Yesterday I produced a short video for our church as we entered into this new season of not meeting as a church and self-isolation. Maybe this would be helpful as a resource for you.
Christianity
A New Not New Experience – COVID-19 Response
There have not been many times in my lifetime when things have been changing so quickly. Maybe around 9/11. Maybe when the Iron Curtain fell apart. But this week the spreading realisation of the seriousness of the Coronavirus situation has been striking.
One day I am seeing Christians on facebook moan about college sports being suspended due to “a silly virus” and the next day they are commenting about the seriousness of the situation. (Maybe some people should go back and delete some comments that could soon look very uncaring?)
What we are facing is new to many of us. Uncertainty from one day to the next; travel being complex and restricted; health being under threat; questions over personal income; inability to gather freely for church; potentially inadequate access to healthcare; neighbours living without confidence; people worried about being able to get basic supplies and so on.
This may be new to most of us, but it is not new for most people, in most of the world, for most of history.
And what does this mean? It means a unique opportunity to shine like stars in a dark time. The Roman Empire was all this and more, but the gospel spread like wildfire. Living under communism with all its restrictions, such as in 20th century China, had many of these features, and unprecedented church growth. Whether we go back centuries or think more recently, difficult times make for wonderful opportunity for Jesus followers to spill the love of God into a needy and disrupted world.
So what will this season look like for you and me? Will we mourn the loss of sports, indulge in comfort binge watching of Netflix, complain about all the inconveniences to our usually so comfortable and indulged lives, pour energy into hoarding random grocery items?
Of course it will be a genuinely difficult season for many of us. Loss of income will hit many. Loss of loved ones will hit some. But what if we make this unique season an opportunity to proactively love God, love one another and love our neighbours?
Love God – Time in the Bible and prayer can become so routine when life is normal. Why not let this time stir a greater appetite for time with our God? Let’s get to know Him more, trust Him more, love Him more.
Love One Another – We may not be able to meet on a Sunday and in home groups, but church is still church even without the meetings. In fact, it is a great opportunity to think through how we can love one another, shepherd one another, support one another, look out for one another, etc. The way the church loves is supposed to be noticeable to a world full of people living “me-first.” This is an opportunity for us to really look different.
Love Our Neighbours – The government will do what it can, probably. Community spirit may kick in and be helpful. But the greatest force for on-the-ground love and selfless care should be the followers of Jesus. A confused, disrupted and increasingly hurting community is what we are here for – what can we do to be ready? What steps can we take to be bold? Wash your hands, wash their feet, and tell them the good news about Jesus.
This situation is new to us, but it is not new to God’s people. Let’s fix our eyes on Jesus and embrace this taste of a more normal life in this broken and hurting world.
New Book Coming Soon!
I have a new book coming out this spring. Here it is! It is called The Little Him Book and it is all about the Jesus that makes our hearts sing. 10ofthose are publishing it. Some might call it a devotional, others may find it useful as an evangelistic tool (although always check it first to make sure it is suitable before you give it to someone!), others would describe it as a very brief introduction to what the Bible teaches about Jesus … but basically it is little and it is all about Him!
Here is an endorsement that explains a bit more about the book:
‘As our understanding of Christ deepens, so does our praise and adoration of him. This short book assists us to do both. Peter Mead unpacks some of the main attributes and titles of Christ in an engaging and accessible way. He enables the reader to grasp deep spiritual truths with such clarity that you won’t feel overwhelmed by words, but overwhelmed with wonder! That same wonder draws us to worship. It is appropriate therefore, that words from some of the greatest hymns ever penned furnish each chapter with a helpful response to all that we have read. The illustrative material, the scripture passages, reflections, questions and hymns, make this a superb devotional book and one which I trust will achieve everything the author intended.’
Thanks to Colin Webster, the minister at Cornerstone Church Nottingham, for that kind endorsement. More information coming soon, but can I ask for you to help let people know about this book on social media? Gradually we will be releasing endorsements, quotes, etc., on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. When you see these, if you are able to help spread the word, I would be really grateful! (#LittleHimBook)
The book is available for pre-order in the UK from here: 10ofthose.com The release date in the US is still to be confirmed, but I will let you know when it can be pre-ordered there too.
