Homiletics

Preparing in Silence?

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

“A lot of preachers are introverts because they need to be able to prepare on their own for hours.”  “Preaching is an oral event, yet the preparation of outlining and manuscripting is all pursued using written language skills.”  “Silence is the soil in which sermons sprout.”

All statements with some truth to them.  But also all statements that indicate a subtle tension between preparation and delivery of a spoken sermon.  A lot of preachers are introverts, perhaps for the reason stated.  So much of our preaching training is essentially an adaptation of skills for producing written work.  And there is a definite place for silence in the context of walking with Christ – as essential if preaching is truly a “God-event.”

So this post is not about turning all preparation upside down and advocating sermon preparation with loud music on, or in the midst of conversation.  (Actually there are preachers that find it helpful to do the message formation phase of their preparation in a public place – like Starbucks – in order to be able to better think through who they will be speaking to . . . a thought to ponder, perhaps.)

A couple of suggestions, though, in light of the oral nature of preaching:

1. Don’t just pray then prepare, but pray during out loud preparation. That is, don’t just pray and then work on the sermon.  Try praying as you prepare.  Talk through your thinking out loud, in conversation with the Lord.  Say your thoughts out loud, and also talk about what you are saying.  Why not?  It might help your thoughts to form in coherent oral form, it might help your prayer to be more than introductory, it might help you notice when your mind has drifted away from the task at hand for the last twenty minutes!

2. Don’t always write, then talk, but invert the process. We are trained to pray, then read, then write, then talk.  Why in that order?  Why not keep the prayer going throughout, but instead read, then talk, then write?  Often a written sermon won’t deliver well, but a well-delivered sermon can always be written in some form or other.  Talking through the message earlier in the week will almost certainly help you know where you are in the process far more than looking at your notes will!

Preaching is a spoken event.  Perhaps we need to prepare appropriately.

Shaded Differences Not Poles Apart

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The Bible often distinguishes humanity in stark alternatives.  There are those being saved and those perishing.  There are those who trust God and those who don’t.  There is love and hate.  Heaven and hell.  Faith and fear.  The righteous and the wicked.  The wise and the foolish.  Often the stark alternatives provide for very strong opportunities to preach the Word boldly and with great clarity.

Nevertheless, there are also many times where what we intend and what is heard can be close, but still be across the divide.  How easily we preach for relationship and are heard to be preaching for religion.  Thinking in the terms Tim Keller uses for Luke 15 – we can easily slip into trying to turn the irreligious younger son into the religious older son, but God reaches out to both the rebel and religious in order to draw them into relationship.  Sons, not servants.  If we are not very careful, we can preach for relationship and be heard as preaching religion.  This is heavily influenced by the religious tendency of humanity in the flesh, but that is no excuse since we have to preach to those who are listening and can’t just blame them if they miss our point.

I was thinking about a vision for the local church for a presentation this week. I was struck by how easily we settle for a line drawing, a sketched representation of the reality, rather than the full multi-coloured vivid 3-D reality of God’s wisdom demonstrated in the church.  There may be some extremely dead churches, but for many the difference between vibrantly alive and slightly hollow is marginal, little shaded differences, in some areas and not others, in some people and less so in others.

We like to think in black and white terms, in one extreme or the other.  Since we’re not completely dead, we must therefore be completely alive.  It’s easier that way.  But as preachers we need to help people not settle for a mere representation of life to the full, of the delight of being fully alive in Christ, sharing in the communion of the Godhead, participating fully in all that God has for us.

Let’s preach the texts that offer strong polarities and not hold back.  Let’s also recognize that often the difference between reality and mere representation is marginal – so our preaching needs to sensitively engage and encourage in the midst of the shaded differences.

Obvious Texts and Not So Obvious Texts

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When you speak on a subject, rather than preaching an assigned text, you have the choice of which text to preach.  In many cases there are obvious texts to preach.  Asked to preach on the church, you might be drawn to Ephesians, or Matthew 16.  Preaching on marriage?  Ephesians 5 or Colossians 3.  Preaching on missions?  Matthew 28 or Acts 1.

There are advantages to preaching the more obvious texts.  First, they are obvious because they address the issue clearly.  Second, people will often feel a sense of an expectation being satisfied, like watching a good movie for a second or third time.

But you might like to go with a less obvious text.  Perhaps a narrative.  Perhaps a text people don’t know so well.  Interest may rise, impact may be deeper, perspective may be enriched.  Preaching on church?  How about the last section of John 17 . . . that’s my choice for today.  The other subjects?  I’ll think about them another time, my mind is captivated by John 17:20-22.

You Can’t Cover Everything

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

People appreciate expository preaching if it is done well.  People tend not to prefer the taste of exhaustive preaching.  The preacher is always tempted to try to cover every angle on every detail in the text.  After all, you’ve probably put hours of work into prayerful study and research, much of which has proved to be interesting and helpful to you.  But when it comes time to preach, selectivity is required.

