Homiletics

Superior Ammunition. Really?

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

In class last week we were discussing effective sermon delivery.  We brainstormed through the categories of verbal, vocal and visual presentation.  So what goes into effective verbal delivery – i.e. the words you choose to use?

One person mentioned the need for accurate and precise word choice, rather than lots of filler words and verbal pauses.  Absolutely.  If you spoke on behalf of the government you wouldn’t arrive with a, umm, you know, imprecise kind of, you know, message.  How much more when you speak as an ambassador of heaven?

Another mentioned the need for common language.  After all, despite what some may think, Jesus spoke in common language.  The New Testament was written in common Greek.  We need to communicate with the people who are listening to us.

Related to this is the importance of your motivation in word choice.  One brother mentioned the temptation to try to look well educated by choosing erudite terminology.  I stumbled across a great quote in Briscoe’s book, something like, “if you are consistently shooting over the target, this is not an indication of your superior ammunition, but proof that you can’t aim properly.”  Fantastic.

Preach the Main Point

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Last week I had the joy of teaching a group of church leaders in a class on preaching biblical narratives.  Once we had grasped the significance and power of plot in a narrative, we realized how purposeful narratives tend to be.  They aren’t a random assortment of preaching fodder as many see them.

It is easy to read a story and bounce off the details to preach personal hobby horses.

A passing reference to alcohol in the story of Nabal can easily become a tirade against alcohol in the hands of a careless preacher.  But that is not the focal point of the story.  The plot, when understood properly, pushes the careful preacher toward the heart of the issue (usually in some way related to the resolution of the tension in the plot).

And yet the beauty of narrative passages is that they don’t simply present simple truths, but clothe theological truth in the concrete realities of life.  While many Christians may choose to make every conceivable matter into a black and white simplistic issue, biblical narratives engage us in the complexities of real life.  Daniel didn’t eat the meat offered to idols.  Aha! There it is, biblical support for total separation from anything I deem to be worldly!  Hang on, in the same passage he isn’t fussing about being labeled with a Babylon deity’s name.  Complex.

Narratives are such powerful parts of Scripture.  They present, engage and drive home a central truth in very vivid and heart-stirring ways.  Yet they don’t lay comfortably in our simplistic constructs for life, choosing rather to stretch our faith and our thinking by their complex depictions of human motivation, faith, and experience.

Of Vegetables and Chocolate

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

Some preachers complain about the fluffy content-free preaching that seems to be popular in some quarters.  But to listen to their complaints you might think the only alternative is the dry and tedious preaching they seem to offer.  I suppose this is like complaining about the nutritionally bankrupt junk food that hoards of people snack on every day, but then insisting that these hoards should instead be eating the overcooked, under-salted boiled cabbage and greyed carrots that they are offering in their pulpit cuisine.

There is another option.

Even if you have a bit of a taste for chocolate (something I can relate to), and even if you don’t generally prefer vegetables (another point with which I connect), there is another possibility.

Instead of the supposedly healthy vegetable meals offered by bad cooks who have committed a war crime against any lingering nutritional value in their over zealous pots, consider the finest cooked meals of five-star chefs in the best restaurants.  When you get to taste good food cooked properly, it is a delight.  Even a chocolate loving, vegetable phobic person like me will freely admit how much more satisfying healthy food is when it is prepared properly.

So back to preaching.  If people are flocking to hear empty waffling, but not staying to enjoy our preaching, let’s not feel totally stuck.  We don’t have to sell out and start serving junk food.  Neither do we need to become embittered against all the popular preachers.  Instead listen to some of the best preachers and develop a taste for fine cuisine preaching . . . some preachers are actually popular, not because they serve junk food, but because they serve fine food superbly prepared.  Perhaps we might get a taste for it.  We might even choose to serve it to others.

Topical Preaching – Make Your Mind Up

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Many preachers find a topical approach to preaching to be an easier road.  I encourage students not to pursue topical preaching as the primary form of preaching.  Why?  Because it is harder.

Huh?  Easier or harder, make your mind up!

Not all topical sermons are created equal.  There is topical preaching that is a short-cut.  And there is topical preaching that multiplies the work.  What is the difference?  Whether or not it is expository topical. 

Topical preaching is effectively a form of preaching.  It is where the preacher combines passages to make a main point that is their own construct, or the result of a combination of several passages.  Expository preaching is not a form, it’s a commitment.  It is a commitment to exegete the text so that the text functions as boss of what is said in the message.  This can be a single passage exposition.  Or it can be a multiple passage topical exposition. 

The easy road.  I am certainly not suggesting that all non-expository topical sermons are preached because the preacher is lazy.  Not at all.  But it is an easier approach.  You can combine the passages you like, that say what you want to say, without all the baggage of exegesis and contextual analysis.  You can tailor the sermon to speak into lives with the real or apparent authority of Scripture, but without the painstaking effort in preparation. 

