Homiletics

Vague Preaching Ideas

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

When you study a chunk of biblical text, you are looking to state the idea of that chunk.  The idea encapsulates, condenses, summarizes and usually abstracts from the details present.  In terms of the hermeneutical process, we sometimes refer to the stage of principlization (coming between interpretation and application).  The reason for deriving the principle from the passage is to allow for an application of that principle in another setting, namely our setting today.

The first part of the study process involves understanding the author’s idea to the best of our ability.  It is all “back then” in focus.  The statement of the author’s idea will initially be historically specific.  In order for that idea to cross over the divide between then and now, the idea will need to become slightly more abstract.  For instance, “Israel” might become “God’s people,” and so on.  The challenge in this process, however, is not to go too far.  There has to be a limit to how much abstraction takes place in the move from interpretation to application.

Here’s the test I use of my own study and preaching, and the test I use when evaluating student sermons.  Does the end result remain sufficiently specific that it can be reasonably and directly tied in to the passage in question?  To put it another way, if I only hear the idea, is there a reasonable chance that I could identify the passage (presuming I know the Bible well enough)?  If not, if the idea is so vague that it could come from any number of passages, then it is too vague.  You’ve gone too far up the abstraction ladder.

Use this test of your last main idea, and your next one.  Is it really the idea of the passage (with all its details feeding into it), or is it merely a vague statement of biblical truth?

Minds Full of Questions

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Another variation on what I wrote yesterday.  People have questions.  But when do they get answers?  Perhaps perplexing Biblical questions are a good set up for a series of messages.  However, there are many questions people have that can be answered in a few minutes.  Consider having a panel Q&A, or a pastor Q&A, now and then.  It could be after a series on a subject, or it could be open to whatever people are thinking about.

I’ve been involved in these type of formats several times.  It always seems profitable.  Recognize and acknowledge that you may not have a good answer for some questions, but that you will try to direct people to the help they need.  Remember that it is usually better to sort and compile the questions ahead of time.

We preach and hopefully stir questions.  Consider whether it might be a helpful and potentially enjoyable church activity to take questions periodically.  The answers help people.  Seeing that you don’t have all the answers will help people.  Showing people how to approach the answering of such questions will help people most of all.

Congregational Calendar Input

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

When planning a preaching calendar, don’t forget a key resource – your target audience.  I heard of one pastor who would ask his congregation for passages or doctrines they found hard to understand, then would schedule a series responding to those subjects the following summer.  The advantages included that people felt their needs were taken seriously, they attended purposefully in the summer (rather than slacking in attendance), and it forced the preacher to go where he might naturally steer clear.

It’s an intriguing idea.  Have you ever done something similar?  How did it go?

Preaching Psychologically Prepared

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I don’t want to stir up a reaction against the word psychology.  What I mean is that your emotional state as a preacher can and will color your message.  Before you preach, take time to process any tension in any relationships, any frustrations with how your week has gone, any worries about what lies ahead, anything that might color your ministry.  A bad mood will subtly alter your delivery and energy.  A fearful heart will undermine your presentation.

It can only be a good habit to take time before preaching and pray.  Pray for the message.  Pray for the people.  But pray also for you.  Cast all your cares on Him, because He cares for you.  Cast them one by one specifically.  Express your heart to the One who knows you and loves you.  Process before you preach.  Preach prayerfully prepared.  Your soul/spirit/mind/mood/emotions, etc. will all influence your preaching, so be sure to bring it all under God’s influence first.

And if you have a headache, take a painkiller too!

Invest Some Time to Save Hours

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Perhaps you are in charge of the preaching calendar.  Perhaps you are not, but sometimes get called on to preach.  Either way, it is worth investing time ahead of time to plan out some preaching plans.  Considering the needs of the people and how those might best be addressed from the Bible is an exercise well worth the effort and prayer you’ll put in.  Equally, listing out a set of sermons that you would like to prepare and preach is worth it even if you are only an occasional preacher.

