How to . . . ?

Getting Into the Christmas Spirit

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Just a month to go until Christmas.  The shops are gearing up, children are more than ready, but are we focused on it yet?  I don’t mean that we should be thinking about what to buy wives for Christmas (although we should, Christmas Eve panic buying is never healthy).  I mean focused on it for preaching.  After all, there are only a handful of Sundays between now and the big day.

Perhaps you are preaching a series from Matthew or Luke, or maybe only one of a series.  Take a look at the passage now and turn on your amazement again.  Don’t worry about how to preach it, what sermon form to use, etc.  For now just read the text with a very open heart and get excited about the Incarnation again.  Tinsel, shopping, carols and dark evenings may excite some, but turn off others.  But if we are going to preach something of the reality of Christmas, then we need to be prepared.

Let’s not preach a tinsel Christmas this year, but a genuinely-excited-incarnation-wonder-season of sermons!

Don’t Be Intimidated By Your Previous Sermon

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I’m not sure if this is a common experience or not, but I’ll mention it just in case.  One week you preach a sermon and it seems to work very well.  The next week you feel a pressure for this sermon to have the same elements as last time.  For instance, last week I was in a church and was asked to preach John 9 – blind man healed.  This week I am in a different church and need to preach the last episode in Mark 10 – blind Bartimeus healed.  Somehow I have felt an internal pressure to find similar sermon elements to last week.

The truth is that this message, whatever it is for you, is a unique passage and unique message.  We should not preach it under the shadow of a previous positive or negative experience.  We should look to preach it in all the simplicity and specific elements required of this text for this people on this occasion.

Whatever you did last week, make sure that this week you preach this week’s text.

The Preparation Process in Question Form

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Perhaps you have already thought it through in this way, or perhaps this will be helpful to you.  The eight stage preparation process can be stated in the form of questions:

1. Passage Selection – Which passage will you prepare to preach?

2. Passage Study – What does the passage say and mean?  (What is the content of the passage?)

3. Passage Purpose – Why was the passage written? (The intent of the passage.)

4. Passage Idea – What is the author saying about what he’s writing about?  What is the heart of the unit of thought?  What is the main point here?  (The goal is to write a one sentence statement succinctly and accurately.)

At the mid-point (not necessarily half-way through the preparation time), you begin to seriously consider to whom you will be preaching the passage.  Audience analysis is essentially answering the “who?” question in reference to the preaching event.

5. Message Purpose – Why do these people need to hear this passage?  Why will you stand and deliver this passage to them?

6. Message Idea – How can the idea of the passage be stated with an emphasis on the relevance to these particular listeners?  How can the idea be stated in a way that is succinct, clear, accurate and ideally, memorable?

7. Message Outline – How can the purpose of the message be achieved?  How can the idea of the message be delivered?  This is the point of deciding the form of the sermon, the preacher’s strategy.

8. Message Detail – How can each movement in the message be developed: explained, supported, applied?  How can the message be most effectively introduced?  How can the message be most effectively concluded?

Just a couple of observations on this:

Observation A – The idea of a passage must be informed by both content and intent, by both what and why.  Equally, the idea of the message must be influenced by the what of the passage, but also by the why of the message (ie.why preach this passage to these people?)  Too often the idea of a message is influenced by content, but not by a carefully considered purpose for the message.  (Even more “oftener” the idea is absent altgether, but that’s another issue!)

Observation B – The first four stages are all about probing and understanding the passage.  Most of the questions in the last four stages are “how?” questions.  The preparation of the message is largely a “how” issue – a matter of preaching strategy, creativity, deliberate clarity, etc.

Passage Precedes Message

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I just read a post on communication that related to content versus visuals in their relative importance.  The conclusion was that neither trumped the other, but in fact connection trumped them both.  In the more specific realm of biblical preaching, we have to give precedence to the content, but that does not mean we neglect all other aspects of effective communication.

A point made concerned the preparation of a presentation.  It is not good to start by sitting at the computer to plan the visuals.  It is much better to spend time in thought with pen and paper to determine the desired outcome and the best way to achieve it.  How true that is.  It is true for a business presentation, and it is true, with modification, for preaching as well.

How easy it is to slip into starting with illustrations, visuals, message details.  It is also easy to start with thinking about what we want to achieve and then go hunting for a text to utilize in that quest.  But really we should be starting away from the PC, Bible in hand and congregation in our prayers.  Good preaching preparation does logically follow the eight stages I advocate on this site, but this is not a formula.  Good preaching starts with a real soak in the text, out of which can spring the budding thoughts on how to preach that text, outline, illustrations, etc.

It is that initial soaking in the text (study, analysis of structure, content and intent, coalescing of the main idea, etc.) which is the critical first half of the bridge we are hoping to build to our listeners.  Too many preachers build backwards only to discover the bridge is weak on the Bible side and consequently, weak in authority, power, etc.

