Momentum Matters

May 31, 2011May 21, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

When you are preaching, your listeners will subconsciously be looking for unity (a single focus to your preaching), and order (a clarity of structured presentation), and progress (a sense that you are moving forward and getting closer to the end). It is this progress that can be easily lost causing the message to feel like it gets stuck in the mud.

What causes momentum to be lost? Could be one of several things:

Is momentum about content of the message? Yes it can be. Is one part of the message too dense or extended in terms of explanation? Is there too much repetition that might give the sense of you losing your way or going round in circles? Content issues can cause a loss of momentum.

Is momentum about structure of the message? Yes it can be. If you haven’t previewed the structure, or don’t give effective and deliberate transitions, then it can all meld into one and feel dense or still instead of progressing. If you structure your message so that you keep jumping around the text, listeners can lose the sense of progress that comes from a sequential following of the passage (it can be appropriate to do this approach in a text, but make structure and transitions extra clear).

Is momentum about delivery of the message? Yes it can be. If you lose energy, or become monotonous in voice or visual presentation, then momentum can seap away. If you lose your initial enthusiasm (or if your enthusiasm is at a constant high pitch without releasing that tension), then momentum can be lost.

Momentum can be hard to get hold of, but for preaching to engage listeners, we have to consider not only unity and order, but also progress. Don’t take this the wrong way, but they like to know you’re getting closer to being done!

Pulpit Sin

May 23, 2011May 9, 2011 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Generally I’m very hesitant to add sins to the lists we are given in the Bible. I’d rather preach the power of life transforming grace than the pressure of legalistic righteousness. But forgive me this one time, I am going to add a sin to our lists. It’s a sin some preachers commit. It’s a sin we should never commit:

In my opinion preaching that is boring is a sin! There, said it.

There is nothing spiritual or godly or Christlike or commendable about preaching in a boring manner. The Bible is not boring! Our task is neither to make it interesting, nor to add illustrative extras to make it interesting (add them for legitimate purposes, of course, but not because you think the Bible is boring!)

How can we avoid boring preaching? There are many ways, but here are two pairs to bear in mind:

Avoid boring with poor content. Look for ways to preach in a manner that is visual, i.e. that will make listeners respond with “Oh, I see what you’re saying!” So in your explanation seek to help people “see what you’re saying.” And in your application help people to “see what you’re saying.” What does that involve? It involves doing more than merely presenting information, or stating propositions, or making points. It involves painting pictures with words of the imagery in a passage, or vividly describing the action in a narrative. It involves painting pictures with words when describing application of the message. Preach vivid so the listeners can see what you mean to say!

Avoid boring with poor delivery. Look for ways to add energy to your presentation. There are two primary areas to keep in mind. The vocal needs energy. And the visual needs energy. Be sure to vary your volume, your pace, your tone, your use of pause. Be sure to add energy to your eye contact, facial expression, gestures, movement, your whole presentation. It is very easy to turn vivid and compelling content into a boring message by forcing it through the filter of poor delivery. There is no virtue in looking and sounding as if the passage has been nothing more than soporific in your preparation. Did Jesus preach in a bland voice and without expression? I suspect not. So let’s try to be more Christlike in our preaching!

Images Right Before Your Eyes

April 27, 2011April 22, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Most preachers don’t aspire to being dull and lifeless, bland and black and white. We want to preach vivid, full-colour, living messages from a truly living Word of God. So why are we so quick to look beyond the Bible for every image and illustration in a sermon? Sometimes it seems as if we have been preconditioned to believe the Bible itself is boring and dull, so part of our work is to find lively little pithy anecdotal marshmallows to make the Bible palatable. Before we look outside the Bible (which is a legitimate option, of course), let’s be sure to check our passage carefully:

When preaching from biblical poetry – such as a psalm, the writer will usually give us some very helpful images. Why go hunting for new images when the psalm provides a resting child, restless hours fretting in bed, God lifting His face toward us, climbing the mountain toward Jerusalem, entering the city gates in procession, etc. We need to work on relevance and be sure to handle the imagery appropriately, but handle it, it is right in the passage. It would be a shame to waste the head-start we are given right on the page.

When preaching a biblical narrative – such as a parable or event, then the passage itself is an image! Too often I’ve heard preachers at pains to explain the story, but the preaching lacks zing because they forget to actually tell the story. Don’t dissect a story to death, allow it to live in front of people and let them observe its power. Be sure to explain and apply, of course, but don’t let the vivid imagery of the story itself get lost in your study. Bring the story to the people.

