This week I may be a bit quieter than usual on the site. I am working on notes for the European Leadership Forum that is coming up in May. It is a privilege to be involved in the Bible Teachers Network there and your prayers are appreciated as I finish off the teaching notes for that event. Meanwhile, here’s this week’s Cor Deo post, simply titled Popcorn?
Christianity
Dangerous Immunization 2
Yesterday we were thinking about the danger of having non-Bible lovers teaching children and youth. But there are other Bible ministry opportunities in the church:
Surely the home Bible study is a safe place for different folks to try their hand at leading? Absolutely, it can be a very safe and loving environment as far as the trainee leader is concerned. People will be reasonably forgiving toward them. But turn it around. What effect will their leadership have on others present? I am not talking about polish and skill . . . this can be learned and people will be patient. I am talking about core motivation for the Bible. Out of the group who meet on that evening each week, don’t invite someone to try leading unless they have an evident personal appetite for the Word. You might have a Bible college trained, capable presenter, experienced school teacher, well dressed and even charismatic person in the group who is showing motivation to lead the group. But if that person lacks an evident hunger for God’s Word, don’t let them near the reins. There may be another person who ticks far fewer boxes, but if they are not an immunizer, they might be the next Bible study leader to train up and launch.
There may be other venues that include “sharing a biblical thought.” Perhaps a prayer gathering or a social event or whatever. Make sure that every potential biblical communicator is a potent biblical communicator. Having a wider group of people speak, even in a “safe” venue, is not worth it. A good shepherd will not let some of the sheep be immunized so as to lose their appetite for healthy grass, no matter how small a group of sheep are involved, or how brief the immunization exposure might be.
Then there is the pulpit ministry of the church. How many Sundays should a church knowingly tolerate pulpit ministry from people without a personal hunger for the Bible and the God of the Bible? How many Sundays in a year is it ok to have dull, unhelpful, weak preaching? I think once a year is too often. For the visitor that comes that week, the effect could be lifelong. Better to have a local with a passion for God and His Word than a visiting “expert” who dulls the hearts of the listeners.
I feel for the churches where there doesn’t seem to be anyone who can teach the children, the youth, the adults, with a delight in God and His Word. But if that is your church, perhaps you are the key player. Invite people to read through the Bible with you, pray for someone to get infected with the real disease. Seek to infect someone and then see them grow into being a biblically infectious Bible study leader/teacher/preacher. And at the same time do whatever you can to never let a non-Bible lover teach the Bible. The cost is too high.
Dangerous Immunization
Something is not always better than nothing. My wife and I went to a local restaurant and she decided to try something different: pheasant. We’ve never had it before. We’ll never choose it again. The one we were served was poor: chewy, funny tasting, and a piece of shot included as a bonus. Others may say how great Pheasant can be, but we tasted enough of the bad version to probably never choose it again.
There is too much Bible immunization going on in churches. That is where the administration of weakened or dead pathogens are introduced to healthy persons so that immunity is developed against lively forms of the same “disease.” Take the life out of the Bible and give it to people, but don’t be surprised when they develop a distaste for the Bible.
Take Sunday School, for instance. Since the church has always had four classes, it must always have four classes, even if that means pressuring people to teach who lack any personal delight in God’s Word. The children taste a “nothing there” version of the Bible that feels like ancient fables with predictable moral lessons from dull non-infectious teachers. Better to have two or even one classes with a good Bible teacher than more classes where any of them are offering an immunizing effect.
Then the children move up to youth ministry. Here’s a safe place for people to “cut their teeth” on Bible teaching in a safe environment. Perhaps, but only let people teach who have a personal appetite for and delight in God’s Word. It is dangerous to open the door to immunizers. The young folks are at a key stage in life. They are preparing for university, for adulthood, for living out their own faith. And if they have been dulled to the Word of God, then the damage done by such bad leadership choices will be impossible to calculate.
