Biggest Mistakes Preachers Make – pt 4

February 17, 2015 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

This is a series of big adjustments rather than fine tweaks. We’ve thought about content and audience, but here is another big issue:

Mistake 4 – Starting Too Late

There is all sorts of mythology around about the hundreds of hours some preachers invest into a single sermon, and even about some who only prepare minimally. Perhaps the bigger issue is not simply the total time invested, but the spread of the time invested. Here is a simple and healthy guideline:

Before God, give as many hours as you can, over as long a period as you can, to prepare the best sermon you can.

1. Before God … that is, you answer to Him. Don’t make decisions based on what others think (although people telling you your sermon seemed unprepared is a red flag to take onboard!) Our ministry is ultimately a stewardship and God knows the balance that makes sense for us. I could sacrifice the health of my marriage, my family, and other aspects of church life, as well as personal health and hygiene in order to give every conceivable moment to preparing a sermon. I doubt God would be impressed. It is before God that we make the value judgments on time. Equally, if emergencies crowd lots of allotted preparation time, or if we step in at the last minute, then God knows that. So before God…

2. Give as many hours as you can … that is, it takes time to do the work of preparing to preach. It takes time to study a passage. It takes time to properly pray for the people. It takes time to wrestle with the wording of the main idea. It takes time to thrash out the best sermon strategy. It takes time to work out the best support material. It takes time to get past logjams in our preparation. It takes time to preach a message through out loud and make adjustments. It takes time. Wider reading, targeted reading, related research. It takes time. Don’t try to impress people by minimalist preparation. And don’t appease your own conscience in some twisted way by giving minimal time and then saying you did the best you could.

3. Over as long a period as you can … here is the crux of the matter for this post. If you start on Friday or Saturday, you might be able to technically do what is necessary, but only just, and probably not at all. That is, only just in terms of reading, study and research. Having longer allows you to stew on research, ask others and develop ideas in conversation, read commentaries and articles in a more considered way. And secondly, you probably can’t do what is necessary at all in the sense of letting the passage do its work in your heart and life. Deep appreciation of a biblical passage on a Saturday night may lead to a special moment of worship, but it doesn’t forge true conviction in the inner matrix of your heart and soul.

There are benefits to planning series months ahead to allow for drip feed study, prayer and research. There are benefits to starting 10 days before a Sunday, rather than 5 days before on the Tuesday. Starting unnecessarily late may be undermining the potential for God to work in you, and through you.

Biggest Mistakes Preachers Make – pt 3

February 12, 2015 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

In this series we aren’t looking to tweak at the fringes of preaching, but rather to get a big wrench to the major parts of the ministry. We’ve thought about “harvesting imperatives” and “not preaching the passage.” Here’s another:

Mistake 3 – Not Preaching to the People Present

Preaching is a pastoral role. We are not being called to perform, but to shepherd. We can, and must, do the role of a shepherd as we preach. A shepherd feeds, leads, cares and protects his sheep. In order to pastor through preaching, we need to know and love the people we are preaching to each Sunday.

Obviously if you are visiting a church, or speaking at a special event, then you may only have half an hour to get to know the specific group of people present. Do what you can. It is also important to know people in general, so that you can preach to people in particular, but always seek to preach to those who are present.

Here are some alternative listener profiles to root out of our preaching.

Don’t preach to people who are missing. Some preachers seem to have allowed the richness of the gospel to evaporate into a duty of church attendance. These preachers are then liable to preach frustration toward those who “should” be present, but aren’t.

Don’t preach to an audience your favourite preacher attracts. You might have a favourite preacher who preaches to a cool crowd in some other city in America or somewhere, but if your listeners are from rural Somerset, they aren’t a “Seattle” crowd.

Don’t preach to a culture that isn’t in your church. The culture may be increasingly postmodern, but lots of church congregations aren’t. Don’t seek to overcome issues that your listeners aren’t facing in any meaningful way.

Don’t preach to land another job. I hate to say it, but there are some preachers who are preaching so that their sermon is attractive to a “better” church they’d like to get a call from. Be faithful to your congregation and God will help you adapt if you need to move church for some reason.

Don’t preach to spar with foes. It is very possible to preach targeted comments toward people acting likes foes in your congregation, so technically they are present, but still this isn’t wise. But don’t waste energy preaching to foes not present. Having a go at a high profile atheist doesn’t achieve much. By all means equip your listeners to handle what they are hearing in the media, but that would mean preaching to them. Taking pot shots at people not present isn’t impressive.

Get to know and pray for the people you are preaching to each Sunday. Then your preaching can pastor their souls. If you don’t care about them, don’t preach to them.

