How to . . . ?

Since a Spoken Message is the Goal

/ Peter Mead / 4 Comments

If you are a normal preacher then your goal is a spoken message (I know, your goal is really to please God, to see lives transformed, etc., but stay with me for now).  Your goal is probably not to publish your manuscript in a national newspaper, or to collate your manuscript into an anthology for publication, or to edit your manuscript for a preaching journal.  Normal preachers normally just preach the sermon.  (Actually, it is tempting to long for a team of secretaries, personal assistants and editors who will whisk a sermon away and process it into publishable form . . . anyone volunteering time and skill in this area is always welcome, by the way!) So, if normal preachers just preach the sermon, what does this mean?

For one thing, it means that we shouldn’t feel obligated to do all our preparation on paper or word processor.  While we are taught to write and outline and indent and manuscript, perhaps we would benefit from sometimes choosing to speak, record, dictate and map.  Some advocate for a full move over to oral sermon mapping – a move I am not opposed to and may explore more on here in the coming weeks.  But even without abandoning our pens and word processors, we can still benefit from recognizing the potential benefits of greater coherence between preparation and delivery.

There are times in my preparation when I get stuck.  Not confused stuck (although that happens too).  Not uncertain of homiletics stuck (although that also happens).  Stuck, as in, I’m not sure what to do next stuck, I feel like I have a log-jam in my mind stuck.  Maybe your preparations always flow easily and smoothly from beginning to end.  Mine don’t.

I find it very helpful when I do get stuck to step away from the computer (yes, apparently Spurgeon didn’t even have one!), clear my throat, and speak.  Sometimes something that makes sense on paper doesn’t work when spoken.  Equally there are times when things aren’t working on paper, but speaking them through seems to unstick the stuckness.  Sometimes I pray through a message or section of it.  Other times I pray and then preach through as if to human listeners.  Sometimes I will pick up the phone and talk through the logic of the message with someone.  Whether it is in prayer or with prayer, to an imaginary audience or with a responding human, talking seems to help unstick the stuck when preparing a talk.  Funny that.

Incidental Details, None But Plenty

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

The biblical narratives tend to be lean in their writing.  What Luke could write in six, or ten, or twenty-six verses would take a contemporary writer three-hundred pages.  Nevertheless, there are many details tied into the narratives.

There are interesting word choices – such as the word used for “have mercy on me” in Luke 18:9-14.  There are significant passing remarks, like the fact that Mark tells us the grass was green at the feeding of the five thousand.  There are key functions achieved by narratival details, like the angry grumbling of the crowd under the tree in Jericho when Jesus invited himself to Zac’s place.  There are intriguing ways around saying the straight answer, like after the Good Samaritan, the questioner of Jesus can’t bring himself to say the word “Samaritan” in a positive sense.  Or the elder brother in Luke 15 who won’t refer to the younger son as his brother.  There are interesting repetitions, like “he believed” happening twice in twenty-four hours at the end of John 4.  I could go on.

So what to do with such interesting “incidental” details?

One approach is to completely miss them and preach every story as if it is the same as several other stories.  That could apply to a story recorded in several gospels, but sounding the same whatever passage you preach it from.  Or it could apply to a particular story becoming a generic story-type that could be preached from numerous passages.

Another approach is to dismiss them and give some sort of sophisticated sounding explanation of how there is no reason for it to be here, but it shows the human-ness of the author.  Certainly the author was a human, but often a dismissal of detail in Scripture is evidence of nothing more than the preacher’s lack of careful study and thought.

Another approach is to dissect them and preach a series of distinct messages based on separate textual triggers.  In this approach the preacher goes off on a mini-logue about grumbling from the crowds at Zac’s tree, but fails to recognise the inherent thrust of that detail in that particular story.  Often true truth will be preached from the wrong text.

Are there incidental details?  Depends how you view and preach the text.  I appreciate this quote from Flannery O’Connor:

“A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is.”

Exegetical Preaching? Yes and No.

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Some people like exegetical preaching.  Some people don’t.  Most would express an opinion one way or the other.  But actually, what is exegetical preaching?

Do we mean preaching that is based on sound exegesis? If we do, then that should be true of all preaching.  While I know it certainly isn’t true of all preaching, it really should be.  Whether the sermon is a walk-through explanation of a passage, or a topical presentation of several passages, or a carefully constructed character portrait, or a first-person presentation, or an overview of a Bible book or section, or whatever . . . it should be based on exegesis.

Exegesis is about drawing out the meaning that is in a text.  Eisegesis is about reading into a text the meaning you want to impose on it.  Sad to say there is a lot of eisegetical preaching around these days (probably always has been).  Nevertheless, there really isn’t a category of biblical preaching that is somehow good and helpful, but isn’t exegetical.  Whether you are looking at five verses, four separate verses, three chapters or two whole testaments . . . the work underlying the message should be exegetical.  There is no other legitimate way.