Your Church Does Not Need a Superstar
In one sense preachers have always felt pressure. In the past, the position of church minister was respected in the community, along with other leadership roles in society. These days the pressure often feels more cynical, with a world ignoring us until they have some dirt to celebrate.
In another sense, there is an increasing pressure on preachers. In the past people might hear a Billy Graham once every few years, and perhaps they would be exposed to other preachers a little more often. Today people get to listen to some brilliant communicators, often in edited form, on podcasts throughout the week. As preachers we can feel the pressure that comes from expectation built by podcast.
To use an analogy, the famous preacher is a bit like a fine chef in a restaurant (assuming the famous preacher is actually a good preacher!) A periodic meal in a restaurant is a real treat. However, these days, people effectively have the option of fine dining multiple times each day. Then Sunday comes and it is back to normal food for a disappointing change.
Remember that children grow into healthy adults based on a continuing supply of reasonably healthy food. I don’t know many families that offer haut cuisine day in and day out. In the same way, if you are providing the regular diet for your church, know that the bar is not set impossibly high.
Preach messages that are solidly biblical, as clear as you can manage, as engaging as possible, with relevance underlined for your congregation. Every now and again you might manage a stunning illustration, or a particularly satisfying turn of phrase. But for the most part, just decent biblical preaching is the meat and vegetables your church needs to grow healthy and strong. And if they like to listen to a brilliant podcast? Great, encourage it.
How Would Jesus Teach Us To Preach?
If Jesus was offering a seminar on preaching, I am sure we would all sign up. The full course would probably include matters of authoritative preaching (unlike the scribes), crafting compelling images, plotting effective stories, and so on. But a brief seminar? Perhaps it would cover two points.
When Jesus was asked about prayer he answered with his two-part variation on the greatest commandment. Since he did the two-part answer repeatedly, let me speculate about how the “how should we preach?” answer might go…
1. Love God. The starting point is always fellowship with the Father. We cannot give what we are not first receiving. Allow him to minister to you, before you minister for him. Seek the Lord and find him, then share him. Seek the Lord in His Word, then share the person you meet there. Diligently study and wrestle with the text, not to gain cold knowledge, but to have your heart melted by the God who reveals himself there. Before you speak to others, love God yourself in response to his love for you.
2. Love your neighbour (i.e. your Sunday morning listener) Be sure you are praying for the people you will be speaking to and spend time with God concerning their lives and their hearts. Plan your message prayefully as an act of love driven by deep concern for their lives. Work so that they can understand, stay engaged, follow along, feel the importance and the impact of God’s Word to them from his Word. Preach with the winsomeness and grace of God’s heart flowing out from yours, because God is passionately committed to incarnating his message.
What do you think Jesus would teach in a preaching seminar?
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By the way, I have a little book about the Jesus we preach coming out soon … more information to follow – watch this space.
5 Preaching Paradoxes
John Stott listed five paradoxes in preaching. This is his list, but the comments are mine:
1. Authentic Christian preaching is both biblical and contemporary – We will tend to incline one way or the other. Are you strong on biblical studies but not so in touch with the world of your listeners? Or are you in touch today, but weak on the biblical side of this? The solution is not a 50:50 formula for study time. However, it would be wise to prayerfully take stock every so often.
2. Authentic Christian preaching is both authoritative and tentative – What is your dominant tone? Some have learned to speak everything with unsupportable authority. Others seem hesitant to suggest anything for fear of coming across too strongly. Listen to a recent sermon and take stock of your tone – there should be both authority and humility.
3. Authentic Christian preaching is both prophetic and pastoral – Preaching should speak into the world of your listeners with declarative and incisive authority, like a prophet of old. At the same time, these sheep really need the tenderness of a self-sacrificing shepherd. Perhaps it is worth asking some listeners how they feel when you preach? Is it helpful confrontation by the truth of God’s Word, or is it the tender care of God’s shepherd heart? Remember, they need both.
