The Preacher & Prayer

July 21, 2007December 18, 2007 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Sometimes the obvious needs stating. Preachers should be pray-ers. While it may be possible to follow a procedure and produce a sermon, we must never lose sight of the fact that it is not possible to achieve life transformation unless God is at work. Thus, we need to be on our knees. I could leave it at that, but let me give some examples of how I stimulate my own prayer life regarding ministry (although I know I could do so much more):

1. Pre-prep prayer. Before planning the preaching calendar, and then before preparing a series or a specific message, pray. For example, while driving I will sometimes mentally survey through forthcoming ministry in my mind and pray for each meeting. I might cover three to six months worth of varied ministry in a decent length car journey.

2. Pew and pulpit prayer. Before moving into the role I have now, I was in a more normal local church situation. This meant I could go to the church and run through my message on the platform. I know some preachers who like to pray through their notes as preparation, which is a good option. For me it works well to actually preach through the message and then pray about it. So after preaching it through I would spend time pacing the platform, praying for the meeting, then sitting in the pews and praying for the people who would be there. It is easy to be specific in the prayer when you can see in your mind the people who will be sitting there. (It is not so easy to do this when you preach in different churches, or your church meets in a rented facility. To be honest, I miss these times.)

3. Pre-preaching prayer. Before the sermon, if possible, I like to be near the back of the room. That way I can be thinking through the message and praying for the specific people who are present. Unfortunately some churches expect the speaker to sit on the front pew, or even worse, to run the whole meeting.

Just three of many many possibilities. I’d love to read what other preachers do, please comment. Whatever you do, may you be like James the brother of Jesus, aka camel knees.

Pointers for Points

July 20, 2007 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

The preacher’s outline is a representation of his thought structure. It is the skeleton on which the flesh of the preaching content lives. The main chunks, or movements, in a message are often referred to as the “points” of the sermon. Assuming you write an outline, here are a few pointers that may help your points:

1. Write each point as a complete sentence. It is tempting to write a title describing the content of the section of text, just as a commentary might. Often such titles are not full sentences. Each main point in a sermon is an idea in its own right (a sub-idea in relation to the main idea, if you will), so it should be a complete sentence – not incomplete or vague. Writing a sermon and writing a commentary are different tasks.

2. Write each point applicationally. This means a declarative statement, rather than a question or functional description (like a commentary). By forcing yourself to write the point as a complete sentence that is targeted at the lives of your listeners, you are maintaining the connection between text and audience throughout the message. In many sermons there is no advantage in saving the application just for the end. Stronger connection equals stronger message.

3. Write each point to support the main idea. Each point in a message is a complete idea, but it is not a stand-alone idea. It’s role is to support the main idea of the message.

4. Remember that the outline is for you. The outline is for you, not for them, so think carefully before making your points show. Full and applicational sentences communicate well, but incomplete and vague thoughts, if stated, make the skeleton stick out. Fashions may change, but bony is not attractive.

5. Remember the importance of transitions. Since they are hearing, rather than reading the message, you must give real attention to the transitions that move the message between points.

Good Preaching Isn’t Just Bible Explanation

July 19, 2007 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

The importance of relevance and application in preaching can hardly be understated. I recently came across this quote that I feel is worthy of our attention:

Good preaching begins in the Bible, but it doesn’t stay there. It visits the hospital and the college dorm, the factory and the farm, the kitchen and the office, the bedroom and the classroom.

Good preaching invades the world in which people live, the real world of tragedy and triumph, loveliness and loneliness, broken hearts, broken homes, and amber waves of strain. Good preaching invades the real world, and it talks to real people—the high-school senior who’s there because he’s dragged there; the housewife who wants a divorce; the grandfather who mourns the irreversibility of time and lives with a frantic sense that almost all the sand in the hourglass has dropped; the farmer who is about to lose his farm, the banker who must take it from him; the teacher who has kept her lesbianism a secret all these years; the businessman for whom money has become a god; the single girl who hates herself because she’s fat. Good preaching helps them do business with God; it helps them interpret their own human experience, telling them what in their heart of hearts they already know, and are yearning to hear confirmed.

