Religion

It’s Not Always The Environment

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

It can be the environment.  It can be the seats and their position on the relative scale of personal discomfort.  It can be the ambient temperature.  It can certainly be the noisy and distracting child (parents should never underestimate the distracting power of a noisy child!)  The environment can certainly be a key factor in the clock-watching, shuffling, fidgeting, sighing and window gazing.

Some of these factors can be changed or avoided.  Some can’t.  But there is another factor that is not the environment.  This one can be changed.  You.

The preacher is a massive factor in levels of distraction.  Are people gripped and compelled to listen by well-planned, well-told, well-described, well-applied preaching?  Or when you preach are you background noise?  Most people (apart from children) will sit politely and many will even look in your direction, but don’t assume that means they are listening.  A significant factor in whether people sit gripped by the preaching or suppressing yawns and shuffling to see the clock is you.

Be sensitive to attention levels while preaching.  Listen and observe.  Perhaps even ask a few people if others around them seemed to be listening or not.  Then perhaps some tweaking of your preaching may be necessary.  It’s not all down to the preacher, by any means.  There is a massive Holy Spirit element that must be considered, even if this post is not focusing on that aspect of preaching.  So it’s not all down to the preacher, but it’s certainly not always the environment, either.

Illustration Saturation

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

I’d like to ponder those things generally known as “illustrations.”  I tend to refer to them as “support materials” to recognize their function.  Or even better, I prefer to call them what they actually are, either “explanations” or “proofs” or “applications” since that forces me to be purposeful in how I use them.  Notice I don’t call them “fillers” or “entertainers” or “treading waters” or “favorite anecdotes” or whatever.  They are there either to explain, prove or apply what I am saying, otherwise they are not developing the thought or moving the message forward.  Anyway, back to the point of the post – there seem to be two types of preachers when it comes to “illustrations.”

1. There are those who struggle to find, record, keep, select and use illustrations. After all, it does seem to take quite a discipline to create, use, maintain and then access a personal illustration library or database.  I take my hat off to all who achieve this and use it well, but I know that many preachers are like me – illustration strugglers.  Generally speaking, and this is very general, people in this category should probably do better with illustrations.  Having said that, and it was only in general, but nevertheless, there are other ways to “illustrate” a message than the standard array of notes, quotes, anecdotes, personal experiences, etc.  But that is for another post.  For now, this category could probably increase the frequency and quality of their illustrations.

2. There are some, perhaps a select few, who seem to constantly overflow with illustrations. Every way they turn there seems to be three or four brief illustrations or passing comments that relate to the word currently before them.  While it may be superficially something to envy for the majority of us in the former category, I would like to offer one observation to illustration fountains.  It is possible to achieve illustration saturation.  Sometimes in the preponderance of “interesting” materials the text itself can be lost.

Some struggle to illustrate.  Others struggle to stop illustrating.  Remember the goal of preaching is to effectively and faithfully explain and apply the Bible passage(s) for life transformation.  The goal is not to bounce from important term to important term, filling the gaps with a string threaded with pearls of interest and offset with other biblical quotes in order to illustrate the gospel . . .

Some of us, perhaps not many, but some, need to be very wary of illustration saturation.

U.O.P. – Onus On Us

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Unity.  Order.  Progress.  Three essentials in effective communication of a message.  Yet it strikes me that we can sometimes take these for granted when we are preaching on a single passage.  Unity?  One passage.  Order?  Moving through the passage.  Progress?  Getting closer to the end.  If this is all we have, then I suspect our preaching may be bordering on boring, among other things.

Unity.  It takes more than simply having a single preaching text. After all, the content of a message “united” by a single passage can be totally random in examples, references, illustrations, etc.  If we work at grasping the distilled single sentence main idea of the passage, then there is hope of unity in the preaching.  But if we simply bounce off the text and go where our thoughts lead us, then there is no limit to the disunity that can result in our preaching.  How often do we hear preachers supposedly preaching from one passage that seem to feel compelled to refer to fifteen others?