The hard road.  The work required to truly get to grips with a passage in order to preach it effectively is significant.  Historical, contextual, cultural, grammatical, lexical, and literary study, not to mention textual critical work, original language study, discourse analysis, etc., all add up to a daunting task.  Now decide to preach on three passages (perhaps Ephesians 5, 1Corinthians 7 and Song of Songs – for a topical sermon on marriage).  Your task is now significantly more daunting.  Expository topical preaching is worthwhile, but it is not a short cut.

There is a place and a need for expository topical preaching in the church.  Yet for the sake of the preacher, let this not be the staple diet.  It is arguable whether there is a place for non-expository topical preaching in the church.  But I suggest that for the sake of the listener, let this not be a regular snack, let alone the staple diet.

Preaching and Story – Part 5

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So this post is really an extension of implication four in the series we have been considering on the impact of narrative in our preaching.  Much more could be said, but this will be the last in this specific series.  So to review implication number four:

4. When preaching “non-narrative” sections, consider how they are snapshots of a narrative. We saw how two genres are, by definition, largely narratival – both history and gospel (including parables, of course).  But what about the five “non-narrative” genres?

So a psalm was written by someone in response to God’s work, or in gratitude for a particular moment of deliverance, or in the tension of particular situation, either individual or corporate, or to guide others in the tensions of life.

Prophecy, as we know, is not all about foretelling the future, but often more about God’s heart being revealed in respect to the present.  Either way, narrative is there . . . either God’s response to the tensions and problems and reactions and dangers of the present, or God’s explanation of kingdom hope shining at the end of the current tunnel.

Wisdom literature is shot through with the tensions of a fallen world, with the challenges of human folly as we so easily pick foolish paths in the midst of the situations we face – glimpses into the story of humanity.

Apocalyptic, despite all the caveats and careful explanations that seem to overwhelm the text so often these days, is a revelation of reality, present or future, the unseen becoming seen, and it is shot through with narrative features – and then I saw, then he said, and then, and then, so the dragon waited, then the world celebrated, then the judge came, and then, and then.

Epistle, of course, is a snapshot into a narrative – that apostle’s attempt to bring the gospel to bear on the present situation of the recipients.  We have to look at the occasion that prompted the writing of the letter, and we need to look for any hints as to what transpired in response to it.  A glimpse into the narratives of life lived in a fallen world.

At some level there are aspects of narrative pervading every passage in the Bible.  How does our preaching reflect that?

 

Preaching and Story – Part 4

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

So we have been thinking this week about the role of the Bible story in our preaching.  We haven’t thought about how the individual stories relate to the big story as a whole, the redemption history, as it were.  Perhaps that would be worth a post at some point (actually I know it would because some preachers seem so eager to fit everything in its macro context that the particular text they claim to be preaching gets lost or somehow reworked so that the actual message of the text is lost in the mix . . . but that is for another day).  We have considered the importance of entering into the narrative, and trusting the narrative to offer more than illustration and introduction, and thinking through how to increase the impact of a narrative by retelling and revisiting it before moving on.  Now to the final implication in this series.  This weekend I should be returning from Asia and will be looking forward to seeing what comments have been sparked by this series!

4. When preaching “non-narrative” sections, consider how they are snapshots of a narrative. There are three main types of literature in the Bible, and about seven major genre.  One of the three types is narrative, the most common one, but still leaving two non-narrative types (poetry and discourse).  A couple of the genre are narrative (history and gospel, including parables), again with lots of page space, but also leaving five that are non-narrative (psalm, prophecy, wisdom, apocalyptic, epistle.)  But stop the bus for a minute!  Are these other types and genres non-narratival?  Aren’t poetry and discourse both snapshots into a narrative?  Discourse, be it epistle or speech, is given in the context of a narrative situation.  And it may be harder to accurately know the context that gave rise to a particular poem, but human nature leads us to wonder and often to reconstruct such a narrative (be careful not to then interpret a poem in light of a reconstructed narratival context, but why not tap into the emotional setting of a fallen world that sparks such poetry?)

I will extend this series by one post and tomorrow consider the five supposedly non-narratival genres to see how they are, in fact, more narrative-ish than we tend to think!

Preaching and Story – Part 3

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So we have suggested that since narrative is such a critical form of literature in Scripture, pervading both Testaments at length, and since we live life in the tension / resolution cycle of micro and macro narratives, therefore we need to ponder how narrative influences our preaching.  We have suggested the importance of telling the story, and of trusting the story instead of looking to always get past it to the important stuff.  Now for another implication:

3. Don’t just tell the story and move on, but revisit, review, retell, re-engage the narrative. Sometimes we are just too quick to move on.  We tell the story without effective description, emotion, clarification, cultural awareness, etc.  Then we move on to our lengthy content.  A well told story will include effective description, cultural explanations, empathetic energy, physical movement, etc.  And it also needs the often missing ingredient of time.  Time to dwell in the tension.  Time to ponder the problem.  Time to feel the resolution.  Time to respond to the work of God in that story, and if told well, in my story.  So why not follow up the story with a partial re-telling and review as you conclude the message and apply the truths?  Why not revisit the narrative for a subsequent sermon instead of moving rapidly on at “break-impact” speed (i.e. fast enough to avoid any passage really hitting home!)  Or to be creative, why not have a session where listeners can actively participate in reflecting on the story, or retelling the story, or talking through the impact of the story?