Louis Lotz, “Good Preaching,” Reformed Review 40 (Autumn 1986) 38.

Is Application in the Preacher’s Job Description?

July 18, 2007 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Some people mistakenly suggest that the preacher has to “make the Bible relevant.” While this suggestion may be well-intentioned, it is unhelpful. The Bible is relevant. The preacher has to “demonstrate the Bible’s relevance.” Expository preaching, by its very nature, includes the task of application.

Some claim that the preacher’s task is merely to explain the Scripture, but the task of application can be left to the Holy Spirit. I don’t know how many times I heard preachers say, “Now may the Spirit of God apply to our hearts the truth of His word” as a conclusion to a “sermon.” Hershael York and others have pointed out the inconsistency of this position.

There is a cultural and historical gap between the then and the now. Sidney Greidanus refers to four elements of distance between the Bible and today’s listener: time, culture, geography and language. Whose task is the translation of the Scriptures? Whose task is the exegesis of the Scriptures? The Holy Spirit and humans work together in the translation of the Bible into a contemporary language. The Holy Spirit and the preacher must work together in the accurate exegesis of the passage. In the same way, both the Holy Spirit and the preacher are involved in the application of the passage.

The Holy Spirit does work through the Word in the lives of the listeners. But if the preacher is not also involved in that task, then I suppose we should be more consistent. Instead of preaching, perhaps we should just read the passage and sit down. Oh, and we should probably read the passage out in Hebrew or Greek. Application of the passage is very much in our job description!

Question: Should We Cover More in Our Sermons?

July 17, 2007 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Following on from yesterday’s post, I want to address the issue of “covering more.” Here’s the question again:

In the Church today, we find that most preachers preach for 30-60 minutes on one topic or passage. Indeed, many will take a few verses and preach on them at length.

The examples we have in the bible of Jesus’ sermons show a very different way of preaching. He seemed to cover many topics in every sermon. For instance the ‘Sermon on the mount’ covers a range of things but preachers these days tend to just take one section of it and preach for an hour on that section.

Is there any validity, in your opinion, to the idea that we labour points too long and actually ought to cover more in our sermons?

Peter M responds:

Preaching on one passage – Expository preaching does not require a preacher to stay in one passage. It is possible to have an expository sermon that goes to several passages. Yet to deal with each passage as one should tends to make the process overwhelming. I always encourage preachers to deal with one passage more fully, rather than skipping around unnecessarily. There are reasons to refer to other passages, but for some preachers it seems this is a standard practice. I suggest it is usually better to stay put in one place. This does not mean boring preaching though. The preacher should be as engaging and interesting as possible. It takes some skill to demonstrate the relevance and interest in a passage. It is better to develop that skill than to hide the lack of it by jumping around the canon.

The example of NT sermons – We can learn a lot by analyzing the sermons recorded in the New Testament. There are different sermon forms used, clear awareness of differing audiences, and so on. Yet it is important to remember that while the written form represents the original accurately, it is not an exhaustive transcription. I suspect Peter preached for longer than a couple of minutes at Pentecost, and Jesus’ “sermon on the mount” was probably not delivered as it stands in our Bibles. So it might not be wise to try to recreate the Sermon on the Mount. At the same time recognize that it is not as random as many suspect. What seems to be one subject after another, may actually be one illustration or application after another. For example, notice the repetitive pattern in Matthew 5:21-48 – do we have five new subjects or five specific applications of the same principle?

Amount of content in a sermon – I am not an advocate for “dumbing down” sermons or “salad preaching” (no meat). A message should have an appropriate amount of content at the right level of weightiness for the listeners present. Yet the goal is to communicate the main idea of the passage in order to achieve the purpose of the message. The goal is not to impress people with content (sadly, for some preachers, this is their goal). This wrong goal is often encouraged as some listeners tend to affirm dense preaching despite their own inability to take it in!

Some preachers should cover more, others would do well to cover less. There is no standard rule, but the passage and the audience are both significant factors in determining how much content, both breadth and depth, should be covered in one message.

Question: Do We Labor Points Too Long?

July 16, 2007July 16, 2007 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Question submitted to the site last week by Peter P:

In the Church today, we find that most preachers preach for 30-60 minutes on one topic or passage. Indeed, many will take a few verses and preach on them at length.