Learning About Introductions From Evangelists

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Last night I had the pleasure of sharing a session with a great group of God’s servants who work among the military in this country.  In conversation afterward I was again struck by how important our introductions are when preaching.

An evangelist can’t take the introduction to a conversation for granted.  It is critical to have a point of connection, an entry into the conversation.  I am always impressed when I meet evangelists who are skilled in this area!  You simply can’t launch into the gospel without finding some starting point, some reason for the hearer to hear what you are saying.  That’s not to suggest that we simply respond to felt needs with the gospel – it is far more glorious a message than that!  But we do need to start somewhere, and somewhere relevant is a great place to start.

Likewise a preacher can’t take the introduction to a sermon for granted.  Generally our listeners are not as antagonistic as a group of soldiers in the barracks may be, but this should not lull us into introductory complacency.  People are living real lives with real issues.  When we launch into our message by simply stating a reference and reading the text, we give no real reason for hearers to hear.  We should presume distraction and fight for their focus.  Find a way to connect, demonstrate early on that what you are going to say is relevant to their real lives and people will lean forward to listen.  Choose to default to a non-introduction and people will settle back in the pew and let their minds wander elsewhere.

Whether we are sharing the gospel in a conversation, or preaching the Word in a church, we need to give thought to connecting early and engaging our listeners with the message.  Unengaged listeners may be many things, but they are not truly hearers.

Preaching Sermons on Sermons

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I don’t mean preaching your sermon based on another contemporary preacher’s sermon.  I mean preaching a sermon based on a Scriptural sermon.  There’s lots of them.  It can be fascinating to wrestle with a sermon in its context since you would expect to find a sense of context, purpose, application, explanation, etc.  If you haven’t given this any thought before, here are some places to go:

The Sermons of Acts – Acts is a book of action, but interestingly, the sermons are not introductory to the action, they are the action!  Obviously the sermons in Acts are summaries of the original message, but studying them in their context and looking for what specifically the preacher was saying can be very satisfying.  Paul has at least three sermons (not counting defense speeches).  Peter also preaches in Acts (very slightly harder to understand and apply directly since things were shifting pretty rapidly in those first months, but still worth studying!)

The Sermons of Jesus – Matthew, for example, alternates between discourse (sermons) and narrative (action).  So you have great blocks of teaching – the sermon on the mount, instructions to the disciples, parables of the kingdom, olivet discourse, etc.  Since some of these are distilled surveys of teaching, it can be hard to define a specific sermon text, but it is so worth the effort.  Who was he preaching to?  Why did he preach it?

The only complete sermon – I see only one complete sermon in the Bible.  It takes about 50-55 minutes, and it is absolute dynamite.  The book of Hebrews is a sermon written down.  The more I study it, the more I see it as a sermon.  So many features of orality, so much application, so careful in its exposition, so powerful in its relevance to the first hearers.

Other sermons – then you’ve also got snippets of sermons throughout the Old Testament prophets.  What a treasure so often neglected.

A case can be made for the oral nature of much of Scripture.  With diligent prayerful study, you will find preaching sermons on the Bible’s sermons is immensely satisfying for you, and powerful in the lives of your listeners.

Presumed Knowledge

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There is an epidemic of biblical illiteracy.  This is not only true in the streets of our towns, but often in the pews of our churches.  It is easy for preachers to presume too much knowledge in our listeners.  We can assume that they know the names, places, themes of books and key points of theology.  But the reality is that an increasing number are more than foggy on the basics.

Here are a couple of suggestions, feel free to add more:

1. Teach the big picture story. Often in giving the context for a specific passage, we can locate it in the flow of the bigger story.  Sometimes we should consider preaching bigger pictures sermons – a whole book in one message, or the whole Bible in one message or two.

2. Don’t teach by illustration. Don’t presume that giving other biblical examples will reinforce the knowledge of your listeners.  The truth is that an increasingly biblically illiterate people will be confused and overwhelmed by many biblical illustrations that might have seemed effective a generation ago.  If the illustration requires too much explanation, then it detracts from the point of sharing it.  As Don Sunukjian teaches, once people understand a passage, they need contemporary application rather than ancient illustration.  If they don’t understand the preaching passage, don’t add another to the mix.  If they do, then don’t stay in the past, but earth the truth in the realities of their lives.

3. Scan your next sermon for presumed knowledge. Do you make passing reference to an Old Testament context for a quote in your passage that needs more explanation?  Do you identify the characters referred to so that people know who they are?  Do you make passing references to such things as incipient gnosticism, overrealized eschatology, or even justification?  Scan your next message to make sure no presumed knowledge slips in carelessly.  If we take care, it will help our listeners greatly.

Other thoughts on this?

Do We Preach a Distant God?

