Preacher’s Personal Life

Truth and Testimony

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

It concerns me when truth and testimony seem to be separate.  For instance:

There are some Christians that are very strong on the truth issues relating to Jesus – who He is and what He’s done.  They are passionately committed to the truth and will not compromise on it.

There are some Christians who have a strong peronal relationship with Jesus.  Their testimony is sweet and intimate and personal.  They have a deep sense of the love of God and communion with Him.

My concern is that I see too many Christians who have one, but not the other.  Strong on truth and standing for what is biblical orthodoxy.  Or strong on testimony and shaky on biblical orthodoxy.  Surely the Bible is inviting us and urging us to fully grasp both?

As a preacher, do you tend to pronounce truth, but never really offer the invitation for the more personal and intimate walk with the Lord (assuming that will be there)?  Or do you tend to make Christianity so winsome, but without the infrastructure of truth in place?

Let’s be sure that we are not imbalanced ourselves, but hold firmly to both of these aspects of the gospel . . . and then be sure to present both.

Tailored to a Token Level

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments
The desire to be relevant to our listeners might sometimes undermine our preaching. What I am thinking about is the count the costs, take up your cross, radical discipleship kind of passages.  You know, the ones that seem to be so demanding and so absolute.
It’s not that we don’t believe them, or don’t want to preach them.  But sometimes we might desire to be relevant so much that we turn a cannonball of application into a little pea of attempted relevance.  We want to connect with people where they are at . . . living normal lives, with normal worries and normal stresses.  So we preach a cannonball passage with mushy pea force.
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Perhaps what people need is the full force of the passage brought to bear on their normal lives, instead of scaled down to fit in their normal lives.  Be sensitive, be wise and be careful how you say what you say and when.  But also be bold, be faithful and be willing to pass on the full force of what the Bible invites us to as followers of Christ.
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Don’t tailor application down to a token level.  Preach the Word, and be sure to let God preach to you through that Word first.  We all need our lives exposed to the full force of Christ’s call on our lives.

Homiletical Hermeneutics

/ Peter Mead / 4 Comments

Last night I was in conversation with a good friend and fellow preacher.  We were talking about another preacher and how thoroughly he knows the Bible.  When my friend asked me why I thought he had become so thoroughly saturated with the Bible, I didn’t need to think long about the answer.  Obviously he has read it a lot, studied it and preached it.  But there’s something else that I’d like to share here: he reads the Bible like a preacher. 

That could be a good thing or a bad thing.

The wrong way to read the Bible like a preacher – is to always read looking for a message.  This means the Scriptures are always handled as a resource for sermon material.  It might mean that the Bible bypasses the heart, life and needs of the preacher, moving straight from God to the listeners’ needs.  I suppose it could mean forcing every text into a preconceived sermonic form (seeking to alliterate points, force the text into a certain number of sections, etc.)

The right way to read the Bible like a preacher – is to recognize the inherent communicative nature of Scripture.  Every writer was seeking to communicate effectively.  As a preacher it is possible to develop the skill of a homiletical approach to hermeneutics.  This means that you read the Bible text as communication – you look for the inherent unity that is there, rather than simply chasing down every tangent prompted by each detail.  It means you look for the sense of order and progression in the communication.  It means you recognize how the writer is developing each idea – the phases of explanation, elements of proof, and attempts to apply the idea.  It means you look for the author’s intent as well as their content, with a sensitivity to the needs of the original recipients.

After decades of handling the Bible like that, it shows.  I only hope the same will be true of me at the other end of my life.

The Other Side of the Gap

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John Stott presented the notion of a preacher being a bridge builder. That is, in the act of preaching, the preacher is seeking to build a bridge between the world of the Bible and the world of the listeners. A good expository sermon has to be solidly earthed in the biblical text, and it must touch down definitely in the world of the listeners.

For effective communication to take place, we have to know as much as possible about those with whom we communicate.  But the preacher is not a politician or a salesperson or whatever else.  The preacher is shepherding, and thus we should not just know the listeners, we need to love them.  So as prompt in that direction, here are some quick fire points to ponder:

1. We love, because God first loved us. Loving others is really a response to the love of God for us.  As we love Him, our hearts will begin to beat in time with His and consequently we will increase in love for those that He loves.

