Preacher’s Personal Life

Preaching a Passage Owned

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

Preachers preach a Bible passage from a variety of stances or approaches.  I see something of a continuum here and would love to encourage all preachers to move further down the list.

1. Preaching from thoughts prompted by the passage. In preparation the text is read, then the preacher preaches based on thoughts triggered by elements in the text.  It could be a certain word.  It could be a character mentioned.  It could really be anything.  Why do people do this?  Because they have not been taught a better way, and because it has a sort of pseudo-spirituality about it as an approach (since perhaps God is highlighting unique elements to make this a unique experience of the text).

2. Preaching about a subject in the passage. The preacher latches on to a subject mentioned in a text and addresses that subject, perhaps using other texts for support, perhaps just sharing their own perspective on that subject.

3. Preaching about the subject in the passage. A single unit of Scripture (a epistle’s paragraph, an individual narrative or parable, a psalm, a proverb, etc.) has a specific subject.  It is united by it’s dealing with something in particular.  Preaching about that something in particular is a great step forward and honours the text, the author and the Inspirer of that text.

4. Preaching about the passage. The preacher is focused on the text, has studied it and preaches about it.  There is a focus on the passage.  The details are explained, the flow is clarified, the message is applied.  This is decent preaching.

5. Preaching the passage. The difference between this and the previous one is a matter of distance.  Preaching about the passage can be accurate and relevant, and yet still feel a bit “arms length.”  The passage is like an exhibit being presented.  If every church achieved level 4 consistently I believe the church would be so much healthier.  But there is also level 5 in this continuum.  If level 4 says what the text says, then level 5 is about doing what the text does.  Somehow the preacher isn’t merely presenting an exhibit, but has so grasped the passage and been so gripped by it, that the preaching is no longer “arms length” – it is direct, personal, clear, alive, to us.  There must still be historical explanation, looking at the passage, applying the message of the passage, but now it is the preaching of a passage owned, a passage that has saturated the heart and mind and life and preparation of the preacher.

Where are you on this continuum?  How about moving one step further?

Is That All?

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

I was just reading a book that made a simple, but memorable point.  The author asked a carpenter working on his house what difference Jesus made to his life and work.  The answer was telling, “I suppose he makes me an honest carpenter.”  Is that all?

How often do we essentially preach a salvation ticket to heaven with morality for the present? How often do we fall painfully short of offering to people in our meetings what Jesus called “life to the full” or “eternal life” … now?  I believe many are failing to preach much of a hope for the future, with the watered down vesions of, or totally ignored subject of, the future.  Yet it is hard to say that the future is neglected for the sake of the present.  For many, the present life offered by Christianity is merely moral.

Have we become dulled and insensitive to the richness of life in fellowship with the God of the universe?  Have we over-simplified gospel preaching to a simple solution for guilt, but stripped it of the richness of reconciliation, regeneration, adoption, fellowship, not to mention the horizontal overflow of these vertical realities?

I’ll keep this post short and not chase down the theological possibilities.  But perhaps we would do well to evaluate the net presentation of the Christian life in our preaching – is it merely that now we can be honest carpenters?

Improving Speech While Not Preparing – 3

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For the past two days I have looked at word choices and verbal pauses.  More could be said, but it would be more of the same.  Perhaps working on choosing vivid rather than lifeless descriptors would be worth a post, but you can think that through.  I would like to add one more post to the series on another aspect of delivery – the visual element.

What listeners take in through the “eye-gate” is massively significant.  Some elements of visual, or non-verbal delivery, can be improved in everyday life.  Here are a few possibilities, select only those that are issues in your delivery:

1. Eye contact. Perhaps the most important ingredient in any delivery recipe, eye contact takes work for many of us.  In every conversation or presentation (which might be the telling of a story to a group of friends standing around the coffee machine at work), practice making meaningful eye contact with the entire group.  How easy to develop a blind spot (never looking to the people on your left).  How easy to get in the habit of looking over people or past people.  Practice will help your preaching, not to mention your daily conversations!

