True Fellowship

July 14, 2011July 14, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

If you are gripped by what the Bible offers, then you will probably preach about the wonder of true Christian fellowship as it should be as one of your recurring themes. But a church is typically a very mixed group of people, including those seemingly not gripped by the same vision. And preaching can be a very lonely ministry. This seems to suggest there might be a problem for preachers.

Last night the ministry I am involved in had its final “graduation” meal together. (Cor Deo is online here.) The ten men who have been shoulder to shoulder for the past six months won’t gather in that way after today. We have delighted in God together, and therefore have found our fellowship to be true, deep and satisfying too. I suspect that we will not lose the taste for good fellowship with like-minded responders to God and will go out of our way to look for it in the next season of life. But some preachers seem to have never had the taster, and so preaching can be such a lonely experience.

Some preachers look within their church for this kind of fellowship. Perhaps a colleague or two in the formal ministry functions of the church, or perhaps others from the congregation. Often the challenge is for this not to become a church ministry focused relationship since there is always so much to discuss. Or for it to be restricted by what cannot be discussed. Somehow those in leadership often feel the need to be less than real due to some perceived image that must be maintained.

Some preachers look outside their church for this kind of fellowship. Perhaps a pastor of another church, or a person in a similar situation as far as ministry involvement. Maybe it is a friend who is safe to share with and offer a more unrestricted vulnerability.

Whether the person is in the church, or in another, is not the issue. What matters is that we don’t do ministry alone. We need true fellowship. That means standing shoulder to shoulder with others who share our delight in God, pursuing Him together and enjoying Him together. If our hearts are not gripped by the glorious grace of our God, then how can we truly serve the church as preachers of His Word? And as my youth leader used to say regularly – a burning coal removed from close contact with others will soon grow cool and lose the glow.

Preacher, Encourage!

July 13, 2011July 13, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Everyone needs encouragement. We need it as preachers. So we shouldn’t be surprised if our listeners do too! And yet, strangely, something that everyone needs, and everyone acknowledges is needed, seems to be strangely absent in a significant amount of preaching. Let me encourage you to encourage people as you preach.

Don’t think exhortation is encouragement. There is a need for exhortation, but people need to be encouraged too. Exhorting involves persuasion and a hint of rebuke, but encouragement injects hope, confidence and life.

Don’t think guilt is encouragement. To put it simply, it is not. Guilting people into conformity is a shortcut that may yield results, but it will be short-lived and counter-productive. Allow guilt to come by the conviction of the Spirit, but don’t add guilt where guilt is not the issue – that is a form of legalism.

Don’t think that enthusiasm is encouragement. Your enthusiasm may be contagious, but people may sit impressed by your passion, yet not feel encouraged in their own. Think through how to invest rather than simply demonstrate enthusiasm in your preaching.

There are other things we may offer and think we are being encouraging. But consider both your passage and your listeners, how can this be preached in a way that will encourage them? Robinson talks about the need for ten encouraging messages for every one rebuke. It is so counterproductive when we get that ratio reversed. Be encouraged as you read the Word, and look to share that encouragement as encouragement!

The Destructive Power of the Patronising Quip

July 12, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

It is simple really, people don’t like to be patronized. So don’t. That is, if you want them to hear what else you are saying, assuming the patronizing comment is not the main idea of your message, don’t do it. It is like speaking to your spouse for ten minutes and throwing in a couple of insults along the way – what do you think they will go away thinking about?

I’m sure we all know what it is to be patronized, but let me share some patronizing comments that I’ve heard from the pulpit in recent years (just to be sure we are all alert to the range available to us if we want to undermine a sermon or two!)

Patronizing the locale – “So this is the little town of…” Maybe it is “little” from the visiting speaker’s perspective, but most locals don’t like outsiders telling them where they live is insignificant. Call it pride if you will, but don’t expect such a warm hearing.

Patronizing the church – “I come from a church of X hundred, but it’s so nice to be in an intimate gathering like this…” It’s like being a tourist. Comment positively as much as you like, but not in implied comparison with the bigger and better that you have come from.

