Religion

What Do New Preachers Need?

/ Peter Mead / 5 Comments

If we take the biblical burden of mentoring seriously, we should be looking not only to our own ministry, but also to the needs of the next generation of preachers.  What do new preachers want?

1. Practical Instruction. Too many new preachers are left floundering in a confusing lack of simple instruction.  It really helps to have some basic training to get the building blocks in place.  Subtleties and variations can come later, but getting the basics in place are vital.

2. A safe environment in which to try and to fail. One of the real blessings of good Bible school training is the opportunity to preach and to fail (which doesn’t automatically mean failing the class, of course).  Alternatively a small meeting, or a welcoming small church … in fact, anywhere with abundant grace in the place.

3. A clear understanding of the distinction between mentoring and cloning. Too many people misunderstand mentoring and end up in a faulty cloning situation.  Either the mentor tries to force the next generation into an old mold, or the new preacher ends up copying someone that isn’t them.  Mentoring is about resourcing, equipping, training and launching the person being mentored . . .

A Gift for Your Preacher

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Perhaps you’ve stumbled across this post.  Perhaps your pastor or a regular preacher in your church has “accidentally” linked to it (if so, forgive them, they must have linked here unawares!)

What can you give a pastor, minister, elder, preacher?  I want to make one suggestion with various options built-in.  You can give them time.

1. Freedom from guilt as they guard their day-off and time with their family. If they aren’t available, pray that God will bless that time, but don’t make them feel bad about taking it.  If you can’t schedule a meeting with them at a time you requested and then discover their “appointment” was actually with their children, don’t complain, they are setting an example in God-pleasing priorities!

2. Provide for a retreat or training course. The church will reap the benefits of this, but still it will be a blessing to the person enabled and encouraged to attend.  For someone who preaches every Sunday it would be a real blessing to be encouraged to go away for a few days (even if it is over a weekend!)  Sometimes a cabin to be alone, other times a conference with other preachers, perhaps even a family holiday long enough to decompress and enjoy being together!

3. Why not push the boat out and start discussing a sabbatical. It might take a couple of years to prepare for a sabbatical, but it would be worth it.  If the person has served faithfully for several years, why not start discussions about the possibility of a sabbatical?  Perhaps they could travel for a few months and experience a ministry or missions setting that is on their heart?  Perhaps they could be freed up for a while in order to write that book they’re itching to write?  Perhaps they would like to take five months to participate in a study program like Cor Deo –click here. Again, the church will benefit massively from this apparent sacrifice, on numerous levels, but it will take significant planning to enable the person to feel free to genuinely be away from everything for this time of renewal and refreshment.

Ingredients for Creativity

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

If you want to increase creativity in your preaching, what is needed?

1. Time. If you are squeezed for time then it will not be possible to add the extra work needed (and the thinking capacity needed) for adding creativity to your preaching.

2. Freedom and trust. It is important to know the congregation to whom you preach.  Many will not easily accept more creative approaches to preaching unless there is first a building up of trust and a shared commitment to the core elements of true preaching (i.e. that a particular form is not the definition of faithfulness to the ministry!)

3. Better reading of the text. We need to grow in our ability to thoroughly engage with texts and recognize their genre, their features, their mood, their narrative context, etc.  Better Bible study can help develop more creative preaching.

4. Awareness of yourself as a preacher. We all need to know our own strengths and weaknesses in preaching.  Are you effective in description, in storytelling, in timing of key phrases, in disarming listeners, in role-playing, etc.?  Don’t get too creative in areas of weakness, but built on the strengths first.

5. Exposure to creative and different preachers. Don’t just copy what someone else has done, but if you are never exposed to other preachers, you will struggle to break out of the confines of your own style and tradition.

What would you add to this list?

Majority Preacher – Part 2

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Continuing Stephen Gaukroger’s helpful list of necessary considerations for those who want to sustain a long-term preaching ministry in the same setting where they are the main or only speaker:

5. Know thyself – It is important to know your own strengths and weaknesses.  If you’re invited to a big event, then let your prejudices hang out, that’s probably why they invited you.  But in your own church be committed to long-term exposition.  Letting prejudices hang out too much will eventually annoy and cause problems.

6. Develop critical friends (not fans or foes) – Real and constructive feedback from real people will really help.

7. Have regular intentional review of your content and style – Be sure to compare what you have preached on with other lists, the lectionary, theology textbooks, other preachers and other churches.  This will help you spot holes in your own preaching diet.

If you’re preaching almost every week in your church, what would you add to this list?  I’d add something along the lines of “make sure you get breaks, sabbaticals, study breaks, etc. in order to renew your passion and vision.”