2. Posture. How do you stand while in a conversation?  How do you stand when saying goodbye at the front door (a very English pastime)?  How do you hold yourself when approaching the counter in a store?  Developing healthy and confident, but not arrogant or contrived posture is worth the effort.  It is so easy to undermine a message by sending “don’t trust me” or “this is not important” signals!

3. Distracting movement. Some people pace, others shuffle, some sway, some fidget.  If you discover you have a propensity to distracting movement, work it out in normal life.  It will only help in life and ministry.

4. Distracting gesture. Apart from some obviously offensive gestures, I am not highly against any gesture.  Hand in pocket can be fine.  Pointing might be appropriate.  Touching the face may not detract from a message.  However, any repeated gesture can become highly distracting.  If you find you have one, work it out in normal life.  Finger to finger push-ups, one arm hanging limp, jingling keys in the pocket, the werewolf, the T-Rex (elbows attached to the side but lots of hand gesturing), what Bert Decker calls the fig leaf, or the fig leaf flasher, the Clinton (gesturing as if holding the pen), even slapping yourself on the head.  Anything can be distracting if overused!

5. Smile.  A grossly underused tool for connection and building trust.  It wouldn’t hurt the world if we all practiced this more in everyday life, and it might show more in our preaching too!

Find out (from friend or from video) what you need to work on, your listeners will appreciate it!

Improving Speech While Not Preparing – 2

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Yesterday I referred to Jay Adams’ suggestion that we can improve our language use best by working on it in everyday life so that it becomes natural.  He mentions another aspect of speech that many need to work on.  The unnecessary use of, you know, like, filler words.  These verbal pauses do a lot to distract listeners and lessen the impact of otherwise pointed and focused speech.

The problem with filler words or verbal pauses is that they only seem to get worse when we focus on them in a time of tension.  So simply telling yourself not to say that thing you always say so often is not going to fix it when you’re preaching.  In fact, it will probably exacerbate the problem.  So Jay Adams suggests working on this at home, with the help of your wife.  Have a family member help by making it clear whenever the filler is used.  Gradually the added complexity of conversation will motivate you to drop the filler. “Know?  I don’t know, could you explain it to me please?” That will really stack up in some of our, you know, conversations. “Like?  What was he like, to what would you compare him?” That will complicate a relatively simple interchange!

If you can figure it out, a signal system that is only known to you and your spouse could be used in public settings too.  However, Adams suggests this approach be kept to the private sphere if there isn’t total agreement on how to proceed in public!

Eliminating verbal pauses will achieve massive benefits for preaching.  But perhaps the time to work on the habit is in the normal situations of life, rather than the pressure cooker situation of preaching.  At th end of the day, you know, what have you found helpful in eliminating verbal pauses or distracting cliches?

A Tired Feast

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Sunday morning I preached the last of the messages.  I’d taught class for four days, but then things got busier.  Between Thursday evening and Sunday morning (60 hours) I spoke six times, taught two sessions, and travelled many miles by car, train and aeroplane.  Not the busiest few days, but among the tightest in terms of the travel schedule.  So Sunday afternoon I got on the train to start the journey home.

I was tired and knew that attempting to read or write would be borderline futile.  So instead I chose to enjoy a tired feast.  Stopping only to hand over my passport or order food, I basically spent the next hours listening to about a dozen messages from about seven different speakers.  Subjects were varied.  Speakers truly diverse – from Stan Toussaint and Ron Allen to a series from Andy Stanley and even a few minutes of Ken Davis.  I drifted a couple of times from eyes closed to actually asleep, so I moved back and listened again to those minutes.

I didn’t listen to make observations on preaching technique.  I didn’t listen to gain ideas for illustrations or preaching strategies.  I listened because I knew I needed to be fed.  I was fed.  Actually, I feasted.  A stunning illustration of Isaiah 53:10 from an elderly scholar.  A moving introduction to a message on life’s pivotal circumstances from a contemporary communicator.  An inspiring series on growing in faith.  A great example of traditional preaching on the tabernacle.  A well-shaped presentation of the raising of Lazarus.  A non-traditional survey of a theme in John’s gospel.

Sometimes we need to stop giving out and take the time to be fed.  Hungry?