Order.  It takes more than simply having a single preaching text. For example, if you are preaching a ten-verse chunk of text, simply moving from the first to the last does not guarantee a sense of order.  If we fail to wrestle with the text and grasp the essential flow of thought in the passage, then we may simply jump off apparently disconnected thoughts in each successive mini-chunk, resulting in an apparently disordered collection of thoughts.  Surely the biblical writers were not presenting disconnected mini-thoughts?  Yet how often do we hear preachers supposedly preaching from one passage, yet at the end we as listeners have little grasp on the flow of thought in the text, little sense that the passage itself actually makes sense?

Progress.  It takes more than simply having a single preaching text. As we preach, listeners should be moving with us through the combined explanation and application of the text in the experience we call a sermon.  There should be a start.  Then there should be the sense that we’re heading toward a finish.  If we fail to wrestle with the text enough to grasp the movement and purpose of the passage, if we fail to craft the message into a plot or journey that goes somewhere, then what happens?  We end up with a pedantic and plodding presentation.  How often do we hear preachers supposedly preaching from one passage, yet all around we sense that others are looking at the text, as we are, to see how much more of the message there is still to come?  These things ought not to be!

Unity, order and progress.  These are evident in each unit of biblical text.  But the onus is on us as preachers to make sure they are clearly present in our message on that text – the text alone will not guarantee it!

Preaching at the Heart of Worship

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I am meandering through Al Mohler’s book, He is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World.  He begins the book with a chapter on worship.  Not in the way that many churches begin the service with worship (i.e. music) and then get to the preaching part.  No, rather he begins by making it clear that preaching stands at the heart of the worship of the church.  He rightly points out that you can tell much about the theology of a church by the way it worships (indeed, you can tell much about the theology of Al Mohler as he writes about worship).

He looks at Isaiah 6 and suggests the following observations: (1) Authentic worship begins with a vision of the living God, (2) authentic worship leads to the confession of sin, (3) authentic worship leads to the proclamation of the gospel, and (4) authentic worship demands a response.

To be honest the chapter felt a little flat to me, I’m hoping that the next chapter on the Triune God will move the feel from rigid responsibility to something more engaging and alive.  Nevertheless, beginning a book on preaching with a chapter on worship seems like a good approach.  We need to think more about worship.  We need to think about the central role of preaching in the worship of the church.  We need to be careful not to limit worship to music and somehow separate it from the preaching of the Word, to which worship should be the response, both in the moment, and in the rest of the week.

Why Preaching is Weaker Now – Cont.

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Continuing the list begun yesterday from the preface to Al Mohler’s 2008 book, He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World.  Six reasons why preaching has been undermined in the contemporary church and is weakened at this point in time.  Here we go:

4. Contemporary preaching suffers from an emptying of biblical content. When preachers do preach a text, they often empty it of its content, choosing not to wrestle with the meaning of the text, but rather to use it as a point of departure for their list of pithy points.  Not only does this fail the text itself, but it also fails to present the text in its broader context, thereby not presenting the broader scope of God’s message.

5. Contemporary preaching suffers from a focus on felt needs. Following the course charted by Harry Emerson Fosdick, many contemporary preachers seek to counsel the perceived needs of contemporary patients in the pew, rather than addressing the real needs of sinners.  So, consequently, much preaching is concerned more with career advancement or financial security, than it is with the real need of sinners before God.

6. Contemporary preaching suffers from an absence of the gospel. Too much preaching fails to stand up as Christian preaching.

While Mohler does recognize and affirm a contemporary resurgence in expository preaching, both in younger generation preachers, and in some seminary programs, he remains deeply concerned about the general trends in contemporary pulpit ministry.  Is his evaluation accurate?  Is it complete?

