Homiletics

Attitude Check from the Apostle Peter

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Peter wrote to a church facing difficult times.  In the last chapter of his first epistle, he gives some important advice for leaders in the church (1Peter 5:1-4).  His warnings and advice are critical for preachers:

Not under compulsion, but willingly – Remember that preaching, as well as all other elements of leadership, is a privilege.  It is easy when tired or over-busy to start feeling pressured rather than privileged.  Perhaps it’s time to pray this through?

Not for shameful gain, but eagerly – Just because you are a preacher, it does not make you exempt from the common temptations of humanity.  This includes materialism and greed.  Be careful.  This temptation can creep in insidiously and become a motivation in ministry choices.  At all costs, seek to have an eager attitude to ministry, rather than a grabby attitude to money.

Not domineering, but as an example – Perhaps you are not struggling with pressure or plunder, but be careful of the power (where did that alliteration come from?  Feel free to use it if you like that sort of thing!)  It is easy to wield excessive influence in the lives of your listeners.  Rather, seek to maintain a Christlike exemplary influence.

And after the willing, eager, exemplary service comes the thing that is designed to motivate – the crown of glory!  (Or prize, I suppose, if you’re following through on the P’s!)

Helpful warnings for leaders, including us preachers.  Feel free to ignore the alliteration, I usually do, but let’s take the passage to heart!

Stage 6 – Message Idea

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One thing is certain in preaching. If your message idea is not clear, then listeners will synthesize and selectively remember. They will subconsciously choose their own highlight, the point that stood out to them, or the illustration they enjoyed the most. It is far better to do the work yourself and then present a clear, well-articulated main idea in the message. You start with the passage idea, remove any historically specific references (like Paul, Timothy, Roman Jail, etc.), take into account your sermon purpose and then look to phrase the message idea in a way that is memorable and relevant to your listeners. It doesn’t have to be an all-star big idea every time (it won’t be), but it is worth putting extra effort in on this one critical sentence. Once you have it, it will be boss of the message shape and the details – the next two stages. It may seem like a lot of work, but working on the idea is well worth the time and effort you put in.

Just recently we had three posts on ideas that stick – if you didn’t see them, check them out here 1, 2 and 3.

Stage 5 – Message Purpose

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The second half of the preparation process is concerned with taking the main idea of the text and forming a sermon that will be relevant and effective for your specific congregation. In the first four stages, the focus was purely on the text, now you have to give significant attention to your listeners. Consequently it is good to do an audience analysis at this stage.

Before you work on the statement of the idea for the message, you have to be clear on your purpose in preaching the message. The purpose of the sermon will influence the phrasing of the idea, the shape of the message and the details (the next three stages). The concern of the preacher, having understood the text, is to communicate effectively – that is, explain and apply the passage. It is not enough to merely explain the passage (a Bible lecture), or to be relevant (a contemporary monologue), you need to do both.  Clearly defining the message purpose will drive you to more effective explanation and relevance.

Previously – Purpose must drive the message design. The need for relevance requires urgent changes in our preaching. There have several posts that highlight the reality that our listeners live in, the reality to which we must be relevant. For instance, we preach to real ordinary people. Effective communication requires that we drop down the ladder of abstraction. We don’t just preach for practical ends, but rather we preach to the heart, but still add practical steps. In our preaching we should demonstrate that we value application. One final point of clarification, relevance and application are related, but they are not twins.

Check Your Dashboard

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I remember a few years ago hearing a message by Bill Hybels.  He spoke about the gauges on his personal dashboard.  If my memory serves me well, he said that his spiritual gauge was looking good, but something was wrong.  He was heading for burnout, but not because of spiritual issues.  He said that he learned there were more gauges than just spiritual.  If you remember the message, feel free to comment and correct my ten year memory.  But the point is a good one.

What is the reading on your spiritual gauge?  Are you walking in step with the Spirit, living close to Jesus and spending time in His presence through His Word?  What about your emotional gauge?  Are you taking time to rest, to laugh, to play, to wrestle with your children or enjoy a walk in creation?  What about your physical gauge?  Are you getting the sleep you need, ingesting healthy fuel and burning energy (and stress) through running, gym-time, judo or traditional native dance?  And let’s ask about the mental gauge too.  Are you being stimulated in your thinking through a variety of reading, some stretching, some relaxing, some outside your primary areas of focus, etc.  And what about stimulating conversation?  That may be hard to come by, but in the context of healthy relationships, it can work wonders on all four gauges!