Is there any validity, in your opinion, to the idea that we labour points too long and actually ought to cover more in our sermons?

Peter M responds:

Interesting question, thanks for asking it. Someone once said to preachers, “If after ten minutes you haven’t struck oil, stop boring!” Here are a few thoughts on the subject of sermon length, then tomorrow I’ll consider the issue of “covering more” in our sermons.

The solution to poor expository preaching – I usually suggest that preachers are better off focusing more on one passage and one main idea. However, it is fair to say that many preachers do make sermons and sermon points drag on too long! I think uninteresting preaching is a travesty. However, the solution to poor expository preaching is not non-expository preaching, but better expository preaching.

Sermon length – I don’t want to say too much, but a couple of comments may be helpful. I don’t think there is a “correct” sermon length. The local situation is a major factor in this, but another factor is the preacher’s ability. Some people say that people today cannot take a sermon longer than 30 minutes. I think this is a generalization. In reality people can and will do so happily, but only if the preacher is thoroughly engaging and effective. So the length of a sermon will depend on local cultural expectations (try preaching “short” in some non-western cultures!), and on preacher ability. I rarely hear a preacher than can go for an hour effectively, but there are some.

How long should a point be laboured? – My answer would be not at all, but how long should a point be preached? The nature of oral delivery requires a certain amount of time and explanation, as well as restatement, to allow a thought to form in the minds of the listeners. I was taught at least 3-5 minutes. Yet this does not mean five minutes of “labouring.” There are many tools available for communicating a point – statement, restatement, repetition, explanation, support, illustration, application and so on. So there’s no need to labour a point, but effective oral communicators know that it takes lots of planning ahead of time and some time in delivery for a point to truly do its work of forming a clear idea in the listeners’ minds.

Tomorrow I’ll give some thoughts on the example of NT sermons and the amount of content in a sermon.

Review: The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative, by Steven D. Mathewson

July 15, 2007 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

There are many preaching books, but only a handful I recommend wholeheartedly. This is one of them. Mathewson’s passion for the many narrative passages in the Old Testament is contagious. His passion for the effective preaching of these passages is greatly needed today. This is especially the case while significant preachers continue to view Old Testament narratives as primarily illustrative material, rather than preaching texts.

Mathewson’s work is widely researched, with significant influences including Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical Narrative and Haddon Robinson’s Biblical Preaching.

The first of the three sections in the book is concerned with hermeneutics – how to move from the selection of a text to a focused central concept. The second section is more focused on the homiletical process – how to move from the central concept to the sermon. This section is strongly influenced by Robinson’s methodology and serves as a very helpful clarification on that method. While Robinson’s book is succinct and well-written, Mathewson’s presentation of the ten-stage approach with a specific focus will help the reader understand Robinson’s methodology more fully.

Mathewson’s explanation of biblical narrative forms support his central idea of developing sermons using the flow of the story, rather than a forced and rigid analytical presentation.

The third and final section of the book contains five example sermons from Mathewson, Donald Sunukjian, Paul Borden, Haddon Robinson and Alice Mathews. These are helpful in a variety of ways, although no example sermon can ever be perfect. There are also a couple of appendices – one on Hebrew plot analysis (for Hebrew trained preachers with a lot of time on their hands) and one on helpful commentaries.

There are many books on preaching, but I’ve yet to find one that can match Mathewson in terms of dealing with Old Testament narratives. This book is worth buying, reading and considering carefully. Having read this, you might also be inspired to read Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical Narrative, if you have not done so already. Two strong recommendations in one review – I would apologize to your bank balance, but these two books would be money well spent.

Purpose and Preaching

July 14, 2007October 30, 2007 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Defining the purpose of a message is not an easy task. It is important, but generally neglected. Let me share three steps that may be helpful, followed by a quote from someone in the know.

1 – Study the text. Seems obvious, but it cannot be omitted.

2 – Determine original author’s purpose. What did he intend to be the effect in the lives of the original recipients? We often study content, but not intent. We study the meaning of the author, but not his motivation. It is important to determine both as well as possible. There will be clues in the text, in the historical context, and in the tone of writing (contrast Galatians with Ephesians, for example).