2. Coldness toward others is an indicator of something more. We can’t claim to love God, but not love our brother.  Allow any perceived coldness toward others to prompt prayer and sensitivity to God.  Take coldness seriously, God does.

3. We are able to connect with listeners because we also live life in this world. Be sensitive to the struggles you experience and recognize that others face the same types of struggles (and more).  Being impervious to the challenges of life doesn’t make you a great leader, it makes you a distant leader.

4. We need to know our listeners. Some preachers are passionate students of the Word of God, but indifferent students of the people of God, or the people God desires to reach.

5. To know people, listen carefully. Yes, we should be observing what is going on, but there’s something about listening.  Most people don’t so much want to be seen, but they long to be heard.

6. Sharing life experience helps massively. Don’t be distant from people.  Have them in your home.  Visit them in theirs.  If appropriate visit them at work, share sport, share celebrations, share sorrow, share life.

7. Pray for the listeners. It’s easy to pray a “God please bless all the listeners on Sunday” kind of prayer.  Surely the preacher who loves the listener will take the time and make the effort to pray for the listeners.

This list is incomplete, so please add to it by commenting below.

Something Happens

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I just started Darrell Johnson’s The Glory of Preaching. I can’t offer any sort of review after only a few pages, although I am looking forward to reading more (his earlier book, Experiencing the Trinity is well worth getting hold of).  But how about a quote:

Through the never-perfect speech of an always-imperfect speaker, the triune God works the miracle of transformation.

So the book presses on into the glory of preaching, building on three foundational convictions:

1. When the living God speaks, something always happens.

2. When the preacher speaks God’s speech, God speaks.

3. Therefore, when the preacher speaks God’s speech, something always happens.

I will write a review of the book in due course, but for now, why not just ponder these brief quotes?  Why not prayerfully ponder the next preaching event you have the privilege of participating in, and pray with expectation that something will happen.  What kind of something?  Well, what kind of God?

The Hardest Element to Define

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The elements that go together to make up this thing called expository preaching are four. There is the God’s empowering/anointing/superintending element. There is the true meaning of the biblical text element. There is the effective communication of the preacher’s words and life element. And there is the emphasis on the contemporary relevance to the listeners element. Each of these is critical, but surely the first is the hardest to define.

I suppose in simplistic short-hand the key to the message being superintended by the Spirit is to pray throughout the preparation process.  The deliberate act of prayer demonstrates the preacher’s dependence on God rather than on self.  Obviously this is a simplistic explanation, but not so simplistic that it shouldn’t be expressed.  How many preachers grow increasingly deficient when it comes to prayer in their ministry?  Of course, prayer offers no guarantee or short-cut, but it is absolutely vital.

If we were to push deeper into this element of preaching, then we would have to look beyond the simple matter of prayer in preparation and consider the whole spirituality of the preacher.  We do not preach out of a vacuum of preparation and a pot of resources restricted to that particular sermon.  As someone once said, it takes hours to prepare a sermon, but it takes a lifetime to prepare a preacher.  There is something about the preacher’s personal walk with the Lord that is essentially linked in to the ministry of that preacher.

But there are other factors to consider.  What about the whole issue of anointing and gifting for ministry?  What about the spiritual state of the listeners?  What about the role of prayer beyond that of the preacher in preparation?  What about the jar of clay circumstances sometimes imposed on the preacher?

The necessity of empowerment from God is undeniable.  It’s the defining how that all works that’s the challenge!

Where Did the Confidence Go?

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I recently read a book about a certain denomination in this country (not important which denomination here), and it made an interesting observation.  Over the course of a generation it seemed like there was a wholesale loss of confidence.  This showed in evangelism, in church health, in preaching, etc.

Today I was enjoying conversation with a friend who made a similar observation about the same denomination.  A loss of confidence in Scripture, in our ability to understand it, and therefore in our ability to preach it.

This raises the issue of confidence in preaching.  Being self-confident is not the goal here.  Our confidence has to be in God – in His Spirit, His Word, His work in us and others, His gifting.  Tied into this is a certain level of confidence needed in our hermeneutics so that we are not grasping around trying to find “a message” instead of diligently and prayerfully pursuing “the message” in a passage.

What level does your confidence reach in respect to your preaching?  Just as importantly, in whom is your confidence as you preach?

