Religion

Preach the Text, Don’t Just Preach From the Text

/ Peter Mead / 5 Comments

It’s a simple statement, but some preachers probably need to ponder it.  With the good motivation of seeking to be pastorally relevant, some preachers short-change the preaching of the text.  It certainly saves time if you merely summarise or refer to the text, but don’t bother with any extended explanation, or any retelling of the narratives, or any extended description to help the listeners enter into the world of the text.  Bypassing these elements does allow you to get to application and relevance.  But what is lost in the process?

People receiving lightweight Bible content that is heavy on application will not mature into the kind of Bible-mature people you probably want them to be.  It trains listeners to look for lessons and applications, but to do so without really entering into the text to any depth.  It may encourage people to try to live out the Christian life, but without drawing them deeper into the source of life – relationship with the persons of the Godhead.  As preachers we have a double-duty, or even a double delight: to enable people to encounter the God of the Bible as they enter into His Word, and to be changed by that encounter.  These two go together.  But don’t short-change the first by skipping to the second.  As the world seems to spin further and further away from the anchors of Biblical truth, people need to be more biblically literate and mature, not less.

Uniquely Meaningful

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

I heard a helpful lecture recently concerning how Scripture is accessed and used in peoples’ lives.  The lecturer made the observation that Christianity is unique among the world’s religions in that it has meaning at its core.  How so?

Well, other religions may be more primarily concerned with form, with tradition, with the system.  Christianity is uniquely centred around a God who has revealed Himself in the Word – written and incarnate.  What does this mean for preaching?  Well, for a start it has to mean that we are concerned with genuinely grasping the meaning of the Word as we prepare to preach it, it means we are concerned not for others to go through the form of a church service, but rather that they grasp the meaning of the Word preached.  It means that at its core Christianity is concerned with God’s self-revelation resulting in responsive hearts bound to His in personal relationship.  How easily we slip into a religiosity that is more about form and externals.  As preachers, we are at the heart of avoiding that cul-de-sac.

I’ll leave this post there, although so much more could be said, but I am travelling today and so don’t have time to add more yet.

Is It Ever Appropriate to Preach the Same Text to the Same Church?

/ Peter Mead / 4 Comments

Simple question.  Simple answer?  Yes.

But what about people thinking you haven’t prepared something fresh so you are just reworking old material?  What about the feeling of deja vu that will overcome the listeners?  What about?  What about?

As a preacher you have to answer to God for your preaching ministry.  If you think the church needs that passage again, why not preach it again?  What people might think about your ministry or effort is very much a secondary issue.  You can make it clear that you are not trying to sneek a repeat past them.  Tell them upfront that you have preached it before and that you feel before God that we need to think it through again, or some more.

Personally I would be very willing to return to the same text for a second service on the same day.  It allows for deeper levels of application and reinforcement.  I would be willing to return to the same text after a gap of weeks, months or years, too.  Perhaps it helps to think about it this way:

A sermon event consists of several ingredients – the preacher, the listeners, the situation, the text.  When time has passed, the preacher is not the same person they were before.  The listeners have changed (individually, and in respect to who is actually present).  The situation has changed.  The text remains the same, but is engaged by the first three elements in a fresh way.

Same text, different occasion, why not?  Our purpose is not to impress listeners with new information week after week, but to shepherd people before God as under-shepherds . . . sometimes the same patch of grass is what they/we really need!

The Missing Connection

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Sometimes technically solid sermons seem to sputter and struggle.  It’s not unusual for a message to fall flat.  Why is that possible when the pieces are in place?

Content – We know the importance of having good content.  I tend to use the term “Biblical” when I am evaluating a message, others use the term “faithful.”  It’s a matter of content.

Clarity – We probably see it as a self-evident truth that for something to communicate it needs to make sense (although just believing it doesn’t make us automatically clear communicators).  A clear message clearly presented is a blessing to listeners.