Biggest Mistakes Preachers Make – pt.2

February 11, 2015 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

It is easy to focus in on little details, but this series is about the big things that we need to be clear on for healthy biblical preaching. Often we won’t see these mistakes in ourselves, but let’s pray for God to show where some of them might be true of us:

Mistake 2 – Not Preaching the Passage

There are many directions we can head after we finish reading a text (whenever that occurs in the message). Here are some options that fail to preach the passage, and then I’ll share some reasons why this happens:

A. We can head off into our own ideas – whether they are self-help tips for living, self-absorbed personal anecdote sharing, personal soapboxes or targeted rants . . . the passage is not doing the work here.

B. We can head off on a biblical safari – it is easy to fill time with multiplied cross-references. It is also easy to get positive feedback, but this may be for superficially impressing people rather than for saying anything meaningful.

C .We can head to the passage we wish we were preaching – maybe everything is Romans 3 for you, or perhaps Philippians 4, or whatever. But what about this preaching passage, when will this get any coverage again?

D. We can linger in, but not preach the passage – dwelling on minor details or offering pleasant platitudes, even if we stay superficially in the passage, but don’t really preach it, then we are still digressing.

E. We can dive into our theological prof persona – do you wish you were teaching theology in a classroom? Don’t work out that issue in the pulpit.

F. We can head for the newspapers – in our quest for relevance or to be a political voice, we can abdicate our role as preachers of the Bible. By all means be relevant, but not at the expense of the text.

Why does this happen? Some people know no better. Some preachers were trained poorly. Some churches push the preacher toward an unhealthy approach to the text. But ultimately, the biggest reason that we have to face is this: not preaching the text is an evaluation of God’s ability as a communicator.

If God inspired the text, and if he did a good job, do we think that we can improve on that communication by our alternative methods of preaching? Give everything you can to actually understanding and presenting the text so that its message is communicated, its revelation of the character of God is revealed and so that your listeners are able to experience exposure to this unique and wonderful passage!

Biggest Mistakes Preachers Make

February 9, 2015 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

This week I want to share some of the biggest mistakes preachers make. Actually, these are the biggest mistakes I have probably made. Perhaps this can help others pondering the wonderful privilege of preaching the Bible!

Mistake 1 – Simply Harvesting Imperatives

It feels easy, and it feels right, to turn proclamation into imperative presentation. All you have to do is present the text and then make sure people know the imperatives: the “must do” or “should do” or “best do” of the passage. Whether or not there is technically an imperative in the text, we so easily turn a passage into mere instruction and press for change as we preach.

Sidebar: Introducing the Imperative

The mood is one of several features of a verb. In Greek, for instance, there are four moods: indicative, subjunctive, optative and imperative. The mood presents the verbal action or state with regards to the verb’s actuality or potentiality. The imperative mood is concerned with intention. Thus the most common use of the imperative is to express a command. However, it would be wrong to collapse imperative into commands (or assume all commands are imperative). An imperative can be used to forbid an action (prohibition), to express a request (such as in prayer), a sense of resignation, a pronouncement, a condition, or even just a greeting. So? Simply identifying and harvesting imperatives is not a shortcut to an instructional/applied sermon!

Remember the Context – Typically the epistles will offer lists of instructions, but never in isolation. The chapter breaks and section headings may segregate a set of instructions or commands, but the letters were written as a coherent whole. We are to present our bodies as living sacrifices . . . in view of God’s mercies. We are to walk in a manner worthy . . . of the calling we have received. We are to set our hearts on things above, where Christ is . . . the Christ presented in the first half of Colossians!

Remember the Mechanism – As long as we think lives are transformed by the pressure we can apply in our preaching, our ministry will be desperately restricted. Lives are transformed by pointing the gaze of listeners’ hearts toward Christ. In Christ, in Christ, in Christ . . . so walk worthy. The captivating truth of what God has done in Christ is preached, the Spirit works in the heart, an appetite to please God comes forth like sap in a fruit tree, and the instructions are there to guide the growth.

Forget the Short-Cut – It feels like a short-cut: just find imperatives, or turn some content into imperative, and then pressure people. You will even get encouraging feedback (the flesh loves this stuff!) But you won’t see much true, genuine, abundant growth. Forget the short-cut and preach the text, in context, pointing to the God it reveals, and the growth may be imperceptible (good fruit growth isn’t instant), but it will be definite, genuine, multiplying, healthy, Christ-honoring, loving, joyful, peaceful, etc., fruitful growth!