When preaching biblical discourse – such as an epistolary paragraph, then you may have extra work on your hands. Often the passage will be very effective and logical explanation, or even direct application. But it may be so direct that it lacks imagery. This will not be the case in most of James, but is true in parts of Paul. Just because it is prose and perhaps plain in presentation, do not fail to look for images that will help the truth stick in the hearts and minds of your listeners. Sometimes alertness to word-study will help, other times simply reading the text carefully will do the job. Be a shame to preach a “put off, put on” passage and not utilize the visual impact of that imagery, or to preach a “love one another” and not paint the picture of what that looks like in vivid terms. Abstractions don’t do the same work as concrete descriptions, so be sure to preach what it is saying in specifics so listeners can “see” what you mean.

Perishing the Thought of Performing

April 26, 2011April 22, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Most people almost perish at the thought of public speaking. As only the statisticians can say, most people would choose death over public speaking (a good twisting of a statistic). But for those of us who preach, presumably we aren’t petrified of public speaking any more. Perhaps instead our fear might be turned toward performing.

As a preacher we study an ancient text, determine its main idea and its contemporary relevance, then design a message to communicate both the meaning and the relevance to the congregation who will sit before us on Sunday morning. Our goal is not to fill time, but to see people marked by God’s Word and to see lives transformed. If we’re honest, there are ways to generate some sort of response. It is not out of our reach to spin a story a certain way in order to turn the emotions of our listeners, or ask a rhetorical question that we know will poke a nerve of guilt in them. So how are we to avoid stepping up to the pulpit and treating it like a stage?

1. Give preparation time to soak. Last minute preparation will lead to last minute desperation wherein “preaching tactics” will seem like our only hope. We must be diligent to begin the study and thinking process early enough for a message or a series to soak in before we must pour out. Even if all we can do is to start reading and making some notes ahead of time, it is worth it. Performance is lines through an actor, but preaching is truth through personality (Phillips Brooks succinct definition). Allow time for the preparation to become a part of who you are so that you preach something you truly believe and know deep down, because it has already deeply marked you.

2. Prepare more, not less. In the quest for “natural” delivery, it may be tempting to prepare less. The hope is that what comes out will be less of a performance and more “from the heart.” The reality is that unprepared preaching will often lean heavily on our own abilities. It is better to craft, to sweat, to wrestle, to pray, to think and to think some more. As I have written before, in an ideal world it is best to write out a manuscript in full and edit it closely and prayerfully. All that extra work will result not in performance, but genuine preaching “from the heart” as well as “from the text” – choosing to do minimal work will compromise both the text and your heart, leaving only any performance skills you may have.

3. Pray. Not just a “bless this effort” prayer, but real prayer. Personal wrestling with the God who is at work in you first. Persistent wrestling for those who will receive the message. There is a great spiritual battle raging around you and around them. Let us not fight in the pulpit a battle we have not first heavily engaged in the closet.

Feedback Questions

April 11, 2011April 11, 2011 / Peter Mead / 4 Comments

Peter, who comments on the site frequently, asked what questions to use when requesting feedback on his preaching.

The challenge with getting feedback from others is that typically they are not trained in homiletics. Let me be clear, this is both a positive and a negative. But as far as pursuing feedback is concerned, you need to ask clear and answerable questions. Complicated feedback forms are the staple diet of homiletics profs, but simple questions are worth their weight in gold.

Question 1 – Given that every oral communication situation demands an inherent unity of the presenter, did the speaker effectively engage with the single proposition of the text once the text is distilled using good hermeneutical principles? Ok, just joking. This is a horrible question. Long, hard to decipher, actually only requires a single word answer, yet at the same time touches on several elements of preaching. Let’s try again:

Engaging? Did the preacher make you want to listen? How? – This is often the missing question on feedback forms I have seen. It is possible to be biblically faithful, organizationally clear and personally relevant, yet to be completely unengaging.

Biblically sound? Did you have the feeling that the preacher handled the Bible passage properly? – Might seem strange to use the word “feel” in a question on biblical accuracy, but for most listeners, that’s all they have to go by!

Clear? Was the message easy to follow? Why? – This points the listener to issues of organizational clarity, as well as allowing for comments on vocal clarity, and whether they knew where you were in the text.

