Preaching

Everybody Hides

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

fortress2[Originally posted on Cor Deo] Psalm 46 is always a highly valued text in times of war.  Which is probably why, for a while now, we haven’t heard too much about it.  Maybe we should?

In the past the news of an impending threat would come in the form of a breathless messenger coming from the next town.  Today we live with constant video access to every corner of the planet.  The net effect of this constant stream of information tends to be that we carry on with our own lives while getting drawn into non-news and entertainment, but with true news having little effect on us.  But every now and then the news does get our attention.

If we are looking beyond what the mainstream media chooses to highlight, there are some very disturbing things going on.  And when the news is genuinely disturbing, perhaps it is time to break out Psalm 46 again.

Overview of the Psalm – The Psalm falls nicely into three stanzas, each marked with a contemplativeSelah to give us pause for thought.  The first stanza begins with a launching idea that is then picked up in a refrain finishing the second and third stanza.  As far as Psalms go, this one is clear and simple.

It begins with the big thought that God is our refuge and strength, an always accessible help in troubling times.  Consequently, we will not fear.  Then the writer lists a set of natural disasters that would rock anyone’s world – earthquake, mountains moving, raging seas, etc.  I don’t think he is pondering natural disasters, so much as describing a hypothetical upheaval of all that seems stable.  Even if the whole created order were to return to utter chaos, we will not fear.  This must mean that the nature and character of God is more trustworthy than even the solidity of the mountains and the boundaries of the seas.  Selah.

With the first three verses laying the foundational thought, the writer then becomes overt about the threat of war.  He describes the tranquility of the city of God where He is reigning and present.  And just as our hearts calm to ponder what it will be like to finally live with God, suddenly verse 6 stirs us with the news that all around the nations are going crazy like a raging sea and slipping mountains!  The hypothetical collapse of creation stability is the experienced reality when it comes to the geo-political changes in the world.  But, immediately our perspective is checked with the realization that one word from God and the whole planet could be melted.  Therefore, we do not fear.

The refrain is beautiful: The LORD of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our fortress.  The LORD is the God who makes promises and keeps them – He cares about continuing to care for us.  He is strong – He is the God of angel armies.  If you have ever watched a well-drilled group of soldiers march past, it is intimidating.  Even a relatively small number.  Now imagine an angel, the kind that could kill 185,000 human soldiers in one night.  Imagine two.  Ten.  One hundred.  Imagine a number so big you could not count it, and that is the army of heaven, and our God leads that army, and He is with us.  Therefore He is our fortress and we run to hide in Him.  Selah.

The final stanza offers an invitation to come and look at what God has done, and implicitly, to anticipate what He will do.  He ends wars that seem overwhelmingly threatening.  He topples powerful foes that seem to strong to resist.  And finally in verse 10, God instructs the raging armies and belligerent power-hungry rulers to stop!  Stand still.  Be quiet.  Hush.  And know that He is God.  He will be exalted by all.

The perspective shift is powerful.  The raging nations and growing armies and plotting terrorists and geo-political upheavals are all very small compared to the utterance of our God.  He is the God of angel armies and He is with us.  He is our fortress and we run to hide in Him.  Selah.

When the threat really rises, everybody hides.  The question is, where do we hide?

Hiding Option 1 – The only good option is to run into the most powerful player in current history.  If it is clear who will win in the end, why not join them?  We know the end of the story, but often it is hard to not fear when the circumstances feel so grave.  Often it is hard to not fear when God doesn’t seem to offer immediate deliverance to everyone who is suffering for being His.  What if I have to face more than discomfort for my faith?  What if my life is threatened, is He still a fortress?  Think back to three men in Iraq two and a half millennia ago.  Our God is able to deliver us, but even if he doesn’t in the moment of this particular trial, we won’t bow to your statue.  Were they foolhardy?  Or were they gripped with the greater reality that the all-powerful God of angel armies was with them, so that even in death, they had confidence that they would be with Him?

Hiding Option 2 – The most pervasive option around us today is often known as “hiding our heads in the sand.”  It is pretending there isn’t a threat.  I recently visited Auschwitz and was sickened to think that people could somehow be oblivious to the hideous evil of that place.  If only they had had social media and smartphones, then everyone would have known.  Actually, don’t people still hide from things today?  The media seem so committed to diverting attention – whether it be spinning a story, or shifting from genocide to Hollywood, the media are experts at making the potentially best informed of all time into a number and dumber generation.  But we can’t simply blame the media.  We can do it to ourselves.  We are more than capable of hiding from reality.