Why Preaching is Weaker Now

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

In the preface to his 2008 book, He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World, Al Mohler lists six reasons why preaching has been undermined in the contemporary church and is weakened at this point in time.  Let me list the reasons with brief explanation:

1. Contemporary preaching suffers from a loss of confidence in the power of the word. People today are bombarded by more words than ever before.  Words have become very cheap and are increasingly replaced by the use of images or sound tracks.  Generally people have lost confidence in the power of the spoken word, any spoken word.

2. Contemporary preaching suffers from an infatuation with technology. Well intentioned moves to incorporate visual media technology have inadvertently changed the core shape of the message – a message intended to be heard rather than seen.

3. Contemporary preaching suffers from embarrassment before the text. With the ongoing and repeated attacks on the biblical text from all sides, not least the current politically correct climate, many preachers are hesitant to preach the whole Bible since some parts are so offensive to contemporary sensitivities.  Consequently many stick to the more comfortable, palatable and non-confrontational passages, while shuffling nervously around the rest.

Tomorrow I will finish the list.

Is Our View of Preaching Too Small?

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

As John Broadus once wrote, “Preaching is characteristic of Christianity.  No other religion has made the regular and frequent assembling of groups of people, to hear religious instruction and exhortation, an integral part of divine worship.” This is fine, as far as it goes, but I would suggest this quote alone does not go far enough.

Why might we suggest that Christianity is almost preaching-centric?  Not because preaching is somehow an end in itself, but rather because Christianity is Theo- and Christo-centric.  And what is the critical feature of our God that enables us to come to Him in relationship and worship?  It is that He communicates.  God speaks.  God’s speech is action.  He has acted through His Word written and He has acted through His Word incarnate.  God’s saving work has been fully accomplished in the person of His Son, His final revelation and message.  Consequently we gather together in worship and response to a communicating God.  Preaching is not mere instruction and exhortation, on a par with a guided tour of a museum, or a journalist’s report of an incident, or a teacher explaining a theory, or a lecturer sharing their insight, or a coach rallying a sports team, or a motivational speaker stirring salespersons to do better, or an actor reciting a poem, or a judge reviewing the facts of a case, or a politician restating a promise, or a comedian drawing a laugh.

Preaching is unlike any other speech, either instructional or exhortational.  When we preach, our goal is to preach the Word, so that the Word of God itself speaks.  When the Bible speaks, God speaks.  When God speaks, He is at work.  Preaching is not just talking about God at work.  Biblical preaching is God at work.  Perhaps we need to rethink our view of preaching, for too often and too easily, our view of preaching is much too small.

Preach for Faith – Lennox II

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Yesterday I was reflecting on Dr John Lennox’s concerns as Christians add fuel to the fire of Richard Dawkin’s faulty logic.  Faith, by his definition, is knowingly trusting in something which cannot be proven – believing against reason.  Yet Lennox yearns for people to understand that the faith is always a response to fact, and the Christian faith is firmly founded on trustworthy facts – not least the resurrection of Jesus.  Yesterday I shared his concern over the “leap in the dark” language used in some Christian circles as a very poor explanation of faith.  Today I’d like to share his second concern.

2. An over-emphasis on faith as a gift given from above.  Now it would be very easy for some readers to dismiss this, or to get into a theological slanging match.  I certainly don’t want to take sides or position this site on one side or the other of the debates this touches on.  Whether we agree with his own position or not, I think we must engage with Dr Lennox’s concern.  Could it be that an over-emphasis on faith as a gift received is inadvertently undermining the truth that Christianity is founded on fact, not least the fact of the resurrection of Jesus?  Could it be that internal theological debates undermine the presentation of the gospel to a culture now influenced by new atheism?  Could it be that irrespective of our stance on the so-called “free-will” debate, that we need to consider underlining, rather than undermining, the facts on which our faith response is built?

We preach the faith.  We preach for faith.  Obviously there is much to ponder in a world influenced by a whole smorgasbord of thinking, from the clear to the fallacious and deceptive.