The Subject We Don’t Mention

/ Peter Mead / 8 Comments

Actually there are several subjects that preachers are not supposed to talk about, but I’d like to mention one.  Briefly.  Actually I’d rather not mention it, so I’ll quote somebody else.  It’s the issue of “expenses,” aka “petrol money” in some churches, aka “speaking fees,” aka “honoraria.”  It’s right that we hesitate to mention this issue since money should not be the motivation of a preacher, but at the same time very few are in a position to totally ignore the issue of finances.

I was just enjoying Richard Bewes’ book Speaking in Public Effectively.  In his last chapter he focuses on the travelling speaker.  He addresses the unique challenges of travelling to speak, the things you learn to pack, the flexibility that’s needed, the fact that some apparently petty and trivial things can become profoundly significant in the dead of night in an obscure place.  Finally, the preaching is done and it’s time to get going on your return journey,

Someone comes up to you wearing specs, and holding a pen and pad. “Could you tell me if you had any expenses?”

In general it’s right to put in a claim, if for no other reason than that the organizers ought to know what the actual costs of their meeting came to.  They make an annual budget.  They need to know, and so do their successors.

Accept whatever you are given.  At times I have been paid with book tokens.  You wonder, as you drive away, what the reaction would be at the petrol station, if you leant out of the car window and chirped, “Do you take book tokens here?”  But it is all part of the fascinating experience of service, and we learn to take the rough and the smooth together, with equanimity, “not greedy for money, but eager to serve” (1Peter 5:2)

This attitude should govern us all, including those who depend on their speaking for a living.  Speakers who become money-conscious should either reform their priorities or leave off speaking.  The people who ought to be giving attention to the question of expenses, fees and salaries are the organizing elders.  They are the leaders responsible for these matters, and they should, if possible, have business people among them.  It is not the concern of the speakers.  Never.

I wonder what difference including business people in the discussions of speakers “expenses” might make?  Anyway, enough of me quoting someone else, any comments on this issue (feel free to comment “anonymously” on this issue!)

Reformation Lessons for Preachers

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There could be no end to posts dealing with lessons for preachers from the Reformation.  I’d like to focus in on one today, then another tomorrow.  Both of them were brought out very clearly in a series of messages by Michael Reeves on Justification (available, and well worth listening to, on theologynetwork.org).  In the final session of a great series of talks, Mike asks “Why is it that Luther started the Reformation and Erasmus didn’t?” Let me quote the first part of Mike’s two-part answer to this question:

Why is it that Luther started the Reformation and Erasmus didn’t?  Because Erasmus is the one who unleashed the Greek New Testament onto Europe.  He was getting the Bible out there, so why didn’t he start the Reformation?  Well, even though Erasmus was a constant and deep student of the Scriptures, the Scriptures didn’t actually do a lot for him because of how he treated them.  Erasmus kept banging on about how vague the Scriptures are (which is very convenient for his own theology), and so he gave them very little practical, let alone overruling, authority.  So although he looked at Scripture, the message of Scripture could be tailored, squeezed, adjusted to fit his own vision of what Christianity is.

The only way to break out of that suffocating scheme and achieve any substantial reformation and change in the world – well, it took Luther’s attitude, that Scripture is the only sure foundation for belief.  The Bible had to be acknowledged as the supreme authority.  It had to be allowed to contradict and overrule all other claims, because if it couldn’t do that, it itself would be overruled and hijacked by another message, as it was with Erasmus.  In other words a simple reverence for the Bible was never going to change the world, even quite a high view of the Bible was never going to do much.  Sola Scriptura.  Scripture alone was the indispensable key for change.  Without acknowledging that the Bible has that supreme and foundational authority there would be no Reformation.  No Reformation in peoples’ hearts, no Reformation in the world.

That final emboldened text is well worth a “selah” for preachers.  On this matter are we an Erasmus, or a Luther?

What Is The Motivation . . .

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Do you ever wonder what someone’s motivation might be?  For example, I was thinking about a man I once knew who never read anything except the Bible.  His preaching bore the fruit.  Some might say that his preaching was biblically saturated and uncluttered.  Others might suggest his preaching was unengaging and borderline heretical.  Not that the Bible is unengaging, but somehow there was, at times, a lack of connection happening.  So I ponder . . . what was the motivation?