4. Authentic Christian preaching is both gifted and studied -I was always impressed by my teacher’s ability to both preach and teach preaching. He was clearly gifted, but he also really knew his stuff. Some good preachers are poor teachers of preaching. But that double dynamic is at work in preaching too – we need the gifting God has given us (personality, ability, strengths, etc.), and we need to do the work in our study to be able to preach well. Have you started to lean on your gifting to the detriment of study?
5. Authentic Christian preaching is both thoughtful and passionate – Just thoughtful becomes ponderous and sends you to sleep. Just passionate can get very loud and annoying when the absence of substance becomes obvious. Learn what you need to learn, but make sure that study, prayer and life work together in you to generate a passion for what you preach. They can’t catch the disease unless you are properly contagious.
I am not a fan of balance as a default, but in these five areas, I think Stott’s list is really helpful.
5 Rubbish Reasons to Preach
I was with a group of preachers last week and we had a conversation about good reasons to preach. Along the way we generated a few not so good reasons to preach … actually, five downright rubbish reasons to preach (for non-England English speakers, “5 Bad Reasons”). Just in case this is helpful:
1. To keep my job – I understand that both ministry and life are often challenging. I also understand that we at times will find ourselves preaching without the fire we know we should feel inside. But when it gets to the stage of simply trying to keep your job, you are long overdue a conversation with some trusted friends.
2. To make them laugh – There are probably a million variations of this. Essentially the goal is to make people respond to you. Maybe it is to make them appreciate you. Maybe it is to show off your intellect rather than your wit. Whatever the case, if the motivation in your heart is for them to be appreciating you, then your ministry is misfiring.
3. To get the petrol money – Whether it is official honorarium, or a kind gift to cover travel expenses, or even your salary … the chances are that you are not being adequately remunerated for the time spent in study, in ministry experience, and in message preparation. We are far better off trusting God for our support and serving wholeheartedly, rather than worrying about the gift. Once we start directly equating our effort for whatever may come back in return, we are probably better off looking at most regular jobs – not just because of the money, but also because of the state of our hearts!
4. To arrive at the end of the service – Sometimes you aren’t thinking about job security, or the response of the people to you, or even the money you might receive, but you are simply longing for the minute hand to reach the appropriate ending point for the sermon. If you are new to preaching, don’t worry, this feeling won’t last long and you will soon be wondering how your time disappears so quickly. If you are just going through a really low time, prayerfully make it to the end and sit down with someone safe who can listen and pray with you.
5. To get invited back – This is a weird one in preaching world. Whether you are a visiting speaker hoping to not offend enough to get another invitation, or whether you are “preaching with a view” and hoping for a pastoral call, the motivation seems off here too. In every situation we should be trusting God and saying what we believe is appropriate for the text, the listeners and the occasion. Too many “pulpit dating” sermons and the church won’t be getting a healthy diet, even if they are getting “your best sermons.”
There are plenty of reasons why we should preach, but what would you add to this list of rubbish reasons?
Weight of Evidence Preaching: 5 Lessons Learned
Generally my default approach to preaching is to preach a single passage. Sometimes I will preach a more topical message where each point is the idea of a text and the points together make up the main idea. But there is a variation that might be called a weight of evidence sermon.
This is where the main idea of the message is repeated multiple times in the Bible. So while you may use multiple texts, it is not primarily to build the main idea, but rather to reinforce the main idea. For example, this past Sunday I essentially preached Isaiah 41:10, “Fear not, for I am with you.”
In one part of the message I quoted Genesis 26:24; Deuteronomy 31:8; Joshua 1:9 and Jeremiah 1:8 – all of which say the same thing in a variety of ways. I anticipated that I would be able to find examples of the main idea that addressed different circumstances in life, but then in my study found that the “fear not” part of the phrase was either overt or in the context of almost every text I found with “I am with you” or similar phrasing. So since over 90% of the 30+ passages I looked at had that fear context, I focused the message on God being with us, so we should not be afraid.