Whatever gauges you have on your dashboard, take a reading from all of them.  It could be devastating to be looking at only one of them and find yourself burning out unawares.

The Very Words of God

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Monday’s a good time to pause for thought.  Perhaps you preached yesterday.  Perhaps you’re preaching again next Sunday.  Let’s always remember that God, in His grace, has given gifts to every believer.  To some of us He has given “speaking” gifts.  In 1Peter 4:10-11, Peter urges everyone to invest their lives in each other through the gifts they’ve been given.  Some gifts are “up-front” while others are “behind the scenes” – my understanding of the two terms he uses, “speaking” and “serving.”  None of us have a right to boast in our gift, but all of us have a responsibility.

We have a responsibility to study God’s Word to the very best of our ability, wrestling with the text and allowing the text to wrestle with us.  Thus the first half of the sermon preparation process is so important.  Then, with the humble confidence that we have something to share from God’s Word, then we move on to the second half of the process – formulating the sermon.  The whole process really matters.  The church is a community that may currently or soon be called on to suffer for their faith.  One critical resource for enduring such struggle is the earnest love for one another within the community of believers, and one example of such love is the effective stewardship of our spiritual gifting.  After all, when we speak, we are to speak as one who speaks the very words of God!

Stage 4 – Passage Idea

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Having studied the content of a passage, focusing on the structure, outline and flow of thought (stage 2), and the intent of the author (stage 3), it is important to arrive at the goal of your study. The goal is the passage idea, a distillation of the author’s thought in one sentence. This sentence should convey the true and exact meaning of the author. This sentence is critical for the building of the sermon. To bypass this stage is to miss the central link between passage and sermon.

Many people study a passage and never feel that the task is done. Details lead to more details, bunny trails, etc. The more they study, the more they feel they need to study and the task (even if enjoyable) is never over. Understanding the importance of finding the idea helps to bring closure to the first half of the preparation process. Once the idea is determined, further study will either clarify the idea, or simply affirm the idea. Once our study starts to affirm what we have determined, it is time to move on to preparing a sermon (so many new preachers get so excited or overwhelmed by the study of the passage that they don’t give enough time to actually formulating the sermon, even though Sunday is looming).

Previously – Here is an important reminder of the importance of the idea. Working on the idea will improve your preaching, as long as you are saying the text’s something. Passage selection will influence this stage too, since a bigger passage has a broader idea.

Remember you can click on “Stage 4 – Passage Idea” for a full list of posts on this important stage of the process.

Stage 3 – Passage Purpose

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The second stage of passage study is all about interpreting the details in the passage. This stage is not complete until you get to the idea, which is actually stage 4. In order to distinguish the stages somewhat, I tend to view stage 2 as determining the flow or outline of the text’s content. This third stage focuses our attention beyond content alone. As you study the passage, you are studying not only the author’s content, but also his intent. Why did he write this passage and what was he trying to achieve? It is the understanding of both content (stage 2) and intent (stage 3) that leads to a full understanding of the passage, its idea (stage 4).

Previously – There have been several posts addressing the issue of authorial intent or passage purpose. Why was the text written as well as purpose and preaching, both touch on this stage significantly. Two posts on preaching help to clarify that the author’s purpose may differ from ours, but we must be careful not to bend the text too far to achieve our own purposes.

To see a full list of all posts that relate to stage 3, please click on the menu to the right.

Passage Selection – Stage 1

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A little milestone was reached yesterday as the hit counter passed 100k. So I thought I’d take some days to offer a brief summary of the 8 steps of sermon preparation, suggesting some links back to posts that are particularly relevant to each step. Remember, you can see all the posts related to stage 1 by clicking on the “Stage 1 – Passage Selection” button in the menu. Thanks for visiting this site!

