How to . . . ?

Remember the Main Thing

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It’s easy to be overwhelmed as a preacher.  So many things to keep in mind.  The different aspects of delivery, built on the different elements of a sermon, not to mention the multiple facets of biblical study.  You pour in whatever hours you can find in order to try to understand the passage, then to shape a sermon that will accurately and effectively communicate the meaning of that passage to your listeners with some degree of relevance to their lives.  And maybe the many details feel overwhelming.

It’s easy to get caught up in the introduction, the conclusion, the illustrations, the support materials, the elements of style, effective delivery and so on.  These all matter.  These are all important, but they are all details.  The best delivery you can conjure is hypocrisy without a solid message to preach.  The best message flesh in the world doesn’t look good unless it is on a well-formed skeleton.  And the best bones in the world only make sense as an outline when there is a master design involved.  And that master notion needs to be worthy of all the work.

Delivery makes the most of a good sermon.  The flesh of the sermon makes a skeleton of an outline into an attractive and compelling being. But the skeleton only makes sense if it is serving the main idea of the message – each bone supporting the unity of the message, each detail moving the message forward toward a goal.

I’m not undermining the importance of any sermonic detail.  Details of the sermon and details of delivery, are important, but they are details.  Unless there is a core concept, a big idea, a central proposition, whatever you want to call it.  Unless there is that main idea derived from effective study of the passage to the best of your ability, all pursued in dependence on the Spirit of God.  Unless there is that, there are only details.  Random details.  Remember the main thing.  The main idea is your goal in Bible study.  Then that main idea is boss of the message.  The main idea is the main thing.  Let’s remember that.

Selecting Sermon Form: The Preacher’s Strategy – Part 2

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Yesterday I noted that if you find a good sermon form, you should not become a rigid adherent to that one form.  If sermon form is a matter of strategy (how to best accomplish the sermon goal), then there are two more implications to consider.

2. Better strategists have a varied arsenal. Again, it seems obvious, but it’s true.  The best generals, the best coaches, the best business strategists, all have a varied arsenal (play-book, if you prefer).  So try to accumulate options for how to shape a sermon.  Be flexible and willing to try new things.  Maybe something suggested by a preaching book.  Maybe something that develops organically as you study the text.

3. The best strategists select wisely based on the variables of the occasion.  Variation is not a virtue in itself.  If the same form as last week works best for this text, these people, on this occasion from this preacher – use it.  But over time if you only ever use one form, you are probably defaulting, rather than strategizing.  No matter how big your arsenal may be, you can only preach one way in the next sermon, so select well.

Grow your arsenal of options.  Read and listen as widely as you can.  Then choose each time the strategy that you believe will work best.  Deliver that arrow accurately to the intended target.  Your choice of sermon shape is your strategy to accurately deliver your main idea to its target, to achieve the goal of the sermon.  Choose well.  It matters.

Selecting Sermon Form: The Preacher’s Strategy – Part 1

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Over the next days I will re-assert a basic commitment of expository preaching on this site – there is great flexibility on form.  You can preach a text deductively or inductively, or a combination, or using some variation on these basic shapes.  You can choose three points, or two, or one, or four.  You can go verse-by-verse, chunk-by-chunk, logical thought by thought.  You can preach in first-person, second-voice, etc.  You can follow the Stanley 5-Step (me-we-God-you-we), the “Lowry Loop,” or the “Clowney Construct,” or Chappell’s variation, or Keller’s.  Whatever.  You have freedom to choose your form.  So why do we choose the form we choose?  It’s simple really.  It’s about strategy.  As Robinson puts it, the sermon idea is the arrow, your sermon purpose is the target, and your sermon form is how you think you can best deliver that arrow to its intended target.

Since there are numerous possible variations on sermon form, which should you choose?  It’s simple really.  Whatever will work best.  If you have a goal, then you will choose your strategy in order to achieve your purpose.  I see at least three implications here:

1. Resolute commitment to a good strategy may be foolhardy. Seems obvious, but circumstances change.  It’s true in war.  It’s true in sport.  It’s true in preaching.  If you preach in first person (in character) and you get great feedback, don’t automatically commit to always preaching in first person.  It will become old and lose some of its effectiveness.  Each sermon is an opportunity to choose your strategy according to the factors uniquely present on that occasion.

