Homiletics

One Critical Conviction

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

conviction2A preaching ministry is built on a whole set of convictions.  Convictions about God, the Gospel, about people, about ministry.  It is right that we let these convictions grow over time as we spend time in the Bible, and learn from mentors, from experience, from life.  In this post I’d like to flag up one of these convictions.

Here it is: God is a good communicator.

This seems so obvious, but so many build a preaching ministry without this conviction in place.  Here are some implications of this conviction to ponder:

1. No matter how clever you are, what you can make it say is not as good as what God made it say.  So do your best to preach what the text is saying.  Do your best to let the details, and also the form of the text influence how you preach it.  Try not to just say what it says, but also to do what it does.  Seek to re-create the effect and the affect of the text!

2. Our job is not to make the Bible interesting.  Whatever other good reasons there are for using “illustrations” in your preaching, this is not one of them.  We should seek to explain, prove and apply as well and as interestingly as we can, but first of all we must be gripped with enthusiasm for God and His Word if we are to communicate it with any contagious influence.  Simply trying to add interesting material like spicing a bland steak is not our calling.

3. We do not make the Bible relevant, we demonstrate and emphasize its relevance.  All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful.  All of it.  Our task is to help people see that.

4. Reading the Bible is not a curse.  Forget preaching it for a moment, some of us seem intent on convincing Christians that reading the Bible is a negative thing.  I’ve heard well-meaning Christians teach that it is hard to enjoy the Bible, so just go for the smallest goals possible.  If we give the impression that reading the Bible is a drudgery that can only be achieved by courageous acts of self-determination, then let’s not be surprised if people don’t spend much time in it.

God is a good communicator.  That conviction is critical for effective preaching.

Love Your Church

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church fuzzy2To be an effective preacher you need to love your local church.  It is not enough to love the church in general.  Even if your ministry takes you to other places, still it is healthy to love your local church.  (I know that it is not our church or my church, it is Christ’s, but let’s go with this terminology for the sake of this post.)

It is the people in your own local church who know you, who pray for you, who know your family and care for them.  It is the people in your own local church who will sense when something is not right in your life.  It is these people who will speak the truth to you, even when you don’t want to hear it.

Of course, there are complexities.  The local church can become an antagonistic environment.  It can become both a source and a threat to your livelihood.  Receiving a salary from your local church means that you can be fired, or opposed, or any number of other challenges.  Nevertheless, it is important to love your local church.

It is not enough to love the church in general.  It is unwise and ungodly to love the income, the respect you get, or the power you develop. It is possible to use your local church position to get power or respect both within that church, and more widely.  We have to be wary of using the church instead of loving it.

So we need to love our local church.  Why? Because God loves it.  This is the local expression of the Bride of Christ and God is at work there.  This is the local gathering of believers that need not only your gifting, your time, your contibutions and your energy, they also and preeminently need your love.  You can work fifty or sixty hours per week, preach and lead multiple meetings, visit people in their homes or in the hospital, give of your time, gifting and energy, but if you do not have love you have nothing.

Maybe it is really obvious. Or maybe this has become your greatest challenge in ministry.  Maybe you are feeling loved and encouraged, or maybe you are feeling beaten up and ready to quit.  Whatever the circumstance, it is vital to look to Christ and to love your local church.

10 Pointers for Preaching a Touchy Issue

/ Peter Mead / 4 Comments

10 target 8bSometimes we have to preach something that is potentially controversial or that may not go down too well.  Here are ten pointers to help when that is necessary.

1. Know yourself.  Some preachers like to ruffle others all the team.  Other preachers never ruffle anyone.  Know your default and beware if you are at either extreme.

2. Be so biblical the argument is with the Bible, not with you.  It is tempting to make polemic statements, but there is much greater authority if you present a solid biblical case.

3. Look for ways to deconstruct first so that the Bible answer is needed.  On the other hand, it is tempting to blast with the Bible, but it is better to show the need for the biblical case before presenting it.

4. Use story to get past defenses.  When a subject is potentially hard to take, take a lesson from Nathan’s approach to King David.  He was able to present painfully personal conviction without a defensive reaction through the telling of a compelling story.  Remember that effective use of narrative can bring down the defenses of your listeners.

