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.

Why I’m Not Rushing to Two-Person Preaching – Part 2

January 25, 2012January 24, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

If our churches follow cultural trends, which they tend to, does this mean we are facing the prospect of “sanctified banter preaching?” After all, it seems like everywhere we look in the media, there are now two presenters, two DJ’s, two hosts. So do we have to consider having two preachers simul-preaching? I suspect not…

I remember sitting at a big Christian convention where three speakers rotated through the morning session in soundbites. The blessing of hearing one was only frustrated by the ranting of another, it felt bitty and unprepared. But what if it were done well?

I’m not convinced. There are venues where it could work and it could work well. But I’d lean more toward it in a teaching situation than in a preaching situation.

As with some powerpoint/media intensive preachers, I get the sense that the preparation would be radically changed. Instead of time spent with God in prayer, the powerpointer sometimes seems to spend hours in mouse-clicking creativity. Actually, (in many cases they seem to end up not spending enough time with God, or in preparing the powerpoint fully, but that is another issue.)

So the collaborationist preaching pair might spend hours in scripting transitions and dialogue, hopefully without the tacky banter that seems so plastic on some TV shows, yet not have anywhere near the depth of time spent in God’s presence.

The change in preparation would mean a potential loss of profundity. There is something about a preacher spending time with God in the text praying for the people, and then coming to speak to the people. I would love to hear this done by a pair of preachers who have really pursued God, His Word, His heart for these people, etc.

I fear that profundity would disappear if the 2-person preaching were seen as a contemporary solution to a contemporary problem (like the acetate and the powerpoint were also seen as ways to fix poor preaching in recent years).

Somehow the core has to be kept in place, and done well. Then there may be benefits to supplemental approaches like this. I’m not opposed, I’m just not convinced.

Why I Am Not Rushing to Two-Person Preaching

January 24, 2012January 24, 2012 / Peter Mead / 8 Comments

Whether we admit it or not, our churches are shaped by our culture. When overhead projectors became the thing in business meetings, so suddenly preachers wondered how Wesley had survived without acetates. Then preachers pondered the problems Spurgeon must have faced without powerpoint and projectors.

As well as technological influence, there are others too. How regularly do we hear and see another “study” indicating people have shockingly short attention spans so we should keep our messages to less than 35 seconds? It’s amazing how these “studies” seem to selectively focus on the criteria that make the point of the person writing – not exactly solid science in many cases.

So here’s one that surely must be coming . . . two-person preaching. If I think back to the TV I saw in the 1980’s, I tend to think of individuals – film reviews? Barry Norman sat in a black chair and looking at the camera. Satire? Clive James on his own with the occasional guest. Now everything is done in pairs. Presenters have their sidekicks for painfully choreographed repartee in some cases, or side-splinting banter in others. Radio shows rely on the bouncing back and forth between DJs, and if one DJ is dominant, the other acts as a foil. So should we expect to see more 2-person preaching?

There are positives that come to mind here. Some of the best educational experience I had involved two professors co-teaching contemporaneously. In Cor Deo we have deliberately adopted a two-mentor teaching model, and I delight in the advantages of that approach. It offers the benefit of added perspective in discussion environments. It offers the possibility of variation in voice and presentation. It offers a tangible relational approach that fits for an inherently relational faith.

But when it comes to preaching, there are also negatives. And I’ll share my thoughts on this tomorrow. I’d love to hear other perspectives on this . . .

Are We Guilty of Negative Suggestion?

January 23, 2012January 23, 2012 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Today’s post is a follow up to one of the most commented on posts from last year, concerning Bible reading. The post is hosted over on the Cor Deo site – just click here to go there.

Saturday Short Thought: The Deeper Side of Confession

January 7, 2012January 6, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

This week I have shared some candid thoughts from the perspective of the preacher. But I haven’t gone into the whole arena of confessing sin as a preacher. Here’s a reality that won’t rock anyone’s world: preachers sin.

Trouble is, preaching carries with it a certain pressure to live up to a false reputation. People seem to expect sinlessness and preachers find it easier to preach from that alien platform.

Having said that, listeners do respond well to honesty from the preacher. I suppose we should call it “appropriate vulnerability.” And there’s the challenge – some vulnerability is helpful, appropriate, even at times, powerful (though that might not be the best motivation to pursue it in your preaching!) Equally, some vulnerability undermines the preaching event, distracts the listeners and can inadvertently excuse sin for others.

How do we know the difference? I think this is an arena where we need real and vulnerable conversation as well as vulnerable preaching. We need to be in conversation with others about the reality of our walk with Christ and our struggles in this world. Listing a week’s worth of battles with materialism, internal anger attacks, lust struggles, relational tensions, lapses into laziness, etc., almost certainly won’t help your sermon on Sunday. But it would almost certainly help your walk with Christ to walk in the light with a trusted friend or two.

