50 Summer Preaching Tweaks: 46-50

August 29, 2013August 26, 2013 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Here we are, the final five of the big summer fifty.

46. Read some descriptive writing. If all you ever read is biblical commentary and theological textbooks, it will show in your preaching. Find someone who can write effectively and spend some time with them. We need to be able to paint pictures with our words, not just offer precise abstractions.

47. Pray about improving your preaching. I too easily treat this as a given, so I’ll mention it again. If you are a preacher, you should be praying. Apart from me you can do nothing. So why not pray specifically for God to show you areas to improve and to help make those improvements happen?

48. Nail a landing. I’m always impressed when a preacher knows where he is going, gets there, and stops effectively the first time around. Why not make that the goal next time you preach? Even if you don’t write the whole sermon, at least write out the last couple of paragraphs and then nail it!

49. Schedule a break. Summer is coming to an end and it is probably all systems go, but why not plan now for a break? Find a couple of Sundays and book them off. Make an appointment with a B&B or with a church visit somewhere else and just go sit. If you always give out, you will not be serving your congregation well.

50. Prioritize a prayer list of preaching concerns. Just to reinforce the earlier point, maybe it is time to make an actual list of preaching prayer points. Maybe you track illustrations, maybe you have a preaching schedule. But why not have a page of specific prayer points related to your preaching – include matters of preparation, of delivery, of growth, of longed for goals, etc.

Thanks for thinking through these. Have any stood out as new? Helpful? Relevant to you?

50 Summer Preaching Tweaks: 26-30

August 23, 2013August 15, 2013 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Five more suggestions that may or may not be helpful as you ponder moving your preaching to the next level:

26. Go on an illustration hunt for a week. Take a week when you are not preaching, carry a notebook and try to fill it with material for messages. It could be traditional anecdotes, quotes, etc., but also look for normal life observations that people will resonate with . . . an illustration does not need to sound like it comes from an anthology of illustrations (please).

27. Evaluate a masterful communicator. Pick someone you think is a great communicator and watch them as if they are preaching in your classroom. What are they doing well? Why does it work? What can you learn? Perhaps take a traditional and a contemporary communicator, maybe even one from another culture . . . watch and learn.

28. Preach through a prayerful rehearsal. If you think it is unspiritual to run through a message out loud, perhaps the time has come. Pray, and go for it. Some things will only become evident when you hear them with your own ears! If you can preach where you will preach, all the better!

29. Pray for the people in their places. You know where certain people sit. Pray for them and the effect of the forthcoming ministry on their hearts and lives. It will help them, and it will help your preaching to invest in them in this way. Bless the church is a bit more vague than any prayer you will find in the Bible! Take a deep gulp of Colossians 1:9ff and then pray for people in your church.

30. Preach a grain instead of a slice. We can get very stuck in the pattern of preaching a chunk of text. Consider preaching a grain instead – that is, a theme as it develops through a book or section. You could even do this beyond the borders of a book and give a biblical theology of something. Don’t over reach, but variation can be so healthy for listeners as well as preachers!

50 Summer Preaching Tweaks: 1-5

August 15, 2013 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

As we are all about to head into a new (school) year of preaching, how about a big collection of little tweaks for effective preaching? In no particular order, here come the fifty summer tweaks to sift through and prayerfully consider:

1. Be mastered by a book. Whether you regularly preach through whole books or not, make sure you spend enough time soaking in a book that it can truly grip you. Be saturated so that when squeezed, you ooze the content of that book. Then prepare a series to invite others into that blessing.

2. Invite others into the preparation process. We all tend to go solo on preaching preparation. Invite some folks to join you. Perhaps in a group, perhaps a series of conversations, perhaps ask for help on facebook or twitter. Perhaps talk through the message, perhaps ask for help on support material, perhaps find out where others think the points of tension lie. It will probably be better together.

3. Lean less on your notes. If you are a manuscript reader, take only an outline. If you are a notes user, experiment with note-less. Be as prepared as you can, but make the message simpler in structure, stick in a passage and run through it several times. Going noteless is not as hard as you think, and the benefits might mean you never go back!

4. Stay put, dig deeper. If you are a concordance freestyler, try preaching a message where you stay put. You will find that you will tend to dig deeper in the passage and apply more fully in the present. Both are good things! Only cross-reference if there is a genuine need to do so.