3 – Determine your sermon’s purpose. This may be the same, or similar to that of the original author. For me this is the default position that I move away from by choice rather than by accident. The choice to move is influenced by prayerful consideration of my listeners. Perhaps they don’t need the same effect in their lives. I would not want to automatically rebuke every church to whom I preach Galatians. The developmental questions can help in this. The author may have focused on explanation, proof or application, but my people may need a different balance of these three approaches to the main idea. Application, if specific to our listeners, will certainly feel different to that in the original context.

Haddon Robinson said the “ultimate test of purpose is why are you preaching this sermon? How would you know if people in the congregation embraced the truth of this? What would you expect to see in their lives? What would this mean if they took this seriously? Most expository preachers don’t ask that question . . . without a purpose the sermon just lies there. Progress is lost without purpose.”

In reference to being specific, he asks, “Suppose someone took you seriously. What would they be able to do . . . ?”

Purpose-Driven Preaching

July 13, 2007October 30, 2007 / Peter Mead / 4 Comments

Sometimes a term is used so much that it loses its sparkle. We live in a day when everything seems to be “purpose- driven.” However, many sermons are still preached without a clearly defined purpose. Jay Adams begins his book Preaching With Purpose with these words:

“The amazing lack of concern for purpose among homileticians and preachers has spawned a brood of preachers who are dull, lifeless, abstract and impersonal; it has obscured truth, hindered joyous Christian living, destroyed dedication and initiative, and stifled service for Christ.”

Perhaps it is better to avoid the term “Purpose-Driven,” but as preachers we can’t avoid the consequences if we neglect this critical element of biblical preaching. As you prepare your next sermon, write down a clear and specific statement of your sermon’s purpose.

Quoted: Jay Adams, Preaching With Purpose, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan), 1.

Peter has commented on this post.

When Your Preparation Hits a Brick Wall

July 12, 2007 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I’m sure I am not the only preacher who sometimes, perhaps regularly, hits a brick wall during preparation. What can you do when the words are no longer coming, and your brain is starting to give you cause for concern?

1. Do something else. Profoundly obvious, but it is easy to feel obliged to stay put and strive fruitlessly. Perhaps this is your allotted time for this stage of sermon preparation, so you feel obligated to endure. But when the brain is stuck, it can be unstuck by something else. Perhaps switching to a different part of the sermon preparation will help, maybe thinking through possible illustrations, or writing a rough draft of the conclusion. Perhaps you should switch to other work and come back to the sermon (be careful not to just procrastinate though, switch to stimulate your thinking again). Perhaps you should take an energizing trip to the gym, or pick up your guitar for a few minutes. Get the brain unstuck.

2. Discuss the sermon. Sometimes hours and hours of study can be helped beyond belief by a brief discussion of the sermon. Perhaps another preacher might help. I find a brief chat with Mike helps no end. Try to find someone you know will help either through their input or their ability to listen and probe carefully. Perhaps your spouse. Perhaps a pre-arranged group from the congregation.

3. Deliver the sermon. Somehow the link between brain and pen is different than the link between brain and tongue. Sometimes it helps to stand up with an open Bible and just preach the message. Verbalizing the message may release the jam and allow the study to flow. Having done this, it is important to get back to the outline, manuscript, or whatever, and not just rely on a good “practice run.”

4. Doze or get a full night. The mind can get overwhelmed and slow down just like my computer. But the wonder of God’s creation is that the brain can defragment as we sleep. I rarely take power naps, but some people swear by them. If it’s late, take a full night’s sleep and come back to the message in the morning. Sometimes when it is not time to sleep yet, I’ll leave the message, but review my sticking point right before retiring to bed (but don’t do that if you suffer from insomnia).

5. Divine help, obviously. Of course, firstly, lastly, throughoutly, be in prayer about the passage, the personal application of it, the sermon and so on. Preaching is a profoundly spiritual endeavor and it would be totally wrong to omit this point. However, it would be naïve to only include this point. Sometimes God helps us through prayer, plus a trip to the gym, or a good sleep!