear His Word. The resolution to the problem of Genesis 3 can never be the moral successes of particular characters, but rather the amazing intervention of God’s grace incarnated.

While we don’t need to always finish the macro story, we must always be aware of how our particular text fits into that larger narrative. Only then can we be sure to avoid the simplistic little niceties of sharing tips for successful living through ancient tales with moral morals. For whether we realize it or not, how we live this Thursday is part of the great narrative of God’s grace being spurned or celebrated in the epic of history and the annals of eternity.

So on a book by book level, on a canon-wide level, and on a history as a whole level, we must see individual plots as part of the bigger plot of God’s great story. As preachers we have the privilege of shining light both in narrow focus, and in broad illumination.

The Bible Story – People in Plots

February 8, 2012February 7, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Whether we are looking at a parable, an event in the life of Christ, an historical portrayal in the inspired account of a Patriarch or the early church, Bible stories are about people in plot.

Plot – the skeleton of every story, both fictional and historic, is the plot. Every story has a plot, for without one it wouldn’t be a story. At its most simple, a plot consists in a tension eventually resolved. A tension is created in the context of an imaginable situation. Somehow that tension is then resolved, or left uncomfortably unresolved in some examples. Our primary task as we interpret a story is to grapple with its main point, as it grapples with us, and that main point will be tied into the resolution to the tension (or a comment on it).

People – every story has characters, and those characters are people (either in human form, or sometimes personified). People engage us, for we too, are people. So we identify with one character, but disassociate from another. We can’t help ourselves. Well told story will always engage us, whether it is from the cinematographer’s projector, or from the pulpit.

In – here’s the key word, in. The characters are in real life situations, living in response to a real God. We listeners find ourselves in their shoes, and they in ours. We enter into stories. Stories enter into us. We live life in stories, and every decision we make, we make in response to our God – how we view Him, how we perceive His love toward us, etc. Every story of our week is somehow shaped by how we have been captured by the story of our God entering in to the story of humanity.

If we view Bible stories as mere illustrative material, then we are blinded, not only to the richness of God’s Word, but also to the reality of God’s world in which we live.

The Bible Story – Theology Dressed Up In Real Life

February 7, 2012February 7, 2012 / Peter Mead / 3 Comments

We tend to tell Bible stories to children and teach theology to adults. Perhaps we err in both.

All too often I come across childrens’ ministry that seems like random ancient tales with a moral. An interesting little tale from long ago and far away that is offered with a moral moral – do this, don’t do that. But then children go to school where the tales told in the classroom don’t begin with “once upon a time,” but with “the scientists know that…” All too easily the children in our Sunday School classes make the inevitable observation that there is more truth in one environment than the other.

Children need to have their Bible stories offered more carefully – with theology and historicity included, not to mention the gospel in all its glory.

But then we look at ministry among adults. All too often it is abstract doctrine combined with moral exhortation. A book we agree must be honoured is often dishonoured by being presented in dull, lifeless abstraction. Then these adults go to a media saturated world where moral shaping doesn’t begin with a prayer and a verse, but with credits and a powerful opening sequence. The world knows not to lecture us on what to believe and to do, but rather to dress it up in George Clooney’s wardrobe and wrap it in a plot. Adults do their duty by sitting through sermons, and are shaped by a week full of stories saturated in moral guidance, political direction and conscience numbing power.

Adults need to have their hearts gripped and shaped by engaging Bible stories, where theology and truth are dressed up in real life!

God gave us a lot of His Word in story form. This was not merely to resource childrens ministries, nor to furnish preachers with an anthology of sanctified illustrations. It was because God is a great communicator, and because the truth about God is that His truth is incarnational.

Bible stories dress up truth in real life, they are theology in concrete. Our privilege is to accurately, compellingly, engagingly re-present God’s great communication as we preach His real Word to this, His real world. If we relegate stories to childrens ministry alone, then we restrict ourselves to a small segment of His Word. Furthermore, we blind ourselves to the narratival features of the apparently “non-story” genres.

Over the next few days, I’d like to nudge us back toward preaching our theology in the dress of real life. Let’s revisit the world of the Bible story well preached!

Saturday Short Thought: Fresh Over Abundance from a Can

February 4, 2012February 4, 2012 / Peter Mead / 3 Comments

This week the blog has been pondering issues of recycling sermonic materials and also recycling other peoples’ materials. Meanwhile we’ve welcomed a healthy baby daughter into our home and we are both thankful to our gracious Lord and very tired! So just a short thought to finish off the week.

I understand the challenge faced by many preachers with other work commitments and family priorities. I understand the feeling that some express, namely, that without borrowing the outlines and sermons of other preachers from the internet, they would never be able to preach a sermon on a Sunday.

