How to . . . ?

Preacher’s Block

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Years ago I read Heralds of God by James Stewart.  I just read a response paper sent to me by a friend.  It’s time I read the book again. He reminded me of Stewart’s advice regarding preacher’s block, or those times when artistic inspiration simply is not flowing, but discouragement is pouring in like a flood.

It is too easy to listen to our moods.  It is too simple to await the great thoughts before we begin.  Stewart quotes Quiller-Couch, “These crests [of inspiration] only arise on the back of constant labour.”  How true it is that moments of inspiration tend to reflect hours of perspiration.

I have a lot of preparation to do this week.  How easy it is to allow the flesh to control the process and wile away the hours with relatively meaningless tasks while awaiting some flash of divine enablement.  Can I trust the Lord to enable me as I graft at the preparation?  Bend the knee and pray.  Pick up the book and read.  Take up the pen and write.  Stretch out the fingers and type.  Simple really, but how easy to justify another path.

One Simple Truth, One Wonderful Christ

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I am sitting in the airport waiting for my ride home, so this will be a short and jet-lagged post (or perhaps a long and jet-lagged post since shorter is always harder!)

How easy it is in preaching to give too much information and not enough of the Lord.  Listeners are more easily overwhelmed with information than we realize.  We have processed information and refined it, allowing us to present a lot of information in a short amount of time (shorter than it took us to understand it!)  So it is very easy to overwhelm our listeners with more than they can take in while trying to listen at the same time!

We can easily pack sermons with information, with background material, even with the often lauded illustrations and applications, but still make very little of Christ (or of any person in the Triune God we worship).  So easy to default into speaking about us, but not really offering Him to our listeners.

While every sermon is different, somehow we need to present one simple truth, an understandable principle, while at the same time offering the compelling and captivating God of the Bible (lest we turn His self-revelation into a mere manual for effective living).

Application Is Not Always Last

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Traditionally preaching means reading a text, explaining it at length and then eventually fitting in a block of application if time permits.  Practically that is rarely the best approach.  If emphasizing the relevance of the text is as much a part of our task as explaining the text (but necessarily requiring the explanation in order to have any authority), then we need to think about how to increase the sense of relevance in our preaching.  A few thoughts:

1. By explaining as much as necessary, but not over-explaining, we create time for application. It is tempting to try to present all the proof of our study, every nugget, whenever we preach.  It takes a commitment to application to only explain as much as necessary and use the rest of the time to target emphasizing the relevance to our listeners.

2. By stating our points and main idea in “us” terms, we drive relevance to the surface (and drive it deeper into the listeners). It doesn’t take much to state the point in relevant terms, then step back into the world of the text to explain and support that wording, following up again with an emphasis on relevance.  Instead of sounding like we’re preaching a commentary, instead we can sound like we’re speaking directly to our listeners.

3. If the main idea is the take home truth, why wouldn’t we try to put it in “us” terms? It may not always work, but often the main idea of the message can be stated relevantly, rather than historically or in abstract form.  This is the synopsis of the whole that we really want seared into the lives of our listeners.

4. Introduce relevance in the introduction. Don’t presume people are desperate for a sermon on 2nd Chronicles 13.  They probably didn’t come with that on their minds.  So use the introduction to demonstrate the relevance of the passage, the message, the speaker.

5. Even in explanation, season with relevance. It doesn’t take much time to drop in comments relating the back then to today.  Even the briefest of comparisons in the telling of an ancient narrative can shed contemporary light and give the sense of relevance to the listeners.

Application logically comes last in a message.  But if our goal is effective preaching, we’ll look for ways to integrate applicaton (in its various forms) and relevance throughout the message.

Application Is Not Always Pragmatic – 2

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Yesterday I suggested that preaching with applicational goals is entirely appropriate.  Furthermore, if done appropriately and sensitively (not to mention specifically), application that is very pragmatic certainly has a place in our preaching.  But we have to see the rest of the list too:

2 – Belief (the head) – It is important to recognize that behaviour is driven by belief.  If we only ever seek to fix behaviour, we will be frustrated because of the influence of underlying belief.  If a message calls for thinking a certain way about God, about life, about salvation, about conflict, about ministry, about whatever . . . then don’t feel bad about applying accordingly.  Sometimes a message transforms lives without a call to action, but with a call to respond in belief, in changing perspective, in thinking well about something.

1 – Affection (the heart) – If behaviour and conduct is driven by belief and thought processes, then it is important to recognize what drives our thinking and belief . . . the affections of the heart.  It is the heart that supplies values which function like software in the mind.  It is the hardening of the heart that stood at the root of the wrong thinking and bad behaviour of “the Gentiles” Paul wrote of in Ephesians 4.  And it is a new heart that is so transformative in the new covenant.  How easily we try to live new covenant Christianity as if we still have hearts of stone!  Applicational preaching needs to reach deep into the hearts of listeners and not settle for pragmatics or information transfer alone.