Do we mean preaching that meticulously shows every aspect of the exegetical study underlying the message? This is a different matter.  This is a strategy decision on the part of the preacher.  It need not be a once for all decision.  It is strategy.  Is it helpful for me to show some of my work in how I preach this passage to these people on this occasion?  Perhaps letting some of the exegetical work show will demonstrate where I’m getting my message from?  Perhaps letting some show will demonstrate how to handle Scriptures?  Perhaps this is an audience that appreciates a bit of that kind of background?

(But remember, it is always possible to let too much exegetical work show – perhaps drawing attention to your skill and knowledge, or overwhelming the listener, or manipulating the evidence to demonstrate certainty where that is not appropriate, etc.  Some of your exegetical work should probably always remain hidden, not least because you don’t have hours to preach, but also because some aspects are seldom if ever helpful.  People need the fruit of your study, and sometimes they will benefit from seeing some of how you harvested that fruit.)

Exegetical preaching?  The work underlying the message – absolutely yes.  The style of presentation – maybe a bit, maybe no.

Testimonies: A Lasting Impression

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

A testimony can be a very effective element in a church service, a genuine supplement and co-worker to the sermon.  Seeing a “normal” person speak of the difference the gospel has made in their life, or a more contemporary experience of applying the Word, or of living as a lover of a loving God . . . it can be powerful.

Equally, a testimony can leave a lasting impression for all the wrong reasons.  The person is probably not experienced in public speaking.  Consequently the delivery may be anything from engaging in its vulnerability to agonizing in its manner.  Non-public speakers often will struggle to accurately determine amount of content for time available, or suitability of content.

The person leading the service has a responsibility when someone else is at the microphone.  Most of the work of vetting and coaching, of course, should have been done beforehand.  But even so, the MC needs to be able to maintain control of the presentation.  If there is any doubt, then an interview approach will be much safer than handing over the reins completely.

What should go into the coaching and vetting beforehand?  The testifier should be coached to give testimony to a person and what Christ has done for them.  It is easy to slip into affirming something other than Christ.

It is also easy to slip into making personal testimony normative.  “I benefitted so much so I really urge you to…”  Stop!  That’s sliding out of testimony and into preaching.  If the person was asked to give a testimony, there is no reason to be coy about coaching them not to preach.  People giving testimony often seem to struggle in knowing how to stop.  There is the not very effective, “so, yeah, umm, yeah, that is what I wanted to say” type of ending.  No harm done.  But if they slip into the preaching of a sermon to try and tie a bow on what’s been said, it will usually backfire in some way (either with heresy, or discomfort, or undermining the value of the testimony, or whatever).

Just like preaching, many testimonies end with an uncomfortable call for commitment, when actually the motivation already generated by the testimony is simply being lost by such a call.

Let’s think about getting testimony back into church life, for many churches seem to have given up on it.  But for it to work well, it has to be pre-coached.

Behold My New Phone

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

I’d like to revisit the theme of the last two posts from another angle.  Perhaps an analogy might help.  Sitting across from a friend in Pizza Hut, I decide to “preach” my new mobile phone to him.

I place it on the table and say what it says on it.  “Samsung.” Then I describe it a bit, sharing a bit of the knowledge I’ve gleaned in my research.  “It’s a Samsung Galaxy S.  Free with most usage contracts.  It runs Android 2.1 currently, and it’s mostly black.”

Then I construct a message based on the phone.  “You see the N in Samsung?  This makes me think of the iPhone, because that has an N in it too.  The iPhone is very popular now and the new operating system has really improved on the old 3GS, even with all the controversy over the signal dropping.  Now for my next point, do you see the two S’s in the name?  This makes me want to talk about Sony Vaio laptops – they really have come down in price lately, not as elite as they used to appear in the market.”

I could go in any number of directions with “my message” based on the Samsung sitting in front of me.  I could talk about mobile phones, or technology, or communication, or any subject of my choice.  If I could make enough connections to the phone, my friend might even think I was clever!

But all the while my Samsung phone is sitting there, black, dormant, inactive, unused, undemonstrated.  The focus is on my cleverness in message construction, technology association and sheer verbosity.

How different it would be if I would pick it up, turn it on, and show my friend the phone in action, let him see the resolution, experience the new text input method, enjoy an app or two.  Suddenly I’m not preaching my message based on the surface details of the phone.  Now I’m preaching the phone!