A List of Styles

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

At the BibleFresh preaching event one speaker shared about preaching to the 20’s-30’s generation.  I think his name was Andy West (apologies Andy if I got your last name wrong).  His talk will probably be available online in due course at this site.

He shared four styles of preaching that he observes among effective preaching to the younger adult generation.  I’d like to offer the four styles he listed for your interest:

1. The Preacher Orator: “here is my argument!” – This is the expert speaker who will tend to fill venues with younger generation adults craving an authoritative word in an age where truth and depth are not common currency in everyday life.  People flock to hear Tim Keller, for example.  It is structured, linear, deep.

2. The Preacher Artist: “how would you feel…?” – This type of preacher paints pictures with words, engages through effective storytelling and is creatively imaginative.

3. The Preacher Conversationalist: “I’m like you…” – The preacher is an ordinary person who has honesty and integrity, connecting with the listeners.

4. The Preacher Facilitator: “Let’s go on a journey together.” – This preacher doesn’t so much dispense truth as help listeners to engage with the truth.

A few quick questions spring out of this:

A. Is this list complete, or are there other “styles” that are engaging effectively with the younger generation?

B. How much are we able to switch between styles as preachers in order to offer greater variety and appropriate engagement with our listeners?  (This is a critical question on numerous levels of preaching and with all generations.)

C. Should we be proactively exploring team approaches to preaching ministry that would more deliberately match the preacher to the subject and the listeners for each specific Sunday?

Struggling With Style and Substance

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

A lot of comments are made about preaching to the younger generation.  Lots can be said about the newest set of adults in our culture, and it is imperative that we get to know who we are trying to reach, or who we are preaching to on a Sunday . . .

But let’s not fall into the trap of thinking that the new generation are simply looking for new style.  It is so easy to think that preaching in a certain style will appeal to the younger generation.  It is true that generationally there is a shift in preferred styles of preaching, but the danger comes when we presume that style is the key, then lose sight of substance.

The younger generation do seem to place a high value on authenticity, integrity and vulnerability.  Yet there is no waning in the desire for substance.  Perhaps it could be argued that the younger generation today actually yearns for depth and substance perhaps more than previous generations who placed higher value on structure and form?

So let’s not try to be “relevant” in style without pursuing God in a deep personal walk, nor offer lightweight preaching simply to appeal in style.  This is not to say that we should preach old style – whatever that might be.  The priority has to be substance, but in our passion to connect, we should be considering all aspects of how to communicate effectively (which inevitably is changing over time and will always do so).

We should also be careful not to disparage popular speakers among the younger generation.  It is so easy to mock and dismiss the currently popular speakers across the spectrum.  Upon closer inspection it might be found that some of them are actually speaking with considerable depth and substance.  The problem is that many simply copy style and lose that substance, which exacerbates the impression of superficiality.

There aren’t simple solutions, but we have to take seriously how to connect with each new generation.

Non Solo Sermon Ministry

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At the BibleFresh conference on preaching – here’s the online magazine – we discussed various aspects of preaching and how it can be refreshed in the UK.  Over the next few days I’ll share a few of the thoughts coming out of that event.

Traditionally the sermon was considered by some to be the full extent of ministry, or at least the primary avenue of ministry.  Today preachers are realizing more and more that the sermon is part of a larger package of ministry.  So this makes me think of several ministry partners for the sermon:

1. Other sermons in your church. This isn’t cutting edge thinking to many of us, but some still don’t see the value of preaching in series and allowing a combination of messages over time to reinforce the message and impact.

2. Other ministries in your church. In recent years many churches have moved to having home groups instead of another midweek sermon.  In many cases churches have tried to connect midweek content to Sunday’s sermon.  Some continue this practice, others have found it to be more difficult than expected (in part because preachers didn’t preach with homegroup on their horizon, and in part because leading a homegroup takes a significant amount of skill which often is not trained in a church).  But whatever your church is doing with “curriculum” for homegroups or other gatherings in the church, how can we as preachers think through how our sermons might actually be reinforcing and motivating what is happening in other ministries of the church.  Too easily the sermon falls into an educative model in which it is the main avenue of information transfer, when actually it might better serve the church in respect to encouragement, motivation, challenge, conviction, vision casting, etc.  It is worth pondering the interface between our preaching and the other ministries of the church.

3. Other ministries outside your church. It was mentioned that some preachers struggle with a sense that they cannot compete with the big event festivals people are attending.  Again, if a significant proportion of the church go away for a Christian event or festival, would it be possible to take advantage of that rather than being intimidated?  Could the church think through pre- and post- event preaching that reinforces the often life-changing crises that take place in these settings?