Perhaps you can think of other ways to linger longer in a story preached, so that the church can be changed more completely by it?  Tomorrow we will see the final implication in this series.

Preaching and Story – Part 2

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Yesterday we suggested that preaching on a Bible narrative should include more than just elements based on the story, but should actually tell the story.  Here’s another implication of the pervasive nature of narrative:

2. Don’t just enter the narrative as a means to an end, but see the entering in as a potential location of the “end.” That seems like a risky sentence, but I think it holds firm.  Too easily we feel that a story is, at best, an introduction to our pontifications, applications and morals.  But a well timed, well placed, well told story will often carry its own weight and do its own work.  The listeners will enter into it, they will find themselves in the world of the story, and they will feel the story in their world.  As they identify with the characters and feel the rising tension, as they see the tension resolved, as they feel the blessing of “their” character trusting God, or sense the emptiness of a character choosing the pain of sin, and so on, they will be impacted by the story, during the story.  God invented narrative, trusts narrative and so gave us loads of it in Scripture, knowing people would hear it and read it, and knowing that there wouldn’t always be the helpful explanation we sometimes feel God “needs” from people like us.  God knew what he was doing with the inspiration of narrative, perhaps our seeing story as effective communication in itself might be an act of faith that could bear fruit?  I am not anti-explanation or suggesting that storytelling replace preaching.  I am suggesting that in our preaching we don’t simply see narratives as illustration, or introductions to the “real stuff.”

It’s tempting to move on to the next implication, but perhaps it would be better to let this post linger longer.  Number three tomorrow.

Preaching and Story – Part 1

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This week I am in Asia, teaching an MDiv course on Preaching Biblical Narrative.  I’d value your prayers for the course, the students, the travel and the family back home.  On here I thought I would preload a series of posts reflecting on the place of biblical narrative in our preaching.  I hope it will spark comments, but I don’t know if I’ll have internet access to approve the comments, so apologies if yours doesn’t appear for a few days.

Life is lived in story.  We don’t just tell stories, and read them, and watch them, and share them on the phone, and observe them through our front windows, and hear about them in the workplace . . . we live them.  When we watch a movie, or read a book, we find ourselves feeling the tensions and identifying with characters, or pulling away from them.  Somehow we wonder what we would do, we share their joys, feel their pain, enter their world.  Why?  Because story is the water we swim in, so it is only natural that we connect.

So what?  Well, here are some possible implications in respect to preaching:

1. When preaching a narrative, don’t just preach propositions, but enter into the narrative. I well remember an introduction to a sermon I heard a while back, “I know you know the story, so I won’t tell it again now, let’s look at the theology of the story.” No!  It’s fair to say that only those already on board with that speaker’s theological take on things were positive about that message.  A narrative has to have a tension, a problem, a situation that needs to be resolved.  Enter into that, describe it, help the listeners to feel it.  A narrative has key characters, humans in a fallen world beset by tensions, people that the listeners will warm to, pull back from, feel for, or feel like.  Enter into that, describe them and their situation, help the listeners to feel it.  Don’t be so sophisticated that you leave the stories for the children.  When you preach story, tell the story.

Tomorrow we will look at another implication or two (there are four implications in this series).

Back to the Note Takers

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

On Friday I wrote about note takers and made a passing comment about the idea of people returning to their notes and reviewing.  I think it is only fair to suggest that many never achieve that goal, even if they have it.  But even if they do, it raises an issue.

Is my goal to make my listeners need my outline in order to navigate their way through a passage?  Certainly this is better than being lost in a passage.  But personally I would rather preach so as to motivate people to go back to the passage, not my outline.  Furthermore, I would rather preach to equip people to get the main thrust of the passage and know how to apply the text and respond to the God who inspired the text.

So if my goal is about the connection between the text, and my main idea, and the relevance to their lives . . . why would I prioritize their getting back to my outline?  Hooks to hang thoughts on is a well-worn phrase.  But I have neither hooks nor my outline in my goal when preaching.  Perhaps I should consider encouraging them to listen fully, then make brief notes after the fact, notes pointing to the main message and its impact in their lives.  Perhaps I should encourage them to go back to the text and look through it for themselves . . . that would be almost Berean, wouldn’t it?

(May I finish with a parenthetical comment?  Listeners, like preachers, might easily suggest that they know themselves and they know they do best taking notes during the message.  Maybe they are right.  Or maybe they are influenced by the common perception propounded in educational culture that note takers are the most attentive and best learners.  Would people be so convinced this works best for them if it weren’t the generally presumed “best way” . . . I do wonder!)