5. Craft the main idea a little bit more. Take an hour at some point and work on the main idea of the message for an hour more than you normally would. How can it be more precise, more memorable, more relevant, more text specific, more encouraging, less wordy, less historic, less theologically phrased?

Preaching Myths #8 – Delivery Equals Circus

August 10, 2013August 5, 2013 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

How about a pair of myths?

“As long as the content of a sermon is true, that is good preaching.”

“Delivery doesn’t matter, the church is not a circus.”

According to the dictionary a circus is “a frenetic disorganized disturbance” or “a performance given by a travelling company of clowns and animals.” I should probably leave that alone and affirm the notion that the church is not supposed to be a circus.

However, to reject any effort regarding the delivery of preaching because that may turn into a performance of entertainment is like refusing to exercise in case you turn into Mr Olympia.

Preaching is not about performance, and neither is it about a set of words. It is about communication. This is crucial to grasp. The prophets, Jesus, the apostles – they were effective communicators! Good communication is always concerned with what the recipient hears and understands.

Take a solid biblical sermon and preach it without any thought as to the delivery, what might be understood?

1. This is not important. Why? Because the preacher’s body language, posture and energy levels indicate a lack of conviction.

2. This is not relevant. Why? Because the preacher’s dress sense and lack of eye contact made the message feel distant and aloof.

3. This is not true. Why? Because the preacher never looks at us and is decidedly shifty in mannerisms.

4. This is not good news. Why? Because the preacher never smiles and gives off an aggressive I-don’t-like-you vibe.

5. This is not comprehensible. Why? Because the preacher gives no thought to annunciation, and the delivery is not engaging, so the bored listeners perceive the message to make no sense.

Delivery can never substitute for content, but bad delivery will always sabotage good content.

If preaching were just the content, we could mail a manuscript and save time from our Sunday mornings. Preaching is content appropriately clad in the clothing of relationship, communication and connection.

Preaching [Insert Word] Jesus

July 27, 2013 / Peter Mead / 6 Comments

Preaching Jesus. This is the calling of the preacher. It is an incredible calling. We aren’t called to preach tips or suggestions, mere commands or philosophy, not even just ideas or concepts. We get to preach a person. When I met my wife-to-be, I was very capable of “preaching” her to any who cared to listen. I didn’t struggle for motivation because I knew her, I liked her and I wanted to talk about her. But over the years I’ve had to do some presentations I wasn’t thrilled about . . . ideas, subjects, topics. These opportunities were very different. The personal connection and consequent motivation is far different when we grasp that Christian preaching is primarily about preaching a person.

Preaching for Jesus. And what a person we get to preach! We get to represent the great object of the desire of all creation, the one who made it all and will bring it all to a close. The one who brings eternal delight to the Father and who will reveal the delightful Father to all for all eternity. This is not a political leader with tenuous temporary influence, or a new fad who will soon pass. This is not preaching some hyped up celebrity, or some high achiever in one area or another . . . this is the wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace. And we get to preach about him, and for him. That means he cares, he takes interest, he wants it to go well.

Preaching with Jesus. It just gets better. We often think of our ministry being for Jesus, but can forget the great biblical theme of working with God. He commissioned us to go and make disciples, but he did so with the promise of his presence! What a privilege to not only speak of Christ and for Christ, but also with Christ. As we preach to proclaim the gospel, we are doing so with him who is at work fishing for humanity. As we preach to edify the church, we are doing so with him who is at work building his church. As we preach to bring glory to God, we are doing so with the eternal Son who is well practiced and ever pleased to bring praise to His and our great Father. Ministry with. Seems like we don’t think about that enough!

Static vs Dynamic Position Principle

July 18, 2013July 12, 2013 / Peter Mead / 3 Comments

Last week I enjoyed a very pleasant afternoon discussion in the summer sunshine by the river in Bath. Our conversation meandered through many gospel vistas and theological considerations. Along the way we were talking about youth ministry, but the point I’d like to share here applies to us all.

Typically when churches are looking for a youth minister they will try to find somebody who is more spiritually mature than the youth in the church, but close enough in age to engage in all the requisite activities. So the person is found and appointed, the programs are designed and the action begins. Often the church wants pizza and programs so that the youth are happy, but whether or not there is any real spiritual growth is another matter.

