Homiletics

Post-It of Progress?

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

One advantage of moving house, as I am next week, is that I get to find my desk from under the piles of accumulated items.  So I’ve found a post-it.  I remember the conversation, but don’t know who it was with.  I don’t think I’ve written this up on the blog yet, but please forgive me if I have!

1. In the past preachers were often respected and influential. An upstanding and significant member of the community, the minister mattered.  That has changed in most places.  Perhaps an increase in education levels in society has undermined the unique place of the preacher.  Perhaps a decrease in the nominal christianity of western culture is to blame.  Perhaps preachers have dropped the ball a bit and allowed our influence to fade unnecessarily.

2. Today, many preachers preach as if on a private picnic. We’ve allowed it all to become about the private blessings for those on the inside.  We’ve started to fear the encroaching influence of a progressive society, preaching to the converted with a fortress mentality that fails to engage or move outward, but simply to resist the inward press from outside.

I suppose the natural progression would be to urge us to move back into an engaged politically aware and socially influential position, something like the prophets of the Old Testament who spoke to the faithful and the unfaithful, to the insiders and the outsiders, with equal power.  But actually, I’m going to stick with my post-it.  Perhaps both the suggestion of this paragraph and the one of the next should go side by side…

3. Tomorrow, our preaching must shift to preparing the people in the pew for the coming battle. Our place has shifted.  Society has shifted.  The church’s role has shifted.  The preacher’s role must likewise shift.  It is not enough to build a fortress mentality and preach as if we’re on a picnic, somehow safe from encroaching but annoying outside forces.  Christians need to be prepared for life in a society that is overtly anti-Christian.  Look back ten or twenty years and see how much things have changed.  What will it be like a decade or two from now?  Will pressures decrease?  Will society suddenly decide to accept an exclusive message?  Will the language of fanaticism, fundamentalism and terrorism stop being used together?  Will persecution remain an issue for other people in other places?  Will martyrdom be alien to our personal spheres of friendship?  I suspect not.  If that is where society is heading in a decade or two, then it must affect how we preach tomorrow, or even today.

Share

Sermon Speaker Service Leader?

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Different church traditions handle services differently.  Some have a worship leader (or in some more formal settings, perhaps a chairperson).  Others expect the preacher to lead the service.  If you fall into the latter category, some thoughts:

1. Being a gifted preacher doesn’t mean every public speaking activity is therefore covered in one person. The preacher may not be the best person to introduce and lead songs, or to give weekly announcements (a very tricky thing to do well), or to give a thought for the children (if your tradition includes such a thing), or offer a lengthy pastoral prayer, etc.  I am not a huge fan of getting people up front just to give them the experience, I like to see things done well (especially in a larger church), but why not put in the effort and resources to a team of service leaders / children’s talk givers / announcement makers, etc.?

2. The preacher may be a better preacher if they can focus on that. The time before preaching can be a good time to prayerfully consider the message and the listeners.  The introduction can strike a chord more effectively if that voice hasn’t already been up front for the whole service.

3. The preacher may or may not be a good person to input into the content of the rest of the service. Some preachers love to craft song sets to set up the sermon.  Others just pick their favourite four or five songs whether they fit or not.  One size doesn’t fit all.

Sometimes I lead the service, sometimes I don’t.  There are advantages both ways.  One advantage of having a speaker lead the service in a multi-speaker church is variety (but this might be better achieved through resourcing a service leading team).  One advantage of having a speaker not lead the service in a single-preacher church is variety.  But the greatest goal is not variety, it should be quality . . . honouring the Lord with the best service possible, and engaging the people in the most effective way possible.

Share

Post Preaching Logistics

/ Peter Mead / 6 Comments

What to do after preaching?  I suppose it is largely influenced by your church tradition, but for the sake of prompting thought, here are a few perspectives to which you can add yours:

The Stand at Door Option. Some churches like the preacher to stand at the door and shake every right hand that passes by.  It guarantees pastoral opportunity to see everyone, but also guarantees a couple of other things too.  For one, it guarantees that people who don’t particularly want to interact with you will feel obliged to say something polite and potentially insincere.  For another, it means that people who really do want to talk to you will be rushed and probably won’t.  Personally I find this option has more negatives than positives.  I would rather stand on the door on weeks when I’m not preaching, and have someone else there when I do preach (but then I have the advantage of a plural leader home church – perhaps every week preachers should consider having a back up for some weeks on the door?).

