Here is another clip from my interview with Jonathan Thomas, pastor of Cornerstone Church, Abergavenny. I appreciate Jonathan as a friend and as a preacher.
In this clip he talks about what he has learned from preaching during lockdown – a lesson that we all need to keep learning whatever the circumstances we find ourselves in.
To see the full interview, you just need to sign-up to the Cor Deo mailing list and we will make the full interview available to you! Click here to sign-up – http://eepurl.com/drPqj1
What have you learned in recent months, or what challenges do you anticipate in the coming months?
One of the quickest ways to find a false use of statistics is to look up the fear of public speaking. Given a list of options for their greatest fear, more people selected public speaking than death. The wrong way to say that? “More people would choose to die rather than speak in public!” (Please don’t “tabloid” interesting stats to make them sensational and nonsense – people weren’t given that ultimatum!)
By the way, this could be our first helpful thought: (1.) If so many people fear public speaking then you are already ahead simply by standing up front – after all, you doing it means they don’t have to. At the same time, this initial credit fades as fast as they sense that you are a poor communicator!
Speaking to a crowd of people is something that is unnatural for everyone, and fearful for many. Whether you have been asked to preach for the first time, or have been conquering this fear over many thousands of sermons, here are a few more thoughts that may be helpful:
2. It is natural to feel unnatural about doing something that isn’t natural. Whether you feel tangible fear is besides the point. Speaking to a crowd of people is unnatural. They are looking at you. They are potentially listening to you. They are expecting something of a certain standard from you. This is not a conversation with a friend you are passing in the corridor. We need to recognize the unnatural reality of public speaking, but then look for ways to communicate in a more natural way (even if we are quaking on the inside).
3. Don’t follow silly advice to overcome your fear. Please don’t imagine anyone without their clothes on – that is unhelpful on so many levels. Please don’t look just above peoples’ heads – they notice that far more than you think they will. Please don’t concentrate solely on your content and ignore your listeners – again, they will notice if you don’t care about them.
4. Do care about your subject and your listeners. Being an expert on your content is not as important as caring about it. When you care about it you will communicate with greater enthusiasm and emotional integrity. Obviously it really does help to know what you are talking about though, always remaining humble because there is always more to know. Care about your listeners too. Once you become more comfortable with delivering your content, you will be able to grow in sensitivity to the people that are sat before you. Their facial expressions and body language can become really helpful for you over time.
5. Have something to say. Ultimately this one is asking for more than just coming up with a message for each particular occasion. This is also the reason I don’t tend to teach public speaking skills without spending more time on Bible handling, spiritual growth and theological instruction. Honestly I don’t want to increase the number of people who can say things well without having anything worth saying.
I recently saw an example of a very poor communicator who is putting videos online, but really doesn’t have much of value to say. Sadly, and predictably, he has multiple friends who are ready to offer their gratitude in the comments and perpetuate the cycle. In the old days exposure and opportunity would grow with demand, but now we can all “self-publish” via podcasts and YouTube. If you are really growing in your spiritual maturity, then you will increasingly have something to say … which in turn will help to overcome the nerves.
6. Practice saying it. Since public speaking is unnatural, work on becoming natural with what you have to say. There is nothing wrong with running through your message, out loud, to improve it and to prepare yourself to preach it under the increased pressure of listeners. There will always be something you can work on in your delivery too. Maybe better use of pauses, or variation of pace, or appropriate size of gestures (and in the right direction from the perspective of the listeners). It takes work to naturally point to your left when you are referring to the future, but once you do, it looks natural to the listener.
7. Fearlessness is not your goal. It is understandable that those with a tangible fear of public speaking would long for the day when they can stand and deliver without the slightest qualm. This may not be the best target. Some nervousness, awareness of the significance of the situation, concern about your own weaknesses as a communicator, etc., are all potentially helpful. Whether we listeners realize it or not, we want you to preach in reliance and dependence upon God … that will always bear greater fruit than you relying on yourself because you have become so good at it!
What should we do about it? Here is a six-step action plan…
1. Write an initial list of your assumptions. What comes to mind when you think of a typical preacher from your culture? It is good to have a starting point so that as you think and research further you will see what you have learned. Maybe start without any real categories, just what seems obvious to you.