5. Love the people.  When you bark at them, they sense you don’t love them.  Then the issue will not be your content.

6. Build connections.  Jesus had some tough things to say to several of the seven churches in Revelation 2-3.  He did not jump straight into rebuke.  He built that on a foundation of “I know you!”  This can be relational, or it can be manipulative.  That probably depends on your motivation.

7. Drip feed whenever possible.  Does the issue have to be hit head-on this Sunday?  As someone wisely said about preaching in general, ‘we tend to overestimate what we can achieve in one message, but underestimate what will be achieved through five years of biblical preaching.’

8. Understand why they are where they are.  It is relatively easy to go after an issue, but to be effective in this pursuit we have to understand why people are where they are.

9. Don’t do everything from the pulpit.  A lot of issues in the church are complex, but we can easily fall into thinking that our only output is from the pulpit.   Could you gain more traction in a one-on-one conversation?

10. Pray.  The most important in the place of final emphasis. There is a lot that can be done outside of preaching – conversation, interaction, etc. But the greatest element of any change will come not from our confrontation of it, but from our expressed absolute dependence on God to bring about the change.

Here are some other 10 Pointer posts for you to check out:

Younger Preachers / Older Preachers

Seminary Trained Preachers / No Formal Training Preachers

Evangelistic Preaching / Special Occasion Preaching

Planning a Preaching Calendar / Planning a Preaching Series

Why We Pray

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

PrayingHands5The church is the greatest news story, even though it is never reported.  Lives are changed, peoples are united, society is helped, and preaching is at the heart of all of it.  But preaching is not inherently powerful.

The church is not a society generated by, united through, and stirred to give of itself by human social engineering.  It is possible to produce something by the skill of natural man as we exhort, encourage, celebrate and direct from the front.  But ultimately preaching is not the true story because the church is not about sales technique, social engineering, or motivational speech.

The true church is supernatural and therefore the true story of the church is the story of God at work. God opens blind hearts to see the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  God unites believers as the Spirit unites their spirits with Christ and with each other.  God’s love spills over from churches that are loved by Him so that His love can make a mark in society through social care and moral influence.

Preaching the Word of God is at the heart of the life of the church, but preaching in and of itself is not powerful.  And that is why we pray.

The Story of 3 Great Unions

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Union with Christ is becoming a fashionable term in church world.  Some are recognizing the significance of the term, seeing it as the framework in which all of salvation theology makes sense.  Others are using it because others are using it.

Yet the term is used in a variety of ways.  Some will speak of an ecstatic union where the human soul ascends into some sort of beyond revelation intersection with an unspeaking God.  Others will use union with Christ as a label for the legal position achieved by the atonement wherein the sinful soul is counted free and just through association with Christ.  Still others will speak of a true union where the believer is truly united by the Holy Spirit to Christ in a marital relationship.

While the term may be used in these three different ways with varying levels of merit, there are actually three unions we should ponder biblically:

1. The union of God with God. The Bible gives us a glorious glimpse into the Trinity, the perfect union of Father and Son by the Spirit that overflows in creation. When the Fall follows we naturally ask what will this God do?

(The Promise – This God promises to defeat sin and death, to send a deliverer who is the Son, and ultimately to achieve a marriage-like connection with humanity.)

2. The union of God and man in Jesus.  God sending His Son is the great hinge of history. The Son of God remained fully God, while becoming fully man.  This perfect union of God and man in the person of Jesus means that he is fully God, fully man, fully one, forever.  In this person we see humanity rescued and drawn to God at the cross of Calvary.

(The Promise fulfilled – God said He would deal with sin and death, and He did.  So now we can experience the first phase of the fulfillment plan:)

3. The union of God and man in the Spirit. The Son of God didn’t just become one of us to die for us, He also became one of us to enable us to be united to Him in a spiritual marriage.  Now we can taste something of the wonder of being made one Spirit by the Spirit – one with Christ.  One day this spiritual marriage will be consummated at the end of human history!