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Yesterday I made a passing reference to the fact that our God is not the deity of the deists.  That is to say that He didn’t wind things up and then sit back disinterested with His arms folded.  Before we start pointing the finger at famous deists like Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein or even Antony Flew, let’s check our preaching.  Is it possible that we inadvertently preach deism?

We are right to both study and present the author’s meaning in a passage.  The first stage of effective Bible study has to look at the inspired text “back then.”  Once we have understood the author’s idea in the passage, then we can consider how to legitimately apply that idea in our world today.  However, there is a potential danger in solid exegetical methodology.  The danger is that we present God’s work as “back then” but not “today.”  There is a real risk that we imply a God at work in the days of Moses, Matthew or the preacher to the Hebrews, but today we have only the reflected benefit of careful application.

The truth is that God is at work today.  He is as intimately concerned about each life as He ever has been.  Some err by emphasizing the direct revelation of God today to the neglect of His Word which He inspired long ago.  Likewise, some of us may err by emphasizing the act of inspiration long ago to the neglect of His present concern, sovereignty and involvement in the world today.  I appreciate Don Sunukjian’s shorthand definition of preaching for this particular reason.  He states that preaching is “Listen to what God is saying . . . to us!”  An absolute commitment to sound exegesis.  A clear commitment to a divine involvement in the act of preaching.

We must get both the “back then” and the “today” aspects of our preaching on target, otherwise we risk preaching a diminished deity.  An emphasis on “today” at the expense of “back then” leads to a subjectively defined experiential deity.  An emphasis on “back then” at the expense of “today” might lead to a distant deity.  God inspired the Word back then, and His Word still speaks with force today.  We preach an ancient text . . . relevantly.  Let’s beware that we neither preach an overly imminent experiential God, nor an excessively distant historical God.  Let’s be sure to preach the God who inspired the Bible, the God who still speaks through His Word today!

How Will You Touch the Heart?

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We have probably all heard people attempting to distinguish preaching from teaching, or even preaching from lecturing.  Typically there is some reference to preaching being more impassioned, touching the emotions, etc.  To be fair to the teaching and lecturing professions, the good ones know that to be effective they should do more than merely transmit information.  Nevertheless, today is Sunday, so let’s keep the focus on preaching.

When we preach we do not merely transmit information gleaned in our study time.  We speak from the heart – a heart touched by God’s Word, moved by God’s Spirit, a heart shaped by the personal experience of God working the passage truth into our lives.  We speak from the heart – the heart of God, for He did not inspire the canon to merely give us a repository of truth statements from which to inform ourselves.  We speak to the heart – the heart of listeners desperate for a word from God’s heart.  They may be interested in information, they may not.  But we speak to hurting hearts, empty hearts, longing hearts.  We speak to the hearts of people whose real need is probably not the need they feel and are distracted by, but whose real need can only be met by God Himself.

Preaching should be truthful, accurate, informed, solidly Scriptural, etc.  But it must do more than merely inform.  We preach as persuaders, influencers, spokespersons for the living God who is not a deistic disconnected deity, but a passionately concerned and involved holy lover of souls.  So today, what is the plan?  How will you preach not only from the head to the head, but from the heart and to the heart?

Apologetics for Homiletics – Part 4

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This week I’ve been considering the importance of homiletics training.  My focus has not been on expository preaching versus other approaches to preaching.  It has been on training, instruction and sermon preparation methodology, as opposed to no training, instruction and no guidance in the preparation process.

But doesn’t homiletics promote “professional” ministry? I’ve touched on this before, but it is worth considering again.  The terms “professional” and “amateur” need to be defined carefully when it comes to preaching.  Are they referring to the skill involved or the motivation?

1. Our motivation in preaching should probably be described in “amateur” terms rather than “professional.” That is to say, we should pursue preaching out of a deep passion for God, His people, His Word and His ministry.  Whether we are paid or not, we should not be motivated by material gain.  Preaching should not become “just our job.”  In this respect, I don’t want to be professional.

2. Our skill in preaching should probably be described in “professional” terms rather than “amateurish.” That is to say, we should be good stewards of every opportunity to “fan into flame” our gifting, improve our skill, grow in our ministry, etc.  Surely we do not honor God by just treating preaching like a little hobby that is a minor interest in our life.

We should preach as professionals in the sense of “to the best of our ability” and as amateurs in the sense of “with the passion of a captured heart.”  We should not preach as professionals in the sense of “relying on our own ability,” nor as amateurs in the sense of “to a poor standard.”  Homiletics doesn’t promote “professional” ministry in a negative sense, but our flesh may twist it that way if we become self-reliant and self-confident along the way.

Good stewardship demands learning from the best homiletics training and input available.  The danger of self-reliance must keep us on our knees the whole way (which is true even if we refuse good homiletic input!)