Christianity

Holiday Post 1: Full Meal Deal

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Since I am going on holiday with my family, I am also not writing new material this week.  But here are a few posts from years ago that might be of interest . . .

I still remember the first pulpit advice I received.  I was a teenager and had been asked to lead a meeting.  I wasn’t preaching, but I was chairing the meeting, introducing songs, speaker, doing the reading, praying, etc.  Afterwards my youth leader came to me and encouraged me that I’d done well.  Then he offered this advice; “Don’t ever apologize for what you’re doing.  It doesn’t matter who asked you, or how incapable you may feel, God has allowed you to be there so don’t apologize.”

The ingredients to a pulpit introductory apology tend to include feelings of inadequacy, any lack of preparation, feelings of humility, a desire to appear humble, a lack of planning for opening comments, nervousness, etc.  The ingredients are understandable, but the result is not helpful.  Don’t apologize.  It grossly undermines credibility and can easily transfer your anxiety to your listeners.

If you are humble, it will show.  But if you are nervous, unprepared, unqualified, incapable, etc., people don’t need that pointed out to them.  They may notice, and they will usually be very gracious.  Or more often than you realize, they will not notice at all.  The first time I taught a lecture at seminary I mentioned that time was running low so I had to skip some material.  My prof followed up on that, “Don’t tell them you are cutting stuff out, let them think they’re getting the full meal deal!”

What was the first helpful pulpit advice you received?

Solutions

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This week I am on holiday with my family.  This means that I am preloading old posts rather than presenting new material.  I suppose if I hadn’t told you then nobody would have noticed, but maybe there are some preachers reading who need the nudge to take a break, get refreshed, be with your family.

Anyway, this post is new.  It is my bi-weekly offering on the Cor Deo site.  It is longer than my normal length on this site, but it might be worth a look.  What happens when we only present one-fifth of the New Covenant?  What happens when we fall back into a default Old Covenant approach to life?  Why does this happen?  Click here, or the picture, to go to the post.

Expository: Why?

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All week I have been raising concerns about different approaches taken to preaching.  There are others, but I wanted to finish with a reminder of the core requirements for expository preaching.  It isn’t about sermon shape – all four approaches mentioned this week might be used in an expository ministry.  Yet none of them define it.

1. The best preaching will always involve the work of God’s Spirit.  He is the one that searches the depths of the heart and communicates that.  We need to be sure that we are pursuing His heart as we study His Word.  We must prayerfully pursue the whole process of preparation, all the time being open to learning and changing and growing ourselves.  We also need to pursue His heart for the people to whom we preach.  Prayer has to be a critical thread throughout the whole preparation process.

2. The best biblical preaching will always be genuinely biblical.  That is, the text is not being used, but offered.  It isn’t a data source for anecdotes, for launch pads or for proof texting.  It is the inspired Word of God that we seek to offer to others as we preach.  This means that we take the form seriously, we take the meaning seriously, we take the relevance seriously.  The Bible is not something that serves us, it is something that changes us, and it is something we consequently serve to others.  And the more effectively we communicate the Word, the clearer the path for listeners to not only gain information, but to be transformed by encountering the God who gives of Himself in His Word.

3. The best preaching will always take the issue of communication seriously.  So it isn’t enough to pray hard and study well, producing a textually accurate and even a congregation specific relevant message.  If we don’t take our role as communicators seriously, then we can be a real bottleneck.  Communication is more than just a crude explanation of exegesis with some illustrations stapled on to the outline.  Communication is concerned with the mood of the text, the persons to whom we are speaking, the situation, etc.  It is concerned with the words we choose, the way we say them, the body language that reinforces or undermines.  Our communication matters because God places such a high value on communication.

4. The best preaching will always emphasise the relevance to the listeners.  We don’t make the Bible relevant.  We show how it is relevant.  And so we don’t perform a sermon to show off our own knowledge, nor even to simply declare God’s truth.  We preach to communicate to people.  So we care, and we prepare in order to communicate.

God. Bible. Communicator. Listeners.  All critical features of expository preaching.

Topical Preaching: Why Not?

/ Peter Mead / 5 Comments

Titles are intended to provoke interest.  This one is not intended to condemn all topical approaches to preaching.  I suppose I should probably call it “A brief discussion into why a topical approach to preaching should not be our default.”  But that would hardly make you want to read it.

I preached a topical message last Sunday.  I will do so again.  However, I don’t do this as a default approach.  I think the reason that people do is probably tied to the issue of interest or relevance.  Surely a topical approach allows the preaching to be relevant to the listeners?  Not necessarily.