The same is true of preaching a Bible text.  Some of us are happy to have the text sit open in front of us while we construct our message based on the text.  We make the most random associations in order to preach from the Bible book we would have preferred to be preaching from.  We jump off relatively incidental details (at least in the way we use them) to get to the message we are itching to share.

All the while the text sits there.  Inspired dynamite ready to be detonated in the hearts and lives of listeners, lying dormant while we wax on eloquently with our message based on the text, sort of.  Can I be so bold as to summarize my point in three words?  Preach the text!

Flat Preaching

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I recently was leading a preaching seminar where participants had the opportunity to preach and receive feedback.  The participant I listened to really did an outstanding job!  He preached the miracle at the end of John 4, and it was not a flat message.

Here’s what I mean.  There are tens of miracles in the gospels.  A lot of them are healings.  Chap with a problem comes to Jesus, Jesus says something, chap  trusts, Jesus heals, happily ever after.  They’re all a bit the same – if you preach them that way!  In reality each account is uniquely written with its own features and characteristics and context and purpose.

So in the miracle at the end of John 4, the writer includes several indicators pointing to his main thought in this unique passage.  He points the reader, consciously or sub-consciously back to John 2 and 3.  He points us back to Jesus’ earlier concern with people trusting in him, but his not entrusting himself to them.  He raises the matter of belief based on signs.  He underlines the issue of belief with a double reference to belief.  The writer is doing something unique in this passage.

So the good preacher will do something unique with this passage.  Actually, the good preacher will do the writer’s something unique with this passage.  (That last sentence probably needs to be read twice, cumbersome but deliberate!)  The task of the preacher is not to come up with their own clever message on the passage, but to really and truly and fairly and powerfully bring out the message of the passage.

How easily we preach a miracle story as just another miracle story.  Human interest problem, solved by Jesus, because Jesus is powerful and is the solution to the underlying sin problem, so let’s ponder the cross.  That’s fine, but sometimes it simply doesn’t honour the unique contours and features of the text itself.  Good preachers do.

In the Airport

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

In the past three posts we have considered sermon conclusions – weak finishes and strong finishes.  We’ve also considered the elements included in the service after the sermon is over.  More could be said on all of these, but I’d like to push the airplane analogy slightly further and prompt our thinking on the post-service aspects of the passenger’s journey.  I mentioned the positive and negative effects of having music playing after the service is concluded.  There are other things to consider.  Whether the analogy works or not is somewhat unimportant, but these thoughts are worth pondering in our churches.

Some passengers want to get out of the plane and airport at breakneck speed – Like it or not, some people just want to, or need to flee from the church once things are over.  It doesn’t help them to make that difficult.  At the same time, no airline I’ve been on will let you leave without a friendly goodbye.  Some churches put a lot of energy into greeting/welcoming teams (a very good idea), but let people slip away without human interaction after the service.  On the other hand, some churches seem to put barriers to people leaving, or create an environment where people are rushed out before they need to be (the preacher at the door shaking hands with everyone can sometimes create an urgency to vacate the building).

Some passengers need to sit down and let it all sink in – This may be a slight stretch, but some airports (I’m thinking more of the US ones), have seats at the gate so passengers can sit down if they need to.  That doesn’t matter, but in church sometimes there is nowhere for someone to sit and soak for a while.  I mentioned the music signal in some places that blasts out an indication that its all over now and its time to interact (at high volume if you want to be heard).  This creates an environment very non-conducive to post-service reflection.

Some passengers need to access further information – I suppose its a bit like finding out about connecting flights, but how do people in church know who to go to in order to find out more?  Is the preacher accessible (or is he stuck at the door shaking hand after hand and smiling at polite feedback?)  Is there a way to get someone to pray with?  What about finding out about other aspects of church life that could be the next step after this service (I wonder about some church notice boards that simply offer a confusing array of meetings at other churches).

Most passengers will want to talk with someone about their journey – In travel world it seems like everyone is ready to say something about what they’ve just experienced (or endured) when they meet a human who actually knows them.  In church world it often seems like everyone is ready to talk about anything but what they’ve just experienced.  But actually, people need to reflect and reinforce and respond in community rather than in isolation.  Does your church encourage that kind of interaction?

After You Finish

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

In the past couple of days we’ve pondered the art of sermon-stopping.  We have thought about weak finishes, and then about the elements in finishing strong.  It certainly is not easy to get the plane down comfortably and effectively.  Now a few thoughts relating to the post-landing phase of the journey.  I suppose that could apply to taxiing (i.e. don’t overdo what you say after you’ve essentially finished).  Actually I’m thinking about what comes after the landing in respect to post-sermon service elements.  (Tomorrow I’ll push this analogy further – perhaps beyond acceptable limits! – and consider what happens when people leave the plane completely – i.e. when the service is fully finished.)