Here is where the Big Idea becomes such a big deal.  Having the sharp focus of a main idea that reflects accurately and relevantly the main idea of the passage allows you to determine how to be selective.  An avenue of detail, or an anecdote of background information, or a cross-reference, or an illustration, or a side-point, or a personal soapbox, or whatever . . . if it doesn’t fully support that main idea, then it is immediately under scrutiny and should probably be chopped.

Selectivity has to take place before preaching.  Preparing to preach is not just about studying the passage.  Effort is required in preparing the message too.  Going into the preaching event stuffed full of information and selecting as you deliver tends to be as effective as planning your conclusion when you arrive at the end of your preaching time.

As Haddon Robinson has put it, “preaching can be like delivering a baby, or like delivering a missile.  In one your goal is to hit the target, in the other, your goal is to just get it out.”  It is in the “baby delivering” sermons that listeners tend to confuse expository preaching with exhaustive, exhausting, rapid-fire or overwhelming preaching.

Selectivity is probably one of the hardest skills and disciplines in preaching to master, but one of the most important.

Here’s a post from the early days . . . just for old time’s sake!

Refreshing Preaching

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As part of the Bible Fresh initiative, an e-book of advice to preachers has just gone online.  Here’s the link – just click here!

There are contributions from various respected voices, plus one from me on page 12.

Feel free to comment on here about any of the articles that you find helpful as you look through it.  (So far I’ve only read Conrad Gempf’s succinct offering, a third of which is: “Cut to the truth of Scripture and you’ll be relevant.  Sometimes too relevant for people’s tastes.”)

Blind Spots

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Eye contact is helpful.  Authentic and natural eye contact is priceless.  So much has been written about the importance of eye contact in communication, but I’ll leave you to search around for that online if you so choose.  I’d just like to share a few thoughts on this for us as preachers.

1. Too fleeting gives the impression of being untrustworthy. It’s tempting to just scan your eyes around while really you are just waiting until you can look down at your notes again.  Just because people see your eyes doesn’t mean you have made eye contact.

2. Too lingering implies intimacy or intimidation. Opposite gender folks will start to shuffle uncomfortably, same gender folks may wonder if you are wanting a fight.  I suppose the danger here is an unthinking “eye lock” on one person as your mind is elsewhere.

3. Too predictable implies eye contact is contrived or secondary. Have you listened to a preacher that alternates between their notes, the clock and a fascinating plant over in the corner?  It’s thoroughly distracting and annoying.  It feels like they are looking up from their notes because they’re supposed to, but the room might as well be empty because their is no connection with the people (and in time may become empty, but that’s another matter).

4. Beware of blind spots and find out what they are. I’ve learned that my blind spot is usually in the middle front of the congregation.  I tend to get the sides, and even singers behind me on the platform, but often fail to make any meaningful eye contact with the front few rows in the middle.  I recently observed a preacher who would look up to the right side up to 17 times before he’d look up to the left side of the congregation.

5. Do you really need to look down? It’s amazing how preachers often claim to have their notes simply as a security blanket, but actually they barely look at them (but when filmed discover they are looking down perhaps 70% of the time!)  Do you need as many notes as you have?  Do you look up as much as you think?  When you look up are you making eye contact with people, or just pausing until you can look down again?

Eye contact is worth so much to communicators trying to appear genuine.  It should be valued even more by those of us who actually are genuine and desire to genuinely connect with people.

Points in a Narrative Text Sermon

/ Peter Mead / 14 Comments

There is a field of homiletics referred to as narrative preaching, but this post is concerned with the preaching of a narrative passage – eg. David and Goliath, Joseph in Potiphar’s House, Hannah & Samuel, etc.

In other posts I have encouraged the use of full sentence points, rather than descriptive titles that make the message outline look like a commentary synopsis.  The full thoughts help you communicate effectively, generally avoiding historical past tense sentences helps you not sound like a commentary recycler.  But it is worth clarifying a couple of points on points:

1. If the message structure reflects the story structure, then some points may be better stated in historical terms. What I mean is that in an attempt to be contemporary, we can end up making three or four life principles out of the developing elements of the story, rather than allowing the story to be told properly.  The problem then becomes a moralizing approach to the details of a story, rather than allowing the force of the story to stand behind the main point, which itself might best be the only focus of application.  Stories that are told effectively will hold attention, so it is not necessary to generate points of relevance or application throughout the detail of the story.  Pay careful attention to the introduction, generating a definite sense of sermon relevance there, then feel free to be in the world of the narrative for a large part of the message, continually building to the relevance that may only become overt in point 3 or 4 (i.e. whenever the main idea is revealed with its abiding theological thrust).