Consider the alternative.  Without a preaching calendar you’ll find that Monday brings an impending sense of pressure.  Without a list of future sermons, an invitation to preach brings a tightness to the chest.  So many preachers waste so much time stressing about what they should preach next.  That time could better be invested in the next message’s preparation.  Whether you are picking a text or preparing to preach that text, you should be leaning on the Holy Spirit – so surely it is better to be preparing the message?  Whether you plan a year out or a week out, either way you should be relying on the Spirit of God to help you.

So don’t act like those hours of stress is a spiritual approach to an otherwise cold and professional approach.  Instead prayerfully plan ahead, thereby giving the Spirit more time to help you be ready when that Sunday finally arrives.  You can always change plans closer to the time, but changing plans is different than having no plans and all the stress that comes with it!

7 Reasons to Preach A Lesser Known Book

/ Peter Mead / 4 Comments

Most preachers do what most Christians do.  They tend to stay in the familiar books of the Bible.  The gospels, the epistles, and maybe some Psalms or well-known Old Testament narratives.  But what about Nahum, Obadiah or Joel?  What about Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, or even 2nd John or Jude?  Here are 7 reasons to select a lesser known book for your next sermon or series.

1. It will be fresh for the listeners. They may be feeling full of your usual fare, so a trip into uncharted territory will be a refreshing and invigorating experience (as long as you preach well!)

2. It will be fresh for you. Ditto.  You will find that once into the study, you’ll be so grateful that you took the plunge into another part of the canon.

3. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful. This means that you won’t come across a chunk of text that is of no value to you and your listeners.  It’s all God’s Word and it is all applicationally useful in our lives.

4. It will reinforce to listeners that they can profitably spend time in the whole canon. They will see that the lesser known books are of great value in filling out our understanding of God, seeing how His people are to respond to Him, etc.

5. Moving into a different genre stimulates variety in your preaching. A different genre provides different forms and rhetorical features.  You’ll enjoy the possibilities if you consider the many ways to preach wisdom literature or a prophet.  Let the type of writing influence your type of preaching.  Seek to do what it does, as well as say what it says.

6. It will inform your future preaching of the more familiar books. Typically lesser known books are further back in our Bibles.  Once you have spent time in these books, you’ll have a greater sense of the informing theology of the later and better known New Testament books.

7. It will force you to truly prepare. Be honest, you could probably preach a series in Ephesians or Romans without having to break a sweat (although the series would be better if you did).  But I’d wager that Joel or Nahum might put you to work from scratch (and to pray accordingly!)

Preaching Where Preaching Is Undervalued

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I received an email from a friend who feels alone in his passion for preaching.  Others don’t see preaching as a significant life-changing ministry.  Consequently the preaching that results is often content-heavy, but application-light, and regularly communication-ineffective.  The tedium of dull preaching continues, or worse, the random ramblings of unprepared preaching.  Just this morning I spoke with a couple who have moved into a new area (and country), and the husband has given up translating some of the sermons they’ve heard in churches because they actually made no sense.  Not unusual.

Why is true biblical preaching so undervalued by so many? It seems clear that many place no value on preaching, even though they may be preachers themselves, because they have not experienced the power and relevance of effective expository preaching.  I look back with gratitude to the stand-out examples I heard as a young man that so marked me, I have never contemplated the idea that expository preaching is worthless.  The mark of men like Joseph Stowell who preached at an event I attended years ago is a mark still evident in my own ministry passion.  Homiletics is not an elective in the ministry training curriculum, it is really the pinnacle.

So what can we do when others don’t get it? We have to recognize we can’t force conviction into peoples’ hearts.  It is something caught, not just taught.  We should strive to preach to the very best of our ability and training, hoping in some way to give a small taste of what expository preaching can be like.  We should seek to be enthusiastic grace-givers, rather than critical enemies of the pulpit, when others fall short of what we would prefer.  We should look for ways to share good preaching and good books with those that preach.  There is so much available online now, so perhaps you can find excellence and carefully share it.  Perhaps you can even fund a local Bible school so they can add a homiletics expert, rather than having the typical situation where preaching is taught by either a practitioner unsure of how to teach the subject, or an expert in another field who “covers” for the lack of a preaching prof.  Ok, maybe funding a Bible School faculty position is a bit much, but we must all do what we can.