1. The relevance of a message is not determined by sermon shape, but by preacher’s strategy.  That is, you can preach topically and be both dull and irrelevant.  You can preach a single text exposition and be both engaging and highly relevant.  The real issue is the heart of the preacher being in tune with God’s heart for His people, and in tune with the people to whom he preaches – both to know them, and to care for them.  If you care, it will show.

2. Relevance is not something we add, it is something we bring out.  It is something we emphasize.  All Scripture is God-breathed and it is useful, profitable.  Our task is not to add relevance, either by making up disconnected applications, or by piling up application-overt texts.  Our task is to show how whatever we preach makes a difference in the lives of the listeners.  Whether we choose to use multiple texts or not is a different matter, but it is not the key to relevance in our preaching.

3. Topical preaching, if it is to be truly expository, is a lot of work.  This is something I always tell beginning preachers.  It might seem like the only way to “fill time,” or a helpful short-cut, or even a means to relevant preaching.  In reality, good topical preaching is a lot of extra work.  Let’s say you choose four texts to be your four points, with an overarching biblical main idea to guide the message.  That’s four passages that you should study properly and handle properly.  Topical preaching multiplies work for the preacher (and sometimes it multiples work for the listener, just trying to keep it all together, find the passages, etc.).

4. Topical preaching, if it isn’t expository, can lead to dangerous imposition.  That is to say, if you aren’t diligently and carefully understanding passages according to their context, then you could well be imposing meaning that isn’t really there.  And let’s say you somehow manage to handle every text accurately, chances are that listeners will copy your approach to Scripture.  They will parachute in, grab a phrase, apply it according to their own agenda and they will get it wrong (even if you got it right).

I think we should preach topically.  But let’s do so judiciously.  It shouldn’t be our default.  And when we do it, let’s be sure to really let the texts be in charge of the message.

Word by Word Preaching: Why Not?

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I don’t hear this label used as much as verse-by-verse preaching, but I have come across it.  On the surface, again, it sounds like it fits right in with a high view of Scripture and an expository view of preaching.  But again, I think it could lead preachers into some unhelpful practices that aren’t truly expository.

Some thoughts to chew on:

1. Every word is a doorway to endless digressions, but how they are working together is the real issue.  If you have read the Bible or anything vaguely theological, or if you own a concordance, then any word can be the start of a digression.  There are times when cross-referencing is helpful, but it has to be helpful to something specific.  That is, it cannot be an end in itself.  So you have to study the whole passage in order to know what the main idea is, and then determine whether pursuing the thoughts a word might spark would actually help the communication of that main idea.

2. Every word can slow you down, but you need to give the message of the passage.  This follows on from number 1.  Since each word, or even each theologically weighty word, can be the start of a digression in your explanation, it follows that every word can slow you down in preaching.  For instance, I can imagine someone preaching Ephesians 1:15-23 in this way and running out of time before really preaching the heart of the passage in verses 18-19, or the elaboration of the final element in the subsequent verses.  Just because verses 15-17 contain some mighty terms doesn’t change the fact that Paul is really introducing at that point.  Preach them, but don’t miss the message of the passage.

3. Every word should be studied, but not every word should be “preached.”  Some preachers feel it is their duty to offer a concise word study and chain reference guide for every term in the passage that seems weighty.  Study them all.  Preach the passage.

4. Every last word is inspired, but they are not equally weighted.  I would hold to a verbal plenary inspiration position.  That is, God inspired the words (verbum), all of them (plenary).  That doesn’t mean that I treat them as individual data banks and thought units when preaching.  In any sentence, the meaning is conveyed by a combination of the potential meaning of each word, determined by its function and role within the flow of the sentence and broader context.

Study the words, study the details, do the work.  And the work includes the integration of that study.  What is the author trying to communicate?  What are you trying to communicate to your listeners?  Then, preach the passage.

Verse-by-Verse Preaching: Why Not?

/ Peter Mead / 5 Comments

Preaching through a passage verse-by-verse seems to fit with a high view of Scripture, so why shouldn’t we settle for that as a preaching approach?

This is an important question.  After all, many people equate expository preaching with a verse-by-verse approach.  But there are some differences.  As I offer some counter points from a genuine expository perspective, please bear in mind that we may still take an apparently verse-by-verse approach at times in our preaching.  Nonetheless, these thoughts need to be kept in mind:

1. Verse-by-verse preaching can flatten out inspired texts and fall into a running commentary approach.  That is, a verse is an artificial division of the text.  The real division is the natural unit of thought that the author was seeking to communicate.  In a Psalm this might be the strophe, or the parallelism, not to mention the psalm as a whole.  In an epistle it would be a paragraph.  As preachers we need to communicate the thoughts intended by the author, which may not happen if we treat each verse as a unit of thought.