There may be other reactions, but these seem to be the big two.  As the news stirs fear within me, will I distract myself with little things and pretend all is well, or will I run into my fortress – the God of angel armies, the God who has chosen to be with me?

Who is Listening? Part 4

/ Peter Mead / 4 Comments

Ear2We have thought about the complexity and diversity of our listeners when preaching.  There are too many of us that would preach the same no matter who was before us.  We need to take seriously the need for analysis and understanding of our audiences.  Who am I preaching to?  Who is listening?

We have thought about building up believers and reaching lost souls with the gospel.  We have thought about the impact of that ministry on the unseen forces of good and evil.  But there is one more listener:

5. God Himself.  Seems obvious, but how easily I can forget.  It is easy to preach as if God is a monadic and distant being, One whom I represent and fear in equal measure.  One who will evaluate my offering and find me wanting.  But what if we think about preaching from a trinitarian perspective?

The Father always delights to talk about the Son.  I get to join that familial delight as I preach of that same Son.  The Son always thrills to obey the Father’s will.  I get to participate in that trinitarian submission and obedience as I serve alongside Christ, my brother, sacrificing self in order to please the Father.  And there is the Spirit, the active communicator, but never the focus.  I get to do ministry that is not about my efforts, but instead is fully alive because the Spirit is at work in me.

And all along, God is listening.  He delights to hear of His Son.  He enjoys seeing me serve Him with the Son whom He loves.  God listens.  And God cares.

God cares about every other listener, more than I ever could.  He cares about me, more than I could ever deserve.  He cares about this unique moment of ministry.  I’ve been planning for a couple of weeks, but God knew about this moment and the work He would do from the beginning of time.

God wants us to target our messages at the people before us, but there is an unseen realm of listening ears.  Frightening foes, powerful spiritual servants, and the wonderful God who hears, who sees, who cares, and who changes lives . . . even with us doing the preaching!

Who is Listening? Part 3

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Ear2We understand the text in order to communicate it.  We understand the listener in order to target the message.  Simple.  Until we pause to ponder how complex a normal audience actually is.

We’ve thought about edifying saints and redeeming sinners, but are there other listeners?  What about taking two together:

3. Angels & 4. Demons.  Not so sure what to do about these two, but we can’t ignore them completely.  We know angels long to look into the wonder of the gospel, and we know from experience that the forces of evil hate the proclamation of God’s character and the good news of the gospel.

But what do we do about it?  I don’t suggest it is wise to target your preaching at either God’s ministering spirits sent to serve us who will inherit salvation.  Nor do I think it is smart to start identifying and targeting particular spirits of whatever in your church congregation.

Our ministry is profoundly spiritual, but we are not called to wage rhetorical war on the enemy of our souls.  We are called to proclaim the gospel so that those blinded by the god of this age might be saved, and so that the body of Christ be built up.

Perhaps where this spiritual awareness should stir us the most is in our prayer lives.  When we preach as if it is about information clearly communicated to neutral listeners, then we are being utterly naive.

We preach in the context of a spiritual battle over souls.  Apart from Christ we can do nothing.  We need to pray for the people listening, believers and not-yet-believers, and we need to pray for our preaching ministry to make an eternal mark.

There is another listener, of course . . . tomorrow.

Who is Listening? Part 2

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Ear2Yesterday we thought about some aspects of the diversity of a so-called “Christian audience” . . . but the reality will almost always be that there are people listening who are not believers.  They also, of course, are not a monolithic bloc:

2. Not Yet Believers.  You only have to stop for a few seconds to realise that we can’t simply refer to people who are not following Jesus as if they are all the same.  Some are feeling genuinely stirred and motivated.  They may not be able to explain why, but they find themselves on a spiritual journey and may even be surprised by the interest they are taking and the new perspectives they find themselves embracing.

Others are only at church listening to you preach because they feel obligated to be there.  A family member.  A key date in the calendar.  Something means they have to be physically there.  But nobody can force them to be emotionally or mentally present.  They may well be playing the next round of golf in their head before you even begin.  Unfair challenge?  Sure.  It is still up to you, leaning fully on God’s strength and wisdom, to get them engaged and keep them engaged.