The stay at front to pray with folks option. This obviously has advantages that the last option didn’t.  It does make getting to you a known quantity, but also slightly intimidating for any that don’t want to swim upstream through the aisle to get to you.  Also, if it is overplayed in terms of “prayer ministry” then when nobody comes to you, it may communicate that the message didn’t touch lives, which may or may not be true!

The mill about option. This has the advantage of not being either overwhelmed with right hands rushing away, or loneliness when people don’t swim upstream for a heart-to-heart in a public setting.  But those that do want to talk may find it hard to approach if you look intent on getting to someone else, or thoroughly engaged with someone else.  It takes sensitivity and approachability to pull this off to its maximum potential.

The run and hide option. Probably many preachers can relate to this frequent desire to interact with nobody after pouring out heart and soul in the sermon.  While this may be tempting for several reasons, it usually isn’t the best approach.  Vulnerable and drained as you may feel, prayerfully engage with folks and remember to bring praise, criticism and heavy loads to the Lord . . . they’ll probably feel like too much for you to carry!

Other options?  What do you typically do?  Advantages?  Disadvantages?

Share

Sermon and Song – Second Segment

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Yesterday I offered a few thoughts on the relationship between the message and musical element of the service.  Here are some more thoughts:

Whiplash can be painful.  My friend Ron speaks of the whiplash effect in some church services.  The singing is filled with emotive love of God content, then the sermon harshly snaps listeners back to the other extreme with a brutal blend of duty and pressure.  From delight to duty, from presence to pressure.  We do not cover the full spectrum of Christianity with this whiplash blend, we contradict ourselves.

Songs don’t have to tie in completely, but they shouldn’t be radically out of place either. Sometimes I’ll select a song that complements the message by majoring on a fact that is not central, or even present, in the message.  The complete package of the service can do a work in peoples’ lives, it doesn’t just have to be a preview of the preaching.

Song leaders should be careful not to give away tensions in the sermon. An overzealous leader can sometimes give away aspects of a coming message that would be better left for the preacher to communicate at the right time.  A good relationship between preacher and song leader (pick your own title of preference), is worth its weight in gold in that respect.

(While mentioning song leaders, think through introductions of speakers too.) Too often the transition from song leader to speaker is undermined by excessive introductory comments (sometimes bordering on idolatry in some circles), or by lack of sensitivity from the speaker.  Sometimes that great compelling and captivating opening silly salvo simply doesn’t fit and the speaker would do well to pause, to pray, to reflect further on what has been going on.  Sensitivity both ways really matters.

What else could be added . . . more, I’m sure.  Remember that to be committed to the Word and to expository preaching does not mean we have to therefore disparage the musical elements of church life.  Both are very important.  Thought put in will usually bear fruit.

Share

Sermon and Song

/ Peter Mead / 4 Comments

How does the sermon relate to the singing elements of the service?  Here are a few thoughts:

Singing is not the warm-up. In some circles the singing elements of the service seem to function essentially as a warm-up before the main event, which is the preaching.  While I don’t deny the centrality of the Word in the protestant faith, I don’t think the musical element of church life needs to be disparaged either.  The Christian faith is a revelation based faith, and it is a singing faith.  Churches do well to give their best musically, as well as in preaching, and in reality this requires different parts of the body to be functioning in their respective areas of gifting and passion.

Singing doesn’t have to just come first. In some settings it is traditional to have a period of singing, interspersed with prayer and sometimes notices (how to not overdo notices or kill the atmosphere is worthy of a blog in its own right!).  This is then typically followed by the sermon at the end, perhaps with a song to finish.  Some messages seem to set up the opportunity to respond in song, so sometimes it may be good to bring the message earlier and have musical response.

Singing isn’t always a good idea at the end. Sometimes the sermon ends, there’s a prayer, a sense of quiet, and then the leader flicks the switch and introduces a song.  The closing song can be so powerful, or so counterproductive.  If the song switches people out of Bible and faith mode into normal world again, then perhaps it would be better to omit it.  The message of God’s Word, the stirring of faith, the gaze on Christ, etc., should all continue on into the week ahead, not stop abruptly with the singing of a closing song.

Tomorrow I’ll offer a few more thoughts on sermon and song . . .

Share

Varied Skills in Passage Study – II

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Studying a passage effectively involves a variety of skills.  Yesterday we mentioned matters of contextual awareness, scholarly awareness and original language study.  Today I want to share a few more.  Not a definitive list or blueprint for the exegetical process, but a series of prompts that may or may not be helpful reminders.