2. Verse-by-verse preaching can treat the text as a data source, rather than honouring its intended function.  Following on from number 1 above, when verses are treated as micro-units, then there is a temptation to view the text as a collection of data to be mined for interesting snippets.  This is very different than honouring every detail as part of the whole communication effort.  Every detail matters, but we need to communicate the “distilled thought” of the whole unit, as opposed to selecting highlights from a flattened text.

3. Verse-by-verse preaching can lose sight of the inspired genre and form of a text.  This may be restating the same thought from a different angle, but it is important.  God didn’t just inspire the meaning of the text.  We have to take the genre and form as vehicles in which that meaning is conveyed.  Consequently we must read a poem as if it were a poem, and a section of discourse as exactly that.  It does not help to preach a Psalm and a prophecy and a narrative and an epistle in the same way.

4. Verse-by-verse preaching can lose tension and emotion from a passage.  Not only does it tend toward treating verses as data banks, it can also flatten the emotive force of a passage.  There is often a tension to be felt, or a resolution to be experienced.  Verse-by-verse preaching easily can lose sight of such realities.

Submitted via comment, thanks David: 5. Verse-by-verse preaching tends to reinforce the tendency of many believers to focus on “proof” or “key” verses, rather than learning the argument of the author. Context can be lost and, ultimately, verses come to mean something other than they were meant to.

Bottom line.  For some preachers, a verse-by-verse approach would help increase their biblical content and focus.  However, a strict verse-by-verse approach doesn’t inherently recognize that while every verse is fully inspired, not every verse is created equal.

Review: A New Name

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It might not seem like a normal book for this site.  A New Name is the brilliantly written and harrowing story of Emma Scrivener’s battle with anorexia.  Anorexia promises life, but has death as a side effect.  It is about control, but it constantly spirals dangerously out of control.  And why am I reviewing the book here?  Because we don’t preach to lives lived in the so-called bubble of Bible school.  We preach to lives lived in the self-contradictory world that Emma describes here.

Emma offers more than just a window into the turmoil and thinking of anorexia.  She also offers great theological insight into the motivations driving apparently insane behaviours.  Actually, she does a great job of grappling with what it is to be human.  And with more than just great writing ability, she offers crystal clear perspective on the rich fullness of the gospel.  As the NHS might try to shame a patient into recovery, so a poor gospel presentation might try to shame a sinner into repentance.  But the gospel is the need of the broken heart, for sin is the problem that traditional medicine can never cure.

Emma’s story isn’t just an insight into teenage anorexia.  A decade later she relapsed.  Now we are talking about a university student, or a young married lady with no apparent reason for such internal struggles.  There may be several in your church and you wouldn’t know it.  But that is part of why I recommend this book.  If we are to preach the real gospel to real people, then we need to know what that reality can look like.  Emma paints a self-portrait you won’t want to miss.

“For centuries, Christian thinkers have spoken of our will as being ‘bound’. They don’t mean that we’re robots and can’t do what we want. It’s a deeper imprisonment than this. The bondage of the will means that we only do what we want. We follow our desires all the way to the basement – and then we lock the door. That’s our slavery.”

You won’t want to put this book down.  Actually, you’ll want to give it away, but also read it again.  You will want to preach the gospel more effectively to the complex people hiding before you on Sunday.  More than that, you’ll want to spend more time with the Christ who knows how to be the master physician for all life’s messes.

The Two Keys in the Simplicity Struggle

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

I’ve been writing about struggling to simplify messages.  There are numerous potential issues, but I want to keep this post really simple.  I think that when all is said and done, there are two key things to keep in mind:

1. Big idea preaching promotes unity, order and progress.  The big idea school of preaching is not about having a pithy grabber at some point in the message.  It is about recognizing the inherent unity in a unit of Scripture and letting that be the boss of the message.  That means that you will let it determine whether a detail makes it into the message.  And it will determine the best order of the details included.  And it will determine the best way to convey forward movement in the flow of the message.  The main idea is like the arrow, the sermon purpose is like the target, and the shape of the message is like the strategy for accurately planting that arrow deep in its intended target.

S0 an illustration may be a good one, but if it doesn’t help communicate the main idea, bye for now.  An exegetical insight may be impressive, powerful, moving, or whatever, but if it doesn’t help in the strategy for delivering the main idea, save for another time.  Every detail, every statement, every explanation, every proof, every application, every word in the message has to be there because the main idea is helped by its presence.  Like a commanding team captain, the main idea determines who gets to play on a given Sunday and who doesn’t.

