Somehow I think the shorter the better for this post. Let me quote Paul Mallard who I heard recently at Keswick. “Do not preach because you love preaching. Preach because you love Jesus.”
Preaching
Why Did the Coughs Spread?
Yesterday I shared about the contrast between the attention of the crowd one night and the significant distraction the next night – same venue, same weather, same chairs, different speaker. Perhaps something here might be helpful to you. Why were they distracted?
1. It felt like a commentary with added anecdotes. It was like a commentary explanation of a text, but with the added anecdotes of the speaker’s illustrations, and with a little something of his personality.
2. It felt like a written document was being preached. There is a massive difference between spoken speech and written language. We must learn to write in “spoken” English if we are to be preachers that prepare with literary approaches (which is only one approach).
3. The message moved between the text and third-party illustrations and back again. I felt untouched. It seems like it should be obvious that preaching should land in the lives of the listeners, which is not the same thing as sharing personal experiences, or saying things in contemporary language. In fact, when personal experiences seem aloof or “I’m an important person” they really don’t help the connection at all. Where, specifically, does your next message touch the lives of those present?
4. It was hard to tell if the speaker was passionate about the passage and message or not. Something believed but not really owned will probably be offered in an “at arms length” manner which will leave the listeners holding it “at arms length.”
5. I wondered what would happen if we all left, would the speaker just carry on anyway? It kind of felt like it tonight. Which leads to a nice closing question. What if the speaker sensed that we’d all left mentally? What if you sense that? Then what?
When the Coughs Drop
As a speaker you should be able to sense the level of focus of your listeners. Before you say they always listen well, I would encourage you to follow this advice. Try being in the crowd and listening, observing, sensing what is going on around you among the listeners. If you have the privilege of attending a conference or large Christian event, you should have the privilege of experiencing the crowd from within the crowd with different speakers.
Large crowd events are helpful because the large numbers both multiply and muffle. That is, in a small group there may be an individual who never listens – proportionately they are more of a small group than they’d be in a big group. Equally, it is quite the effect to sense distraction spread through a large crowd. What happens?
Fidget levels increase. It’s amazing how still listeners can be when the preacher captures the crowd. But when he hasn’t, fidgeting is rife. Chairs move, people change position, people check their watches, the clock, the window, the people in peripheral vision, etc.
Infectious coughing spreads. I sat in a large crowd tonight (I wrote this a few weeks before it was put on the site), and I listened as the coughing spread across the crowd. Like dogs barking in a neighborhood, like children crying in a nursery, like coughs among a crowd ready to be done already. Last night I sat in the same crowd. You could hear a pin drop. Did a mass distribution of cough drops make the coughs drop last night? No, different speaker.
At the first appropriate moment, people flee to the exits. It can be painful to feel trapped in a meeting too long. How long is too long? After all, these folks knew when the service would last until. It was too long when the preacher didn’t connect for too long.
Experience the distraction of the crowd, experience the impressive focus possible. Then go back to your own preaching. Try to be accurately aware of the level of attention you hold, and then try to improve it. Tomorrow I’ll share some reflections on why the distraction levels were so high among the listeners in the meeting I sat in tonight.
Simply Good Preaching
Someone has said that you know it was a good sermon when you find yourself asking how the preacher knew all about you. That’s a nice sentiment that points to the importance of applicational relevance in preaching.
Now allow me to give you my statement. This is not a complete statement, or a forever statement. It’s a today statement. I heard a great sermon this morning. (This post was written a couple of weeks back at Keswick, in case you’re wondering!) So I heard a great sermon. Here’s my statement, “you know it was a good sermon when twelve hours later you find yourself still pondering the powerful but simple take home truth, reminiscing over the clear images used to drive home the main points, reflecting on how engaged you felt by the message and the messenger, how excited you were, and still are, to look at the text, to pray through all that hit home, to take stock of your life in light of the text, to respond and be transformed by the message.”
That’s my sentiment tonight that points to the importance of so knowing your text that you can take listeners by the hand and enter into it fully, of so thinking through your presentation that you have clear and concise main thoughts, an overwhelming master idea, an engaging manner of delivery, a contagious energy in presentation, a reliance on the Lord to move in peoples’ lives, and a targeted relevance to the listeners before you.
Simple really, pull those things together and you’ll probably preach a decent message!
Have I Mentioned This Before?
