Genuinely Realistic Worthwhile Feedback

April 14, 2011April 12, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

After a couple of days of essentially suggesting we shouldn’t put too much stock in feedback that comes over a handshake, I want to suggest that there are some really helpful bits of input that can come without us requesting it. Just as we need to learn to discern the generally worthless, let’s also grow in our sensitivity to the genuine and worthwhile input. Several ingredients tend to go into helpful input:

1. Time. When someone speaks to you about a message and there is time involved, then you should put more stock in the feedback. The time might be delay before speaking to you. “The message you preached two weeks ago has really been on my heart…” keep listening and see what you can learn from this interaction. “The message you preached last year on X really changed my life, here’s how…” keep listening and thank the Lord for genuine encouragement.

Or the time ingredient may be the length of conversation. Even though it happens right after church, if someone wants to talk for a few minutes about the message, then perhaps they aren’t just being polite. They may be socially uncomfortable and struggling to get away from you, but hopefully you are socially aware enough to discern the difference. If there is time in a conversation, then generally that means there is something beyond the polite being said. This could be encouraging/affirming, or it could be constructive/helpful – be alert, welcoming and responsive to both.

2. Thought. If someone has put thought into what they are saying, then you should put more thought into processing it. A from the hip comment may speak more truth than it knows, but often it can pass us by without anything being lost. But a thoughtful comment, an interaction about the message that has been thought through, this is the stuff of potential when it comes to getting constructive feedback. Without straying into the pursuit of praise, you can probe with a question or two when someone is obviously and genuinely thinking about a message. “What was it that stood out to you?” or “What would you say was the main point of that message?” These aren’t questions to ask all, but they may be helpful with some.

3. Insight. Sometimes somebody can make a very brief, yet very insightful comment. If you sense a rabbi, a jedi knight, or a wise sage has just said something, be sure to lock the thought away for further pensive perusal. Not every quick comment should be quickly dismissed. Sometimes the value of these comments only come out through prayer and meditation.

May God give us the wisdom to discern the difference between most comments and helpful comments, and may He give us the courage and humility to take onboard that which is helpful in all.

Generally Relatively Worthless Feedback – Part 2

April 13, 2011April 12, 2011 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Yesterday I began this post on the less constructive kind of feedback we will get week in and week out (and without our requesting it). The post-meeting handshake feedback tends to border on the meaningless as far as constructive input is concerned (although massively meaningful in terms of relationships, which are worth much more than your pursuit of improvement).

We thought about the polite comment, and suggested that you don’t build a sense of the great importance of your ministry on this kind of comment (remember, there were millions of people who chose not to be there to hear you, and some who were probably chose to mentally join the millions!)

We thought about the extreme comment, noting that either extreme praise or extreme attack tend not to be the most constructive help as you seek to improve your preaching! Two more:

3. The no comment. These are hard to read too. Is the person saying nothing or avoiding you because they are deeply challenged and convicted, or because they are livid (with good reason or otherwise), or because they aren’t sure how to do the polite thing since you were so offensive, or because they need time to process more deeply, or because they are socially uncomfortable. Some of these could be really helpful sources of feedback, but you may not even realize the connection wasn’t made.

4. The misunderstandable comment. “That was so deep!” should be interpreted as “that was completely over my head.” The “thanks for your hard work preparing” might mean “shame it came across without evidence that you’d really mastered or been mastered by the text.” “You certainly put a new spin on things!” could well mean “I don’t know of any good Bible scholar, church leader or theologian who would quite see it that way,” or even “if I weren’t so gracious I’d declare you a heretic, have you thought of starting your own cult?” And I shouldn’t miss this one: “What a feast of Scripture!” could well mean, “that felt like an accidental explosion in a concordance factory, my goodness, I couldn’t keep up with your obsessive compulsive cross-referencing!” Be careful you don’t misunderstand the thoroughly misunderstandable comments that may be some of your most insightful feedback!

After preaching we tend to be vulnerable and perhaps not in the best place to carefully process the feedback that comes our way. It is good to pray through everything people say and ask God to help us discern what is helpful, what is simply politeness in action, and what is from the enemy. But if we want constructive feedback, that usually takes an effort on our part. Having said that, tomorrow I will consider one other channel of feedback that generally is more helpful than what I have described in these posts!

Generally Relatively Worthless Feedback

April 12, 2011 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Yesterday I listed some questions we might use to pursue meaningful and constructive feedback on our preaching. In most walks of life a combination of feedback, objectively measured results and supervisor evaluations are the norm. Preaching is one of the few avenues in which helpful feedback is an optional luxury (athough many may be giving great feedback, just not to you; and the results are objectively measurable; albeit not entirely in the present; and the greatest of all supervisor evaluations is coming for us all). But there is a cheap shortcut to getting feedback, and it is generally worthless.