Stopping Matters

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Last week I wrote about the importance of stopping when you get to your sermonic destination.  I just want to add an important principle.  After an ideal landing is missed, extra minutes are not neutral, they are negative.  Once listeners sense that you are circling and extending the sermon, good work done will begin to be undone.

I hesitate to use a sales analogy, but it’s hard to avoid.  Before I get criticized for profaning the noble art of preaching with a business story, please just hear me out.  Preaching is certainly not sales, but there are certain similarities.

I worked in sales for several years.  I worked in retail sales, then in direct sales.  I was taught in training to never over-sell.  I learned in practice to never over-sell.  Once the deal can be closed, it should be closed.  Extra words, extra effort, extra attempts to justify the purchase are all counter-productive.  When someone is ready to close a deal, close it.  I still remember one sale in the freezing cold city center of Bristol, England.  Actually, it wasn’t a sale.  The lady had her credit card out and was ready to sign the contract, but I chose to say one more thing to reinforce her decision.  She walked away, I lost that chunk of income.  I over-sold.

Preaching is more complex than sales and involves a larger audience, has higher stakes and I would consider it a greater privilege.  But the same truth applies.  Preach the sermon, get to the destination and then stop.  Don’t over-preach.  Those extra minutes are not helpful, not even neutral, they are negative.  Stopping matters.

A Plea to the MC: Careful of Careless Closure

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Perhaps an MC will read this post.  Perhaps a worship leader.  Perhaps one Sunday you will not preach, but will “chair” the service (as they say in England), for a visiting speaker.  I have a plea.  Please, please, please be careful what you say after the sermon.  Most of the time, it might be best to say nothing.  There’s nothing worse than a good sermon well preached, then the moment trashed by a jovial comment or mood-breaking notice.  Actually, there is something worse.

It’s worse when someone stands up after a sermon and tries to add a helpful comment.  Perhaps a summary of what the speaker has said.  Perhaps even an attempted exhortation in light of what the speaker has said.  As someone involved in missions work I am afraid only one example is spinning in my head, but it is the example par excellence for missions speakers down through the years.  Let me quote from an email I received last week:

One of my early attempts to share my passion for unreached nations took place in a small country church some years ago. I gave them my best . . . The pastor then felt it necessary to mitigate my remarks and blunt my passion for the unreached by assuring his flock, “We’re all missionaries to our neighborhoods and workplaces!” I was thoroughly deflated.

I have experienced it and I have seen it.  A preacher makes a strong case for missions to the unreached from God’s Word, then all that work is undermined by a well-intentioned, but horribly misplaced comment in closing.

I’ve learned that, whenever possible, if I see a way my message could be undermined, I make plans to avoid it.  If possible I will ask if I can close the service.  Sometimes I’d rather not be the one to pray and wrap things up.  I’m certainly not the best at it.  But at least I won’t undermine the whole thing.

This happens regularly to missions messages.  What other kind of message have you seen undermined by careless closure?

Mythbusting – Experience Is Key?

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Howard Hendricks has a habit of getting at the heart of an issue. I was just reading a book he co-authored on teaching and he nails a key issue for us as preachers. How are we to know that we are being as effective as possible in our ministry?

Experience is not the key! People automatically assume that the longer they are doing something, the better they get at it. So the longer a person teaches, the better the teacher they become. The longer the person preaches, the better the preacher they become. Wrong. Hendricks calls this idea nonsense. He points out that ripping through wood dulls the teeth of a carpenter’s saw, and so also experience tends to wear away any edge in a person’s skill.

Evaluated experience is key! Over time poor methods and poor practice become ingrained poor habits. Complacency easily sets in. It is possible to lose touch with the listeners. And time will generally exaggerate personal idiosyncrasies. In short, over time we easily get sloppy.

So what does Hendricks advise? He advises pastors as well as teachers to follow his example. To evaluate every session you teach. To invite others to critique in various ways. Be like a carpenter who painstakingly files each tooth on his crosscut saw.

Experience alone does not make you better, only evaluated experience does that. In the same way as experience alone does not make you mature, but only experience evaluated and handled with the right attitude. Let us all have the attitude of the master carpenter, painstakingly sharpening each tooth on the saw of our ministry. Perhaps it would be good to carefully evaluate your last sermon, and make specific plans to get feedback on your next.

Preach First and Last Sermons

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

I don’t know if you count.  My temperament tends to count.  I keep track of what I’ve preached, when, to whom, etc.  I keep records partially out of necessity and partially out of interest.  Whether or not you count sermons, take a guess, which one is today’s?  Is it number 15, or 100, or 1250, or 3500?