2. Start to analyze your culture using categories. In the last post I listed five: self, authority, confidence, humour and emotion/passion. You might also consider organizational style and clarity (in respect to sermon content), use of visuals and expectation of the audience to read during a presentation, body language, smile and facial expression, and more.
3. Triangulate a new vantage point. This is especially hard if you have only lived and attended church in one culture. But it is still possible. Select a culture that is not your own, but you have some awareness of … for example, most British Christians have some exposure to podcasts and speakers from the USA. Listen to some good examples (not the extreme stereotypes that people like to use to dismiss “everything American” but preachers that you can enjoy and appreciate), listen not only to benefit from their preaching, but also to try to identify what makes their preaching distinctly American (or whatever culture you select). Obviously there are always caveats, three white conservative evangelical preachers will help you to spot some common traits, but you will have missed the massive tradition of African-American preaching, etc. You are not doing this to generalize or to label, but rather to gain a vantage point for your own culture.
Do the same with a culture you are not familiar with. For instance you might find a handful of examples of preachers from a third continent. Be careful not to just watch a handful of preachers with a different ethnic background who also live, study and preach in the USA or the UK – the distinct differences will be reduced by their assimilated context. A totally new culture can give you the culture shock of unfamiliarity that will help this process.
Once you’ve started to recognize some commonalities in these two other cultures, making notes for your own use, then try step 4:
4. Watch your own culture from the vantage point of step 3. Maybe find a handful of preachers from your own culture and watch them. How do they differ from what you observed in the two cultures of step 3? Be careful not to just feel at home and simply affirm them as generically good preachers. Recognize that they have strengths and weaknesses from their culture. Maybe having had a dose of a different culture or two you can start to spot some idiosyncrasies that may not be so helpful after all? If you only see positives in your own culture, then go back and repeat step 3!
5. Ask questions. Sometimes you can gain a lot of ground quickly by just asking someone who is from outside your culture but will be honest enough to answer your question. This will be more helpful after doing some good thinking yourself. If you just jump to this then the benefit will be reduced, but it is still worth doing, especially if that person is in your church and you are preaching to them regularly.
6. Evaluate and adjust. The more thoroughly you do steps 1-5, the more likely you are to take stock and start to make some adjustments. This will involve not only understanding more of what is stereotypical in your culture, but also evaluating what traits you personally reflect from that culture, and thinking through who your listeners are too. If they are from different cultural backgrounds, then that creates some obvious opportunities for adjustment. But even if everyone in your church is saturated in your own culture, there may still be cultural idiosyncrasies that you could choose not to reflect in order to strengthen your communication.
Maybe you have travelled and become more aware of your own culture? Maybe you are ministering outside of your home culture? What other categories might you add to what has been mention in this short series
Yesterday we began the series by flagging that your preaching is probably more influenced by your national culture than you tend to realize (click here if you haven’t read part 1 already, it will help to make sense of this post.)
Here are some aspects of our preaching that may be more reflective of our culture than we realize:
1. Self. How much of ourselves do we inject into the talk, and how do we speak about ourselves? How comfortable do we feel telling stories about ourselves to support what we are saying? Do we assume our listeners want to hear about us because we are the one speaking, or are we further down the continuum that assumes our role is to point them to the subject at hand rather than to the person stood before them?
2. Authority. Do we tend to take the stance of the celebrity expert, or the authoritarian scholar, or use the indirect authority of gentle encouragement? It is not just whether we speak with authority or not, but how that authority is wielded. This is about whether we are more direct or indirect, instructive or suggestive, bold or subtle.
3. Confidence. Related to authority is the issue of confidence. Do we tend to show confidence when we speak, and is our confidence (or lack of it) usually more focused on subject matter, or on ourselves? What can seem confident and humble in one culture can be heard as arrogant and aloof in another.
4. Humour. Even though every person’s sense of humour is highly personal, there are cultural cues in our use of humour too. What can have one crowd guffawing with laughter can easily leave someone from another culture wondering what all the fuss is about. Some cultures value personal wit, others leave all humour to the experts, some cultures thrive on scripted stories, but others will naturally find such staged moments tiresome. Self-deprecation will be another ingredient that shows at differing levels in different cultures.
5. Emotion/Passion. Some cultures generate more public speakers with flare and enthusiasm, others are much more reserved. While many will joke about their own cultural stereotypes, what shows in preaching is not always so obvious – in fact sometimes it can go in the opposite direction (I can think of some cultures known for being at one end of the continuum and yet generating many preachers who seem to reflect the opposite end of the scale!) How does enthusiasm show, and in what element of the message does that energy become manifest?