Step 1 – Passage Selection

Before you can design a message, you need to have studied at least one passage on which to base the message. Before you can study, you have to select the passage. There are two issues to bear in mind at this step:

Issue 1 – Which passage will you preach? If you are mid-series, then the next passage is already chosen. If you are preaching a stand-alone message, then you have to pick a passage to preach on (perhaps influenced by the occasion, the needs of the congregation or even your personal motivation). So sometimes selecting a passage is not an issue at all, but issue 2 always matters . . .

Issue 2 – Are you studying a complete unit of thought? This is always important to double check. Once you have you passage, you need to make sure it is a complete unit of thought. It is often possible to study and preach two or more units of thought that stand together (for example, two gospel stories presented together, or multiple paragraphs in an epistle), but it is very risky to try and study or preach half a unit (half a psalm, half a proverb, half a speech, half a story, half a paragraph . . . half a thought!) So for each passage you decide to study and preach, be sure to give thought to the true beginning and end of the unit of thought.

Previously – Concerning the first issue, selecting a passage, here’s some advice on how to select a passage, and another one. This post suggests preaching series, and in some churches there’s the practical issue of multi-speaker series, see also part 2.

Now concerning issue 2, the complete unit of thought. Here’s a post in which I point out that we can’t simply rely on the chapter and verse divisions, we have to select our passage personally. There is some helpful advice here in a post on longer narratives. And the issue of preaching several passage is addressed in this post on topical preaching. Finally, two posts on why I suggest generally sticking in one passage: A low fence and part 2.

Set Off With Strength

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Once you have your message mostly prepared and you begin to focus on your beginning, craft carefully.  It is worth setting off with strength into your message, it is worth beginning with a bang.  That first sentence should command attention and usually set the direction of the message.

Too many of us ease into a message.  It is tempting to take time with introductory humor or nice opening remarks.  “Nice” is not a great compliment, more a vanilla description.  Inexperienced speakers, in any context, tend to begin with a variation on “thank you for this opportunity” or “it gives me pleasure to address . . . ” or similar.  Dull.  Wasteful of these key moments.  Don’t.

I would make two suggestions, depending on context:

If you are in your own culture, begin with a bang. If you have some type of compliment or praise for the listeners, interject it later in the message where it will feel genuine rather than trite.  Give the impression that you intend to waste no time, but rather have something important to share.

If you are visiting another culture, provide a purposeful adjustment phase. I find it is helpful when speaking in a foreign context to begin with a few brief comments expressing my appreciation of their welcome, the heat in comparison to my cold country, or whatever.  I don’t want to undermine my message by beginning with excessive power that might suggest a foreign arrogance.  Neither do I want them to miss the important opening statements as they adjust to my accent.  This introductory phase is limited, purposeful and carefully designed.

The opening sentence of a sermon is critical.  Prepare it carefully, polish it purposefully and practice it repeatedly.

Don’t Jump Right In

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The first moments of a spoken message are critical.  In the first moments your listeners will make a lot of sub-conscious and conscious evaluations of you as a speaker, your apparent integrity, likeability, authority, etc.  One small but effective piece of advice is don’t jump right in.  Before you begin, take some time in a commanding pause where you stand before your listeners and make eye contact with them.  If you are leading the service, pause before preaching.  If you are introduced, then walk purposefully to the stage, put anything on the podium (Bible, notes, watch or whatever), then begin your “eye-contactful purposeful pause.”

This is not a hard and fast rule, but it is good advice.  I remember hearing Luis Palau speaking at a missions conference some years ago.  He was already preaching before he got to the steps up to the stage!  If you trust the sound crew to have your mic working, and if you have both boundless enthusiasm and a super-engaging dynamic persona, then feel free to do this too.  Otherwise, probably better to get set and pause.

One way of ensuring this pause is not rushed is to slowly internally state your opening sentence before you verbally state it.  It may feel strange, but if you begin this way with a calm confidence, listeners will be intently listening when you begin.  If you start like a runner at the gun, eyes down, still putting your notes down, etc., then it will take some time before everyone is listening (and perhaps some never will!)  The first moments of the message matter very much, so make sure nobody misses them.  Begin in a commanding and purposeful manner, don’t jump right in.