Contemporaneity – Ok, so if I wasn’t enjoying my alliteration (might as well do it on here since I rarely alliterate in messages), I might prefer to speak of emphasising the relevance of the passage.  That is, helping listeners to hear what God is saying today, to us, through His Word.

Good content, clearly presented, with a contemporary sense of relevance.  What more could you want in a message?  How can messages with all three ingredients in place still fall flat?

I think there is a fourth ingredient that is often overlooked, frequently forgotten in the mix of making a message that ministers well:

Connection – Again if I weren’t in the mood for “C’s” I would probably call this being engaging.  It is something about the persona of the preacher, the energy, the relevance, the eye contact, the warmth, the humour, the manner of delivery, the feel and flow of the whole, the comfort or nerves of the speaker, and so much more.  It may be hard to pin down what makes it, but as a listener you can sense when it’s missing.

Let’s try to preach good content, clearly, with a contemporary focus.  But as well, let’s seek to connect.  After all, we are communicating for a communicating and relational God.  Preaching is a relational exercise.  And when connection is missing, preaching falls flat.

Arriving at the Destination

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Just a quick post on something I’ve mentioned before, but worth a revisit.  The best flight is one that has a planned destination, and once arriving there, it lands.  The same is true with preaching.  How easily we can end up planning the landing mid-flight, as we preach!  How tempting it is to pull out during descent to circle around one more time and add in a couple of elements we thought of saying, then forgot.  How uncomfortable to be a passenger on that kind of flight, or in that kind of sermon!

Know where the message is going.  Plan the landing ahead of time.  Perhaps have a final sentence that really nails the message.  Get there.  Say it.  Stop.

I have often been impressed at how Haddon Robinson seems to land his messages with a great sentence and a definite period, rather than waffling and fizzling to a vague finish.  I know I need to keep working on that, so I thought I’d share it here in case you do too!

Pondering Pace

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Effective preachers can range from plodding to pacey.  Contrary to popular opinion, slow is not always better.  As long as people can hear (volume) clearly (annunciation), their brains can generally cope with pace.  However, it is worth asking whether their hearts can cope?

Recently I had the joy of listening to a friend of mine preach in a setting designed for offering feedback.  The message was very good.  He did what many of us have done, though, and got confused about how long he had left.  Thinking he should be finishing (although he could have preached longer), he increased the pace.  Did we hear, understand and comprehend what he said at the faster pace?  Yes.  But did it have the same impact on our hearts?  Probably not.

At times I have watched a TV show, or a film, at an increased pace.  So for example, a 40-minute episode can be seen in 27-minutes.  This saves time, and you still understand all that happens.  But something is different.  At 1.4x the normal speed it is possible to follow dialogue and action, but it is harder to feel it.  When the moment of tension arrives, the intruder’s in the house, the music generates tension through it’s heartbeat style . . . well, at 1.4x the normal speed you simply don’t feel the tension, or the fear, or the anticipation, or the joy, etc.

We don’t have to preach slow, there is benefit in using a range of pace.  But recognize that rushed delivery undermines the affective impact of the message.  Is it worth trading that in for the benefit of cramming in more information?  I suppose it depends on whether you think humans are purely brain-driven, or if the heart has a role to play.

Drip Feeding

/ Peter Mead / 4 Comments

I’m sure I am not the only person who finds themselves praying for one message to make a massive difference.  When we are captivated by the God who speaks through a specific passage of Scripture, our yearning is for that impact to be felt deep and real by the listeners when we preach it.

But let’s not lose sight of the impact of a drip feeding ministry.  Regular exposure to the God of the Bible, to His Gospel, to the blessing of His self-revelation in His Word . . . it has a massive effect on people, even if we don’t see the impact of every point, every message, every application.

Somebody said it is easy to over-estimate what can be achieved in one message, but under-estimate what can be achieved over five years.  Pray for the balance of faith-fueled passion for each message, but also for divine diligence to press on for the long-term effect.