2. Shorter biblical stories may work best with a default sermon outline. Namely, point 1 is to tell the story.  Point 2 is to state and clarify the main idea of that story.  Point 3 is to reinforce and drive home the application of that main idea.  In this case point 1 is automatically historical.  Point 2 should be written in contemporary terms.  Point 3 has to be contemporary, including all sub-points.  Again the introduction is important, but I suspect that will be the case in almost every sermon that we preach (whether we give it the necessary attention or not).  This approach underlines the fact that the outline of a sermon is for your eyes only.  Once we realize our goal is not to transfer an outline, but to give the text in such a way as to clarify the main point and apply it, then we are freed from the burden of turning every narrative into a parallel rhyming assonated demonstration of guilded wordsmithery.

Managing Message Momentum

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Even the best message preparation often overlooks the critical issue of momentum.  So messages will often follow one of these patterns:

1. “U” … Start with a bang – drag on through the bulk – pick up for a strong finish.

2. “/” … Start slow – gradually increase in energy and get going.

3. “\” … Start strong – lose dynamic after the introduction, or first point, and drag to the end.

Each of these patterns will undermine the effectiveness of the preaching event.  Equally, while some preachers seem content to flatline “_” (i.e. never generate energy or momentum), it is not usually possible for listeners to cope with the opposite (i.e. constant high energy and fast pace).

If you have felt like your preaching tends toward one of these patterns, or if others have hinted at it.  What can you do?

1. Try to work out where the momentum was missing. Was it an unclear transition?  Was it a sequence of explanatory points?  Was it at the point you lost confidence in your content?  Was it just through a lethargic unplanned introduction?  Was it at a difficult juncture in the text?  If you can figure out where momentum was missing in previous messages, this will help you identify where the same could happen in future messages.

2. Listen to yourself practice. Sometimes you can get the sense of momentum struggles in a run through of the message, but not always.  It may be worth recording a run through and listening to it . . . but obviously that requires you to be on top of your preparation.

3. Evaluate the sermon map. Most of us tend to use an outline rather than an actual sermon map, but we can still evaluate it as a map.  As well as evaluating it for location of illustrations (the normal approach, which actually can generate predictability as people see every illustration coming), also look for points of relevance, and consider the terrain . . . will this bit be hard to traverse for the listener?  Marking your outline may allow you to energise a potentially monotonous section with illustration, review & preview, interlude, or even by overviewing rather than detailing a segment.

4. Weigh the sermon on the scales. Many of us tend toward simply making too many points, giving too much explanation, trying to give too much and the sermon is simply too heavy.  What would be lost if you chose to lighten the content slightly and create some breathing space?  If the main point of the text is not lost, then are we choosing to keep content because we want to demonstrate our insight, our study, our knowledge?

Energy, pace, vocal variation, movement, progress, laughter, relevance . . . the complex factors of message momentum.

Do We Need To Challenge Our Implied Assumptions?

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I just read an interesting article entitled Is Leadership a Healthy Christian Aim? It gets into the issue of what we connote by the terms we use.  In this particular case, the fact that adding “servant” to “leadership” doesn’t undo the connotations implicit in leadership language so revered in Christian circles.  I suppose I could argue with the article in places, and perhaps suggest that our goal should be to produce influencers, and influencers, by some definitions, are leaders – whether or not they are recognized officially.  But perhaps I would be falling into the same problem the article is addressing.

So as preachers, do we reinforce, or play along with, common Christian conceptions that actually need overt challenging?  How about the notion that single is second class?  How about the numerous class distinctions still dividing society (especially, perhaps, in the British context)?  How about the idea that only a very few are called to serve in missions?  Or equally, that all are missionaries just by virtue of their existence, wherever they are, irrespective of their attitude to life and ministry? How about the myth of contemporary financial security and its value (irrespective of amount of consumer credit needed)?  How about the notion that life consists in everything to do with this life only?  (How many practical applicational sermons function as if eternity is irrelevant to everyday life?)

I could go on with random statements, but the point is important.  It is easy to fall into the trap of preaching in such a way that we actually reinforce wrong thinking.  We can do that by the words we use, the illustrations we choose, by what is said and by what is not said.  Enough said.

What An Email!

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I just received an email from a friend.  Allow me to quote from it for our benefit:

I’m going to preach in 10 days. I’ve been wrestling a lot with pride and the desire to show off, and no matter how hard I tried to meditate on verses such as “what do you have that you did not receive?”, these tempting thoughts did not leave.

I then listened to an interview. I realized then that I was only praying for myself, for the sermon preparation, for strength and understanding and clarity, but I wasn’t praying for the people to whom I was going to preach. So I decided to pray for them.

I’ve since realized that praying for the congregation is one of the best ways to fight against pride and the desire to show off. As we pray for them, we start loving them and long for them to be amazed by God and not by ourselves, the preachers.

I’ve spent the afternoon trying to understand the passage, but it was too much of an intellectual exercise and not enough of an heart-level meeting with God. I then read this article and this one. I’ve realized that I first need to be impacted by the passage in my own life before I can communicate it to others. I don’t want to simply convey information but I want to share God’s heart with them.

Such an encouraging email!  May God protect us all from preaching out of pride, or from preaching unfelt truth.