Just as we close the week out, I’d like to offer an encouragement. Even if you are limited for time and feel unable to do the work of fully developing a sermon for your listeners, consider not taking the short-cut of outline borrowing or sermon lifting. Even if you are only able to develop what feels like an inadequate sermon for Sunday, try it anyway (how about next week?)

I suspect your listeners would prefer to feed on the real food of your Bible study in preparation than the canned contents of some internet repository. Your intro may be weak, your conclusion may be unsophisticated, your illustrations may be lacking, your outline may be undeveloped and your main idea might be just plain, well, plain.

But if your heart has engaged with God’s in prayer for theirs, and you have spent time with the Lord pondering how to present this text with relevance emphasised, then your listeners will be better fed than if you offer a sophisticated super-sermon that is not your own.

When we have guests, it is always hard to serve less than an adundant feast. But the truth is, visitors would rather have home cooked food than an abundant but canned meal.

You will also find that with regular practice, the process becomes more manageable, even on a very limited time budget. Let’s go for fresh over canned, for the sake of souls: both ours and our listeners’.

Eco-Preaching: 5 Dangers of Recycling Sermons

February 2, 2012January 30, 2012 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Yesterday I offered five potential benefits of recycling sermons. Now let’s consider five dangers:

1. Personal stagnation. John Wesley is widely credited with saying “Once in seven years I burn all my sermons; for it is a shame if I cannot write better sermons now than I did seven years ago.” (Apparently, though, he was quoting another preacher, and disagreeing with him. We need to be careful when we recycle quotes!) But there is a validity to the sentiment expressed by whoever it was. If I always recycle the same message, I am missing out on all the growth of personal, devotional, spiritual biblical study and application, as well as the blessing of praying through new messages (since repetition of “successful” messages could lead to complacency and trust in the message rather than God).

2. Ministry burnout. Too much recycling can lead to a dangerous equation. An increase in activity (if I recycle I can preach in every possible gap in the schedule), combined with a decrease in personal feeding (since I can recycle in the wrong way without any time in God’s Word or presence), will lead toward burnout. Easy to be a firework in ministry.

3. Preaching thin. I mentioned this in passing the other day. When I prepare over several days and then preach a message, the message is much more than the outline or notes I record at the time. It is actually more than even the message I record and have on record as an audio file. There is also all the wealth of exegetical study, the supporting biblical content that didn’t make it into the message, but was fresh in my heart at the time of preaching. Returning to that message in the future means returning to a skeleton of the original. I am in danger of preaching “thin” – without the wealth of supporting materials.

4. Loss of attention. If the listeners get the sense that this is old material, rather than being a message from God for them, today, in particular, then the level of attention invariably drops. They will be subconsciously tempted to evaluate your performance, rather than listening for God’s message to their hearts. If it is recycled, it must be prayerfully re-prepared for them – don’t dump leftovers from the fridge, serve them with care! I know the various stories of “I’ll repeat the message until you act on it!” – but the truth is that it is much easier to be bold in an anecdote.

5. Loss of integrity. If the content you are recycling is not your own, then you lose integrity. More on plagiarism tomorrow!

Eco-Preaching: 5 Benefits of Recycling Sermons

February 1, 2012January 30, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Here are five potential benefits that can come from recycling sermons. Not every one will apply to every situation, nor will every one always be a benefit. Please apply wisdom and balance this post with tomorrow’s post on the dangers of recycling sermons!

1. Time. Time is a valuable commodity. If I committed to never recycling a sermon, then I would have to take on a significantly lower amount of preaching in venues other than my local church. It can be a privilege to serve another group with a recycled sermon that doesn’t require me to sacrifice my main ministry commitments or my family.

2. Greater conviction. The first time a message is preached, it may only have a few days to saturate the heart and life of the preacher. If that message is recycled prayerfully and honestly, then the reworking of the text and the re-preaching of the message can allow the truth of it to penetrate deeper into the preacher’s life. This is not the case when a sermon becomes a mere performance through prayerless and heartless repetition. Sometimes I will listen to a message again, allowing it to minister to me, as part of my preparation to preach the same basic message.

3. Better message. If point 2 suggests that recycling can lead to a better preacher, then this point suggests the possibility of a better message. By prayerfully reviewing the first presentation, and by working further on both text and message, the recycled sermon can be a better one that its predecessor.

4. Offering our best. Let’s say a preacher is invited to preach as a guest somewhere. While it may be fair to critique itinerant preachers with their single polished gem of a sermon, there is also something to be said for a preacher offering their best. So for example, a younger preacher may have far better training and study in one particular book – why impose the requirement of preaching from a completely new section every time? I’d rather hear a preacher handling a text well than struggling through something that is new to them. If a sermon has been prepared well and it was worth saying once, why wouldn’t it be worth saying again (if refreshed, see yesterday’s post).

