Preaching

How Long, O Passage?

/ Peter Mead / 6 Comments

When we have the freedom to pick a passage on which to preach, the decision can end up taking an inordinate amount of time.  Which book?  Which bit?  Typically my suggestion is fairly simple – “Pray, consider what the listeners might need, what they have been hearing lately and what you want to preach. Oh, and don’t waste 80% of your preparation time making your decision.”

But let’s say you’ve zeroed in on a potential passage, but you aren’t sure how much of it to preach.  Perhaps a narrative and a subtly connected transition section sit together.  Perhaps a paragraph in an epistle sits next to a connected paragraph (almost always true).  Perhaps you’re looking at a Psalm, and the adjacent Psalm seems well connected (not unusual).  What to do?  Here are some factors to consider as you make the decision:

1. Unity of the longer passage – Does it really hold together?  Is preaching the longer version going to drive in the focus, or will it dissipate it?  That is, will it feel like a higher-calibre bullet that penetrates deeper, or will it feel like buck-shot spraying further away from the target?

2. What time do you have to preach – We can’t get away from this, what you can do in fifteen minutes is very different than what you can do in forty.  (Not to say forty is always better, but it is much easier.)  So if you are preaching in a situation where time is restricted for whatever reason, then less passage means less explation necessary, which in turn means more opportunity to apply the text.

3. Need of the audience – What do they need?  Does the extra bit of passage add something that is really pertinent to them?  Perhaps it allows for encouragement alongside rebuke?  Perhaps it provides extra clarification on the real issue in the first part of the passage?  Perhaps it drives home the truth in some way?

4. Required amount of explanation – Some passages require a lot of historical, contextual, cultural explanation to make sense.  Others don’t.  If the longer passage adds an inordinate amount of explanation requirement, then it might be better to keep the passage shorter and get to the applicational content as well.  Your goal is not to impress people with your Bible knowledge.

5. Your personal preference – Sometimes it will be perfectly legitimate to simply ask, what would I prefer to preach?  And it probably will be necessary to study the whole passage for a while before you decide what you would prefer.

I am not saying we can ignore textual unit boundaries completely.  Narratives generally don’t like being broken, unless you can give a complete scene as a stand-alone.  Psalms generally like to hold together within themselves.  But preaching more than a narrow textual unit is often possible, and sometimes will be desirable.  Hopefully these criteria may be helpful.  There are surely others too…

Testimonies: A Lasting Impression

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

A testimony can be a very effective element in a church service, a genuine supplement and co-worker to the sermon.  Seeing a “normal” person speak of the difference the gospel has made in their life, or a more contemporary experience of applying the Word, or of living as a lover of a loving God . . . it can be powerful.

Equally, a testimony can leave a lasting impression for all the wrong reasons.  The person is probably not experienced in public speaking.  Consequently the delivery may be anything from engaging in its vulnerability to agonizing in its manner.  Non-public speakers often will struggle to accurately determine amount of content for time available, or suitability of content.

The person leading the service has a responsibility when someone else is at the microphone.  Most of the work of vetting and coaching, of course, should have been done beforehand.  But even so, the MC needs to be able to maintain control of the presentation.  If there is any doubt, then an interview approach will be much safer than handing over the reins completely.

What should go into the coaching and vetting beforehand?  The testifier should be coached to give testimony to a person and what Christ has done for them.  It is easy to slip into affirming something other than Christ.

It is also easy to slip into making personal testimony normative.  “I benefitted so much so I really urge you to…”  Stop!  That’s sliding out of testimony and into preaching.  If the person was asked to give a testimony, there is no reason to be coy about coaching them not to preach.  People giving testimony often seem to struggle in knowing how to stop.  There is the not very effective, “so, yeah, umm, yeah, that is what I wanted to say” type of ending.  No harm done.  But if they slip into the preaching of a sermon to try and tie a bow on what’s been said, it will usually backfire in some way (either with heresy, or discomfort, or undermining the value of the testimony, or whatever).

Just like preaching, many testimonies end with an uncomfortable call for commitment, when actually the motivation already generated by the testimony is simply being lost by such a call.

Let’s think about getting testimony back into church life, for many churches seem to have given up on it.  But for it to work well, it has to be pre-coached.