Patronizing the knowledge – “Have you ever considered the difference the next word makes to this passage?” Unless you are claiming to have come up with something new, some of them probably have considered that. (And if you’ve got something new, you may have a different problem on your hands!) Along similar lines, “turn to X in your Bibles, you’ll need to use the table of contents to find!”

Patronizing the experience – “You may not have seen this before…” This is similar to the previous comment, it implies that you are a first time guide (which generally grates on those seasoned travellers through the Bible). Bizarrely I heard one preacher say, “If you read through John’s Gospel every week for twenty years, you would see this…” I don’t know if that is patronizing or just plain deceptive – I struggle to believe the implication that since he had done that he could now show us this wonderful insight in the text (it was a fanciful, or should I say, a theologically driven twisting of the text on that occasion!)

The strange thing about patronizing is that it tends to be in the form of passing comments, rather than overall content. This isn’t a hard and fast statement. Surely some preachers may come across as patronizing in everything they say, but I suspect that is primarily attitude. The point is, people don’t mind hearing basic messages. The way to avoid patronizing is not to wow the listener with new insight, clever exegesis or overwhelming passion. The way to avoid patronizing is to speak with love for the listener. When we are sensitive to how we come across, then we will filter out the unhelpful quips along the way.

Torrents of Trite Truths

July 7, 2011July 7, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Little story. Almost a decade ago I was teaching a class in a Bible college overseas. I was teaching a wonderful group of enthusiastic church ministers how to handle the New Testament via a survey class. It was such a delight to share with them in that setting.

One day during the eight-day course, we had the chapel time with all the classes and staff present. A pastor was visiting from a church that had put a lot of funding into the institution, so naturally the “big church” pastor was invited to preach during chapel. It was painful.

He wasn’t really preaching a text, so much as preaching platitudes. Problem was that the enthusiastic students seemed to trigger something in him. Swept away on the wave of vocal affirmation, the pastor noticeably “rose to the occasion.” He went off on a wild safari of pithy alliterated lists and trite truths. Each time he got a vocal response he cranked it up a level. The room was electric. I sank lower and lower in my seat, oscillating between anger and momentary depression.

As I left the chapel (time eventually ran out and he had to stop), my young travel companion made a discerning comment about the whole thing. Unfortunately the students were different. They processed the difference between what they were learning and what they experienced from the “great preacher” by dividing learning from preaching.

Oh yes, there is a right way to handle the Bible and honour the message that God inspired. And there is a great way to preach so that listeners are stirred into a frenzy affirming trite truths and pithy epithets. Disconnect. One didn’t feed the other.

I feel like I say this regularly in as many ways as I can think of, but let me say it again: please please please preach the text you are preaching. Anyone (including four year olds) can spurt the truths of the faith learned parrot fashion. Surely God wants those mature enough to be sensitive to His inspired text to carefully and humbly be fed and feed others from the Word.

Tone Deaf Preaching

July 5, 2011July 5, 2011 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

You won’t hear me starting a chorus in public. Tone deaf. But what about preaching? Is there a need for aural sensitivity in the preacher? I think there is, absolutely.

What is the tone of the text? Some preachers deal with texts as flat data sets offering them a set of information from which to draw a textually rooted sermon (which is better than those who use the text as a springboard to bounce off to reach the heights of their own constructed sermonizing!) But if we are going to be genuinely biblical preachers, then we must develop a sensitivity for the tone of the text. Galatians 1 is very different from Philippians 4, which is neither Psalm 51 nor Isaiah 40. What is the tone of the text? Without sensitivity to the tone, you aren’t grasping a text properly.

What is the tone of your preaching? It doesn’t matter how good a sermon may be on paper, your congregation have to hear you preach it. This means how it comes across is very important. If you are consistently coming across as nagging, or edgy, or aggressive, or disrespectful, or patronizing, or prideful . . . and if you don’t know it, this is a problem. Ask for honest feedback. Listen to yourself. Watch yourself. Is the tone what you want it to be? Is the tone what the text suggests? Is the tone what they need it to be?

The tone of the text. The tone of the preacher. Some preachers seem tone deaf to both. Good preachers aren’t.