I learn a lot by teaching, but I don’t think it is wise to give people the opportunity to teach in order to generate an appetite within them. It may work for them. But the cost for the listeners is too high. Tomorrow we’ll follow this through into the home group and pulpit ministries of the church.
Impossible Application 2
So how do we present practical application without promoting an outside-to-in simplistic copyism in the church? Yesterday we started by stating that the human fleshly tendency will be to perform in order to maintain autonomous distance from God. Furthermore we added that practical preaching can give people lists of things to do, but not address the heart issue. Continuing on . . .
3. Heart transformation is not something listeners can self-generate, neither is it something we can force on folks. Actually, if it is about response, then the burden is on us to offer Christ and the gospel so compellingly that perhaps some might respond. This means that we don’t simplify our view of preaching to explanation separate from application, for it is in the explanation that hearts should be stirred for the application.
4. Listeners have a sensitivity to the integration of the preacher. That is, whether the explanation we offer has obviously marked our lives from the inside-out. Listeners don’t just look for conformity to our own lists of practical applications, they sense the importance of heart change in the truths of what we say. If we don’t have a vibrant and real walk with Christ, then the practical application content will be meaningless.
5. Take the opportunity afforded by practical applications to drip-feed a critique of copy-ism and do-ism. Over time, week after week, perhaps people will start to sense the difference between writing a list and trying to live up to it, as opposed to a from-the-heart response to the grace of God in Christ. Grace truly transforms values and therefore behaviour. Part of our task is to make sure we don’t reinforce the post-Genesis 3 notion that informed choices will lead to success in our performance before, but distant from, God.
6. Reinforce that it is possible to perform without being transformed. The Pharisees should helpfully haunt churchy types like us. It is possible to look really good on the outside, but God wants to transform us from the inside. Perhaps we settle too easily for conformity to church social mores, rather than having appetites whetted for the wonder and glorious privilege of knowing God in Christ. If listeners don’t pick up that possibility from the preaching they hear, where will they develop such an appetite?
Impossible Application
As we preach the Bible we have to make sure we don’t simply offer historical and theological instruction. Part of our responsibility is to present what difference the message should make in a life. We need to give a sense of what this truth looks like dressed up in everyday clothes. But therein lies a challenge.
How do we present practical application without promoting an outside-to-in simplistic copyism in the church? Here are some thoughts:
1. The human fleshly tendency will be to perform in order to maintain autonomous distance from God. I know that we tend to think of fleshliness as rebellion alone, but we need to see how the flesh can also play up to a religious role. The essential impulse remains the same as it did in Genesis 3 – I can be like God. This is why we need to be so careful in our preaching. Simply pounding the pulpit and demanding greater morality does not avoid the problem of rebels becoming religious, but still keeping God at arms length. The older son in Luke 15 matched his brother in viewing the father as employer and purveyor of benefits, and went beyond his brother in resisting the father’s extreme desire for relationship.
2. Practical preaching can give people lists of things to do, but not address the heart issue. Notice that I wrote that it can, not that it must always do that. I think preaching should be practical. But if we think that adding practical suggestions to historical explanation amounts to good expository preaching, then we know neither our Bibles nor our listeners very well. We need more than practical instruction. We need heart transformation. And that requires an awareness of the difference between response and responsibility. Consistently presenting responsibility to people will not auto-generate any sort of responsiveness in people.
I will continue the list tomorrow…
Transitions 3
Transitions are a tiny part of a message, but they can make all the difference in terms of being heard properly. We’ve looked at the first two types of transition. Let’s ponder the third: concluding transitions. Or to put it another way, transitions to a conclusion. This is very biblical, by the way. I was just looking at Galatians 5:1-12. I think that is Paul’s transition from his second main point and body of his argument to the conclusion and application phase of his letter. An abrupt move from main point to conclusion may not be effective. So?
