Preacher’s Personal Life

Looking Back on Modernity

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Craig Loscalzo, in his chapter on postmodernity and preaching (in Apologetic Preaching), looks back on preaching under modernity and describes it in this way:

The modern pulpit was steeped in a reasoned homiletic, marked by point-making sermons, alliterated outlines and a third-person descriptive logic.  Sermons of the modern era often talked about God, about the Bible, about life, viewing these matters like specimens under a microscope.  This pulpit philosophy, saturated with rationalism, focused on factual knowledge as the sole medium for communicating religious truth. . . . For modern pulpits, faith often became unwittingly a synonym for rationalism.  In Tom Long’s estimation we thought we were the children of Abraham but discovered we were merely the children of Descartes.

Quite a description!  Some of us are blissfully unaware of postmodernity (neither every preacher, nor every local community is yet thoroughly beyond modernism).  However, whether your community is showing signs of the shift or still stuck in the 1950’s, it’s important to hear Loscalzo’s description.  What is abundantly clear here, wherever we may stand on the issues of postmodernity and its impact on our listeners, this description of preaching under modernity is anything but an ideal to which we should long to return.

You could probably list concerns about postmodernity, most Christian readers can.  Hopefully you could also list opportunities that it presents to us as the church.  But lest any of us simply dig in to fight against postmodernity, let’s not hold a rose-tinted view of what has gone before.  As well as recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of what is coming, let’s also recognize strengths and weaknesses of what we may be leaving behind.  It was not a golden age to which we must seek a return.  The Bible, of course, is not anti-rational, incoherent or unthinking.  Yet it is not merely rational.  It goes much deeper.  So must our preaching.  While some may seem to check their rationality at the door, let’s not fight for rationality at the expense of every other aspect of the human soul’s functioning.

Fearful Preaching?

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I just started Apologetic Preaching (Proclaiming Christ to a Postmodern World) by Craig Loscalzo (do you pronounce that the way it looks – anyone know?)  In the first chapter Loscalzo enters the arena of defining and engaging with the broad issues of postmodernity.  In the process he writes of the fear of many contemporary preachers.

This fear comes from seeing other churches successfully growing, while seeing apathy, lethargy, and empty pews up close.  It is a fear of pushing too hard or demanding too much.  It is a fear of being labeled as narrow-minded by colleagues, by the media, by academics they have studied under, or by intellectuals in their church.  Their ecclesiastical vocabulary, in its progressive state, is now purged of terms like sin, judgment, immoral, evil, righteousness, faith and commitment.  They fear offending sensibilities or being stereotyped on either the religious right or left.  He writes, “we have become so hypercautious that our sermons at best offend no one and at worst merely bore.” (p12)  What’s more, a fear of being irrelevant leads to nothing more than mundane chatter.

Obviously he’s writing about other preachers and not us, obviously.  Of course.  Clearly.  Without any doubt.  But rather than get defensive, why not ask God to show us if any fear has crept into our preaching ministry?

Essential Ingredients of the Best Preachers

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Yesterday I listed Greg Haslam’s five ingredients for good preaching.  Today I’ll finish the chapter (11 in Preach the Word), by sharing his list of key ingredients in a good preacher.  Again, I present these for your thoughts, not to agree or disagree with his list.

1.    A compelling call from God. “In my view the number one reason why there is so much bad preaching today is because our pulpits are often occupied by preachers who do not have a divine mandate to be there.”  (p.155)  He urges every preacher to ask himself three questions – who put you there?  Who keeps you there?  Who can get rid of you?

2.    A growing, varied and fresh life with God. “We can think of preaching as the run-off or surplus of all that wells up in the life of the preacher.  But, sadly, many preachers are running on empty much of the time.  They have allowed other things to crowd their time with God.” (p.156)

3.    Happy with their own identity, both as a person and as a preacher. “My plea to all preachers is: be the genuine article. . . . We do not need clones of great preachers like Dr Lloyd-Jones or Billy Graham.  Since preaching is, as Brooks defines it, ‘truth coming through human personality,’ God surely wants us to be free to be ourselves.” (p.157)

4.    Increasingly liberated from the fear of man. “In order to be faithful to God, we have to become relatively indifferent to men’s resistance, criticism or opposition to us, as well as to their flattery or ridicule.”  (p.157)

5.    A genuine love for the people. “If it is true that fear drives out love, thank God it is also true that love will drive out fear.”  (p.158)

6.    A conscious dependence on the Holy Spirit. “As preachers we always need to be aware of our true source of power and we need to tell God how much we depend upon His Holy Spirit.” (p.158)

7.    Infectious in zeal and enthusiasm. “Absorbed in what they have to say, they will absorb the attention of others.  Often, even the most casual and indifferent hearer realizes something important is taking place.  If the truth of the message does not grab you, how can it be expected to grab anyone else?”  (p.159)

Again, points to ponder, but to keep the post from becoming too long, I won’t add comments.  Would your list of seven ingredients be the same?  Longer?  Different?