When we preach, let’s not fall into a mere status presentation of the Gospel, nor a hypothetical ideal version of ecstatic union with God.  Instead let’s keep front and centre this glorious progress of three unions that tell the wonderful story of God’s great plan.

WEST-Union-SliderSince this post made much of the theological theme of Union with Christ, I thought I’d take the opportunity to push your attention towards the growing resources available at Union.  Please be sure to take a look at UnionTheology.org for some great resources, as well as Union School of Theology if you are considering pursuing further education.

7 Ideas for Creativity in Series Planning

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Number7bI believe in preaching series through books of the Bible.  I do it.  I teach others to do it.  But I think we could all do with some extra creativity when it comes to planning a series.

Andy Stanley makes the helpful point that many messages should in fact be series.  That is, we can try to cram too much into a single message.  This is only compounded when we try to preach a series through a whole book.  After all, we will typically end up with substantial length texts each week.  For the listener this can be both overwhelming and potentially repetitive.

But there are other potential issues too.  Think of preaching through Habakkuk for an example.  It naturally falls into three parts – a question with God’s answer, followed by another question with God’s answer, and then Habakkuk’s final declaration of trust.  But there is a possible problem here.  The first question and its answer is frighteningly negative.  It prompted Habakkuk to respond.  It will prompt us to respond as we hear it. So do we then sit and stew on this for a week before part two of the series?

Keeping with Habakkuk as a focus, how might we do a series with some creativity?

1. Preach the whole in one.  This can make a good introduction or conclusion to a series.  Help people to see the whole picture and not just the parts.

2. Dwell in a specific section.  In Habakkuk you could take the woes of chapter 2 and see them play out in several messages, always rooted in Habakkuk, but letting them probe our world as well as his with more penetration.

3. Chase the use.  Habakkuk is used in some key moments later in the canon of Scripture – not least the quotes of Habakkuk 2:4 in Romans, Galatians and Hebrews.  Why not take a message or two to chase how Habakkuk influenced the rest of the Bible?

4. Dig into the sources.  What earlier Old Testament texts form the “informing theology” of Habakkuk’s book?  Perhaps it is worth digging a bit and seeing what could be done with a chase upstream through the Bible to see what fed into his thinking?

5. Place the book in a broader biblical theology.  Habakkuk raises issues about suffering and divine providence.  Perhaps it is worth seeing where his contribution fits with the other key building blocks – the story of Joseph, Job, Romans 8, etc.  This could help listeners place the book in a larger framework.

6. Preach in first person.  Sometimes this is the best way to demonstrate how alive a text is.  Maybe take the audience back there to his world, or bring him to today to make careful commentary on ours.  First person preaching is not easy, but when done well it is also not easily forgotten.

7. Trace a theme or two.  As well as working through a book chunk by chunk, it may be helpful to trace a key theme through the book, and then another week trace another key theme.  Help people to see the beauty of single grains as in a plank, as well multiple grains in the cross-cut text.

With a prayed-through blend of creativity and traditional single passage exposition, Habakkuk could become a more compelling and effective 6 or 8-week series than it might have been as a traditional 3-week walk through.

Rigor and Response

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

hardwork2Last week I had the opportunity to interview John Piper.  At one point we were talking about the preacher’s emotional response to the text.  I appreciated John Piper’s perspective on this.

Gordon Fee, as well as others, have pointed out that we don’t want the people in our churches having devotional engagement with the Bible that is not exegetically on target.  And that our people don’t need preachers who are exegetical without being devotional as they study the Bible.  All true biblical interpretation should be devotional as well as exegetical.

But John Piper’s perspective was helpful to me.  Absolutely, the preacher should have their heart stirred in the study.  However, he said, there will be times when the exegetical rigor is not heart-stirring.  You may be wrestling with technicalities in the Greek construction of a sentence for a couple of hours.  You may be wading through technical commentaries weighing up interpretive options.  The exegetical rigor may not be heart-stirring during the process, but the fruit of it had better be heart-stirring!

Do we make sure we are not transitioning into message preparation until we are not only thinking clearly of the passage, but also feeling deeply moved by it?