Preaching and Other Ministries

February 2, 2015 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Preaching may be the most visible ministry in the church, but it is certainly not the only ministry in the church. How does your preaching relate to the other ministries? Here are some possibilities:

1. Casting Vision – The big church together biblical preaching slot is probably the main time that most people are together during the week. Consequently the leadership functions of the church can be offered in a unique and biblically grounded way during the preaching. If your church divorces leadership from preaching, it will suffer for it. But when a church feels led more by the Bible than by a personality, health can be generated.

2. Creating Atmosphere – Lots of other ministries are massively significant in the life of the church. Small group ministries, age-specific ministries, one-to-one discipleship, mentoring and counseling ministries, evangelism in many forms, etc. But all of these can happen more effectively in the space and atmosphere created by the Sunday preaching of the church.

3. Offering Gratitude – Lots of other ministries can easily go unnoticed. Investing in children in the nursery or children’s programs, one-to-one ministries, practical work – setting up church, maintaining the building, etc. The preaching is a good place to lift up other ministries of the church so that people know the preacher doesn’t buy the hype that can so easily be assumed of the pulpit ministry.

4. Providing Vocabulary – An effective illustration or thought through wording can become vocabulary for the church. Recently I used an illustration of living in our thimble while Jesus has an ocean perspective – there may be some “thimble” conversations going on as a result. Sometimes even just offering permission to start a conversation, for instance, “I may be completely misunderstanding this situation, but the preacher on Sunday encouraged us to use him as an excuse for coming and raising it with each other, so here’s my ‘help me understand you on this little thing’ . . .” Big church preaching can prompt the one-to-one conversations that need to happen in a church community.

5. Building Unity – Churches are filled with humans and humans bring their lifelong saturation in the brine of Fallenness along with them. So people distrust people. Ministries will easily compete with ministries. The preaching is an opportunity for the wise preacher to let God’s Word build unity and trust within a church by offering both vulnerability and vision.

6. Co-Labored Stirring – The preaching can and should co-labor with other ministries. It may be that a sermon unlocks an apparently unresponsive individual, or offers new hope to an apparently committed-to-drift couple, etc. Then it may be another ministry that continues the work toward fruitful life change.

7. Setting Example – Probably this is already covered implicitly, but let’s be overt: the preaching can set the tone for other ministries . . . i.e. submission to the Word, honoring others above ourselves, vulnerability, tenderness, courage, etc. Can the church leadership ask others to minister in a way that the pulpit does not demonstrate?

Preaching is important, but it is not the only ministry of the church. Does your preaching support and strengthen the ministries of the church? Or does it inadvertently undermine and compete?

Overflow Leadership: 2 Vital Ingredients

January 31, 2015January 28, 2015 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

The great temptation in any leadership is to think that my leadership is about me. It isn’t. True leadership will be more concerned with those that I lead than me as the leader. And true leadership will always recognize that I can only give what I have first received.

As I write this we are about to start into the fifth year of the Cor Deo full-time training program here in England. It is a small ministry focused on mentoring and training participants to multiply ministry that will make a profound impact. What can we give to these participants that we did not first receive? Nothing.

The best leadership, the best mentoring, and the best teaching, will always be overflow leadership, overflow mentoring, overflow teaching. That is, as I have received, so I can overflow to others. The great danger for any leader, mentor, or teacher, is to start to think that our ministry comes from our own capacity, our own ability, or our own accumulated knowledge.

How can we avoid the subtle shift from overflow ministry to stagnant self-absorbed ministry? Here are two vital ingredients to protect us from this dangerous (and natural) shift:

1. Personal Gratitude. It is not enough to be grateful when nudged to be grateful. We need to continually return to a place of gratitude as we give ourselves away in ministry. Let’s be thankful for all the training we have received, conferences we have attended, books we have read, and mentors we have been blessed to spend time with. Thankfulness reorients our hearts to God’s kindness toward us.

Actually, it is not just the obviously good gifts that have brought us to this place in our ministry. Great ministry is typically forged in the crucible of significant challenges. But without thankfulness, challenges typically bring only bitterness. Let’s be thankful for all the difficult situations, setbacks, apparently unanswered prayers, opposition and disappointments.

Good ministry comes from overflow, not personal capacity (where I have learned, and I have accumulated, and I have become . . . the gravitational pull of our flesh will always reorient our hearts to self-praise). Gratitude is a vital ingredient to maintaining healthy overflow ministry.

2. Spiritual Integrity. God has invested a lot into each one of us over the past years. The obvious blessings, the careful character sculpting, etc. Gratitude protects us from believing that we have made ourselves somebody significant. But there is another issue that I hinted at already – the danger of stagnancy. Past blessings can quickly grow stagnant if there is not a present reality to my spiritual walk.