Easter Laughter

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Helmut Thielicke described Spurgeon’s humour as “Easter laughter,” that which comes as a “mode of redemption because it is sanctified – because it grows out of an overcoming of the world.”  (See Mohler, He is Not Silent, p165.)

We recently enjoyed a CD of Chuck Swindoll funny stories.  Some were funnier than others, but his laughter was a real blessing to us all.  As he stated on that CD, one person wrote in and told him, “Chuck, you can stop preaching, but never stop laughing.  Your’s is the only laughter that ever comes into our home.”

A leader that frets and stresses under pressure is not a leader that followers will find reassuring.  There is a need for a certain calmness that comes from confident faith in God’s purposes.  Likewise, there is a benefit in a certain laughter.  Not drunken laughter.  Not distracting myself from reality laughter.  Not immature laughter.  But confident in God, all is in control, Easter laughter.

Don’t force it, but don’t be afraid of it either.  Appropriate humor and laughter in a message may be more than therapy for listeners – it may be the conveying of a deep personal faith conviction.

What Convictions Do You Convey?

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Over time, listeners catch things from the preachers they hear.  Its not just the content of each particular sermon, but also the personal convictions of the preacher that will mark listeners over time.

What do listeners catch from hearing you?  Do they catch a conviction that God’s Word can be trusted?  That it is enjoyable to read and study?  That God is knowable?  That God is in control?  That Christianity is firmly founded on fact?  That we are deeply loved?  That . . .

These kinds of convictions don’t fully come through because you preach a single message on the subject.  They come through and mark lives when they have already come through and marked your life.  We are not mere transmitters of information.  We are not neutral entities in God’s ministry that somehow hopefully will disappear in the course of our preaching.  No, we are lives that continually convey the convictions and affections that have captured our hearts.  Our passion forged in personal study and close walk with Christ over time will shape the convictions with which we infect others.

What convictions do we convey?

Preachers are Theologians not Therapists

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Following on from yesterday’s post, I found the following quote quite insightful:

The rise of therapeutic concerns within the culture means that many pastors, and many of heir church members, believe that the pastoral calling is best understood as a “helping profession.”  As such, the pastor is seen as someone who functions in a therapeutic role in which theology is often seen as more of a problem than a solution.

This is from Al Mohler’s book, He is Not Silent, p108.  This is a helpful distinction.  Have we fallen into thinking of our function as primarily therapeutic?  Cambridge Dictionary defines therapeutic as “causing someone to feel happier and more relaxed or to be more healthy.”  Yes, in the final element our task does involve promoting spiritual health.  However, not every sermon will make listeners feel happier or relaxed.  Sometimes our task is a discomforting one.

I notice particularly Mohler’s observation about theology.  If preaching and pastoral work is about therapy, then theology is often seen as more problem than solution.  Is this why so many churches promote unity at all costs, avoiding key biblical and theological areas in order to keep everyone happy?  If you were to take the theological pulse of your congregation, what teaching of Scripture would be deficient?  If that were less than comfortable to address, would you still do it?  Later Mohler states that “when truth is denied, therapy remains.” (p121)  May it never be true of us that we pander to the yearnings of our age and only offer therapy to a self-centric people.

Preachers are Theologians

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

The health of any church depends, in part, on its leaders functioning faithfully as theologians.  It’s part of the package for any elder (pastor, minister, leader, whatever term you are used to).  Leading, feeding, caring and protecting.  How are we to lead others on God’s behalf if we’re unclear on the nature of the church, it’s mission, God’s character and plan?  How are we to feed the saints if we’re not wrestling with the great doctrines of the faith and setting them forth?  How are we to care effectively for souls if we never consider what a human consists of and how they function in relation to salvation and walking in the Spirit?  How are we to protect the flock if we’re unaware of theological trends and errors in the general atmosphere of the contemporary church at large?