Post-meeting handshake feedback is part of the package of ministry. Tempting as it may be to hide in a study and pray, you have to interact with folks in case the odd one here and there actually wants to talk and there might be a deeply meaningful conversation. That said, the majority of what comes with a handshake should be graciously accepted, without any delusions of having really received feedback on your preaching.

I think there are several categories worth pondering:

1. The polite comment. If someone gives you a cake, you say thank you. If someone give you a ride, you say thank you. If someone does anything for you, you say thank you. If someone preaches a sermon for you, you say thank you. And, since you are shaking hands at the time, you probably add another comment too since human interaction seems to require it. Perhaps “thank you for the message,” or “thank you for preaching,” or “really appreciate you coming,” or “that’s given us a lot to think about,” etc. I’m convinced there are some preachers who have built a lifetime’s ministry on this category of feedback without ever realizing that it is bordering on meaningless as far as constructive value is concerned. People don’t tend to say, “thanks for preaching, your second point was unclear and I found your repetitive sword fighting gesture a bit distracting.” You have to pursue that kind of helpful feedback.

2. The extreme comment. Some people are just polite. Let’s face it, some people are just rude. Or socially uncomfortable in the other direction. They don’t know how to turn on the tap and get an appropriate flow of gratitude or critique. Instead they always give a firehose blast and you aren’t helped much either way – “that was the worst thing I ever heard” or “that was the best message I ever heard” are both a bit hard to process.

Tomorrow I will add a couple more to finish this list. Hopefully we can see that there is a world of difference between handshake comments and sought-after, permission-given, constructively thought through feedback.

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…

Preaching Truth in a Milieu of Relativism

April 8, 2011April 8, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

As the years pass by, the demographic make-up of our congregations is changing. The adult congregation has a diminishing proportion of those raised in a culture aware of objective truth. The increasing proportion is now coming from a no-absolutes, no need for coherent worldviews, no objectively knowable truth kind of a mindset.

At other times I have reminded people of the positives that are coming from a “postmodern” culture – positives in the sense of opportunities. After all, if people are hungry for authentic community and relationships, then we should be rolling up our sleeves at the opportunity. Nevertheless, there are negatives that are increasingly prevalent in our churches.

It is increasingly common to find people who will listen to truth and affirm it, yet will be resistant to any critique of other “truths.” After all, so the logic goes, if a good person can come to another conclusion when they look at the evidence, then you cannot critique their view, it must be equally valid. And, after all, surely the important thing is that we all get on with each other and pursue harmony at all costs. Thankfully such logic doesn’t hold sway in our criminal courts yet, but as preachers we must be alert to it.

To make a subjective measure of spiritual authority the objective standard for accepting a view will open us up to all sorts of confusion. After all, if the standard used by some be followed through, then “nice” Christian-raised Bible readers would include leaders of cults, as well as every possible wing of Christendom.

So what do we do as preachers? I suppose the temptation is to rant. First at the heretics, then at the culture, then if we get desperate, at the congregation. Doesn’t seem like the most productive strategy though. Surely we would do better by prayerfully and consistently demonstrating the reality of Truth as a person, and helping people to follow through the consistency of a Christ-given worldview. What we may not achieve with a rant, perhaps we will as people observe and get infected by our clarity in a confusing world. We may not be understood, or see immediate results in the increasingly relativistic congregation, but over time perhaps people will start to see things in a more biblical way.

What do you think? Do you see the creeping relativism of a generation raised in a culture marinaded in the juices of postmodern values? Do you have a strategy for influencing your congregation as you preach so that you aren’t simply appreciated as the weekly purveyor of healthy myth?

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?

Letter from the Tax Office

April 1, 2011April 1, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I enjoyed a good conversation about preaching yesterday. Here’s a thought. 2 hypothetical situations:

Situation 1 – I have received a letter from the tax office stating that a Mr Jones is going to be hearing from the bailiffs if he doesn’t pay his tax bill within five days. I figure out that Mr Jones lives six doors down from me. Out of courtesy I take the letter to him and hand it over.

Situation 2 – I have a close friend who works in the tax office who lets me know that a mutual friend of ours, who happens to live next door, is long overdue on a tax payment and needs to respond immediately. I go next door and explain the situation carefully and clearly to Mr Smith, making sure he understands the gravity of the situation.

Which situation will offer the more compelling communication. Obviously the second one. Why? Because in the first I know neither the person in the tax office, nor the recipient. In the second one I know and like both of them.

Question: when you preach, which situation fits you? Ignore any tax and duty typology here – that’s not my point. As a communicator do I take data from the study of a written document and present that clearly to others? That is, do I handle a 2-D document in a manner that is relationally disconnected? Or do I have a heart-level connection with both the Author of that document, and the listeners of my message?