Part of the problem here is the implementation of Static Position Leadership thinking. I doubt you’ll find that term anywhere as I just made it up, but the principle is not rocket science. The youth minister is represented by the dot, and the youth are the arrow. The assumption is that since he is further along than they are, he can help them grow in the right direction. But does it work like that?

What happens when one of the young folks suddenly comes alive spiritually and is praying fervently and reading the Bible voraciously and chasing God with a passion? Does that teen simply move along the maturity arrow quicker than others, still moving towards the more mature youth leader? Not if the youth leader is spiritually static. It doesn’t take long for someone to overtake the “leader” when the leader is not really leading.

For true spiritual leadership to occur, surely the Dynamic Position Principle must apply. That is, you can only lead others forward as you yourself are also currently moving forward. A church that gets a youth minister who lacks personal genuine growth in their walk with God will be directly harming the youth in the church. It won’t take much for one to surpass the leader in current spiritual momentum. And it won’t take much for the static leader to squash the life out of those who might show him up if they continue.

If this is true for youth ministry, surely it is also true for whole church ministry. Moving the dot to the right for an elder or pastor does not guarantee any sort of health in the church. What is needed is mature and growing godly leaders if they are to infect others with forward momentum in their walk with Christ.

Gospel Dimensions 3

July 12, 2013 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

In the last two days I have made some suggestions as to how a limited view of God and humanity will tend to undermine our preaching. What about our view of sin?

1. When we see the problem as partial rather than total. How often have we heard, or said, that if God’s pass mark is 50, then even a 49 is still falling short of the glory of God? Therefore even the most “perfect” performer of self-righteousness can be caught out because they must have at least stolen a biscuit when they were small or a paperclip from work in recent years. Perhaps we say imagine a perfect white sheet of paper, then put a dot of ink on it . . . no longer perfect. Heaven is perfect, etc. This is all true, but dangerously untrue at the same time. Hypothetically a person could be a 49/50 performer, but in reality, nobody is. To put it another way, we are all zero out of 50 because self-righteousness is not the goal. Sin is not about independent performance according to a standard. The standard reveals our independent performance and abject failure. The independence is a huge part of the issue, so our paper is not mostly white, it is completely covered in blotched ink. And that ink comes in two colours:

2. When we see the problem as naughtiness. Naughtiness is like blue ink. It is the colour of the younger son’s track record as he crawls back wearing swine deodorant from the far country. But naughtiness is not the extent of sin. It is one manifestation, but it is not the whole deal. The Bible does not say we have all been naughty and fallen short of the performance levels of God. Independent self-righteousness is red ink. You may prefer red, but it still covers the white of the page when splashed liberally onto it. Our righteousness is like filthy rags before a God who longs for hearts to not be far from Him. Some human sheets are mostly blue. Some are mostly red. None have any white showing. I am trying different ways to say the same thing: our sin is far worse than we realise!

3. When we see the problem as a hindrance rather than death. Broken will? Clouded uninformed mind? Slightly marred record? Sin goes deeper than all of this. The heart of the human sin problem is the human heart. That is where we are dead toward God, dead in our self-love, dead because life is found in relationship with God. And we cannot fix our own hearts. Fully dead in sin, and fully unable to do a thing about it.

If we present sin as petty naughtiness, then we will preach the good news that a petty God is willing to put up with our paperclip theft. Hardly the gospel. And if we preach a shallow or superficial portrait of sin, then we can very easily offer a gospel of heavenly benefits to people whose hearts remain far from Him. Is this not an anti-gospel?

Mixing the Matters

July 5, 2013 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

You matter. Preaching matters. Your preaching matters. But don’t mix these up.

You matter – you are a person for whom Christ died, a person who has been bought with a price and baptised into the body of Christ to participate in the fellowship and life of God himself. Just like the people you preach to, your worth and value are to be found in Christ.

Preaching matters – what God has done in Christ for your listeners and you is truly worth sharing boldly and openly. Preaching matters because God is an incarnationally-minded communicator and as a result, we have something to say. Preaching the word of God has always been a key part of God’s mission in this world, for there is a revelation and a proclamation at the core of that mission.