Preach for Faith – Lennox

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I was not alone in really appreciating John Lennox’s preaching and teaching at the recent European Leadership Forum in Hungary.  As someone who has been focused on debating Richard Dawkins and other “new atheists” in recent years, Dr Lennox has a lot to say about faith and apologetics.  He points to a foundational plank in Richard Dawkins’ logic, his erroneous definition of faith.  I’m quoting from memory, but essentially faith, according to Dawkins, is belief in something where you know there is no evidence.  Consequently it is not possible to really discuss reality with a “person of faith” since by definition they know they are committed to that for which there is no evidence.  It is sad to see the strategy Dawkins has created for his own purposes, but perhaps even sadder to see some Christians rushing headlong into the illogical snare.

The critical role of fact. Faith is a response to fact.  If the facts are shaky, so is the faith.  If the facts are the tall tales of an untrustworthy teenager, then the faith is relatively worthless.  But if the facts are genuine facts, then faith in response to those facts is not so easily dismissable.  The Christian faith is founded on fact.  The central fact is that of the resurrection of Jesus, interestingly the central feature of early apostolic preaching (when there were plenty of eye-witnesses still around to corroborate or to refute the preaching).

As preachers we have a key role in being able to help our hearers understand that their faith is founded on fact.  Yet Lennox points to two common errors, as he sees it, in contemporary Christianity:

1. The tendency to present faith as a leap in the dark.  We hear this from uninformed testimonies where the person speaking is nervous at having so many eyes trained on them and quite naturally feels unable to fully and eloquently explain the whole Christian faith and so simply pulls out the “I don’t really get it, I just took a leap in the dark and now I can testify that something has changed in me” card.  While it would be nice to hear testimonies that are somewhat better informed, there is something compelling about a testimony that is still a work in progress, someone who stands like the blind man in John 9 and cannot compete with the theologians, yet can speak with the authority of personal experience.  However, as preachers we need to make sure we are not giving more of this “leap in the dark” error through our preaching, or even implying it.  Christian faith is a response to fact.

Tomorrow I’ll share Dr Lennox’s other concern in how we preach faith today.

Preach for Faith

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Probably it’s a combination of attending an apologetically driven conference and being scheduled to preach on faith this Sunday, but I’m pondering preaching for faith.  I suppose that is always close to the heart of the matter in Christian preaching.  Anyway, here are a couple of thoughts, although this could be a series of posts for the rest of the month.

The critical role of God’s Word. Right back in Genesis 3 everything “went wrong” when?  When they doubted God’s Word and listened to another “authority.”  Surely God’s Word couldn’t be trusted since this impressive creature had disobeyed it and yet still lived?  So they ate and they died spiritually, they began to die physically and the whole creation began to suffer death.  From that decisive moment on, the Bible is full of narratives, all of which have a big question mark hanging over them like an unfurled banner – “will people trust God’s Word or not?”  Interestingly, when God’s Son steps into the world to make a path back to deep relational intimacy with God, He comes as God’s Word.  Will he be trusted?  Doubting God’s word in the first place led us away, now there is a symmetry in the remedy in that we are asked to trust God’s Word (incarnated and inscripturated) in order to be brought back.  Consequently Paul writes to the Romans that faith comes by hearing, so the Word of God must be preached.  Peter tells his readers that they were born again through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and through the living and enduring Word of God.  Hebrews urges the believers to remember their leaders who spoke the Word of God to them, and thereby imitate their faith.  In John 17, Jesus prays concerning the Word of God that He has given to His followers, and prays that they will be sanctified by the truth, which is the Word.  I could go on pulling example after example, but the point is critical – the preaching of the Word of God is absolutely central to the purposes of God in redeeming a lost world.

So the simple question is this – as you look at your message this Sunday, what is the appropriate faith response to God’s Word as preached in your message?  Is it clear?  Is it central?

In the next post I’d like to share some provocative thoughts on faith from Dr John Lennox.