1. Was it pure devotion to Christ? Perhaps.  Certainly there are many who would do well to stop reading everything but and spend some serious time in God’s Word, like a lifetime.  Perhaps this is fruit of the example and we would all do well to heed it.

2. Was it mixed up with insecurity? Perhaps.  After all, it’s a lot easier to stay on familiar territory and not be stretched or challenged or confronted or corrected.  It can be intimidating to consider the vast array of biblical and theological scholarship out there.  What if that held only fear for him?  Perhaps the fruit of this example is to encourage us to not fear, but to be stretched and grow, and perhaps have the odd corrective to point out where our own thinking might be distorting the message of Scripture.

3. Was it thinly veiled arrogance? Perhaps.  After all, while it might be portrayed as devotion to Christ, it is at the same time a reliance on one’s own ability to piece together the complex canon of Scripture.  There is always a tension between separation from corrupting influences and interdependence with the body of Christ.  Is it not arrogant to state by word or action, “I don’t need you” to a fellow saint in the local church, or a sibling in Christ who offers conversation through the pages of a book?  Perhaps the fruit of this example is to recognize that distinctive devotion can sometimes smack of blatant arrogance and walk more carefully?

I honestly don’t know what to think of this particular man.  I’d like to believe the best.  Obviously only the Lord can judge his motives.  But perhaps I can learn from all the possibilities I mentioned.  More in the Word.  Unafraid of engaging with scholars.  Humble enough to enjoy conversation with a giant of the past, or a “nobody” in the church.  I don’t know what his motivations were.  But God knows yours and mine.  What does our distinctiveness say about us?

Training Gaps

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I just read through a course guide for a preaching course.  I won’t name it.  It left me feeling dry and concerned.  Why?  To put it basically, because of what was and what wasn’t included.

Included – The different types of sermon that can be used (exegetical and topical given as the main two options, with two others noted).  The key role of the hymnbook in sermon preparation (double the content of the exegetical sermon preparation guidelines).  A session on effective delivery.  Then some guidelines on how to give feedback to a preacher (including the line, “don’t try to correct their theology.”)

Missing – Anything more than a cursory reference to studying the Bible.  Anything about how to get from a passage to a message so that the message has any biblical authority, accuracy or relevance.  Anything about the personal spirituality of the preacher.

I won’t go on, but surely an introducing to preaching course has to build on Biblical study as a key feature.  While it is best to get training in all areas, the fact is that communication and delivery training occurs in daily life, but most Christians are significantly unaware of what it means to really study and understand, let alone preach, a passage of Scripture.

My point is not to criticize this particular book (I suppose what I paid for it was worth it to remind me of the training offered in some venues).  My point is for us to look back on the training we received – what was strong, what was weak, what was missing?  Are there gaps that could be filled now with some carefully chosen study, course or mentoring?

Short-Notice Preaching

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Have you ever had to preach at short-notice?  What do you do if you only have two days to prepare?  Two hours?  Two minutes?  In some ways I hope it doesn’t happen to any of us.  On the other hand, maybe it would be good if it did.  Why?

1. A short-notice sermon shows quickly whether your spiritual tank is full or empty. There are times when our spiritual reserves are bursting to open a Bible and share from the heart.  At other times a short-notice sermon might feel very dry and simply the reworking of an old message.  Interestingly, the listeners may not know the difference, but you would.  How is your tank today?

2. A short-notice sermon pushes you onto your knees. In the panicky moments of pulling thoughts together for a message without enough time to prepare, it should eventually dawn on us that this is not an exercise in memory or even fast-preparation.  Preaching is as much a prayerful endeavor as it is anything else.

3. A short-notice sermon might restore a fading excitement at the privilege of preaching. Perhaps you see God working very much despite your own feelings of inadequacy.  Perhaps you see God working despite you not being able to fully craft and script and hone and learn the message.  Perhaps you see God working in a fresh way and your heart will be rekindled with a passion for the adventure of preaching.  Perhaps you don’t need this to achieve that . . . perhaps?

Plenty more could be said on numerous levels about short-notice preaching.  But maybe we could all benefit just from imagining what a one hour or one day warning might do for us as preachers!