Many preachers and pastors are alert to the importance of knowing and loving the people to whom they preach. Humans can sense when someone cares, or even when someone likes them. Have you heard a preacher that didn’t seem to like you? I have recently and it left me stone cold. A good shepherd really loves his sheep. A good under-shepherd will too.

Fewer preachers seem to be alert to the importance of the heart connection in the other side of the preaching mix. That is, do you as a preacher know not only the text, but do you know and love and like the God who inspired it?

This makes a massive difference, but is rarely addressed in the preaching books. Massive difference. If you are not compelled and captivated by the One whose Word you preach, then why should your listeners be marked by its presentation? Your love for them alone is inadequate. It will carry things a decent distance, but it will fall short. The connection, ultimately, has to be between them and Him. Relational coldness between you and them, or you and Him, will short-circuit the whole loop.

Life Instruction Preaching

March 31, 2011March 31, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Another of David Gordon’s flawed approaches to preaching is what he calls the How-To sermon (p82).

How-to preaching differs from moralism not so much in the what as in the how. Unlike moralism, it expends less time describing what one ought to do, and more time how to go about doing it. In one sense, it is even worse than moralism, because it reduces life and religion to technique, and suggests (implicitly, never explicitly) that a sinner can change his ways if he just has the right method.

How-to preaching, like moralism, pushes the person and work of the redeeming Christ out of the realm of the hearer’s consideration. The hearer’s utter inability to rescue himself from sin, and Christ’s utter ability to do precisely that, would not be at home in such a homiletical environment. The how-to sermon implies that human behavior is not a matter of an intractable will, not a matter of total depravity, not a matter of rebellion against the reign of God the Creator, but merely a matter of technique. It is worse than Pelagianism because it doesn’t even accept the burden of attempting to prove that the will is morally unencumbered by original sin; it assumes this heresy from the outset.

I won’t get into how the human soul operates in this post (i.e. whether Augustine’s issue with Pelagianism was merely a concern of his view of the will), but I do want to engage with Gordon’s critique of how-to preaching. After all, with the clamor for “relevant” and “applied” preaching in our day, surely there is here a tension between what should be preached and what people ask to be preached? I don’t think so, although itching ears are a biblically described scourge on our churches nonetheless.

I agree with Gordon absolutely that we might as well preach on how the leopard can change his spots, since teaching a sinner to live right is just as effective. Christianity is absolutely not a set of techniques for holy living. It is about the privilege of participation in the loving life of the Trinity through relationship via Christ by faith. As we preach the Bible we preach of this God who has made life available if we will trust His Word, His way, His character, etc. So as we preach the Bible, we preach of God’s self-revelation to those that need Him.

Thus we can, we must, preach applied messages (rightly defined), and relevant messages, since the Bible very much speaks to us today. But when we take the wondrous self-giving of God and turn it into a manufacturer’s manual (i.e. a book telling you how to avoid any contact with the manufacturer by handling life properly), then we are not preaching the Bible, but a type of heresy that has no place in the church.

An Officious Calling

March 30, 2011March 30, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

David Gordon’s list of four failing approaches to preaching includes the category of “Introspection.” Let’s hear some highlights (pp83-84):

Some of the neo-Puritans have apparently determined that the purpose and essence of Christian preaching is to persuade people that they do not, in fact, believe. …This brand of preaching constantly suggests that if a person does not always love attending church, always look forward to reading the Bible, or family worship, or prayer, then the person is probably not a believer. To the outsider, it appears patently curious to take an opportunity to promote faith as an opportunity to declare its nonexistence.

Since the sermon mentions Christ only in passing (if at all), the sermon says nothing about the adequacy of Christ as Redeemer, and therefore does nothing nourish or build faith in him. So true unbelievers are given nothing that might make believers of them, and many true believers are persuaded that they are not believers, and the consolations of Christian faith are taken from them.

It is absolutely debilitating to be told again and again that one does not have faith when one knows perfectly well that one does have faith, albeit weak and imperfect.

It is really hard to see any positive that comes from this kind of preaching. The bruised reed and smoldering wick do seem to get broken and snuffed out. The dead in sin are hardly offered life when the love of God is not offered as the vivifying affection. Even the self-righteous are only reinforced in their misbelief since they will always assume this message is for someone else.

The self-righteous like it too much; for them, religion makes them feel good about themselves, because it allows them to view themselves as the good guys and others as the bad guys – they love to hear the minister scold the bad guys each week. And sadly, the temperament of some ministers is simply officious. Scolding others is their life calling.

So, what can we suggest to preachers who find themselves being described in this post? I suppose the only solution is to fling yourself at the foot of the cross, read the Word for yourself and see your own brokenness and need. If you see brokenness in yourself, surely you see the need for others to be tended, to be cared for, to be shepherded, to be encouraged. If you see no brokenness in yourself, then perhaps you need the very gospel you are convinced nobody else really believes.