I cannot dispense teaching or leadership from a reservoir that was filled twenty years ago, or even last month. For all of that to be fresh today, it must be stirred by the present reality of a personal walk with Christ. The Bible uses language of God pouring out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom.5:5). Elsewhere Paul uses the present tense to speak of being filled with the Spirit (Eph.5:18).

God pours out His love into my heart and consequently I can love in leadership, in mentoring, in teaching . . . but if the gaze of my heart shifts from Him to myself, then my reservoir starts to drain down and grow stagnant. Without the present reality, all the past investment loses its present value.

As I head into another season of ministry, I want to be grateful for all I have received, and make sure there is a present dynamic reality of abiding in Christ’s love so that I can overflow to others. We cannot give anything of value that we did not first receive. Not just what we received in the past, but also what God wants to give us today.

Help! My Listeners Aren’t Satisfied! #4

January 30, 2015January 28, 2015 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

So we are coming to the end of this series on processing listener dissatisfaction. It is not an easy subject, but so important. Here’s a thought that needs to be thrown into the mix:

7. Know there is more than one way to serve! I have written this series of thoughts from the perspective that you should be preaching. Maybe you shouldn’t. There is no shame in that. Perhaps the hassle of critique undermines too much and indicates a lack of gifting. We have made this option very difficult by uniting vocational ministry with Sunday preaching and salaries, resulting in people feeling like there is no way out, no way to stop preaching without resigning from church leadership. Recognizing the complexity of that, the truth still remains, there are other ministries to serve in apart from preaching. I have known some wonderful church leaders who had lifelong effective ministry, but weren’t preachers.

If, in your honest moments, you recognize that repeated critique is lovingly offered and actually on target, then prayerfully consider swallowing your pride and serving in an area of strength. You will be a better steward of your life, God will be pleased, and the church will be strengthened. Maybe cut and paste this point to start the conversation with a trusted friend in your church.

8. Know your own inner landscape. We all have emotional baggage buried inside us. Criticism has a unique ability to slip through, stir up a deep wound and create inner turmoil. It is good to prayerfully ask God to help you evaluate and understand your own inner workings so that you don’t face a never ending attack from external and internal foes. What does criticism do inside you? Why?

9. Pursue helpful feedback and support. We cannot have a growing and effective preaching ministry alone. We need to find those who will give honest, gracious, constructive input, and who will encourage us when we feel discouraged in our ministry. This may be a friend or two within the church. It may be a fellow leader from another church. It may also be (although not exclusively) a hero from the past – biblical heroes and church history heroes typically all endured incredible misunderstanding, devastating personal circumstances, a torrent of abuse and even martyrdom as they served God. Spending time with the Apostle Paul or Martin Luther or Jonathan Edwards or whoever will be a real help.

10. Whatever the justification for criticism, be sure it improves your preaching! While it may not have been stated well, or perhaps it was more of an attack on you than a piece of constructive criticism, there may well be a kernel of truth in there that can help you! If you shrug off all criticism then your imperviousness will undermine your ability to minister with any sensitivity. A cast iron shell is not what you need for ministry. What you need is a tender heart, but with a life-giving God who can pick you up and keep you pressing on to growth and effectiveness. By all means think through how to protect yourself from an enemy that will work through people in your church to wipe you out, but know that God doesn’t typically call us to be the reverend Rambo.

That’s it for this series, but please comment freely and add your thoughts (here or on Twitter – @PeterMead, #ListenerSatisfaction)

Help! My Listeners Aren’t Satisfied! #3

January 29, 2015January 29, 2015 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

There is “over-blurt” and “misdirected fire,” and we need to bring God right into the centre of this whole discussion. But there is more to consider. What if we see listener satisfaction incorrectly, or make mistakes in how we receive it?

5. Remember that the “Happy Test” is flawed. Happy listeners may make your Sunday afternoon easier, but it may not be the best indicator of church health. Our goal is not to make listeners happy with us. Our goal is to faithfully introduce the heart of God through careful, engaging and relevant presentation of the biblical text and its implication for their lives.

What if the text convicts, prods, pokes, and makes them uncomfortable? What if encountering God shines a light in protected dark places and they don’t like what shows up? What if their dissatisfaction toward you and your preaching is a sign that the Word of God is getting through? (Please be careful here, your flesh will want this to be true in every case and it may not be!)

Churches often create an atmosphere where the preacher feels like they are supposed to be popular (this is true with potential pastor dating – “preaching with a view,” but it also continues since many churches tend to dismiss the unpopular pastors too . . . does this reflect the dating and divorce culture we now live in? Maybe just a bit?)