Preaching and Pride: A Deadly Terrain

June 24, 2011June 23, 2011 / Peter Mead / 9 Comments

Did you see the opening battle scene in Saving Private Ryan? Imagine the most frightening and dangerous terrain from any war movie. What if pride be the threat and preaching be the mission? Uh-oh, it looks dangerous:

1. Preaching involves speaking to others about their lives. Of course it can be “we” rather than just “you” (as if you are the finished product!), but even so, there is massive temptation to pride when being the dispenser of spiritual input.

2. You might be effective as a preacher. This doesn’t help because you will then receive affirmation and even admiration from people helped by your ministry. Warning!

3. You might be rubbish as a preacher, but never fear, there are plenty of people who will be polite and affirm your ministry anyway. False affirmation and feedback is a frequent feature of church lobbies and doorways.

4. You might be trained, equipped and well-informed. That might mean numerous years of high level academic training. Or it might mean you read a book during preparation. Either way, you may be, or perceive yourself to be, beyond others in your knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, careful!

5. Up-front ministry will get kudos other ministries won’t. So you’re up front in the church. People will talk to you and about you and they will see you and they know you. A ridiculously low-level celebrity status awaits everyone who steps into a pulpit. Warning!

6. What if you see lives change “under your ministry”? That’s a scary thought, since you might think you achieved that.

7. The enemy would love to see you believing the hype. Was it Spurgeon that was approached by a congregant and told that was the best sermon she’d ever heard, only to reply, “The Devil has already told me that.”

8. Public speaking presents continual opportunity to perform, or as we might say to children, “show off.” Listen to me, see what I know, watch as I impress you with my Greek, or cultural awareness, or translation critique, or ministry experience, or name drop, or … warning!

9. You are not yet glorified, so your flesh is still pre-programmed with a prideful operating system. So you are not immune to any of this.

10. You may find it hard to have genuine close friendships since you are in a position of influence, so you will be lonely and vulnerable while everybody affirms and endorses your spirituality.

11. You may find yourself, or put yourself, in a separate spiritual category to everyone else. Sort of a clerical bubble that promises immunity from spiritual struggle, but guarantees a greater exposure to the attractive fruit of temptation.

12. There are probably a dozen more reasons that pride may be lurking behind every pew as you stand to preach.

To be honest, I think the terrain looks absolutely frightening, terrifying, a deadly terrain and the only way to go there is in absolute reliance on God! Exactly.

Praying to the Wrong God?

June 20, 2011June 20, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Today’s post over on the Cor Deo site is about whether we might be praying to the wrong God. Probably an important issue for preachers! Click here to go there.

Father’s Day Post: What To Ask The Children

June 16, 2011June 12, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Coming home from church at Sunday lunch time is a regular opportunity to chat with the children. Have we forgotten anyone? How was Sunday School? What did you learn? All the normal interrogatives to engage the next generation after a morning of church.

But what about after the sermon? What should I ask? There are several options:

1. What did you learn? This is the Sunday School question transferred to the church service. Perhaps it implies that preaching is primarily educative. Perhaps it suggests that the goal of the listener is to be intellectually stimulated by the preaching of the Word so that they come away better informed. Certainly this is a fair question and there is a content to the Christian faith that makes the question worthwhile. I suspect children of experiential meditative religions don’t get asked what they learned after visiting the temple. And I suppose sometimes it is the only question I suspect might get anything out of the children. But having said that, this shouldn’t be the only question to ask, for education is not the only goal in preaching.

2. How did the sermon change you? I suppose this is a worthwhile question since church is meant to be transformative rather than merely repetitive. On the one hand this question might train an expectation of transformation at the hearing of God’s Word. On the other hand, it might fan the flames of self-focus that is the scourge of fallen humanity. Perhaps the question can be modified slightly, “how did the sermon change you in response to Christ?”

3. How did the sermon make you feel? This is a riskier question when the answer might easily be “bored” or “sleepy.” But contrary to popular opinion, it is a legitimate question. God didn’t just design our brains, but also our emotions. Every sermon will have an “affect” on us. Sadly, too many will numb souls, rather than igniting hearts with fire in response to the love of God. Too many sermons will depress the listeners, rather than stirring deep within the kind of passion for God that is only fitting for those who hear His Word preached.

Too often I only feel comfortable asking the first question. Perhaps this is something for preachers to ponder, as well as Dads.