Preparing for 2010

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

Before you know it, 2010 will be here.  What do you hope for in terms of your preaching ministry during next year?  Do you pray for more opportunities or more help with the preaching in your church?  Do you pray for more fruit in the lives of your listeners, or more fruit in your private spiritual walk?  Do you pray for one area of your preaching to be strengthened, or for greater consistency in your preparation?  Do you pray for fruitful times in the Word, or fruitful pastoral interactions with people in the church?  Do you pray for diligence in following through on that training opportunity you are wanting to pursue, or for the courage to follow through on mentoring others?

There is a lot that we can pray about in advance of 2010.  Of course, praying is vital.  But it is worth asking, if you have a specific and tangible goal, what are you going to do to meet it?  Prayerfully, of course, but it probably requires something of you too.  When January comes everyone goes on about New Year’s resolutions.  As a leader you need to be ahead of the game.  Perhaps the next few days might give opportunities, moments of respite from seasonal festivities, to prayerfully ponder your preaching ministry in 2010.

The last thing we want to do is preach just because we do.  There will never be another 2010 . . . how can we make it count.  If you’ve given any thought to your 2010, please share for our encouragement.

A Lonely Place

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It is not unusual to hear that a leader is in a lonely place.  After all, church leadership, like all leadership, is a difficult place to be.  There are stresses and strains not only in your own life, but also the burdens of others that you care for.  There are confidences to keep and decisions to make that effect so many.  As a preacher the problems are perhaps compounded by the solitary nature of the preaching ministry (most tend to prepare alone, then “recover” alone too).

Some of this loneliness is unavoidable. The unique stresses and difficulties have to be acknowledged and lived with.  Being a preacher is often a lonely road and the emotional ups and downs in some ways simply have to be accepted and pressed through.  However . . .

Some of this loneliness is avoidable. I suppose it comes down to our view of leadership (remember that someone who preaches is an influencer and thus a leader, irrespective of their official title in the church).  The world’s view of leadership involves climbing higher into a narrower space in order to have power over more people.  Sometimes we can fall into a worldly approach to leadership that results in us “lording it over” (even though we know that is wrong and so couch it in all the right terms and attitudes).  Servant-leadership calls us to invite others to join us in serving, because if the leader is a servant lifting others up, then there is always room for help at the bottom.  I recently wrote on this issue – here.

Loneliness can be dangerous. So as a pastor, minister, leader, whatever.  As a preacher too, we must be wary of the lonely nature of the ministry.  Be wary if you don’t have a safe place, a small group of individuals who don’t care about your hype, your reputation, your abilities, etc.  Make sure there are some with whom you can be real, be fully vulnerable, be broken, be hurt, be cared for, be healed.  Perhaps this is possible within your church.  Probably you need to look outside.  Certainly you need to be careful as this is a risky thing . . . but the risks of not doing it are greater!

The Preacher’s Motivation

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Yesterday I pondered why a message might be considered a new take or somehow different from what was expected.  On this particular occasion I preached Matthew 1.  I wonder if there’s another element to add to yesterday’s list of thoughts:

4. Not overemphasizing the theologically rich element in the text. In this passage there is the quote and fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14 and the virgin giving birth to a son.  Don’t get me wrong, I did preach that, explained the original context briefly, touching on the Immanuel theme developing right through to 9:6-7.  The Matthew text was clear that Mary was a virgin and that the baby was there because of the Holy Spirit, not any sexual impropriety. However, I didn’t turn the sermon into a theological lecture, nor an apologetic defense of Christian orthodoxy.  My reason for that was because of who would be listening, and because the text doesn’t do that.  As I was pondering this, I wondered whether sometimes we might be tempted to use a theological detail in the text as an opportunity to show off our own orthodoxy, rather than to help listeners understand the truth?  I don’t know, this is just a thought.  I think it is important, it is vital, to teach the theological truth of Scripture, to edify and educate the people in our churches.  Certainly we have too many biblically illiterate people in our churches these days.  But still, are there times when our motivation for a strong theological presentation in a sermon is not really for God’s pleasure or their benefit, but actually for us to demonstrate our theological acumen, or to take pride in our orthodoxy (especially in comparison to some exalted figure who has denied orthodoxy in some respect)?