6. Know that “anonymous” feedback is often useless. People in churches like to blast away from under the cover of anonymity. This may come from a feedback collection survey (these do have value and I am not dismissing the possibility of doing these anonymously, but be prepared to filter overt attacks from under the cover this generates – perhaps have a couple of mature co-leaders filter out anything that smells of vendetta rather than constructive input?)

The more dangerous mortar attacks tend to come through, “I know someone who said…”, or worse, “a lot of people are saying…” Again, there may be a place for this if a co-leader is guarding your heart by filtering slightly. However, as a general rule, anonymous critique should be resisted. People should be able to express critique and have follow up conversation. If they are scared of you, then you shouldn’t be in ministry. If they are scared of being identified, maybe their critique is illegitimately motivated?

More to come, but comment freely (here or on Twitter – @PeterMead, #ListenerSatisfaction)

Help! My Listeners Aren’t Satisfied! #2

January 28, 2015 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

We need to recognize “over-blurt” and “misdirected fire,” but what else can we do when we have dissatisfied listeners?

3. Remember Your Audience of One. The fact that we answer to God in no way excuses bad preaching, or remaining oblivious to helpful critique, but it may protect us from more sinister attacks. Remember that every sermon you ever preach could have been better, and that God is both understanding and forgiving of human weakness and frailty.

With that critical caveat in place, then we need to ask whether we could stand before God and give an account for the way we prepared, the way we processed earlier input/feedback, etc? Did you walk through the preparation by faith and do your best as a steward of the ministry opportunity? His is the evaluation that we value the most. While we listen to those we serve, we mustn’t live in fear of displeasing unspiritual nitpickers in the pew. Even if they can drive you from “their” church, we must minister ultimately for the evaluation of our Audience of One.

4. Remember to Prayerfully Process. Whether you receive praise or criticism, be sure to process it prayerfully. Our fleshly egos are very powerful perverters of personal processing. Our tendency to self-love and self-concern can elevate praise from others into worship of us, and at the same time turn gentle and helpful critique into a savage personal attack. I don’t trust me with me. You shouldn’t trust you with you.

Independent introspective processing is one of the most dangerous things a Christian can participate in, because it is so close to the fallen realm we were rescued from. So how should we process things? Prayerfully. That is, in conversation with the God who can faithfully and tenderly sift and sort through our motives and affections. Search me and try me, O God! He can be trusted and must always be the lead partner in such an exercise!

More thoughts tomorrow, but please don’t hesitate to comment on here, or on Twitter @petermead (#ListenerSatisfaction).

Help! My Listeners Aren’t Satisfied!

January 27, 2015 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Preaching is a complex ministry. Consider the issue of listener satisfaction. If listeners aren’t satisfied, it could be a good sign, or it could be a bad sign. In the same way, happy listeners may mean something is wrong.

So what to do? How can we navigate the issue of listener satisfaction? What should it mean for our preaching? What should it mean for our hearts?

Here are 10 thoughts to ponder:

1. Recognize “over-blurt” – Many folks in churches struggle to express negative thoughts effectively. Perhaps it is because they never do it (unlikely), or perhaps it is because they feel guilty doing it (at least to a preacher). Consequently many will hold back unsuccessfully and then over-blurt what they are trying to say. A gentle critique then comes across as a cataclysmic slap to the face of the preacher (hopefully metaphorically speaking).

Instead of saying “I struggle with his style of delivery,” or “it is difficult to relate to sporting illustrations all the time,” they end up saying things like, “he should never again speak to more than two people at once!,” or “his message was filled with damnable heresy!” Oops. Over-blurt.

It is possible to get microphones that condense sound into a middle range – i.e. toning down the shout and strengthening the whisper. We need to learn this skill as preachers. Over-blurt attacks need to be toned down before they are processed. (But be careful your ego doesn’t remove or ignore any negative elements whatsoever!)

Remember that toning down excessive praise can also be very important too. (“That was the best sermon I ever heard!!!” probably wasn’t.)

2. Recognize “misdirected fire” – that is to say, tension fired your way will often have very little to do with you or your preaching. People will react to the innocent provocation of their pet peeves, or the poking of raw nerves of various kinds. They may also be having a bad week with issues at home, at work, in their personal lives, etc. You may become the focus of the critique, but don’t take all critique at face value. Sadly, being willing to be a leader in the church means choosing to be shot at, primarily by Christians.

There’s more to come, but please comment from your perspective, are these points on target? (Feel free to comment on Twitter, @PeterMead #ListenerSatisfaction)