I suspect somewhere in more than a thousand posts on here, I have mentioned once or twice about the importance of unity in a message. Order is often present, if only by virtue of the progression of the text. Progress is sort of present, inasmuch as the number of verses are running out, as is the available time. But all too often, in preaching in some circles, the sense of unity is negligible or just plain vague.
Too many messages are essentially a series of points united by a common textual source and a title. This is not the inherent unity that is there in the text. Often messages are essentially a vague-subject completed. Three things about our title. Four aspects of such and such. This is not really reflecting the unity that is present in a unit of thought. Sometimes I wonder if we might be forcing texts into sermonic structures, rather than structuring sermons in such a way as to effectively communicate the texts.
How is Your Preaching Toolbox?
So I started into Spurgeon’s Lectures and got about, well, more or less, about a page in before I was “arrested” by his helpful thinking. Here’s a taster
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We are, in a certain sense, our own tools, and therefore must keep ourselves in order. If I want to preach the gospel, I can only use my own voice; therefore I must train my vocal powers. I can only think with my own brains, and feel with my own heart, and therefore I must educate my intellectual and emotional faculties. I can only weep and agonise for souls in my own renewed nature, therefore must I watchfully maintain the tenderness which was in Christ Jesus. It will be in vain for me to stock my library, or organise societies, or project schemes, if I neglect the culture of myself; for books, and agencies, and systems, are only remotely the instruments of my holy calling; my own spirit, soul, and body, are my nearest machinery for sacred service; my spiritual faculties, and my inner life, are my battle axe and weapons of war.
Your library, your laptop, your office, your desk, your starbucks tab are all secondary. The real tools of the trade for a preacher are their heart and their head, their own inner life and spiritual walk.
Beyond Identification
Yesterday I wrote about how narratives do engage us through identification and disassociation. We can’t avoid that reality – it drives the popularity of movies, of bedtime stories, of Sunday School stories, of family fireside reminiscences, etc. But biblical narrative always offers something more. Our challenge as preachers is to be sure to always go there.
What if the passage is easy to understand and ready to be preached. You’ve built a message based on the natural connection with a central character, or a minor character, or the original recipients. Your time is filled, the message will preach, that bird will fly. You aren’t done. You’re not ready.
Biblical narratives either overtly or implicitly urge us to engage with the central characer in the canon – with God himself. Was it really David’s courage, or was it something about his faith in God and his instruction? Was it really about Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi, or was there something going on in terms of her loyalty to a God who had so far not seemed very “effective”? Was it really about Joseph’s moral convictions, or was there something deeper going on in respect to his living by faith in a God who was with him when every circumstance screamed that he’d been long forgotten by such a God?
How does the narrative point us to the ongoing tension of faith or flight as creatures live in God’s world? How does the narrative enable us to engage with the progressive revelation of the trinitarian self-revelation of Scripture?
The Identification Situation
One of the secrets of the success of narrative writing and storytelling (whether that is historical narrative, fiction, fantasy, film or whatever) is the power of identification. When you read, hear or see a story, you naturally find yourself either identifying with or disassociating from characters in the story. If you are left cold, it is usually a sign that the story isn’t being told well, or you are in some sort of disconnected state.
So, if this is a central function of narratives, then it is a factor to consider in preaching biblical narratives. Some might try to make a hard and fast rule here, but again I would urge wisdom and consideration of the options.
Identifying with the Central Character. This is the most obvious and typically the most natural. As we see the faith or failure of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Ruth, etc., we naturally find ourselves identifying or disassociating. Actually, I read a reference to a small study recently that suggested preachers are more likely to associate with the hero of the story than non-preachers are. Interesting. There is a danger here. We can easily turn a God-centred biblical narrative into a moralistic tale of “so let’s try hard to be like Benaiah.” The other danger is that we are theologically informed of the danger and then fail to engage with narratives in the way they naturally function.
Identify with Non-Central Characters. This is where the non-preachers apparently will naturally identify – with the disciples, the fearful soldiers of Saul’s army, the guilty brothers of Joseph, etc. This changes things from a preaching perspective. Suddenly the temptation to moralise is diminished somewhat, though not entirely. The preaching of the narrative is suddenly fresh instead of predictable, for one thing.