A Thought Experiment About Dictation Software

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Imagine for a moment that they invented software that would take a recording of your voice and transcribe it word for word into an electronic document.  Or imagine that you had a secretary who would transcribe a recording of your sermon.  (Now, if you have either of these, you are very blessed.  If you have both, you have to wonder what God is expecting from someone so privileged!)

So you have your imaginary document, a word for word transcription of your message.  What would you discover if you were to analyse it carefully?

* Would you find sentences and thoughts left incomplete, or open loops left unclosed?  Some of us struggle to complete our thoughts when speaking out loud and our listeners can be left feeling confused or disoriented (or even just plain bored).

* Would you find inane repetition of non-words?  I gave a presentation recently and as I sat down I felt very aware that I had used a couple of words repeatedly and slightly out of place.  I don’t think this example was a recurring pattern, but I’d like to know if it is so I could deal with this.  Perhaps you like to use, you know, lots of, well, you know, filler words.  Transcribed sermons would make those just really obvious wouldn’t they?

* Would you find absolutely no reference to yourself, such that the message could have come from anybody?  Seems like listeners value the connection to the preacher, as long as he doesn’t come across as an idiot or a hero.  Speaking of which…

* Would you find excessive positive references to yourself?  I did this, I said that, I met so and so, I answered, I shared, I witnessed, I preached, my church, my ministry, my opportunities, my anointing.  Painful though it may be, knowing that you come across as full of yourself is better to know than not know!

* Would you find a loss of momentum in the message?  It was going great until 2/3rds of the way through, then it sort of tread water for a page and a half.  Better to know that.

* Would you discover that actually your message didn’t make sense.  That would be hard to take, but actually, if it didn’t make sense, it was hard to take for the listeners, so better to join the club and know that too!

Ah well, good thing they haven’t invented such dictation software, or personal secretaries, or even tape recorders so that we could listen to our own messages, transcribe and analyse.  Might be painful if we did!

Preaching About Preaching

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I think you have to be very careful when it comes to preaching about preaching.  It is tempting to do so.  After all, Christianity is a revelation based faith, flowing from a speaking, self-revealing and relational God, with a big emphasis on the importance of preaching (despite the frequent attempts to deny its importance).  But to get side-tracked into preaching about preaching seems to be a precarious ledge with some deep ravines on every side.  For example:

1. Who are the listeners? If you are preaching at a pastors’ conference then it is probably highly appropriate to preach about preaching.  But if the listeners are a normal congregation, then what is your goal?  Are you intending to intimidate those who are scared to death of “preaching” (but may be capable of witnessing under other labels . . .)  Are you hoping to train them to discern (and if so, will they discern well as a result, or just discern in line with your personal preferences?)  Or is your goal not so much what the listeners will do with what is said, but to make a comparison?  If so, then there is the double danger of criticising inappropriately other servants of the Lord, or of becoming self-laudatory.  There are reasons to preach about preaching, but beware of these dangerous traps.

2. How is your ego? Anytime we talk about what we give a large chunk of our life to doing, there is a danger that the ego might run free and leave a bitter taste of self-congratulation and arrogance.  There are different preachers, different approaches to preaching, different theologies propagated through preaching and different schools of thought in respect to every aspect of preaching.  It is important to think through any inherent critique before you make it.  It may be very appropriate to graciously critique some aspects of preaching (i.e. those who do not preach what the text is saying), but very dangerous to critique secondary matters (such as certain styles . . . that preacher who sits on a bar stool and uses humour at times may actually be a far more biblical and Christ-honouring preacher than a more traditional style individual who seems to fit a particular mold you may be comfortable with).

It is sometimes appropriate to preach about preaching (not least when the preaching text is about preaching, although even then, we sometimes need to abstract slightly in order to apply to non-preachers).  But we need to be careful not to let our egos creep in and turn an opportunity to serve others into a self-patting exercise.  We often get more ego stroking after preaching than we deserve already, let’s not waste our preaching in doing the same for ourselves.