I know it is the work of God’s Spirit to change hearts.  But isn’t it only the Spirit who can truly influence thinking and action too?  Apart from me you can do nothing, Jesus said . . . so we must lean fully on the Lord as we preach His Word, but part of our task is to emphasize the relevance of the preaching text; the relevance to our conduct, to our beliefs, to our affections.

Application Is Not Always Pragmatic

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There is plenty of teaching around about the need for application in preaching.  If all we do is lecture on biblical truth, but don’t earth it in the lives of the listeners, then can we really claim to be truly preaching?  Having said that, application doesn’t have to be always pragmatic.  It really depends on the text, the listeners and the occasion, but essentially there are three targets for application:

3. Conduct (the hands) – this is the pragmatic application level.  This is where we give tangible and measurable suggestions to respond to the teaching of the text.  Some are quick to decry this, but remember that Jesus emphasised “doing” what he taught, and James makes a similar strong emphasis with his mirror illustration.  Where this often falls short is that it is either left too vague (so listeners agree, but have no plan to follow through), or there is simply so much of it, week after week, that many listeners simply feel burdened by endless “to-do” lists piling up in their Bibles.

But pragmatics is not all there is to say about application.  Tomorrow we’ll finish the list.

Feel the Force: Discourse

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This is where we sometimes struggle the most.  When preaching the epistles (less so the speeches of Joshua, Jesus, etc.), we can easily fall into logical information transfer and presentation of facts.  But the fact is that all discourse is set in a narrative context.  How do we make sure listeners feel the force of the discourse sections of Scripture, especially the epistles?

1. Be sure to set the scene contextually – the text is a glimpse into a narrative. It is when we treat the epistles as timeless statements or creeds, rather than letters, that we lose sight of the specific situations that sparked their composition in the first place.  Help people to feel the emotion of Paul writing his last letter to Timothy, or his anger at the corrupting of the gospel in Galatia, or his connection with the Philippian church, or his passion for the unity of the churches in Rome.  It takes effort and skill to effectively set a text in its historical context, but it must be done for listeners to really feel the force of the text.

2. Consider how to appropriately target the message to the listeners. If we are facing similar problems today, then perhaps the text can be preached with a sense of directness, rather than held at arms length as an exhibit from the ancient world.  Perhaps the Galatian error hasn’t been introduced in your church (although perhaps contemporary churchgoers are closer to that than we’d like to think!)  So if the original purpose and thrust doesn’t quite fit, would it work to imagine how it might and then preach directly?  Somehow we need to hear what God is saying to us, now.

3. Build on the imagery included in the text. The epistles are not pure logical argumentation.  They regularly refer to people, incidents, imagery, examples, rhetorical devices, etc.  As a preacher we can build on these to make sure our preaching of that text is not mere lecturing on the facts with tacked on application.  Most texts are far richer in imagery or wordplay than we tend to think.  Not only in poetry and narrative, but also in the epistles, the text will often yield plenty of “illustrative” material if we observe carefully!

4. Build a sense of progression into the structure. How easy it is to simply produce a parallel set of points that do not build, do not progress, do not intrigue and do not pack a punch.  A good outline is not only somewhat symmetrical (and not always that), but reflects the progression and punch of the text.

As we preach the text, let’s make it our goal to help listeners to feel the force of the text.  Understand it, yes.  Apply it, yes.  But more than that, feel it (for when the force of the text is felt, understanding and application will increase!)

Feel the Force: Narrative

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Yesterday we touched briefly on poetry and noted how easy it is to preach without conveying the force of the text.  Today let’s have a brief reminder regarding narrative.  If the “force” of poetry lies in often emotive imagery, the “force” of narrative rests in the lack of rest, the tension necessary for a story to be a story.

1. We mustn’t sacrifice the tension for other details. It is easy to preach a story in component parts as if it were merely an illustration of propositional truths.  I certainly am not prepared to give up the reality that a single story will be held together by a single sense of purpose, tension and thus, a proposition.  However, preaching story requires telling story and feeling story.  It is not enough to break up the text into segments and describe each as if we were writing a commentary.  For the force of the story to get across, the listeners have to be aware of the tension in the story, more than that, they need to feel the tension.

2. We mustn’t lose the resolution in the rhythm of the message. If the story really becomes a story by the introduction of tension, then the story is rapidly approaching the end once that tension is resolved.  It is in the resolution of the story that we usually have the key to unlocking the purpose and meaning of the whole.  How is the prodigal brought into the family?  (And interestingly, why isn’t the tension resolved for his older brother a few verses later?)  What is God’s evaluation of the two men praying in the temple?  Who demonstrates neighborly love to the injured man by the road?  If our message is not built around telling the story, then it is easy for the resolution to be lost in the detail of our structure.

3. The text is lean, but effective engagement requires the forming of imagery. The Bible does not give much detail in the telling of most of its stories.  Every detail counts and should be studied carefully.  However, the listeners are not studying the text at length, they are listening to you preach it.  So for them to be able to engage with the text, to be able to identify with central characters, to disassociate from others, to wrestle with the tension, they need effective and developed description of the events.  It takes time for the mists to clear on the screen of their hearts so that they can feel the force of the narrative!