5. Reinforcement. I am sure we are too quick to move on in our preaching. That is, people need reinforcement. Typically this will come from thematic reinforcement from multiple messages, but perhaps there is a place for going back over familiar ground. People don’t tend to transform instantly, so why not recycle in the same venue (again, only if refreshed!)

Eco-Preaching: Recycled Sermons Must Be Refreshed

January 31, 2012January 30, 2012 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I don’t believe a preacher should pull out an old sermon and just preach it, unless the invitation to preach was five seconds before the sermon slot. Any longer notice and the preacher should be prayerfully refreshing the message.

Undoubtedly, a recycled sermon takes less preparation time than a sermon from scratch on a passage previously never preached. But my suggestion, if you are preparing to re-preach an old sermon, would be to follow a process along these lines:

1. Prayerfully consider the text itself before looking at the old notes or outline. Even if you only have time for a brief engagement with the text, there needs to be a freshness about your approach to it, even if the end result remains the same in terms of message outline and details (since the passage does communicate something specific, and that, at one level, does not change). Be sure to feel the impact of the text on your heart as you pray through it.

2. Prayerfully consider the specifics of this occasion before looking at the old notes or outline. It is good to get a clear image of who the message will be preached to on this occasion. What are their circumstances, what are their needs?

3. Prayerfully walk through the whole passage preparation process as you reconsider the previously preached sermon (or ideally, your old exegetical notes). Why are you selecting this text? What are the pertinent elements of exegesis that should drive your understanding of this text? What do you now think was the author’s purpose in writing this text? Is that main idea still the best summary you can make of this text? You may find that your interim growth and biblical studies have changed your level of understanding so that you start tweaking your old passage or study notes. If you only look at the end product (outline, notes, etc.) then you are preaching without the richness of the exegesis that didn’t make it into the notes, but was fresh on your heart.

4. Prayerfully walk through the message preparation process as you reconsider the old sermon. What is your message purpose this time, this congregation, this occasion? Can you improve the message idea to fit this particular preaching event, or to better reflect the text’s idea? Is your old outline the most effective idea delivery strategy? Do the details of introduction, conclusion and “illustrative materials” fit? You may well find that the message also changes in some ways.

5. If at all possible, prayerfully preach it through out loud. Listeners can spot a stale notes-dependent presentation. Just because it looks ok on paper, does not mean it can be preached with freshness from your heart and mouth. Run through it and prayerfully “own it” again.

This may seem like a lot of work, but actually I could do this process in less than a couple of hours (plus the run through of step 5). This is a lot less time than a full sermon from scratch, and as we’ll see tomorrow, time saving is not the only benefit.

Eco-Preaching: Ever Old, Always New

January 30, 2012January 30, 2012 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

This week I’d like to go green and consider the notion of recycling sermons. We’ll touch on different aspects of this broad subject over the next few days (although there may be a quiet day or two as we have a baby imminently joining the family!) To get us started, two fundamental thoughts:

Ever Old – Every sermon we preach is made of recycled materials. All of us are standing on the shoulders of the giants who’ve gone before us (and sadly some are standing on the shoulders of non-giants too). If I stop to think about it, as I prepare a message, I am in the debt of so many people, and I never have new source material.

Ever Old Influences: As I think about yesterday’s two messages, there are too many influences to name. My mind scans over the preachers I have heard over the years, the professors at seminary who taught me how to handle the Bible, who taught through those particular books in survey or exegesis courses, who taught me the languages, who taught me homiletics and theology and pastoral ministry, etc. I think of the conversation partners I turned to in the form of commentaries, and the footnotes attest to some of those that influenced them. I could go on, but you see my point. I’ve preached hundreds of messages, probably into the thousands, and it would be a bit self-aggrandizing to suggest that I have generated more than a few truly original thoughts.

Ever Old Material: While I pulled out a few illustrative elements for yesterday (and didn’t look them up in an anthology of distant impersonal illustrations), the bulk of the material was the Word of God.We must be ever wary of the temptation to think our thoughts, be they original or probably not, are somehow better source material than the ever living Word of God! Yesterday in the course of my preaching I returned to texts that I’ve preached in this church in the past year, and without apology. We need to hear God’s Word.

Always New – Every sermon we preach is new. The text of Scripture doesn’t change, but everything else does. The preacher can never stand still. Either the preacher has grown, or the preacher has stagnated and changed negatively, but life never stands still. Two congregations can never be the same in constituents or their circumstances, even if it is the same church. The situation is always fresh. Different preacher, different listeners, different occasion, different set of needs. I suppose, in theory, I could preach the same text in the same church once a month for the next several years and never preach an identical sermon.

Tomorrow we’ll probe a bit beyond this foundational level as we seek to be good stewards of a preaching ministry.