Then there are the folks with questions.  There may be one big one that is blocking everything else, and if you get to chat to them, then it may soon come your way.  Or there may be a plethora of questions, perhaps being stirred by your message as you go through it.  The only way to address those kinds of questions is to put yourself in their shoes before you preach the passage.  What would I ask if I didn’t already agree with this passage?

Some listeners grew up going to Sunday School and have some level of Bible literacy.  Most today have little to none.  How will they hear and understand what you are preaching?

Everyone will have their own paradigm for life and reality.  What might stir affirmations from some, might stir indignant antagonism from others.

Preaching is not easy.  Thinking about the listener is a multi-faceted challenge, and there are still more listeners to add in yet.

Who is Listening?

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Ear2Preaching  is a simple concept.  You prayerfully prepare and then communicate the biblical text to a contemporary audience.  God, Bible, Preacher, Listeners.  Voila.  A good preacher will be someone who is close to God, studies the text well, communicates effectively and pastorally targets the listeners.  Simple.

Unless you probe this.  For instance, there are multiple factors when it comes to being close to God.  Studying a biblical text well requires a diversity of skills for a significant variety of textual genre.  Communicating effectively involves consideration of terminology, vocal variety, body language, gesture, facial expression, proxemics, etc.  At least the idea of targeting our listeners is relatively simple.  Or is it?  When you preach, who is listening?

1. Members of God’s family.  In a church setting, hopefully a significant number of listeners will be fellow believers in Christ, co-baptised by the Holy Spirit into Christ, siblings living in the forever family of our perfect Father.  I have one sibling – same DNA, but we are so different!  I have five children – same DNA, but they are so different!  Then there’s the church – same Holy Spirit DNA, but talk about diversity!

Some believers in the church are mature saints who have travelled a long and windy path, experiencing life in all of its complexity, all the while growing closer to their Father and to the Son, by the Spirit.  They know His faithfulness in the depth of their being and their identity is profoundly saturated in His love.  But others are mature in human years, yet have never really matured in their Spiritual lives.  They remain spiritual infants and are profoundly vulnerable, yet often these folks have no awareness of how fragile their Christianity actually is.  They might be worried, or they might be bombastic and difficult to deal with, throwing their weight around and wondering why people don’t seem to respond to them as they do to others.

Some believers are in the process of maturing in a healthy relationship with Christ marked by hearing His heart through the Word and responding in the fellowship of a healthy prayer life.  Their spirituality is relational and personal and responsive.  Other believers are confused by some sort of speculative spirituality that has caused them to chase knowledge through books or conferences, others chase an experiential spirituality through reflective disciplines or different types of conferences.  Other believers are not particularly marked by any spirituality, other than learned behaviour.

Some believers exhibit the fruit of the Spirit.  There is something dynamic about their lives and there is a clear sense that God is at work in them. Other believers evidence primarily the fruit of the flesh.  There is little delight in Christ to be noticed and you can’t help but wonder where they stand before God.

Tomorrow we’ll consider another category of listener . . . believers alone are complex enough though!

Preaching and Paradigms

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

PAradigmWhen we preach, we don’t simply present a truth, make an offer, or demonstrate the relevance of an ancient text.  Every biblical passage is a heavenly assault on the unquestioned assumptions of a fallen world.  That is to say, we don’t really live in a neutral world with some evil “out there” and some good information in the Bible.

The truth is that our entire world is upside-down.  Every cell in this universe is corrupted by the fall.  Yet we love to live in the myth that we are objectively evaluating a normal reality.  Then when extremes come before us, we are the arbiters who can discern what is extreme and what is not.  This results in people listening to the Bible and trying to find something relevant, rather than hearing the absolute revolution it speaks into our fallen, me-first, self-loving, circumstances-determine-mood, world.

So when we preach, what are we doing?  Sure, we are presenting the truth of the passage.  We are inviting people to meet the God who reveals Himself in His Word.  We are showing that the ancient text is more relevant than anything we hold to be truly contemporary.  But we are also bringing a heavenly critique of all that we believe to be normal.

Tomorrow I am preaching Psalm 46.  It is a wonderful Psalm of comfort for people fearing the destabilization brought by human enemies.  The LORD of hosts is with us, He is our fortress.  That changes everything.  He will utter and war will be defeated forever.  Here we are, understandably concerned by what we see going on in the world, perhaps even fearing for our future and our children’s future.  But the Bible challenges assumptions we don’t even recognize, and as we encounter the message of a passage like this one, we find our whole paradigms recalibrated to the reality we can’t see.