Concluding Effectively
Review clearly – These would be true of a message conclusion as a whole, but I am speaking of a transition from body to conclusion. This is a good place to review where we have been together. Anything more than clear and crisp statements runs the risk of sounding like the development of another element of the message. Don’t add explanation to this. Don’t restate in a way that might appear to be development rather than restatement. Keep this element as clear and punchy as possible. Try to make the message sound clearer than it did when you preached it!
Regain any drift from relevance – There is always a danger that in the development of the main argument of a message, with all the biblical and theological explanation, that listeners can lose sight of its relevance for them. This shouldn’t happen if you make every movement relevant and apply as you go, but sometimes you need to give time to explanation. Lest any be drifting from the moorings of crystal clear relevance, use the transition to underline that this is for us today. Paul did this in his transition in Galatians 5. The sermon to the Hebrews reinforces relevance in every transition throughout the sermon.
Avoid apology – I haven’t mentioned this yet, but this applies at any point. Almost always avoid apology during your preaching. Some have the habit of half apologising in transitions. “Well, anyway, that could have been clearer, but . . . ” or “I wish we had more time, we haven’t really gotten the point of that section . . .” and so on are not helpful. There may be occasion for apology. If you have a cough or weak voice, apologise if you feel it is necessary, but do so confidently. Basically the listeners will respond to your tone – if you are apologising, they will feel bad. If you are confident, they will take that on board. So avoid undermining a message by apologising in some unnecessary way.
Transitions 2
Transitions are disproportionately significant. They don’t convey the content of the message, but their critical role can significantly support, or significantly undermine the message as a whole.
Last time I looked at the introductory transitions (A on the image). What about a transition between two movements in a message? This is the purest form of transition.
Transitioning Effectively (B)
1. Slow down noticeably. The sermon is an unsafe vehicle. There are no seat belts or doors that guarantee your passengers will stay with you. When you take a turn, make sure they are right there or you’ll leave them in the aftermath of the previous movement. Slow down through the curves. Listeners can seem like they are with you at a certain pace of delivery, and they might be able to stay with you in a straight line, but when you go in a new direction they may be unable to keep track and they will be left in a heap with dust settling around them. Slow down. Change pace. Pause. Make the transition clear. Sometimes in our anxiety to press on and get through it all we can cut corners at this point (since it isn’t content at this point) and in doing so undermine the whole message. If you must speed up, do so within a movement, not between them.
2. Look both ways. That is to say, use the opportunity to provide both review and preview. Where have we been so far? Where are we going next? Just a couple of sentences can make the world of difference. It is the difference between an enjoyable ride in a nice car with a good driver, and an uncomfortable ride in an overpowered car with an overconfident teen at the wheel.
3. Mark physically. Slowing down the delivery and reflecting / previewing are helpful. But why not reinforce the shift in direction by a physical marker? You could physically switch from one side of the lectern to the other (assuming you don’t hide behind it all the time), you could gesture appropriately, change you orientation by a few degrees, etc. Subtle reinforcement in this way can communicate very effectively.
Notice that I haven’t suggested simply saying, “Now for my next point…” If you have to, fine, but consider that this may have a soporific effect if the listeners don’t have confidence in you. Good transitions should give a sense of momentum and progress. Bad or patronizing ones can either lose people, or reinforce the sense of boredom. Maybe a minute of your message will be taken up by this kind of transition . . . but this minute could be make or break!
Transitions
The bulk of preparation effort usually goes into the main content of a message. We wrestle with the text, we allow it to shape our theology, we think through how that content marks our lives, we ponder all this in light of who will hear the message. This is all work on the points, or movements, in a message.
Then perhaps we ponder illustrative material to help make sense of those movements. We consider how to introduce the message. We might even give some thought to how we will conclude it.
But often there is too little thought given to the transitions between movements in a message. These are represented by A, B, C on the diagram. Too little attention given to these little moments will result in too great a negative effect on the whole message. Great messages bomb because of poor transitions.