The pastoral functions of any church leader require that theological reflection and processing be involved in the ministry.  It is a dangerous error to presume that theology is a function of the academy or the research university.  It is worrying to find many preachers and leaders who think that their task is not that of theology.

If you preach, then you influence.  If you influence, then you lead.  If you lead, don’t make the grave error of divorcing your ministry from that of theology.  If you do, then both your ministry and theology will suffer.  You will suffer.  And so will they.

The Difference Two Feet Make

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I am not referring to how much better it is to preach with both legs still intact, nor a cunning reference to the beautiful feet of those who bring good news.  I mean distance.  Two feet.  60cm.  That makes a world of difference.

Beginning preachers, and some that have preached for years, tend to preach their message at arms length. They study and prepare, but it is all about the notes.  From the Bible to the notes to the people.  Arms length. Somehow there is a nervousness about this thing out there called the message.  The preacher is anxious about saying the right words and that anxiety sometimes shows.  Even without showing overtly, it does leave the message somewhat flat, somewhat all about the words.

But two feet make such a difference.  If the Bible study, the message preparation and the delivery can all be brought two feet closer, the preaching is very different.  Instead of something the preacher is straining to not forget, now the message comes from the heart.  Instead of preaching being truth preached by a personality (often stilted in the effort to remember the message), now the message can be truth through personality.  Instead of a message being handled at arms length from the Bible text to the listeners, via the notes of the preacher, now the message comes through the preacher with the force of the life transforming power of the Word clear and unhindered.

I am not saying anything about notes in this post, in favor or against.  I am saying everything about Bible study that is personal rather than professional (for the sake of others), about message preparation that is unique to you rather than following someone else’s prescribed formula, about delivery that comes from the heart (whether or not you need notes to nudge that) rather than merely transferring information from notes to listeners.

It’s hard to pin down exactly how one message can be preached at arms length, while another comes through the heart of the preacher.  Yet as a listener it is usually not hard to tell the difference.

Problems with Plagiarism

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I’m just reading an article by Dr David Lose.  He describes his experience of hearing a sermon preached that he had just read in a book by another author.  A good sermon…plagiarised.  What’s the problem? After all, nobody lost any royalties and God still uses His word.

It’s about integrity.  It’s about the lying to your congregation and misrepresentation of yourself.  The trust of the people in you as the pastor and in preaching in general, is eroded.  This is true of whole sermons, as well as illustrations and other sermon content.  Any time we pass something off in the first person as our own, we lie.

He goes on to offer counsel in response to defense statements that may be offered.  What if I’m not a good preacher?  What if I’m really bad?  He suggests getting training, working at it, attending his seminary (fair enough, he wrote the article).  And if you’re really bad, he suggests finding another line of work (or getting help – which would be my first suggestion since the pastoral office is never intended to be a one man for all roles concept).

Do we have to cite every source when we preach?  Not at all.  The issue is not naming every commentator we have read, but letting others know when a thought is not our own – “As one preacher put it…” or “One commentator writes…”

We need to be aware of this issue.  Some of us may not undermine our integrity as preachers at all in this way, but some preachers constantly do.  It wouldn’t do us any harm to do a quick self-check.  Do I adapt illustrations from others and make them sound like my own experience when they were not?  Do I import chunks of sermons from online or from books without telling listeners what I am doing?  Do I allow a pithy statement to appear as my own when I have read it somewhere?

It’s a useful article, if you want to read it, click here.

First Priority

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Just to mix up the content on this site, I am dipping into a book by Andy Stanley and Ed Young, Can We Do That? I’d like to share one of their suggestions.  “We make the message the first priority of the service – and of the pastor.”

In the busy and complex life of church ministry, not to mention the complex relationships between different interest groups, it is important to remember how important the Sunday morning message is.  It is probably the only ministry of the church that has the potential to reach the whole church.  It is probably the ministry of the church most likely to reach visitors and guests (and online listeners if you are into MP3 ministry).

Yet how easy for it to slip down the list when it comes to planning the service, or planning your own weekly schedule for preparation.  Do we need to take stock and make sure the preaching of the Word is getting the priority attention that it needs to be done well?  Are there tasks to be offloaded so that the preacher can be free to preach?  As preachers do we need to be more deliberately inaccessible at certain times to prepare properly?

Acts 6:4 comes to mind.