Worship and Wonder Break

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

WorshipWonderLast time we considered the warning sign of preaching “flat.”  Let’s come at this from a different angle.  Does you sermon preparation cause you to:

1. Pray – I don’t mean the diligent prayer that should be part of every ministry preparation.  Apart from Him we can do nothing.  If we are tempted to preach in a prayerless state then there should be warning lights flashing all over our spiritual dashboard.  What I mean here is when the sermon preparation so stirs you that you have to stop and pray.  All our prayer is technically a response to God’s glorious loving initiative, but I am referring to a soul-stirred immediacy of response.  The wonder of the revelation of God’s character in the text; the relevance of the passage to your own heartfelt fears, doubts, concerns or hopes; the privilege of participation in the ministry that overflows from the dynamic unity of the Trinity . . . how often does this stir you to stop and pray?

2. Worship – How easily we can get into the “professional” position of minister seeking to stir worship in the listeners.  But we are not in a separate category.  The only thing that separates us from our listeners is the extended exposure to the same biblical text.  So if we anticipate their response of worship, surely we should take the absence of our response to be concerning.  It is a glorious privilege to stop mid-preparation and pour out your praise to God.  Pause the prep, not for an incoming email, but to put on the song stirred in your heart and sing it out to God.  I think He likes that kind of worship service!  With this response comes…

3. Dream – The realities of weekly or regular ministry can wear us all down.  The lack of response.  The sense that eternity changing pearls from God’s Word have been trampled as fodder for a consumeristic evaluation of the church and pastor’s “performance” – this hurts.  But God is able to lift our hearts and invite us to dream of what could be and should be in the lives of those exposed to God’s Word this coming Sunday.

4. Give Thanks – How often do we pray for relief from the stresses and frustrations that come in a preaching ministry, but fail to thank God for the immense privilege of participating in His great work of building the church.  Time with God?  Give thanks.  Joining Jesus in His ministry?  Give thanks.  Receiving God’s gracious work in your own heart?  Give thanks.

5. Weep – I suspect that the most powerful preaching on a Sunday comes out of the study where exegetical notes and the open Bible have been anointed with tears.  I don’t weep enough.

And if, like me, this post doesn’t resonate with the reality week by week anywhere near as much as it should, what to do?  Back to #1.  Pray.

The Danger of Preaching Flat

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

Tired2Sometimes we can’t wait to get the Bible open and preach.  Other times it is a battle to get to the preaching moment.  But one of the most dangerous times is when it just feels flat.

I didn’t preach last Sunday and I am not preaching this Sunday.  So perhaps it is a safe time to write about this danger.  On the dashboard of our ministry life we need to have a light that flashes when we are preaching flat.  What causes it?  What should we do?

Here are some possible causes:

1. Physical Fatigue – driven personalities, parents of young children, stressed church leaders . . . all are in danger of not sleeping enough.

2. Physical Lethargy – bad diet, lack of exercise, high stress levels . . . it is easy to be running on empty, but it is not a good idea.

3. Emotional Drain – perhaps there are issues in the family, or tensions within the church, and be especially wary when you have been on the receiving end of criticism or character assassination . . . a drained emotional tank can lead to preaching flat, or preaching angry – both are dangerous.

4. Relational Strain – if you have a broken relationship with a fellow church leader, a prominent church member, an indiviual in your family, etc., then you may well find your motivation for preaching seeps away.  It is like having a crack in your fuel tank – only addressing the crack will enable you to function properly.  (Remember Romans 12:18 though, you can only do what you can, sometimes people simply refuse to reconcile.)

5. Spiritual Dryness – lack of real communication in prayer, Bible reading has become data-gathering instead of encounter, a lively relationship has drifted into mere disciplines, unconfessed sin has become normal and dulled your spirit, there are many reasons for spiritual dryness.  The problem is that it tends to hide the flashing light on your dashboard.  Your flesh doesn’t want to own a spiritual drift, but your ministry requires that you do.

6. Other – there may always be another reason . . . spiritual attack, medical issue, etc.

So what should you do about it?  Be honest with yourself and recognize when you are preaching flat.  Pray about it honestly.  Ask some trusted friends for anything they sense may be an issue in your life.  And don’t settle for flat as your new normal.  The Gospel, your God and the people in your church need a preacher whose inner fire is being stoked by being with God.  The flat version just won’t do.