Psalms: A Disconnect and a Nudge

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Point 1. At a recent preaching seminar the organiser admitted that he had only ever chosen to preach from the Psalms once.  He asked everyone present how much they choose to preach from the Psalms when they have the choice on what to preach.  The general consensus was almost never.

Point 2. Speak to any Christian who has been walking with the Lord for more than a few years.  Ask them what book of the Bible has been dear to them during the most challenging times in their experience.  Times of hurt, of doubt, of grief, of loss, of fear, of insecurity, of loneliness, of pain, of betrayal . . . the times when life was as life often is. The answer, time and again, will be the book of Psalms.

The Disconnect. People come to church in the midst of life in all its colour and complexity.  People are hurting, doubting, experiencing, struggling, suffering.  A significant proportion of people in our churches every Sunday are dealing with a significant level of life’s complexity.  Yet as preachers many of us seldom if ever choose to preach from the book that countless Christians have grown to love precisely because it does engage with the harsh realities of life in a way that we can identify with.  This is a disconnect.  (Not to mention the fact that when some do preach the Psalms, they have a habit of dissecting into theology-sized chunks that feel like an epistle in presentation – that’s something I’ve written about in other posts!)

The Nudge. Why not preach from the Psalms sometime?

Behold My New Phone

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

I’d like to revisit the theme of the last two posts from another angle.  Perhaps an analogy might help.  Sitting across from a friend in Pizza Hut, I decide to “preach” my new mobile phone to him.

I place it on the table and say what it says on it.  “Samsung.” Then I describe it a bit, sharing a bit of the knowledge I’ve gleaned in my research.  “It’s a Samsung Galaxy S.  Free with most usage contracts.  It runs Android 2.1 currently, and it’s mostly black.”

Then I construct a message based on the phone.  “You see the N in Samsung?  This makes me think of the iPhone, because that has an N in it too.  The iPhone is very popular now and the new operating system has really improved on the old 3GS, even with all the controversy over the signal dropping.  Now for my next point, do you see the two S’s in the name?  This makes me want to talk about Sony Vaio laptops – they really have come down in price lately, not as elite as they used to appear in the market.”

I could go in any number of directions with “my message” based on the Samsung sitting in front of me.  I could talk about mobile phones, or technology, or communication, or any subject of my choice.  If I could make enough connections to the phone, my friend might even think I was clever!

But all the while my Samsung phone is sitting there, black, dormant, inactive, unused, undemonstrated.  The focus is on my cleverness in message construction, technology association and sheer verbosity.

How different it would be if I would pick it up, turn it on, and show my friend the phone in action, let him see the resolution, experience the new text input method, enjoy an app or two.  Suddenly I’m not preaching my message based on the surface details of the phone.  Now I’m preaching the phone!

The same is true of preaching a Bible text.  Some of us are happy to have the text sit open in front of us while we construct our message based on the text.  We make the most random associations in order to preach from the Bible book we would have preferred to be preaching from.  We jump off relatively incidental details (at least in the way we use them) to get to the message we are itching to share.

All the while the text sits there.  Inspired dynamite ready to be detonated in the hearts and lives of listeners, lying dormant while we wax on eloquently with our message based on the text, sort of.  Can I be so bold as to summarize my point in three words?  Preach the text!

Preach More Than Truth

/ Peter Mead / 8 Comments

That’s a provocative title.  Ok, how about a provocative opening volley?

Preaching true truth using a Bible passage is better than preaching error and heresy, but not necessarily much better.

Right, now to dig myself out of the hole . . . what do I mean?  Well, it is common to hear preachers take a Bible text and preach a message that is truth.  Real truth.  True truth.  Bible truth.  All off the back of the text they read.  But the truth preached is not the truth specifically communicated by the passage.  This is better than error and heresy . . .

Truth is better than error. Obviously it is better to preach the truth.  People need to hear the truth.  People need to face the truth.  Error and heresy confuse people and mislead people and have eternal consequences.  Give me truth over heresy any day.

But it is not enough to preach truth using a passage from the Scriptures . . .

Any truth preached from a Bible passage is not good enough. The real goal in preaching a passage is to preach the truth of that passage.  To simply jump off the passage to preach a generic biblical truth can be genuinely harmful, not to mention wasteful.