Let me encourage you today to preach as if it is your first. Preach with all the naivety of a new preacher.  Remember?  Back when you expected lives to be changed immediately by the sermon you preached.  Back when the spring in your step conveyed an excitement about what God is doing in your life and what He wants to do in their lives.  Forget the nerves, the mistakes, the unrefined skill, and so on.  But remember the enthusiastic expectation of that first sermon.  Preach like that today.

And preach as if it is your last. Imagine that today’s sermon had to count because there would be no more.  Imagine that all the weight of God’s work in your life had to be transferred with urgency today to those sitting before you.  Forget the slowness of mind that may come, or the feeble frame that you may have to carry up those steps.  But imagine how powerful the weight of matured passion and perspective will be in your last ever sermon.  Preach like that today.

Be You

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There are many elements of style that can be studied and worked on.  But one thing that is really important is to be you.  Philips Brooks’ famous definition of preaching as “truth through personality” is important to remember.  It is truth through your personality!

Preaching, like much of Christian ministry, is incarnational in nature.  And the flesh the truth takes on is yours.  That means your strengths and your weaknesses.  Your personality.  Your humor.  Your mannerisms.  Your temperament.  You.

AJ Gordon referred to preachers taking on someone else’s personality as moral plagiarism.  The temptation is always there, but we must resist.  We can learn from others and even take onboard aspects of the style of others, but there is a fine line between that and taking on a personality that is not yours.

This is no excuse for poor communication.  There are aspects of our personal style that each of us could strive to improve for the sake of effective communication.  However, to merely introduce the personal style of another is not the solution.  It will not be you, and therefore, it will not be effective.

The Tone of the Shepherd

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

One of the central roles of a church leader is to protect the flock from false teaching.  It is a responsibility to take seriously.  However, without very deliberate thought it is easy to fall into one of two extremes.

Extreme 1 – Just Really Nice Shepherd. Your desire to be liked drives you to avoid any controversy and confrontation, leaving your preaching as a parade of niceness.  I’ve heard plenty of this in my time.  It is the kind of preaching that seems to skirt any issue that might offend.  The desire is unity at all costs.  I sense that where this kind of preaching prevails, it reflects a situation where Evangelical Christians are perceived to be irrelevant, unaware and standing for nothing.  Let us not set that tone from the pulpit.

Extreme 2 – Angry Bashing Shepherd. Your desire to be right drives you to bash freely at every person, idea or stream of Christianity you disagree with.  I remember sitting through a very painful retreat where the famous speaker seemed to take every opportunity to have a go at top Christian evangelists and ministry leaders.  It was unhelpful for the immature believers confused by it all and would have been offensive to any unbelievers present.  We must be aware of how we are perceived.  Non-christians see us as very angry people who just can’t get along with each other.  Let us not reinforce that from the pulpit.

Why do we fall into one extreme or the other?  I think our personality will influence it.  I think our culture will influence it (in my experience I see the English church often falling into the former extreme, whereas the North American church often tends toward the latter extreme – obviously there are exceptions in both cultures).  I think fear drives both extremes – fear of any confrontation or discord on the one hand, and fear of not having all the answers in our personal theology and philosophy of ministry on the other.  I think a lack of thought leaves us at one extreme or the other.

As preachers we must think carefully about our role as shepherds.  Sheep want neither a nice shepherd too polite to offend the prowling mountain lion, nor an angry shepherd lashing out at every bush, shepherd or other sheep that crosses their path.

At The End – Stop

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Yesterday I wrote about knowing the end from the beginning.  Preach as if you’re going somewhere and when you get there, stop preaching.  It seems obvious, but it is important to note that good sermons end.

As a preacher, once you get to the end, stop.  Don’t add extra exhortation (that should come in earlier), stop.  Don’t keeping talking to fill time (people never mind an early end), stop.  Preach, then stop.

As I’ve written before, so now I quote Haddon Robinson on the same point.  Once you stop, don’t allow a song leader to sabotage the moment by switching peoples’ hearts and minds off.  Often people need some quiet.  Let the sermon do its work.  This is the best time for people to respond, or to write down their notes, so give them space to do so.  A poorly placed song is unhelpful, but so is the preacher overtalking the message.  Conclusions are simple really.  You just need to stop.