These are just five categories of cultural influence on our public speaking. What would you add to the list?
Last evening we sat down as a family to watch the first part of a training course that we want our teens to experience this summer. It was very helpful. And it was presented by someone from a different culture than the one we are living in. Some of the differences were striking, but I wonder if the presenter might only have a limited idea if asked what was peculiarly typical of his culture.
One of the benefits of living in a foreign culture is that it gives you eyes to see your own culture of origin more clearly. Our culture is like the water a fish swims in – it is all around us and affects everything, but we tend to be oblivious to it.
As preachers we work to know the world of the Bible and the world of our listeners, and maybe we think about our own world in respect to the inner landscape of our own lives that help us to recognize where we might be inclined to push an issue harder or avoid it altogether. But I suspect a lot of us preachers remain fairly unaware of how our preaching and communication reflects our own culture.
Culture is made up of a series of overlapping categories that shape us and the way we communicate. We are influenced and shaped by our family of origin, our education, our local area of upbringing, subcultures we choose to identify with (political, entertainment, music, special interests, etc.), national culture and even global-regional cultures (i.e. Latin America, or North America, or even Western vs Eastern).
And yet, while we are all individual in the profile of our various sub-cultural influences, still we tend to reflect the broader categories more than we realize. Even with clothing neutralized, vocabulary filtered, physical features blurred and accent removed, I suspect we might still be able to identify a speaker as being typically British or American or Australian or Italian or Polish or South African or Japanese or Brazilian, etc.
Tomorrow I will list five ways in which our culture tends to influence how we speak. The following day I will list a plan for growing in awareness of this and hopefully improving our speaking as a result. In the meantime, feel free to comment with things that come to mind when you think about how people tend to preach in your culture (probably better not to comment critically about other cultures though!)
I just finished my Journey Thru John – one highlight per chapter through John’s Gospel. Here’s the link in case you want to take a look (notice the slightly indirect invitation and that I didn’t make bold assertions about the life-changing truths in these brief videos? Actually, it feels slightly awkward to mention them at all. That’s my culture showing…)
You can save a lot of sermon time if you simply summarize the passage, or only briefly touch on the text. It allows you so many more precious minutes for application and relevance. But at what cost? What is lost by eliminating any extended explanation or retelling of narratives? What is the cost to listeners of not really entering into the world of the passage being preached? Here are 3 likely outcomes of Bible-lite preaching:
1. Biblical immaturity. People shaped by Bible-lite preaching will not grow towards the kind of biblical maturity that they will need to thrive in this complex and difficult world. Knowing a few popular proof texts and surface truths liberally mixed with applicational anecdotes and motivational missives will not be enough to weather the storms of life in this world. To be mature believers they need the soul-reinforcement that comes from deep biblical-rootedness.
2. Anemic Devotions. For half an hour on Sunday our people observe a “mature Christian” handling the Bible. They will copy what they see. If you skim the surface in order to share superficial suggestions for life that aren’t deeply rooted in the Word, then guess what they will learn for the rest of the week? Superficial engagement with the Bible on a personal level. In fact, they are more likely to make some good worship music on the way to work their daily devotional content and leave the Bible on the shelf. Why? Because your sermons don’t demonstrate that the Bible has any real weight, personal significance, genuine relevance or divine authority.
3. Godless Christianity. What is Godless Christianity? I don’t know, it is an oxymoron. But I do know, sadly. It is the kind of christian culture that reinforces itself week after week in many churches – the kind of nice and encouraging sub-culture that has a thin veneer of christian labeling attached to a set of behaviours and attitudes like a set of post-its … that is, not very solid under the slightest wind of difficulty or purposeful inspection. Bible-lite preaching may encourage people to try to live out the Christian life, but without drawing them deeper into the source of that life – relationship with the Trinity.
As preachers we have a double-duty, or even a double delight: to enable people to encounter the God of the Bible as they enter into His Word, and to be changed by that encounter. These two go together. But don’t short-change the first by skipping to the second. As the world seems to spin further and further away from the anchors of Biblical truth, people need to be more biblically literate and mature, not less. Today, people need to have more exposure to God’s self-revelation in the Bible, not less.