Perhaps it is in those genuine rather than superficial, grace-giving rather than condemning, and loving rather than competitive friendships that we can determine what level of confession is appropriate by way of vulnerability?

I have been looking at Uzziah and Hezekiah – two godly leaders that seemed to lose it at the heart level later on in life. Perhaps age is a factor worth pursuing in all this as well. Younger folks have their struggles. Older ones are not safe.

I suppose this is still not the deepest side of confession, but I won’t venture into the realm of ministry disqualifying issues today.

I hope this week of posts have been helpful in some way. Let’s be praying for each other as we step into the pulpit tomorrow and preach the Word – what a privilege!

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Next Week: Technology and Sermon Preparation

16 Confessions – Part 3

January 4, 2012January 2, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Over the last couple of days I’ve shared a few confessions from a preacher, that I suspect are true of some or many other preachers too. Feel free to disagree or resonate, just a quick four today:

9. Most preachers, at least now and then, question our own abilities and suitability for pulpit ministry. Periodic genuine encouragement means more to us than we know how to show. If this can be combined with genuine interest in us as real Christians (rather than stained glass saints), this makes for a powerful combination.

10. Many of the preachers that I know are somewhat introverted and carry quips and jokey criticism both deep down and long term.

11. Most preachers don’t feel perfectly qualified as exemplars of perfect character, and our fear of letting others down can tempt us to be false with our own reputation.

12. Most preachers are wide open to vulnerable conversation with both the spiritually mature and the new believer. The people we might be inclined to fear are the spiritually immature that think they are mature, the people that can turn a community of love into a political battle zone.

At Least 16 Confessions of a Preacher

January 2, 2012January 1, 2012 / Peter Mead / 3 Comments

I saw a post recently containing confessions of a church leader by Ron Edmondson. I wondered if I could ride on the back of that and offer a few confessions of a preacher? Maybe these hit the mark, maybe not. Maybe you’ll add more, or maybe you’ll disagree that these should be here at all. Let’s see:

1. Preaching is a strange experience of being involved in a work that is really God’s work, somehow trying to honour His Word, and feed His people, and represent Him to unbelievers . . . all things that are His work, yet somehow He involves me, inadequate on all three counts.

2. Preaching is a consistently overwhelming experience. There is a sense of wonderful burden that comes from spending time in God’s Word and prayer for the church, coupled with the complicated reality of preaching to a gathering of people that are just as human as we preachers are. Sweet agony.

3. People have very strange views of preaching. Some people seem to think it is about ticking a list of random requirements that they hold us to, but don’t communicate with us (although they may be inclined to do so with others). Some people seem to think that our sermon is all they need for a week of living in a constant stream of anti-God media. Some people seem to think the only thing that matters is not going over their defined time limit, no matter how much everyone else is engaged and benefitting. Some people simply don’t seem to think about the preaching at all – like it’s a sort of strange vestige of ecclesial tradition, rather than something that might make a difference in their lives.

4. People have very strange view of the preacher. Some think that you’ve received the message on a mountain like Moses and so it must be unquestionable. Others think that the preacher is somehow not a real person and so likes to be critique fodder for the next two hours. Still others think the preacher is trying to entertain so they applaud the performance and head back into real life without any sense that there might be something actually for them to receive in a life-changing way.

I’ll add another four tomorrow, but feel free to chip in at any time via comments!

Not (just) a method

December 26, 2011December 26, 2011 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I am very thankful to Andrea Aresca for his guest post that I share here today. I’ve had the joy of sharing many conversations about preaching with Andrea over the years and I am so encouraged by what he has to offer. If you read Italian, please visit predicalaparola.com, but if not, he has translated today’s post for us here. I agree absolutely with Andrea that preaching is not (just) a method . . .

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Reading some of the articles on my blog or Peter’s blog (especially those that describe the stages of sermon preparation), it may seem that the method is the most important issue in preaching.

I am absolutely convinced of the usefulness of knowing the fundamental principles of the text’s interpretation and communication and a lot of them can actually be applied to non-Bible texts, as well. Many of those “rules” help us not to say what the text doesn’t say and to communicate the biblical truth in an understandable way. Furthermore, having a method is very useful in the first years of our experience as preachers, because it helps us to consolidate those habits that allow us to be really “faithful” to the Scriptures.

Nevertheless, the method is not the primary issue in preaching, nor its description the main goal of this blog.

What I want to promote is, indeed, a vision.