It is always much easier to just preach a single stand alone sermon, but what might help synergize the ministries of the church and beyond?  Worth pondering, even if there are differences in every situation.

Preparing in Silence?

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

“A lot of preachers are introverts because they need to be able to prepare on their own for hours.”  “Preaching is an oral event, yet the preparation of outlining and manuscripting is all pursued using written language skills.”  “Silence is the soil in which sermons sprout.”

All statements with some truth to them.  But also all statements that indicate a subtle tension between preparation and delivery of a spoken sermon.  A lot of preachers are introverts, perhaps for the reason stated.  So much of our preaching training is essentially an adaptation of skills for producing written work.  And there is a definite place for silence in the context of walking with Christ – as essential if preaching is truly a “God-event.”

So this post is not about turning all preparation upside down and advocating sermon preparation with loud music on, or in the midst of conversation.  (Actually there are preachers that find it helpful to do the message formation phase of their preparation in a public place – like Starbucks – in order to be able to better think through who they will be speaking to . . . a thought to ponder, perhaps.)

A couple of suggestions, though, in light of the oral nature of preaching:

1. Don’t just pray then prepare, but pray during out loud preparation. That is, don’t just pray and then work on the sermon.  Try praying as you prepare.  Talk through your thinking out loud, in conversation with the Lord.  Say your thoughts out loud, and also talk about what you are saying.  Why not?  It might help your thoughts to form in coherent oral form, it might help your prayer to be more than introductory, it might help you notice when your mind has drifted away from the task at hand for the last twenty minutes!

2. Don’t always write, then talk, but invert the process. We are trained to pray, then read, then write, then talk.  Why in that order?  Why not keep the prayer going throughout, but instead read, then talk, then write?  Often a written sermon won’t deliver well, but a well-delivered sermon can always be written in some form or other.  Talking through the message earlier in the week will almost certainly help you know where you are in the process far more than looking at your notes will!

Preaching is a spoken event.  Perhaps we need to prepare appropriately.

Shaded Differences Not Poles Apart

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The Bible often distinguishes humanity in stark alternatives.  There are those being saved and those perishing.  There are those who trust God and those who don’t.  There is love and hate.  Heaven and hell.  Faith and fear.  The righteous and the wicked.  The wise and the foolish.  Often the stark alternatives provide for very strong opportunities to preach the Word boldly and with great clarity.

Nevertheless, there are also many times where what we intend and what is heard can be close, but still be across the divide.  How easily we preach for relationship and are heard to be preaching for religion.  Thinking in the terms Tim Keller uses for Luke 15 – we can easily slip into trying to turn the irreligious younger son into the religious older son, but God reaches out to both the rebel and religious in order to draw them into relationship.  Sons, not servants.  If we are not very careful, we can preach for relationship and be heard as preaching religion.  This is heavily influenced by the religious tendency of humanity in the flesh, but that is no excuse since we have to preach to those who are listening and can’t just blame them if they miss our point.

I was thinking about a vision for the local church for a presentation this week. I was struck by how easily we settle for a line drawing, a sketched representation of the reality, rather than the full multi-coloured vivid 3-D reality of God’s wisdom demonstrated in the church.  There may be some extremely dead churches, but for many the difference between vibrantly alive and slightly hollow is marginal, little shaded differences, in some areas and not others, in some people and less so in others.

We like to think in black and white terms, in one extreme or the other.  Since we’re not completely dead, we must therefore be completely alive.  It’s easier that way.  But as preachers we need to help people not settle for a mere representation of life to the full, of the delight of being fully alive in Christ, sharing in the communion of the Godhead, participating fully in all that God has for us.

Let’s preach the texts that offer strong polarities and not hold back.  Let’s also recognize that often the difference between reality and mere representation is marginal – so our preaching needs to sensitively engage and encourage in the midst of the shaded differences.

Obvious Texts and Not So Obvious Texts

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When you speak on a subject, rather than preaching an assigned text, you have the choice of which text to preach.  In many cases there are obvious texts to preach.  Asked to preach on the church, you might be drawn to Ephesians, or Matthew 16.  Preaching on marriage?  Ephesians 5 or Colossians 3.  Preaching on missions?  Matthew 28 or Acts 1.

There are advantages to preaching the more obvious texts.  First, they are obvious because they address the issue clearly.  Second, people will often feel a sense of an expectation being satisfied, like watching a good movie for a second or third time.

But you might like to go with a less obvious text.  Perhaps a narrative.  Perhaps a text people don’t know so well.  Interest may rise, impact may be deeper, perspective may be enriched.  Preaching on church?  How about the last section of John 17 . . . that’s my choice for today.  The other subjects?  I’ll think about them another time, my mind is captivated by John 17:20-22.