Why is it wasteful? Because this particular passage is saying a specific something.  It is not saying anything.  It is not saying everything.  It is saying something.  If you don’t preach that specific something, then the opportunity is gone and the passage probably won’t be preached again for several years (to these people).  While there are consistent themes and big  big ideas in the canon, each passage is unique in terms of its specific main idea.  Why waste the opportunity to let that passage hit home?  (How many “whole counsel” preachers are actually mostly preaching only a single message from a whole host of source texts?  This leads to the other matter…)

Why is it harmful? Really, what harm can be done if the truth is preached, if the gospel is presented, if people are brought face to face with the demands of the gospel on their lives?  Perhaps none.  But what if the listeners look down at their Bible and see what is actually there?  One of two things could happen, and both are harmful:

1. They might think that it is normal to read any passage and squish it into a simple presentation of the gospel (or whatever true truth is consistently preached).  They will learn to not treat the Scriptures as having anything specific to say.

2. They might recognise that the message preached does not have the authority of the text it is claimed to be based on.  The discerning listener may end up rejecting true truth because the preacher acted as if that message actually came from that text.

Whether they learn to misread the Bible, or they distrust the message, harm is done by preaching true truth that is not the truth presented in a passage.

Flat Preaching

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I recently was leading a preaching seminar where participants had the opportunity to preach and receive feedback.  The participant I listened to really did an outstanding job!  He preached the miracle at the end of John 4, and it was not a flat message.

Here’s what I mean.  There are tens of miracles in the gospels.  A lot of them are healings.  Chap with a problem comes to Jesus, Jesus says something, chap  trusts, Jesus heals, happily ever after.  They’re all a bit the same – if you preach them that way!  In reality each account is uniquely written with its own features and characteristics and context and purpose.

So in the miracle at the end of John 4, the writer includes several indicators pointing to his main thought in this unique passage.  He points the reader, consciously or sub-consciously back to John 2 and 3.  He points us back to Jesus’ earlier concern with people trusting in him, but his not entrusting himself to them.  He raises the matter of belief based on signs.  He underlines the issue of belief with a double reference to belief.  The writer is doing something unique in this passage.

So the good preacher will do something unique with this passage.  Actually, the good preacher will do the writer’s something unique with this passage.  (That last sentence probably needs to be read twice, cumbersome but deliberate!)  The task of the preacher is not to come up with their own clever message on the passage, but to really and truly and fairly and powerfully bring out the message of the passage.

How easily we preach a miracle story as just another miracle story.  Human interest problem, solved by Jesus, because Jesus is powerful and is the solution to the underlying sin problem, so let’s ponder the cross.  That’s fine, but sometimes it simply doesn’t honour the unique contours and features of the text itself.  Good preachers do.

A Post and a Free Book

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Today I am not including a post on this site, but a link to the post on Cor Deo . . . which should be helpful to us as we think about preaching (especially how we present and explain sin).  Also, on Cor Deo we are giving away three copies of Experiencing the Trinity to three people who post a comment on any post this month (and share the link to the book giveaway on facebook, twitter or by email).  Here’s the post:

 How Deep the Problem

In the Airport

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In the past three posts we have considered sermon conclusions – weak finishes and strong finishes.  We’ve also considered the elements included in the service after the sermon is over.  More could be said on all of these, but I’d like to push the airplane analogy slightly further and prompt our thinking on the post-service aspects of the passenger’s journey.  I mentioned the positive and negative effects of having music playing after the service is concluded.  There are other things to consider.  Whether the analogy works or not is somewhat unimportant, but these thoughts are worth pondering in our churches.

Some passengers want to get out of the plane and airport at breakneck speed – Like it or not, some people just want to, or need to flee from the church once things are over.  It doesn’t help them to make that difficult.  At the same time, no airline I’ve been on will let you leave without a friendly goodbye.  Some churches put a lot of energy into greeting/welcoming teams (a very good idea), but let people slip away without human interaction after the service.  On the other hand, some churches seem to put barriers to people leaving, or create an environment where people are rushed out before they need to be (the preacher at the door shaking hands with everyone can sometimes create an urgency to vacate the building).

Some passengers need to sit down and let it all sink in – This may be a slight stretch, but some airports (I’m thinking more of the US ones), have seats at the gate so passengers can sit down if they need to.  That doesn’t matter, but in church sometimes there is nowhere for someone to sit and soak for a while.  I mentioned the music signal in some places that blasts out an indication that its all over now and its time to interact (at high volume if you want to be heard).  This creates an environment very non-conducive to post-service reflection.