Identify with the original recipients. From an applicational perspective, this is probably the best place to start. Moses wasn’t telling Israel to all try to be like him, but rather to see afresh the heritage of God at work amongst them. Samuel wanted Israel to celebrate David and the God of his faith, rather than try to generate a new generation of Davids. While not narrative texts, Paul’s letters all had applicational intent, specifically related to the recipients of each letter (whom we can identify with by the ongoing characteristics of church life and struggle).
Identification is a primary feature of narratives. Engage with this truth wisely.
Precision in Spoken English
Yesterday we addressed the uncomfortable issue of verbal pauses. Uncomfortable for us when we discover we use them. More uncomfortable for listeners when they can’t avoid the fact that we use them! So what to do? Diligently stop ourselves from using them every time they start to spring forth? Perhaps. Maybe electric shock treatment would help. But actually, there are other ways to cut down on such imprecision. For a few examples:
Pre-Script your message. When you’ve worked on the wording of something, it will usually come out more effectively even though you aren’t reading it at the time of delivery. You may choose to read your script, of course, but I’ve yet to see that done well. It is often the wording that took some attention that comes out the most effectively when preaching.
Practice preach. What you’ve heard yourself say well will often come out better when under pressure. I don’t see anything wrong with orally running through a message before preaching it. Some people think it somehow unspiritual to do this, but I don’t see the logic. How is working on paper spiritual, but working out loud not? It’s funny how we put so much time into written work for a spoken form of ministry. Running through a message can work wonders in unclogging our thinking, sifting out poor or impossible transitions, and undermining the grip of the verbal pause.
Overcome nervousness. The silly old suggestions you sometimes hear about imagining people naked are silly and out of date. Don’t imagine people naked. It won’t help anything. Nervousness in front of a crowd will affect us all at various times. It is good to know how it influences our delivery (limited vocal range, frozen body movement, facial fixedness, dry mouth, verbal pauses, etc.) Some of these things can be overcome with work. At the same time I think it is very important to pray about preaching so that when you preach your gaze is firmly fixed on the Lord, even as you lovingly concern yourself with the listeners.
Develop your vocabulary. A poor vocabulary will always lean into filler words for assistance. Read widely, learn new words (but be careful not to fall for the ostentatious displays of obscure vocabulary). Precise and accurate speech does not necessitate the use of jargon or technical terminology that is out of the reach of those listening.
What have you found to be helpful in increasing precision?
I Mean, Just, Really
It’s been a while since I mentioned verbal pauses, so why not? A verbal pause is a space filler. It isn’t a productive and healthy pause – that requires space and silence. It is a filler. It keeps anyone from hearing the silence that scares some public speakers and threatens some domineering monological conversationalists (i.e. the type that don’t want to give you the chance to participate, lest they have to be quiet). In preaching the verbal pause is typically prompted by nervousness or habit. It can be controlled, or even eliminated.
The Noise Verbal Pause. This may feel less common, but equally it may be that we are tuning out the disfluencies more. Gaps are filled with an elongated letter, sometimes determined by the national origin or local accent of the speaker. Most speakers have moved beyond the child-like “ummmm” but may still deploy the odd “uhhhhhh” or extended “eyyyyy.”
The Out of Context Word Verbal Pause. The big one in recent years has been the “like” used in place of emphasis, introduction of quoted speech, description of emotional reaction, etc. Some people string together “and” after “and.” “So” can easily become a bridge word overcoming all full stops in spoken English. “I mean” can punctuate many a spoken paragraph. And you don’t have to choose a common one, you may have a unique one that is just you (ask someone honest and you’ll soon find out which word has a disproportionate usage in your vocabulary).
The Under-Vocab’ed Over-Emphasis Verbal Pause. This is where no adjective quite manages to describe and emphasise what is about to be said enough, so the speaker (or pray-er) resorts to repeating with emphasis such bland words as “Just” and “Really” and sometimes, again in prayer, “just really” or even sometimes “just really just” . . . focus and intensity. Oh, and verbal pausing in a certain respect.
The Connecting With Listener Annoyingly Verbal Pause. In full this might look like a “you know what I mean?” but often will get shortened to a “y’know” punctuating the presentation of propositional statements. Other variations include “you with me?” or “got it?” or “does that make sense?”
Verbal pauses are distracting in spoken communication. They often make you sound less intelligent or clear. They typically will muddle the message you’re trying to convey. Verbal pauses are really noise, not communication. As speakers committed to handling a very important message well, we must seek to reduce them and be as effective as possible.
Biblical Preaching 