I touched down briefly in Hebrews 13:5-6, Psalm 23:4 and Matthew 28:20. He is with us when threatened by people, when facing death, and in our service for Him – all contexts in which we feel fear.
Here are 5 lessons learned on weight of evidence preaching:
1. This should not be the default. Typically our goal should not be to touch down in as many different verses as possible. Padding sermons with unnecessary cross-references is very common and often a detriment to healthy preaching.
2. Be very focused. If the message uses multiple texts, then the main point needs to be very clear and obvious. Otherwise the multiplied verses will confuse and lose listeners. For instance, there were verses in my list where the world noticed God being with his people and it causing them to fear, or verses that spoke of believers loving one another as the context of God’s dwelling with them. This message could have lost focus and therefore lost its force. Be selective in what you preach.
3. Keep their finger on one text. Preaching is not a Bible sword drill where we try to make people find multiple references. So I encouraged people to open to Isaiah 41:10, but I projected the text of the other verses used.
4. Feel the force of the frequency. The point of a weight of evidence message is to help listeners feel the force of the frequency. Time and again God’s word says this, so we should be sure to hear it!
5. Make follow up study possible. People may respond positively, but make sure the list of passages is available to any who want to study it for themselves. There is the benefit of the main idea punched home in the sermon, but there is also the possibility of people enjoying the Bible study chase for themselves, if they have the references.
I’d be interested to hear any more thoughts on this approach – both the pros and the cons.
New Year, New You
There is something powerful about turning the calendar to a new year. People everywhere feel like this is the moment to turn over a new leaf and make some changes that are, perhaps, long overdue. Join the gym, change your diet, break an addiction, form a healthy habit, read your Bible daily, stay on top of your inbox… whatever personal or professional goal it might be, January seems like the ideal time to start.
I do not want to criticize any New Year resolution, and I wish you well as you embark on change in your life.
However, perhaps we would do well to dwell on something else. Maybe we have lost sight of all that is new for us as Christians. Maybe some of our resolutions are birthed out of frustration and we might be helped by pondering more deeply all that is new for us in Christ.
We live under the blessings of the New Covenant: God’s great plan that was anticipated and predicted in the Old Testament, but has now been launched by Christ at his death and is the reality in which we exist as Christ’s people. As Paul puts it in 2 Cor. 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold, the new has come.” (See also Gal. 6:15) A quick read through the epistles reveals many aspects of this New Covenant that are true for us today. Here are six to think about – three more individual, followed by three more corporate ones:
1. New Life
In Romans, Paul equates the resurrection of Christ with the newness of life that is ours to live today (Rom. 6:4). What does this mean? He writes that we are released from the law, no longer held captive, but free to serve in “the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code” (Rom. 7:6). What would it look like if I sought to live in this new way of the Spirit, rather than by keeping myself in check via a written code? Would my life look different?
2. New and Living Way
In Hebrews, the preacher urges us to move forward into the presence of God by the blood of Jesus, that is, by “the new and living way that he has opened up for us.” How easily I can get caught up in an exercise fad, or a desired daily habit, while ignoring the wonder of being able to boldly enter into the presence of God in prayer! If I belong to Christ, then prayer would be the most natural feature of my life in 2020.
3. New Self
When Paul wrote about the new life we can live, he referred to it as putting on “the new self.” This new me is no longer hardened and calloused by sin, but instead, through knowing Christ, this new me is a heart, mind, and lifestyle-transforming reality that is “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10) That New Covenant promise of a God-given new heart is exciting! I know myself and how easily I can focus on my attempts to tweak a small issue in my life, but ignore the wonderful privilege of true holiness that is mine in Christ.
4. New Covenant Ministry
Jesus declared the inauguration of the New Covenant at the Last Supper, as Paul describes in 1 Cor. 11:25. He picks up that theme and really develops the wonder of participation in the New Covenant in 2 Cor. 3:6 where we see that we are actually ministers of this New Covenant – no longer ministers of the letter that kills, but now of the Spirit who gives life. (See also Heb. 8:8, 13; 9:15; 12:24) Whatever the size of my ministry might be, big or small, the real issue is the quality – and I don’t mean just a comparison of my preaching against yours. I mean the spiritual quality that makes my feeble efforts in ministry quantitatively different from the impressive work of a highly equipped unbeliever.