Some passengers need to access further information – I suppose its a bit like finding out about connecting flights, but how do people in church know who to go to in order to find out more?  Is the preacher accessible (or is he stuck at the door shaking hand after hand and smiling at polite feedback?)  Is there a way to get someone to pray with?  What about finding out about other aspects of church life that could be the next step after this service (I wonder about some church notice boards that simply offer a confusing array of meetings at other churches).

Most passengers will want to talk with someone about their journey – In travel world it seems like everyone is ready to say something about what they’ve just experienced (or endured) when they meet a human who actually knows them.  In church world it often seems like everyone is ready to talk about anything but what they’ve just experienced.  But actually, people need to reflect and reinforce and respond in community rather than in isolation.  Does your church encourage that kind of interaction?

After You Finish

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

In the past couple of days we’ve pondered the art of sermon-stopping.  We have thought about weak finishes, and then about the elements in finishing strong.  It certainly is not easy to get the plane down comfortably and effectively.  Now a few thoughts relating to the post-landing phase of the journey.  I suppose that could apply to taxiing (i.e. don’t overdo what you say after you’ve essentially finished).  Actually I’m thinking about what comes after the landing in respect to post-sermon service elements.  (Tomorrow I’ll push this analogy further – perhaps beyond acceptable limits! – and consider what happens when people leave the plane completely – i.e. when the service is fully finished.)

So, after the sermon is over, but still within the confines of the service:

Sometimes it is helpful to have another person wrap things up, sometimes it can be disastrous (I can’t help but think of the “helpful” MC who undoes the impact of a global missions thrust with the typical and deeply annoying “and we can all be missionaries right where we are!” . . . thankfully no-one added that to the end of Matthew’s gospel or we’d never have read the New Testament!)

Sometimes it is helpful to have a closing song, sometimes it is helpful to have a whole set of responsive songs, and sometimes it is better not to allow the singing of a song to help people switch back into their “real world” and leave the sermon behind.

Sometimes its helpful to leave space for silent response, sometimes that is just plain uncomfortable and overkill.

Sometimes quiet music played after can help the contemplative mood, sometimes music blasting out after the meeting can switch people into a frenzied chaos of raised voice fellowship (and the journey is forgotten, I fear!)

That last one is technically post-service . . . which leads me into tomorrow’s post . . .

Finishing Strong

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Yesterday I offered five examples of how to finish weakly as your sermon finishes weekly.  Let’s ponder what makes a conclusion strong:

Elements required in a conclusion – sometimes it is helpful to review the flow of the message, usually it is worth reviewing the main idea and intended applications of the message.  The conclusion is a great opportunity to encourage response to and application of the message.  The conclusion has to include, at some point, the phenomena known as stopping.  Review, encourage, stop.

Elements not required in a conclusion – standard teaching it may be, but worth mentioning nonetheless: generally it is not helpful to introduce new information during the conclusion.  A concluding story?  Maybe that’s ok.  But don’t suddenly throw in a new piece of exegetical insight into the preaching passage, or rush off to another passage for one last bit of sight-seeing.

Finishing the journey – as someone who has flown once or twice, let me continue with the airplane analogy since there are several thoughts that can be shared here.  Passengers who have had a great journey with a bad landing will leave with their focus entirely on the bad landing.  Passengers want the pilot to know where he is going and to take them straight there.  They don’t particularly want the pilot to finish a normal journey with a historic televised adrenaline landing.  Passengers like a smooth landing, but they’ll generally take a slight bump over repeated attempts to find the perfect one.  Once landed, extended taxi-ing is not appreciated.  A good landing that takes you by surprise always seems to have a pleasant effect.

Haddon’s Runway – one approach that I particularly appreciate and find hard to emulate, is Haddon Robinson’s oft-used approach.  It is evident after most Haddon sermons that he carefully planned his final sentence.  He flies the plane until he gets there and then quite naturally the plane lands on that landing strip of just ten to fifteen words and the journey is over.  Smooth, apparently effortless, immensely effective.  As he teaches in class, much better to finish two sentences before listeners think you should than two sentences after!

Tomorrow we’ll consider the post-sermon elements of the service, since these also have an effect on the journey.