Purposeful Study and Preaching – Too often, preachers study a passage to find meaning, then preach meaning and tack on purpose at the end.  Purpose (i.e. application) is not only a concern in the formation of the message.  Purpose should influence our exegesis too.  If we remain blissfully unaware of the author’s intent, we will fail to fully grasp his content.  Bring “purpose” into the mix long before you start thinking of your purpose in preaching it.

Point-ful Study – Make sure that your study of a unit of thought coalesces into a focused and unified sense of the passage idea.  A random collection of exegetical artefacts is not the goal of exegesis, nor is it evidence of good exegesis.  You are studying cohesive communication, be sure to grasp what the author would agree was a synopsis of what he was communicating.  Getting to the main idea of the passage, thoroughly informed by every detail, is an absolutely critical point in passage study.

Scissors – A critical exegetical skill for the preacher is to decide what to cut out of the sermon.  A condensed dump of all your gleaned knowledge will not serve your listeners.  Study hard, learn lots, but cut out all that doesn’t advance the focused and pointed message.

What else would you add – other skills?  Sometimes one of the greatest skills for exegesis is the skill of creating the time and space and quiet needed for intense study!  What else?

Share

Varied Skills in Passage Study

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

When we take a biblical passage and study it in order to understand it, and then to be able to preach it, we need a variety of skills.  This post (and tomorrow’s) isn’t an attempt to exhaustively define the exegetical process, but rather a selection of elements that may prompt your self-awareness in this process – perhaps you’re weaker in one area than another, perhaps you need a reminder to include something.  Feel free to add thoughts too, this is brief and non-exhaustive!

Whole Bible Awareness – We don’t rip out the page we are studying, but read in light of the context.  We need to think consciously about how the passage fits in the progress of revelation, what the “informing theology” is that feed into the passage, as well as how the big narrative of Scripture develops after the passage.

Scholarly Awareness – We aren’t the definitive measure of truth, but do well to engage with others in informed conversation as we study a passage.  So we utilise commentaries and reference tools of various kinds, but we can’t rely on them (or just reproduce them – God has called you to preach to these people this Sunday, not FF Bruce, CH Spurgeon or John Calvin.)

Original Language Study – Whenever possible, to the extent of our ability, we should do the serious work of passage study in reference to the original language.  This doesn’t guarantee a better message.  In fact, one of the most important things about original language study is that we must know our limitations.  Sometimes there’s nothing worse for a sermon than someone with a year or two of serious study behind them, or even just a copy of Vine’s next to them at their desk, offering original language insights in a sermon.  If you are able, or if not, then utilising the skill of others, allow original language study to inform your English sermon . . . but almost never let it show when you preach.

Tomorrow I’ll add some more elements to consider, but feel free to add your thoughts below.

Share

Does It Matter If It’s Going Online?

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Last Sunday I was preaching in a church and had to ask if the message would be going online.  Every now and then you have to be aware of such things.  But unless you’re sharing information that is sensitive, does it really matter?

I suppose the myth of online exposure is alluring for all egos. After all, millions could hear the message, right?  Online statistics should help to dispel such ideas for most of us.  A grand total of 7 hits tends to put a pin in a ballooned ego.  The possibility of your preaching, or mine, going viral is minimal.  So it would certainly be presumptuous, and it would sound weird to your live listeners, if you started making reference to potential online listeners across the globe (probably no need to offer in-line translation of a key word in Japanese, just in case).

But what if we’re more realistic, should we be thinking about online listeners? Generally I would say not.  After all, you almost certainly don’t know who they might be.  As a preacher you are preaching to the people in front of you.  Preach to them.  If others receive some help online, praise the Lord.  Certainly the nursery workers may appreciate hearing what they missed on Sunday morning as they served behind the scenes.  Generally speaking, online listeners are in the “bonus” category of beneficiaries in this unprecedented technological age in which we live.

However, we should be aware in respect to specific content. If a message is online, it is amazing what damage can be done.  Just pull an illustration out of context, edit slightly, and suddenly you can become the villain for any number of potential offendees.  Suddenly we have to be very careful in respect to comparison of religions, or description of cross-cultural missions, or accounts of evangelistic success, or humourous stories about old room-mates, or … you name it.  Now, good integrity should overcome most potential issues.  But as a wise and prepared preacher, it would be better to take a moment and think through the reach of a message before you preach it (and avoid the slightly unfortunate, ‘is this going online?’ question that I asked last Sunday morning!)