Your preaching matters – you may not be so-and-so famous preacher who draws huge crowds, but you are more than just the person scheduled to preach this next time. The people gathered have a divine appointment with the word of the gospel, so you will want to give your very best for their sake, and for His. The famous preacher is not scheduled to be there, by God’s providence, you are.

Don’t mix these up – one of the ways we can get into trouble as preachers is to start to confuse these truths. Since preaching matters, I matter because of my preaching? Careful! The moment we confuse our identity in Christ with our role in ministry, we are set for trouble. I recently heard of a visiting preacher who marred his reputation by his reaction to a circumstance that thwarted his opportunity to preach. It is good to take your preaching seriously, but never think you are indispensable. It is good to serve God in preaching, but never let your identity be determined by it. Your preaching matters, but God can, and does, work apart from your ministry.

Paul Tripp on Law and Grace

June 29, 2013June 29, 2013 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I am really enjoying Dangerous Calling by Paul Tripp. Here’s a paragraph that jumped out at me last night as I read a few pages:

When I hear a sermon that is essentially law-driven, that is, asking the law to do what only the grace of Jesus Christ can accomplish, I am immediately concerned about the preacher. I immediately wonder about his view of himself, because if he had any self-consciousness about his own weakness and sin, he would find little hope and comfort for himself and his hearers in that kind of sermon. You see this dynamic in the Pharisees. Because they thought of themselves as righteous, perfect law givers, they had no problem laying unbearable law burdens on others. Their misuse of the law had its roots not only in bad theology but also in ugly human pride. They saw law keeping as possible, because they thought they were keeping it. And they thought that others should get up and keep it as well as they did. They were the religious leaders of their day, but they were arrogant, insensitive, uncompassionate, and judgmental. They were not part of what God was doing at the moment; no, they were in the way of it.

If you want more, get the book. This paragraph is on page 153.

Weakening our Legacy by Dangerous Independency

June 20, 2013 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Preachers will always be tempted to function and minister alone. After all, preaching and pastoring are lonely pursuits for several reasons. However, if we give in to that temptation, then we will seriously undermine our potential impact in a community.

Today is the last day of this year’s full-time programme at Cor Deo. It has been such a delight to go shoulder to shoulder with eight other men who are hungry to know God more and love Him together. We have studied the Bible and theology and practical ministry and personal spirituality. We have ministered together, traveled together, laughed together, done life together. And we are all genuinely sad that this rich season is coming to a close.

So will we settle for ministry from a distance? Will we be satisfied with lone ranger ministry? No chance. These men will be looking for others with a heart for God with whom they can pursue Him in the years to come. Here are a few brief thoughts on avoiding independency as a preacher:

1. Never forget Jesus view of the crowds and the few: he was willing to lose the crowds, but he valued leaving a deeper mark on fewer people. The example of Jesus challenges our “bigger is always better” mentality. After feeding thousands and caring for the crowds, Jesus would spend time explaining to and investing in a small group of men.

2. Mentoring must not be an option for someone involved in ministry. Actually, even Jesus’ ministry to the crowds would strategically involve those few men. Don’t view mentoring as a ministry option that may or may not fit you. Ask God to point out people to whom you can give yourself and your ministry.

3. Don’t fall for worldly-wise ideas about necessary distance and avoiding friendship in leadership – The only people who find friends threatening are those precariously perched on top of a power pyramid where someone getting close becomes a threat to their position. Jesus certainly didn’t model ministry from a distance, but he had the twelve, among whom he had the three, among whom he had the one. As Andy Stanley puts it, do for one what you wish you could do for all. You can’t give yourself away evenly, so don’t make the mistake of not giving yourself away at all.

4. Pray for a Bible read through partner – could well be the best thing you’ve done in ministry. The heartbeat of Cor Deo’s success in the lives of the participants this year has again been the Bible read through partnerships. Simple idea: find someone who will share your ambition to know God more by reading through the Bible boldly and relationally. Set an end goal (perhaps 3 or 4 months), go for it. Underline your highlights and meet up once a week to share a few minutes of highlights and pray for each other. Watch lives get transformed (including your own). Click here for a better explanation.

5. See through your own busy excuse. Of course we are all too busy for any of this, but we all find time for what we consider truly valuable.