Recognize that the value people place on something is a heart issue.  It can’t be forced.  But it can be contagiously spread.  Again, let’s be promoters and examples of true biblical preaching – spiritual, accurate, effective and relevant.  What else would you say to someone feeling alone in their commitment to expository preaching?

Planning a Gospel Series – Four More Suggestions

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Here are four more suggestions for planning a gospel series:

Decide how many messages the series will last, then select accordingly. You might only deal with a part of the gospel (such as the Upper Room Discourse).  You might select exemplary units that point to the flow in which they sit (such as Luke 19:1-10 with reference to the preceding flow of stories).  You might choose to preach larger chunks in order to cover the whole text in some way. 

Commit to learning the theology and terminology of whichever gospel writer you are preaching. Try to preach John in John’s terms and emphasizing John’s theology.  Luke has his own distinctive set of vocabulary.  Mark has his own style.  Try to let the details of the messages reflect the book from which they are taken. 

Preach the gospel you are in, not all four. Use cross-checks in a gospel harmony only to make sure you see what is emphasized in your focus gospel, and to make sure you don’t preach historical inaccuracy.  Avoid the temptation to preach the event rather than the text (the latter is inspired).

Try to plan the series to consistently reflect the uniqueness of the gospel. For instance, Matthew alternates between discourse and narrative sections – you might alternate messages from these sections (samples from within the two or three chapter chunks, or overview messages of those sections).

What other suggestions would you make for the effective planning of a gospel series?

Planning a Gospel Series – Four Suggestions

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

It is a good idea to preach a series from one of the gospels, but it is not easy to plan.  There are so many events, parables and teaching sections that a series which simply goes from one NIV heading to the next would last for years.  Here are some suggestions:

Get to grips with the gospel before you plan the series. Some good study in a gospel will give you a sense of the flow and structure, of the big themes, the major chunks and so on.  This will all help to plan the series creatively.

Recognize that individual units are strung together to make a broader point. As I presented here recently, Luke 18:9 reaches on through 19:10 at least.  Seeing how these units work together will help to understand the larger sweep of the book.

Wrestle with the flow of the whole. John’s themes of the deity of Christ, belief and life, recur throughout the book of signs, culminating in the climactic miracle of the raising of Lazarus.  Mark’s two overarching questions of who is Jesus and what does it mean to follow him control content throughout the gospel.  Once the disciples finally recognize and declare who Jesus is, they discover that they cannot have the Messiah without the cross – so in the end it is the climactic statement of the Centurion that pulls it all together.  Try to relate the parts to the whole so that the series has evidence of unity in the way it is presented.

Consider giving an overview sermon at the start and/or end of the series. This can really help listeners to see the flow of the whole and orient them to the message of the book.

Tomorrow I’ll add more, but I’d love to hear more input on this subject.

When Less is More in Delivery

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More power does not always mean more power.  Sometimes for emphasis we need to do the opposite of the obvious:

When less is more in delivery – When we are convinced or excited, our volume tends to rise.  But it can be dynamic and powerful to drop to a whisper at the point of emphasis.  When worked up we easily rise in pitch, delivering our most significant material in the annoying shrill of an over-enthusiastic choirboy (but dropping the pitch to a lower tone will add emphasis without the discomfort for listening ears).  And of course, when we get worked up we easily drop our foot to the floor and speed through key material.  In the cold light of midweek it is easy to spot the weakness in that approach!

Variation is critical in content and delivery.  One way to add variety is to be sure to look for opportunities to apply the old principle that works so well in preaching – sometimes less is more!