Interesting? Did the passage and the message feel interesting to you? – It is a sin to bore people with the Bible, so you might as well find out if you did or not!

Connecting or Distracting? Did the preacher’s delivery help you connect or was it distracting? How? – You need to give people permission to tell you that you keep picking your ear, or moving like a robot, or shuffling your feet, etc. Furthermore you may think that your eye contact is great, but they may tell you that you’re always looking at your notes!

You may find that you need to add prompts for each question (i.e. for the last one you could add – eye contact, gestures, movement, distracting habits, etc.) But then you are heading toward one of those complicated forms that only preaching teachers can really fill in!

And if you want the most challenging feedback of all? Add this question:

Please write down the main idea of the message…

The Power of Vivid Description

April 7, 2011April 7, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

As you preach a text of Scripture, look for ways to help listeners see what it is saying. Too often our preaching is merely propositional. That is, we trade in truth statements. But God knows that the truth enfleshed is what will transform us. This is why He sent the prophets. This is why He sent His Son.

This is not to suggest that there is somehow a different message that is “enfleshed” as opposed to “truthful” – that may be the case with some, but I certainly don’t advocate that. What I am suggesting is that verbal constructs will often pass by the listeners without really registering. Take that same truth and help people to see it in action.

This can be in historical action – i.e. the world of the text. Tell a story so it can be seen on the internal screen of the heart. Preach a poem so the visual imagery is powerfully presented. Present a discourse passage in the narratival tension of its original occasion.

Also this can be done in applicational colour. That is, help people to see in vivid everyday terms how this passage’s truth will look when it is worked out in daily life and experience. This doesn’t require to do lists, but it does require vivid description.

I’m convinced that one of the key ingredients for effective preaching is effective and vivid description. Practice it. Learn it. Dip into the descriptive communication of effective preachers, or storytellers, or novels. Do what it takes to better engage your own imagination, and then the imagination of your listeners. Truthful preaching is vitally important. Truthful preaching enfleshed in vivid description is massively powerful.

Opaque or Lens?

April 5, 2011April 5, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Opacity is worthy of our consideration. The contrast between being opaque and being a lens was suggested last week in conversation. That is, does the preacher act as a lens through which I see Christ, or as an opaque presenter through which I see little? It may be hard to quantify, but as listeners I think we know the difference.

When the opaque preacher preaches, we receive information and ideas, maybe even illustrations and anecdotes, perhaps applications, and even apparently effective delivery. Technically the sermon might tick all the standard boxes. Faithful to the text, relevant to the audience, clear in presentation. But obviously not clear in the sense we mean in this post. Because for all the good that’s there, the sermon event feels opaque.

So what is it that turns the opaque preaching into a lens through which the person of Christ is seen, through which the grace of God can shine into our lives? I suspect it isn’t primarily about technique, since great preparation and delivery skill can still lead to opaque messages. Perhaps it’s something along the lines of …

A sermon will act as a lens to the extent that the preacher relationally engages both God and the listeners as true personalities.

That could be better stated, but it will do for now (comment freely and offer better statements!)

1. If God is viewed as a distant, unknowable, cold deity who has left us with a set of data encoded in an anthology we call the Bible, then the preacher won’t engage Him. But if God is known personally, through the Word, through prayer, through a living and vital and covenantally loyal love relationship; and if God is an active participant in the life of the preacher; and if the preacher genuinely loves and likes God . . . then we may be onto something special for preaching.

2. If the listeners are viewed as an amorphous group of punters who have chosen to attend a presentation in which they (the seated ranks of unknowns) get to hear me (the preacher), then the preacher won’t engage them effectively. But if the people matter, and are cared for and prayed for and are important to the preacher (even if he is visiting), and if he seems to not only care enough to give tough medicine, but loves enough to make it palatable, and likes enough to smile . . . then we may be onto something special for preaching.

Opaque or lens?

Finger On

March 15, 2011March 15, 2011 / Peter Mead / 3 Comments

I listened to two preachers recently. Walter Kaiser (on CD) and another well known speaker in the UK. There are several differences between them, but I’d like to point to one. Kaiser wanted his listeners to keep their finger on the text. The other man didn’t.