Application as Looking

June 10, 2011May 29, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

We hear about preaching needing application. Some end up at one extreme offering to-do lists for successful living that make the Bibles bulge (and the listeners feel overwhelmed with pressure). Others end up at the other extreme of rejecting all reference to application since it is supposedly the work of the Spirit (implying that communicating the passage, pointing to Christ, etc., are not works of the Spirit?), and you hear things as misguided as “now may the Spirit apply to our hearts the truths we have seen in His Word.” Wrong! Preachers should not abdicate any of their role, neither should they think of any part of their role as being completely on their own shoulders either.

I have previously written about the need for our application to go deeper than conduct. There is a place for conduct in our application, of course. There is also the need for our application to reach to the thinking and worldview and belief systems of our listeners. And there is the deeper level of the affections, the values, the emotional centre, the loves of our listeners. Affections, belief and conduct. Three levels of legitimate and necessary application.

But let me offer another nudge. Not a three-layer nudge, but a two-part nudge. Instead of always offering “do” to our listeners (with the attitudinal companion of pressure), let’s consider our role as nudging listeners with a “look!” (with the attitudinal companion of enthusiasm).

As we offer the Word, explaining and applying it to our listeners, let a large chunk of the application be “look!” As people see the God of Scripture, revealed in the Son, by the power of the Spirit, their lives will be transformed: inside to out, affections, belief, conduct.

Our task is not primarily to be a conveyor of our exegetical insights, opaquely offering the Bible to contemporary folks. Our task is more to be a lens, effectively handling the Scripture to offer a glimpse of the One revealing Himself in the Word, transparently letting God be seen to contemporary listeners with eyes to see. So we speak and they listen. And we say Look! And by God’s grace they see.

Offending and Offenders

June 9, 2011May 29, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Nobody likes to be criticised, nor to hear that others are offended at them or by them. Yet as preachers we need to become discerning in this issue of offense. As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, let’s look at this from another angle.

Some offense is avoidable and should be avoided. Some is not avoidable and shouldn’t be avoided. Some offense is peripheral. Some offense is central.

If you are criticised for something that was misunderstood, or came across wrongly, or whatever, then apologise. Perhaps a passing humorous remark hurt somebody’s feelings. Hopefully you will have opportunity to apologise to them (unless they remain hidden in the undergrowth and simply spread their critique by the poisonous weed of gossip). Perhaps an illustration came across as arrogant when you meant it entirely differently. Don’t get caught up in thinking that everything you say is of the Lord simply because you prayed about it, or because you are the preacher. Lead the way in humility and readiness to apologise. Be approachable so at least some people will talk to you about these things.

If you are criticised for something that is incidental, consider whether the one criticising is a professional moaner. Some will find anything for their target. They didn’t like that you put your Bible down, or that you put your hand in your pocket during a personal story, or that you flapped a wasp away, or that you wore a tie, or didn’t, or smiled, or didn’t, or whatever, or didn’t. If this person comes to you and they are repeatedly offended, consider whether this is an opportunity to graciously but firmly put a finger on the critical spirit. If this person consistently goes to others about you, then encourage the others to both encourage them to speak to the person they think has sinned instead of gossiping, and perhaps to call them on their attitude.

If you are criticised legitimately, learn.

If you are criticised because the Bible, the gospel, the Christ, the Spirit, has made them uncomfortable, or convicted, or challenged, or whatever . . . then, well, then good. Some people want to come to church as an exercise in religious piety, but without true piety. They want to go through the motions, but don’t want their own emotions to be engaged at all. They want to tick an attendance box, and you preaching the Bible gets in the way of that. Don’t apologise. Keep preaching. Don’t allow a small number of complainants to control you or the church. Our goal must never be to keep everyone happy. You can easily arrest the development of the church for the sake of a handful, while the steady trickle of the spiritually lively out of the back door will spiritually bankrupt the church.

There are many reasons people get offended. We must care. Hard-skinned unapproachability is not becoming of a preacher of God’s Word. But there are numerous ways to respond. May God grant us wisdom and humility and courage to know what to do. (And may God also grant us co-leaders around us who can both discern and act when they hear the critique instead of us!)