So, after the sermon is over, but still within the confines of the service:

Sometimes it is helpful to have another person wrap things up, sometimes it can be disastrous (I can’t help but think of the “helpful” MC who undoes the impact of a global missions thrust with the typical and deeply annoying “and we can all be missionaries right where we are!” . . . thankfully no-one added that to the end of Matthew’s gospel or we’d never have read the New Testament!)

Sometimes it is helpful to have a closing song, sometimes it is helpful to have a whole set of responsive songs, and sometimes it is better not to allow the singing of a song to help people switch back into their “real world” and leave the sermon behind.

Sometimes its helpful to leave space for silent response, sometimes that is just plain uncomfortable and overkill.

Sometimes quiet music played after can help the contemplative mood, sometimes music blasting out after the meeting can switch people into a frenzied chaos of raised voice fellowship (and the journey is forgotten, I fear!)

That last one is technically post-service . . . which leads me into tomorrow’s post . . .

Finishing Strong

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Yesterday I offered five examples of how to finish weakly as your sermon finishes weekly.  Let’s ponder what makes a conclusion strong:

Elements required in a conclusion – sometimes it is helpful to review the flow of the message, usually it is worth reviewing the main idea and intended applications of the message.  The conclusion is a great opportunity to encourage response to and application of the message.  The conclusion has to include, at some point, the phenomena known as stopping.  Review, encourage, stop.

Elements not required in a conclusion – standard teaching it may be, but worth mentioning nonetheless: generally it is not helpful to introduce new information during the conclusion.  A concluding story?  Maybe that’s ok.  But don’t suddenly throw in a new piece of exegetical insight into the preaching passage, or rush off to another passage for one last bit of sight-seeing.

Finishing the journey – as someone who has flown once or twice, let me continue with the airplane analogy since there are several thoughts that can be shared here.  Passengers who have had a great journey with a bad landing will leave with their focus entirely on the bad landing.  Passengers want the pilot to know where he is going and to take them straight there.  They don’t particularly want the pilot to finish a normal journey with a historic televised adrenaline landing.  Passengers like a smooth landing, but they’ll generally take a slight bump over repeated attempts to find the perfect one.  Once landed, extended taxi-ing is not appreciated.  A good landing that takes you by surprise always seems to have a pleasant effect.

Haddon’s Runway – one approach that I particularly appreciate and find hard to emulate, is Haddon Robinson’s oft-used approach.  It is evident after most Haddon sermons that he carefully planned his final sentence.  He flies the plane until he gets there and then quite naturally the plane lands on that landing strip of just ten to fifteen words and the journey is over.  Smooth, apparently effortless, immensely effective.  As he teaches in class, much better to finish two sentences before listeners think you should than two sentences after!

Tomorrow we’ll consider the post-sermon elements of the service, since these also have an effect on the journey.

Finishing Weak – Part 2

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Yesterday I started a series of four posts on sermon conclusions with a list of weak finishes.  Mike Doyle added a comment with several more examples that were so helpful I decided to include them today and make this a five-part series. I hope nobody minds two negative lists in a row (if you simply invert what is said in these lists, you already have two positive lists in respect to sermon conclusions!)

6. The “Machine Gun” Finish – wildly fire off a hundred different applications in the final minute in the hope of hitting something – no depth, very shallow, badly aimed, rarely hits the target, and often has nothing to do with the passage.

7. The “Salvation by Works” Finish – after preaching the wonders of God’s grace in Jesus Christ – undermine that grace by throwing doubt on the their own salvation because of their sin or not doing the application you suggest.

8. The “Left Field” Finish – where the conclusion and/or application has very little to do with the passage, your sermon, or anything else.

9. The “Not Again” Finish – where (for some funny reason) the conclusion is the same as every other conclusion you’ve given for the last 3 years – it also happens to be your hobby horse, and is often one of pray more, give more, evangelise more, read the bible more and come to church more.

Thanks, Mike, for adding these to the list – very helpful!

If I could just add some more to the growing list, what about…

10. The “Gospel out of Nowhere” Finish – where the preacher feels the absence of the gospel in the message and so levers it in at the conclusion without any sense of connection to what has gone before.  (To a thinking listener, this may feel a little forced and intellectually inconsistent.)

11. The “Tear Jerker” Finish – which is similar to the “overly climactic” one listed yesterday, but this is where the speaker seeks to cement emotional response by throwing in a random and largely disconnected tear jerker of a story (perhaps involving a child, an animal, a death, or whatever).  Strapped to this emotional bomb, the preacher hopes the truth of the message will strike home (even though in reality the truth will probably be smothered in the disconnected emotion of the anecdote).