If you’ve heard Kaiser you will know that he likes to get people to look at the text. Lots of good preachers do that. It helps people see that you speak with authority because the authority is not yours, but the authority of the Word of God. It helps people follow the message. It helps people come back to the text later and then see for themselves what you were teaching.

I know you’ve heard preaching like the alternative I have in mind. The text is read, but left behind as the sermon progresses through several paralleled points of the preacher’s own construction – a biblical theology of the phrase, if you will. Lots of preachers do that. It gives the sense that you speak with authority because you speak with authority. It motivates listeners to close their Bibles and just listen. It helps people not re-open their Bibles later since they can’t remember how you derived your points anyway.

Both approaches will get glowing feedback. But both are not equal. Be a preacher who motivates listeners to get their finger on the text. What advantage is there in not doing so?

Simple Idea – So Helpful

March 11, 2011March 11, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

This week at Cor Deo my colleague Ron mentioned something he does in preparing for sermons. Simple suggestion to say the least, but so helpful. Instead of cutting and pasting the text of the passage into a document to work with, he photocopies his own Bible page.

Then he can work on the photocopy at a significant level of inductive observational detail. Then when he comes to preach from his own Bible, he’s very familiar with the layout of the text and only needs to make minimal markings on the text since he’s just been working all week on a replica of the same.

Simple.

I could leave it there, but let me add a couple of comments:

1. Too many spend too little time really soaking in the text. It shows in the preaching. The message is often a decent message, but the tie to the text is tenuous. If you have a great Christian gospel message that really is the message of another text, preach the other text! But if you’re preaching this text, then live in it and let it live in you for a while so that you are really preaching the text you say you are preaching!

2. The more our message is tied to the text we’re preaching, the less we are reliant on extraneous notes and imposed sermonic structures. This means the listeners perceive a more natural presentation (that’s helpful), and they are more likely to follow in their Bibles (that’s helpful), so that the focus is less on your sermonic artistry and more on the inspired revelation that came from God (that’s helpful too!)

Impositional Preaching

March 8, 2011March 5, 2011 / Peter Mead / 7 Comments

Some of the greatest preachers of recent history have built sermons on single verses. I tend not to do that. Am I saying I know better than them?

Dr Lloyd-Jones, not to mention Spurgeon, and others, have demonstrated extended sermon series that essentially preach a single text at a time. Surely if we were to be preachers after their kind today, then we should pursue the same kind of ministry? Actually, I think not.

First, let’s recognize what these men did. Spurgeon sometimes resorted to an allegorical exegesis of the text, but not always. Lloyd-Jones tended to preach the Bible’s theology radiating from the impact point of a single verse. That is, since the word “justified” is in this verse, what all could be said from the whole canon on that theme (perhaps in this message, perhaps over several).

Second, let’s recognize what wannabe’s often do. Today when I hear people building messages from single texts I tend not to hear people with the pedigree of Spurgeon or Lloyd-Jones. I do hear some allegorical, not to mention fanciful, interpretations. These lack credibility and authority. I also hear some waffling messages padded with poor cross-referencing that shows neither theological acumen, nor precision in respect to recognition of biblical connections (nor genuine understanding of the theological needs of the listener). In an era where listeners will look at the text and dismiss apparently unfounded sermonizing, we would do well to reevaluate the efficacy of many “single verse” approaches to preaching.

Third, let’s realize that imposition is not exposition. Too often the preacher has the mindset of seeking to utilize the text as a series of pegs on which to hang their thoughts. All too often those pegs are not divinely intended to hold the weight placed on them. The Bible is an intricate and powerful construct of divine design. Sadly, all too often preachers take a twig from the oak tree and assume it will bear the same weight as the oak was designed to hold. Impositional preaching is not exposition, it is a pale imitation of what some greats from church history did.

Fourth, let’s realise that exposition is about honouring God, not historical figures. I deeply respect Spurgeon and Lloyd-Jones, as well as many other preachers through church history that I do not seek to emulate every week. My view of expository preaching is built on my understanding of the nature of God’s Word. As I seek to explain it, to demonstrate its relevance, to say what it says and seek to somehow make the message do what it does, I am pursuing a contemporary ministry of expository preaching. I may fall short of historical models, and yet at the same time I may at times get closer to honouring the intent of the text. I pray that God will enable me to have a fraction of the impact of these great men. I pray that God will equip me to be a preacher of His Word, rather than one who seeks to reproduce a historically bound model of ministry.