5. New Unity
What Christ has accomplished is not just individually transforming. It goes much broader than me and my spiritual life. We are brought together, Jew and Gentile, into “one new man in place of the two” (Eph. 2:15) How easily I take for granted the opportunities to worship with other believers. Sunday has become a steady part of my weekly routine. But there is nothing “routine” about unity among a fallen humanity. What opportunities is God giving me this year to experience this new unity that Christ has made possible on a local and on a global scale? How can I contribute to the beautiful unity of believers?
6. New Commandment
It might be good to lose a few pounds, or be a bit more efficient, but I would do especially well to prayerfully pursue the new commandment from Christ in the coming months. As the light of God’s good news breaks into the darkness of this fallen world, what could be more distinctly Christlike than his followers following his instruction? How many times every day will I be given opportunity to love others as he has loved me? (See 1 John 2:7-8; 2 John 5)
So, as we head into this New Year, let us consider all that is new for us in Christ. Individually we have a new life, with new access to God’s presence and the privilege of godly righteousness that we could never achieve by our own natural inclinations and efforts. With that we have the privilege of a new Spirit-empowered ministry, united together and loving one another. If this is the new me that is going into 2020, then the year ahead is already exciting to anticipate. Any other little tweaks are nice bonuses, but they can’t come close to the wonder of what God has done for me and wants to do in me.
One bonus new…
New Heaven & New Earth – our life is not all wrapped up in the details of 2020. The truth is that we are waiting for the new heavens and new earth where righteousness dwells. (See 2 Peter 3:13)
The life we have to live this year is a life with a new heart, a new and special access to God, a new privilege of holiness, a new Spirit-empowered ministry, a new controlling principle, and a new hope. We live in a world that is fascinated by what is new and exciting, but let’s not allow that artificial and temporary newness to take our focus away from the wonder of all that is new for us in Christ.
The 2010’s on BiblicalPreaching.net
As we come to the end of a decade I am reflecting on ten years of ministry. What a privilege! In these last ten years I have been involved in launching, developing, leading, teaching and preaching. Along the way I have blogged a lot at times, and less at other times. One of several reasons for blogging less in the second half of this decade was the need to focus on writing several books.
So now as I look back on ten years of BiblicalPreaching.net … the decade began with a link to a radio interview that included me and Dr Erwin Lutzer (who I enjoyed meeting in 2018). Then the next posts looked at things that have been staples on this site: how to handle the text accurately, how the theology of a text carries into the message, analogies to illustrate what we are doing when we preach, etc.
Anyway, here are some quick highlights:
1. As we ponder preaching we can improve our preaching. For instance, here’s a reflection on how preaching became a solo sport.
2. The core of preaching is not homiletical technique, but spiritual vitality. Here is one New Year post about Bible reading, and another about resolutions.
3. This decade included the end of an era, as my teacher and friend Haddon Robinson was promoted to glory. Here was the post I wrote on hearing of his death.
4. Some posts have been really fun to write and launch into the ether. I think the most successful series, in terms of feedback and sharing, has been the 10 Pointers series I ran back in 2015/2016. Here is one on preaching touchy issues, with links to the earlier posts listed at the bottom.
5. Some posts were controversial. Probably the one that stands out the most was the one I wrote about Bible reading plans – both sides of the debate seemed to jump on that subject!
6. It is encouraging to hear how people have been helped even by the apparently “no response” posts. For example, I don’t think anyone commented on this post online, but lots of people did in person – it was a theological reflection on how Satan hates the Holy Spirit.
7. I am looking forward to another decade of blogging about preaching, about the life of the preacher, about the Bible we get to preach, and most of all, about the God we get to speak about.
Thanks for your participation in this site!
Biblical Preaching 