To put it bluntly, either you are funny or you are not funny. But trying to be funny is not funny. It is annoying. That is not to say there can be no humour in our preaching, but let it be more natural. Unless you are a great joke teller, don’t invest minutes of a sermon in telling a joke. Trying to entertain or seek approval by laughs is not fulfilling your role as a preacher. Instead let your demeanor be saturated with genuine gospel joy and enthusiasm that comes from living in the text you are preaching and walking closely with God. It will be more sincere and people will appreciate it more. If they want stand-up comedy then the internet is replete, ready and waiting.
7. Stop scratching at your passage.
Ok, this is probably not a quick fix, but it is significant. A lot of preaching barely scratches the surface of the preaching text. No matter how much you add careful illustration and clear structure, you can’t overcome the lack of biblical rootedness in this kind of preaching. Instead of adding filler, or jumping around the canon, or whatever else you might do, dig down into the text you are preaching and make sure the message has the fingerprints of this specific passage all over it.
That was quite a random list, but maybe one of two of these quick fixes fit for you? Feel free to comment with other things you have tweaked that helped you, or what you need to do next!
Sometimes a little tweak can make a big difference. Yesterday I started the list with stop excessive cross-referencing, excessively quoting scholars and meandering (click here if you missed it). Here is the next installment of the list. Do any of these quick fixes fit for you?
4. Stop apologizing.
I don’t know if you do this, but if you do, don’t. Apologies for lack of preparation, or for complexity of subject, or for lack of illustration, or for lack of time to do justice to the subject (you’d have had more if you didn’t apologise for not having enough!) … there are probably a dozen opportunities to apologize in every sermon. Generally speaking, don’t. I apologized the first time I was up front at church. The visiting missionary thanked me afterwards and told me not to apologize because everyone else was encouraged to see me up there. Then the first time I took a lecture for one of my profs at seminary I apologized for not covering every aspect of my subject. He firmly told me to let people think they have the full meal deal. Generally speaking, with some careful exceptions, don’t apologize.
5. Stop using illustrations that don’t work for most listeners.
Illustrative material generally should either work for all, or be combined with parallel illustrations that together will cover the congregation. For example, I have some teens in my house. If I talk about parenting teens then what about parents with smaller children, or those who couldn’t have children, or empty-nesters whose memory has faded? (Plus, what about my teens who have to sit through the illustration – maybe your own family isn’t as good a source of illustrations as you might think!) Then there are my hobbies, or my film choices, or my life experiences…all of which are quite specific to me. Actually, finding illustration material that most can relate to is not easy. But being irrelevant to a group of people for too long in a message is too damaging.
Sometimes a quick change can make a big difference. Let’s say you drive your car with the handbrake only partially released. Release it properly and your driving will immediately improve. Here are 7 quick fixes to markedly improve your preaching.
1. Stop excessive cross-referencing.
There are lots of reasons we cross reference with other passages, but not many good reasons. I tend to think that reinforcing a point as biblical when it seems unlikely, or clarifying the background of a text quoted in your text are two of the good reasons to jump out of your passage. But some of the bad reasons? To fill time. Because that’s what other preachers do. To show off knowledge. Because older listeners expect it. These are not good reasons. I remember someone saying that too much cross-referencing confuses younger Christians because they can’t follow along, and it causes older Christians to sin because it feeds their pride. There are reasons to cross-reference, but remove the excess and your preaching will improve.
2. Stop excessively quoting scholars.
Adept transitioning between the insights of various commentaries can be like good gear changes in driving. Referencing every scholar along the way makes those gears crunch. Generally, it is worth asking what is added by naming the scholar? If you use particularly specific wording and the name of the scholar is helpful, then by all means name them. Otherwise generally decide between preaching without any reference, and making a vague reference…”One book I was reading put it like this…” (Remember, people can always ask for your sources, even though they almost never do.) There is no requirement that you identify three commentaries and include a Spurgeon quote in every sermon.
3. Stop meandering.
Listeners will listen gripped by well organized and well-presented material. But listeners can also spot meandering and filler like a dog can sniff meat. Don’t look at your notes and assume it will come out ok when you are preaching. It is much better to preach it through and make sure it can come out of your mouth and not just look good on paper. Meandering transitions, conclusions and even whole points are counterproductive. And with decent preparation, they are really unnecessary.
I will continue the list tomorrow, but what would you add?