A Bible Soaking

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BibleMug2Yesterday evening a group of us enjoyed four and a half hours of Bible reading together.  No preaching, just reading.  We read John’s Gospel, and then from James through to Revelation.  We paused briefly to share reflections three or four times, followed by brief comfort breaks, but otherwise kept reading.

Here are a few reasons why I think mini-marathons like this one, or even longer Bible reading marathons are a great idea for your church:

1. It is good to experience Bible books as a whole, instead of only ever hearing them in shorter sections.  For example, the letters were written to be heard in one go.  We can easily lose the overall flow when we only ever focus on one section at a time.

2. It is good for people to experience Bible reading “in the zone.”  To put it another way, even the most diligent Bible in a year reader may only ever experience reading the Bible during the relatively noisy first 10-15 minutes.  A Bible marathon is a group experience of reading beyond that noise and enjoying the feast that comes when you are reading “in the zone” (i.e. focused).

3. It is good to have a proper soaking.  Most people live in a noisy and busy world these days. This means it is difficult to carve out longer chunks of time to pursue God in His Word.  A Bible marathon like this is like a spiritual spa, allowing the washing with the water of the Word to cleanse at a deeper level.

4. It is good to enjoy God together.  Too often Bible reading is treated as a lone ranger experience, but it is good to have the gentle spur to focus of being in the group.  Last night our group included an 11-year-old, as well as a student who is rarely home.  Another time maybe we will get someone who struggles to read (and can therefore enjoy listening), or a brand new Christian, or someone in a highly pressurized career, or whatever . . . every group will be special because of the individuals involved, because of the group dynamic, and mostly because of the God we are encountering in His Word!

If you want to know how long books take to read out loud, here is a helpful list.  Dr Garry Friesen has some helpful guidelines here.

Praying Your Way to the Pulpit

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

PrayingBible2Sometimes it feels like we are living in an age of prayerless and therefore relatively powerless ministry.  We live in an age of increasing noise and preachers crave efficient preparation.  In this post I would like to narrate the journey from passage to pulpit in terms of prayer.  Maybe this can help nudge us toward the kind of preaching we all want to experience.

“What Shall I Preach?” – before the process of preparing a message can really begin, we have to select the passage or passages that we will study and preach.  New preachers tend to get stuck at this stage.  “Lord, give me a good sense of what they need to hear,” combined with “Father, stir my heart for Christ so I can preach out of the overflow of my own heart,” should help with picking a text or texts.  If necessary add this, “Ok Lord, I’m struggling to pick, so on Tuesday evening I am going to make a choice – would you please be in that decision!”

In the study – Now it is time to turn off all distractions and get alone with God and the Bible.  Your goal is to understand the text, and to meet with God personally.  “My Father, please give me eyes to see the meaning of this text as you intended when you inspired it.  And please give me eyes to see your heart revealed in this text.  And please change my heart in the process.  Give me determination to do the work necessary with the passage, and may the fruit of this study so stir and lift my heart that I am deeply changed…”

Before you move into message mode – You have the fruit of your study, and now you consciously reintroduce the listeners to your prayers again.  “O Lord, I am thankful for what this text has already done in my heart, but now I pray for my listeners.  I don’t love them as you do, please give me your heart for them.  How can the main idea of this text be a gift from you to them this Sunday?”

Shaping the message – It is time to form and shape the message – it’s purpose, main idea, structure and detail.  “Our Father, I so want this message to communicate with the hearts of my listeners.  Please give me wisdom to know how I can shape this message as an act of love for them.” And as you go, detail by detail, “Lord, will Steve understand it if I put it that way?” and “Father, you know how Sarah is hurting at the moment, how can I say that sensitively for her sake?”

Delivery time – Both before and during delivery we can be praying continually, even if only in arrow prayers…“May we see you!” and “Protect us from distractions,” and “Help the guys on sound to sort that annoying hum,” and “Guard my heart heart from pride in this,” and “I feel like I’m rushing, help me pace this better,” and “Lord, John seems troubled,” and “Protect us from the evil one,” and “Lord only you can give them eyes to see the glory of your grace in this,” and “Change lives, Lord!” and so on.

Preaching is about exegesis and communication and pastoral care and evangelism and leadership and discipleship . . . but it should be preeminently about prayer.