Natural Born Series

/ Peter Mead / 4 Comments

Some preachers plan series in a relatively simple manner.  They select a book of the Bible and then preach, unit by unit, through the book, or through a section.  Others select a topic and select appropriate passages to organize a topical series.  I am not critiquing either approach, but want to offer another option too.

Just as we are in danger of reading the Bible to look for a message, so we can fall into reading the Bible to look for a series.  One way this manifests itself is in the sections we dismiss, as much as those we select.  For instance, what if we were looking in the Psalms and were drawn to a section like the Psalms of Ascent?  Well, fifteen weeks might be too long for a series, so we are tempted to look elsewhere.

As often as possible we should simply soak in the text.  Like taking a leisurely bath rather than a quick shower, we should take every opportunity to be saturated by a section.  Something happens once it gets into you.  Let’s push the analogy and say that the skin of our soul becomes wrinkly . . . even when you step out the evidence remains.

So for example, I was preparing a synopsis of a longer study on Psalms 107-118 (the section before the Ascent Psalms).  A dozen psalms that present a unified and powerful message.  If I had been looking for a series, I would have gone elsewhere because 12 weeks is probably too long.  (Or settled for the more obvious Egyptian Hallel of 113-118, missing the blessing of the first part of the sequence.)  But after soaking in this text for a while, I can’t help but find myself thinking of creative ways to present the message of this section.  Combining psalms, summarizing a block of three with a focus on one, perhaps even preaching a message that traces the flow through all twelve.

I soaked and now the wrinkly skin of my soul is looking for an opportunity to preach the section . . . in one message, in three, in five.  I suppose, like a leisurely bath, there is probably a fragrance that lingers from this kind of study, too.

Sometimes we have to plan very pragmatically.  Let’s be sure we also create space for soaking, slow, text-saturated, natural born series.

Between Commentaries and Sermons

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

We need to preach somewhere between commentaries and sermons.  The majority of commentaries are very atomistic.  In a sense, they have to be.  The writer focuses in on each verse, or sentence, in turn.  They try to plumb the depths of lexical, semantic, syntactical and cultural meaning.  Once that verse is exhausted they probably deserve a fresh cup of coffee and a break.  When they return it’s on to the next verse.

Commentators are a real blessing to us and we should be exceedingly grateful for the range and quality of commentaries available.  At the same time, let’s be wary that we don’t just preach a commentary (or a compendium of information garnered from several commentators).  Our task is not to exhaustively present every detail, neither is it to place historic labels over sections of text.

On the other hand, there are many sermons that are anything but atomistic in that sense.  They bounce off a text and range to and fro all over the canon without rhyme or reason.

Somehow our preaching needs to fit between these two extremes.  We preach a text (or texts), but we need to present them in their context.  This means making sense of them in the flow of the book, and appropriately making sense of them in the flow of the Bible as a whole.  In effect we need to cut the log both in slice-ward directions, but also in long cuts along the grain.  How we balance those and make sense of the passage is part of the science and art of preaching.  But somehow that fits between the often necessarily atomistic approach of commentaries and the unnecessarily free movement of many sermons.

Planning a Selective Series

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

What criteria can you use when planning a series in a longer book that you don’t want to last for years?  Obviously we’re not obligated to cover complete books in a series, but how might you do that selectively rather than comprehensively?  Here are some pointers:

Foundation – Know the message, flow and structure of the book.  In order to plan a series that selectively represents the whole, you need a good awareness of the whole.  Without this you are likely to end up with a plan that doesn’t represent the book, or you’ll start into the series and end up preaching every passage (which might be appreciated . . . but only “might be” – your church may not want you to try to be Martyn Lloyd-Jones!)

1. Select key moments in the book. In every book there are key moments of transition or anchor points for the flow of the book.  For example, a selective series in Mark’s gospel would need to be touching heavily on the transition that occurs at 8:27-30 and the following couple of paragraphs.  Equally, Mark 10:45 is fairly critical, perhaps with the following story which is somewhat transitional as the final step before Jerusalem.

2. Select key examples in the book. There are some passages that may not be at a transition point, but are just very typical of the style and message of the book.  For instance, Mark 4:35-41 as an example of Mark’s pattern of following teaching with testing.

3. Select an example in a sequence, but show the whole progression. Often a book will string together a series of stories making a similar point, such as in Mark 2-3.  So you might select an example in the sequence demonstrating Jesus’ authority, but also show briefly how many such stories there are in the section.  This covers a lot of ground, but can make quite an impression as people feel the weight of the authority demonstrated by the whole sequence.

4. Select passages you want to preach. As long as you have the other three types of message included, there is nothing wrong with selecting based on personal motivation – the fruit will probably show in your preaching if you are motivated!

5. Keep the big idea of the book clear throughout. Consistently, even if subtly, reinforce the big idea of the whole book to cohere the series.