Here are some nudges to help us better transition during our preaching:
Introducing Effectively (A)
1. Emphasize clearly. The listeners need to know that you are moving from whatever introductory material you have given into the first movement of the message. You can do a star jump, pause for two minutes and turn to look at a powerpoint slide. Or you can be less awkward. Vocal variation can serve to underline your shift effectively: perhaps a pause, a change of pace, a variation in pitch. You can say, “So for my first point…” but that is probably hinting at dullness already. But something along those lines could be helpful: “So let’s see how the passage launches . . .” could work, as long as people catch what you just said (so think through how to add emphasis).
2. Preview appropriately. What is appropriate depends on the type of movement that will follow. If you are presenting a declaration and then supporting it, as in a typical deductive message, then you might be able to simply offer a preview of the point by stating it and telling what will follow (i.e.explanation, application, etc.). By previewing and then re-stating the point as you progress, listeners will spot the entry into a section of the message. If the point is the development in a narrative, then you may not want to give it all away at the transition. You need to decide how to make sure people are with you as you enter in. Perhaps a question that will be answered – some variation on “so what happened next?” might work.
3. Introduce confidently. Whatever you are about to say, convey confidence in how you introduce it. Don’t apologise. Don’t downplay in some supposed act of humility. “Oh, I guess I should probably say a few words about . . . ” Uh, no. “Just a disconnected story first before we get into . . .” Again, no. “I wasn’t sure where to start, so. . .” No.
His Benefits
Today’s post ponders the tension created by the notion of benefits from God. This gets at the core of a huge issue for us as preachers of the gospel. To read the post, click here.
Legitimate Exemplar Preaching
This week we have been pondering the use of examples in preaching. I have offered warning, rather than prohibition. There are dangers in offering examples to copy, whether that be post-biblical characters, biblical characters, or even Christ himself. Yet there is also the positive side that must be pondered.
Paul told the Corinthians, “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” He told the Philippians to “join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.” He affirmed the Thessalonians for becoming imitators of Paul and his team. The writer to the Hebrews urges them to imitate the faith of their leaders. John tells the church to imitate good, for whoever does good is from God, but those who do evil have not seen God.
Is this post a retraction of the previous three? Not at all. There is a legitimate perspective on example in the Christian life. In fact, it is at the very core of our calling.
Jesus, the Rabbi extraordinaire, called the most unlikely of folk to follow him. These weren’t the elite boys with stacks of scrolls and wire-rimmed glasses that had sat at the front in the synagogue school and impressed the rabbi enough to be able to ask to follow him. When that day came, these boys slipped away and back to the shores to work with their Dads in the family business. Not the worst option in life, but not the elite option. They left behind the brightest and best to be followers of the rabbi.
To be a follower, or disciple, of a rabbi is like an apprenticeship on steroids. It means living with, learning from, copying, becoming like, being shaped by. It means being so connected relationally that you aren’t becoming an impersonator who takes on a fake persona, but a disciple whose values, whose beliefs, whose conduct is shaped by the one you follow.
Jesus called the most unlikely folk, and he asked them to follow him! He still does that: what a privilege is ours! To be so relationally tied to Him that our lives are shaped from the inside out. You can’t be a disciple from a distance. You can’t be disciple from merely observing externals. It takes that close relational bond to make the process work.
So Jesus commissioned his disciples to make disciples: to bring others into that close bond that would lead to life transformation. Paul was calling the Corinthians and others to the same. Follow me as I follow Christ.
That is where example is legitimate. It isn’t copying behaviour as if that will shape the inside of a life. It is being in relationship in such a way that hearts beat as one, values become owned, and life spills outward even into the area of conduct. Inside-out transformation is at the heart of the Christian message. Hence the importance of the Spirit who unites our spirit to His. Hence we are to draw others not to some sort of cognitive conversion and impersonation practice, but into full discipleship with Christ Himself.
Biblical Preaching 