A vision of God who loves us and wants to have a relationship with us.
A vision of the Bible as the revelation of God, through which we can know His heart and what He desires for us.
A vision of preaching that really puts at the centre God and His Word, that communicates the Word’s meaning without preconceptions, that promotes the Word’s application in contemporary life, that considers the personality and the needs of people who listen.

All that I write (including the posts that can be defined as more “technical”) has the goal of showing this biblical vision of preaching.

The preaching of the Bible has been used this way by many men about whom we read in the Scriptures and in church history, through which God brought about extraordinary renewal. Certainly we too can tell how God spoke to use in a special way through the message of those who preached, both with heart and led by the Spirit, the truth of the Bible.

My prayer and the goal of this blog is that all this can be realized more and more, every time the Bible is opened and preached.

What Would Help? People

December 23, 2011December 20, 2011 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

This week I am pondering how we might pursue improvement in our preaching ministries. We’ve thought about training and time. Today let’s talk about other people. (If you want to see the poll on LinkedIn, click here. There is also a poll on the Facebook page here.)

Preachers need preachers for mutual encouragement – As I wrote recently, preaching can be a lonely experience. Preparation tends to be done alone. After preaching preachers would often rather be alone. But is a ministry of preaching a commitment to lots of solitude? Yes and no. It would be wrong to lose sight of the need of the body of Christ for everyone in it, including those who preach. Having fellowship with those who understand and care makes a big difference.

I would encourage every preacher to be involved in, or to organize, a gathering of preachers for mutual encouragement and resourcing. Not a venue for egos, or for pyramid climbing, or for conflict. But a venue for genuine heart to heart fellowship and support. Is there one in your community? There is value in sharing with other preachers outside your church. I have been involved in a ministry that seeks to launch preachers clubs around the world – where these have worked, the ministry has been greatly blessed. Gatherings of preachers meeting every month or two and working on a passage of Scripture as well as praying for each other – valuable, to say the least. Having a local preachers’ group is great. Even better, is there one in your church? Surely we should all be looking to build up others and mentor others, so why not develop a preacher’s gathering within your church?

Preachers need people for encouragement as well as feedback – Listeners tend to fall into three categories. One is the listener who never communicates with the preacher other than being polite. Another is the listener who only communicates critique (either directly or through asides). The final category is the listener who genuinely looks to encourage the preacher. People in this last category are worth their weight in gold. Finding people who will pray for the preaching ministry, and encourage the preacher, and advocate for the preacher, etc., is not easy. Yet when people in this category offer feedback, it is so much more palatable.

I don’t want to slip off into discussing issues of feedback. I want to recognize the need for encouragement, just as all people, in all ministries, need some encouragement. Doing ministry does draw down on our resources. We look to God for empowerment, but He chooses to give us strength, in part, through the proper functioning of the body of Christ. I don’t know how to let your listeners know that you need this, perhaps you should accidentally send a link to this post (or maybe an appropriate moment of vulnerability in a message might help).

For what it’s worth, I’ll offer the results of the poll in the short post tomorrow.

Preaching Proverbs 1: Epilogues and Exhaustion?

December 12, 2011December 9, 2011 / Peter Mead / 4 Comments

Jon sent me an email about Proverbs. He asked whether I thought the preacher heading into Proverbs is bound to either preach for a five minute mini message or an exhaustingly exhaustive topical study of an entire subject? Isn’t the preacher guaranteed to impose a homiletical structure on a simple saying, or preach a plethora of cross-references in order to fill the time? And, why haven’t I written more about preaching Proverbs on this site?

First, the question about this site is easy to answer. I have neither preached from Proverbs, nor heard a sermon from Proverbs in the last few years and so my thinking hasn’t been provoked on this important issue. I was involved in a preacher’s retreat on the subject of preaching Proverbs a while back, but thanks to Jon for provoking my thoughts! (Actually, Jon’s written a lot on this specific issue, for example this post on preaching Proverbs.)

So, three thoughts on preaching Proverbs, before I explain two ways I believe a full-length sermon can be worthwhile on a single proverb!

Thought 1 – We need to be wary of preaching moralistic legalism. This is a danger everywhere in the Bible – “so the moral of the story is . . . be a good boy/girl and obey your parents!” This is too common in preaching, and massively misses the mark of preaching the extravagant relational grace that infuses the Bible with the life of God’s love. This is especially easy in Proverbs. Be good. Try hard. Be disciplined. Be like this man. Don’t be like that one. Let’s be careful to prayerfully ponder the proverb we plan to preach in light of the bigger context of Scripture and in light of what our listeners really need.

Tomorrow I’ll offer two further thoughts before getting to two full-length sermon approaches that I have seen work very effectively.