Share

And Now For The Next in the Series

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

A little double entendre in the title.  I want to write briefly about sermon series.  But this is also another in the series of posts started yesterday.  In that post I suggested that we shouldn’t be overly dogmatic about whether we project the text or not.  I have my opinions, obviously others have theirs too.  But my point was that this is not the main point (even though we are prone to make any preference into a definitive conviction).  So today I’ll raise the subject of series, and again I’ll suggest that there are different perspectives, and perhaps again we’ll hear some readers share their reasoned positions.

Should we always preach through Bible books, or sections of books?  Some would say absolutely yes.  God gave us sixty-six books, He did not inspire a thematic table of contents.  A balanced diet will best be found by sequential exposition that therefore does not and cannot shirk the tough subjects, tricky texts and the whole scope of the canon.  The “whole counsel” is a term often coined in these discussions.  It does diminish the time wasting that can go on in selecting sermon texts, or the personal hobby horses that regularly gallop through some pulpits.

But others would critique this approach for a variety of reasons.  Some would suggest that while “all Scripture is God-breathed and useful” – not all Scripture is equally useful to all listeners all of the time.  At a certain level we would probably all agree with that (you would be disappointed to take a friend to an evangelistic event and have the preaching text announced as Nehemiah 7).  Some would suggest that varying the preaching text allows for a broader scope of biblical exposure than being tied into a very long series through a book.  Others might point out that it is perfectly possible to preach expository sermons without being tied into consecutive passage selection (which must not become a defining feature of “expository” preaching).

Perhaps, again, there is a place for balance.  Perhaps sequential series are a good staple diet, but recognizing some of the dangers of overzealous commitment to the practice (i.e. you might not be able to pull off a decade long series like your hero did in a different time and culture, and your listeners might actually get bored and lose interest!)  Perhaps there is a place for series of non-sequential but related texts that allow an important theme to be reinforced repeatedly.  Perhaps there is a place for stand-alone, non-series messages, pastoral or “prophetic” responses to specific situations or crises.

Where do I stand? I’m a gentle proponent of consecutive series through books or sections, but not exclusively.  I suppose I’m probably in favour of the perhapses of the last paragraph.  Again, instead of becoming overly dogmatic in our commitment to one “methodology,” perhaps we should make sure we keep the more important issues more central – like how we handle whatever text we preach, how we look to and lean on the Lord as we serve in the privilege of preaching His word, how we care for the people to whom we preach, how we make sure our preaching is theocentric and the gospel is clearly presented, etc.

Share

Job Description?

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I recently enjoyed reading The Trellis and the Vine by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne.  In the book they suggest that the role of the pastor has shifted from religious service provider to CEO in many churches.  But they also suggest there needs to be a further shift, to trainer (i.e. multiplier of disciple making disciples).  I agree with this perspective and want to make a similar suggestion in terms of the role of the preacher.

What was the role of the preacher in the past? Perhaps the preacher’s role was that of local community leader, or spiritual director of the congregation, or Bible/theology expert.  It all depends on the situation or context.  There may be some scope for considering what we’ve lost: for example, have we abdicated our role in society, or have we been kicked out?  Or have we left behind the days of the “divines” in favour of the days of the networked and busy?  But this post wants to push us to think of the future.

What is the role of the preacher in the present? Again this depends on the church.  In some churches the preacher is a visionary leader directing the church community via the weekly team talk.  In other churches the preacher is an entertainer needed to provide some semblance of content in the weekly gathering.  In other churches the preacher is an overworked slave expected to do the work of the ministry while every other minister and priest in the church is satisfied to pay the preacher’s salary.  In other churches the preacher’s role is to present and apply the Word of God with sensitivity to God, the people, and the times.  I don’t want to suggest all is bad today, it certainly isn’t.

What could the role of the preacher become? The preacher’s task as expositor of God’s Word should not change, although the manner, style, etc., will change.  I wonder, though, if there is a shift in the role of the preacher to include a more overtly training mentality – the preacher as spirituality coach, the preacher as Bible study tutor, the preacher as ministry and missions mobiliser, the preacher as mentor of preachers.  All of these have been done and are being done.  But what about in your church?  Where has the ministry arrived at today, where could it go in the months ahead?

Share