When the Covid-19 crisis rolled across Europe in March, everything changed. Maybe you found the experience overwhelming, or challenging, or perhaps even invigorating. Somehow, when crisis hits and our adrenaline surges, we tend to lean on the Lord and find ways through the situation. But after adrenaline there is always a settling period, when it is the most normal thing in the world to feel emotionally flat. Maybe by now you have arrived there too?
Two Types of Feeling Flat
When we feel flat we tend to have lowered motivation and energy. We may be doing less, but somehow feeling more tired. We feel a loss of creativity and initiative. Flatness is not a new feeling, but having so many of us experience it at the same time is slightly unusual.
“I’m feeling flat” is something I’ve heard a lot recently. But there is another type of flatness that is perhaps more concerning. It is the unconscious flatness that we don’t tend to recognize in ourselves – we don’t spot it in the mirror.
Unconscious flatness could be called spiritual coasting. Coasting is where you disengage the motor of the car you are driving and allow past momentum and present circumstances to roll the car forwards. This kind of driving is dangerous. It changes the braking and steering in the car, but perhaps most concerning is that it can give a false sense of security. After all, the engine noise reduces and the car keeps moving forwards.
We need to respond when we are feeling flat, especially when we become aware of this unconscious flatness, or spiritual coasting.
Responding to Feeling Flat
The typical human response to feeling flat will not be spiritually healthy. We may default to distraction, to self-recrimination, or to laziness. That is, we can fill the void with busy work, new pursuits, or entertainment. We can beat ourselves up with the “I need to try harder!” kind of self-coaching. Or we can settle into our flat state and get comfortable. Typical human responses will tend to be self-oriented and spiritually unhealthy.
What should we do when we understandably feel flat or discover we have drifted into a state of flatness? Our emotions are great indicators of deeper realities in our hearts, and they should be prompts to connect relationally – with others, and with God.
When we feel flat, we tend to pull back from others. Living through a pandemic only reinforces that possibility – it is a government-mandated withdrawal! But spiritually we need to connect and fellowship with our brothers and sisters in whatever way we can (even if that means using Zoom!)
Most of all, we need to re-connect with Christ. We need to spend time with Him, because only Christ can invigorate our hearts and stir life in us. And yet our default fleshly response will be to pull in the opposite direction.
Let me share one thing about Christ that may encourage you to bring your tired and emotionally flat heart to Him in these days. I want to point to two passages and focus particularly on what they teach about how Christ cares for the weak and vulnerable. Does going to Christ mean accessing the ultimate personal trainer who can shout the loudest? Not at all.
Motivation for Connection
Isaiah 42:1-4 is the first of Isaiah’s famous “Servant songs.” At first glance it could look intimidating. After all, three times it declares that this servant of the LORD will establish justice on the earth. Surely one who is tough on crime will be overwhelmingly powerful and intimidating? But not so. Verse 2 tells us that he is not full of himself, nor does he demand everyone’s attention. And verse 3 describes his way of dealing with the weak:
“a bruised reed he will not break,
And a faintly burning wick he will not quench.”
That is the kind of God that motivates me to lift a bruised and tired heart up toward him. Feeling flat? Connect with the only one who can be fully trusted with your heart.
That truth is painted in narrative colour in John 21. The adrenaline of the first Easter has faded and seven of the disciples are back in Galilee, heading out to fish for the night. Whatever their motivation, I am sure that part of the issue was that they felt flat. Read the chapter and watch Jesus care for them. He could have criticized, shouted, corrected, berated, or chastised them. He didn’t.
Instead, Jesus gently reminds them of their calling to ministry by miraculously filling their nets with fish, again. He gently reminds them that he will continue to provide for them by lovingly preparing a barbecued breakfast, a God-given meal of fish and bread, again. He gently re-established Peter’s position within the group by re-affirming his shepherding role. In this chapter he reminds them of their calling to evangelism and edification ministries, he reminds them of his ability to continue to provide for them, and he even grants Peter his desire to die for Jesus – only this time with a 30+ year warning. The content of his teaching is powerful and challenging, but his manner is gentle and tender.
This is the kind of God that can motivate us to lift our flattened hearts up toward him. Dare to connect with the only one who can be fully trusted with your heart.
Here is another clip from my interview with Jonathan Thomas, pastor of Cornerstone Church, Abergavenny. I appreciate Jonathan as a friend and as a preacher.