2. Pray about it.  Simplifying your message in order to communicate more effectively is not a selfish pursuit.  You aren’t trying to be clear for your sake.  It is for the sake of the listeners.  It is that they might be gripped by the passage, transformed by the truth and marked by an encounter with the God who reveals himself in the Word.  Consequently, don’t be bashful about praying for your next message, and for your preaching in general, to become more consistently clear.  Ask for wisdom in terms of what to cut out.  Ask for a mentor.  Ask for understanding.  Ask for your preaching to be clear because your passion is for God’s Word to be heard and followed and felt and applied.

The Struggle for Reference Simplicity

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Yesterday I was sharing about the issue of complexity in explanation.  Another aspect of complexity is that of over-cross-referencing.  I have addressed this issue before, but it is worth another take.  The danger is two-fold.  First, that too many cross-references will mean the preaching text is lost.  Second, that too many cross-references will mean the listeners are lost.

1. Lose the motivation to overwhelm.  That might seem strange, but some preachers really do seem to love cross-referencing.  For some, the practice was learned by observation and they have never seen any different.  For others, the practice is the fruit of a yearning to impress people (after all, more verses referenced means more kudos for me as a Bible person, right?)  But if asked outright, I suspect none would affirm the desire to overwhelm listeners, so for that reason alone, it is worth diminishing this desire.

2. Gain the motivation to preach your passage.  This is the other side of it.  We don’t want to negatively overwhelm folks, but do we really want to preach our passage?  Some preachers will cross-reference liberally to fill time since they feel like they have so little to say on the actual preaching text.  It is really hard to know what you don’t know, but take my word for it, it is possible to understand a passage better.  As a result, it is possible to preach without filler material.  More than that, it is possible to be in a text and the text to get into you in such a way as you can’t wait to preach this particular passage to the listeners.  Once your motivation is positively stirred by the passage, you’ll be less desirous of canonically wandering eyes.

3. As a default, stay put.  I suppose it is like saying that when you are riding a bike, as a default, look in front of you.  There will be times to do something else, but make it a standard practice to be where you are in the Bible.  Once you are more settled there, then you’ll be less likely to stray into safari mode without good reason.  Speaking of which…

4. Select cross-references hesitantly and carefully.  There are some good reasons to cross-reference, but not too many.  If your passage is relying on an earlier text either by quotation or by thematic development or by theological reliance, then maybe it is worth going there.  If your passage sets up a later development in the canon, then you might choose to take a sneak peak.  Or if your passage yields an idea that seems to be anti-biblical, then it might be time to wheel out the proof that other writers are saying the same thing.  Otherwise, more or less, stay where you are.

I believe these four steps would bring a helpful simplification to some sermons.  More than that, it would allow for some genuine profundity to flourish in place of the Bible sword drill!

The Struggle to Simplify

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Thank you to Matthew for this comment – I found your blog through the Church Leaders post you did on the 11 Types of Preachers. I find that I am in the “Professor Preacher” type and have been at a loss for some general principles to help simplify and bring clarity to my preaching. It is hard to remove pieces and connections that seem to grip me in the study. Help!

I am glad to see I am not the only one!  It is so hard to be gripped in the study, but then slim down the content in the message.  For one thing, nobody wants to come across as simplistic or uninformed.  More than that, the complex layers of interdependent history and texts makes a matrix of information that is fascinating for the student of biblical history.  But the challenge remains – we don’t want to overload listeners with good information that will keep them from feeling the impact of the text we are preaching.

Here are a few pointers for myself, Matthew and any other “Bible-history-oholics” that might be listening in.  My thoughts are slightly on the background issues as I am working on a message from Jonah and was in that phase, but will turn my thoughts to other aspects of co-textual complexity, perhaps tomorrow!)

1. We should never cut down our understanding of the complexity in order to preach simply.  This will only result in simplistic explanation and errors on our part.  This won’t help people.  We have to go the more difficult route of informed simplicity, rather than uninformed simplicity, if we are to handle the Bible well.

2. We need to make sure we allow time for clarification of information, not just accumulation.  It is so easy to steal time from prayerful consideration of listeners, from sermon formation, from family and even from sleep, when we have the scent of a good trail in biblical history and context.  There is seemingly no end to connections and facts and insights and maps and cross-references, etc.  We have to impose an end for the sake of everything else.

3. We must pause and consider the key threads of detail.  That is, stopping and thinking through this question – “If I only had a couple of minutes to explain the background and context of this passage, to someone who is neither super-informed, nor longing for me to impress them, what would I include?”  Later, in light of the main idea of the message, as the message is formed, we need to do this again (lest our historical background comments take the entire time and turn the sermon into a Bible school lecture!)  We do the same in sharpening the main idea itself, as well as the message shape.  It takes much more work to preach clear, than to be complex!

Tomorrow, let’s add some more thoughts related to this quest.