Religion

Short Cuts to Nowhere Good

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There are a couple of short-cuts taken by many preachers that need to be highlighted for the sake of Biblical Preaching.  Please be sure to read the explanation as well as the heading (it’s amazing how people miss the point of what’s written sometimes!)

1. Prayer. Prayer is not a short-cut.  It is a necessity.  It is critical.  However, it is not a short-cut.  In fact, praying in preparation will probably make the preparation take longer, but it is worth the longer journey.  Many preachers think that all they need to do is pray and then preach their impressions.  This is neither pleasing to the Lord nor helpful for the listeners.  Why do some preachers think God is so pleased when they essentially dismiss the Bible by skirting around the study process in preparation?  I suspect that if we pray “Lord, please show me what I should say from this text!” that His answer would include “I want you to say what the text says.” God takes His Word very seriously, so should we, and prayer is not short-cut around the blessing of spending significant time and effort wrestling with the true and exact meaning of the passage.

Tomorrow I will add another short-cut that is not worth taking if we are to be Biblical Preachers!

Don’t Blame the Wrong Thing

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In his book, Explosive Preaching, Ron Boyd-MacMillan delineates two factions in a debate over the place of preaching.  On the one hand, there are those he calls the pro-sermon faction who need to wake up to the fact that their logic is often overdone.  That is to say, in their mind “preaching = sermonizing” and this does not ultimately help their side of the debate.  He marshals the evidence from Scripture to suggest that preaching in the Bible was not the common “sermonizing” of recent history.  (I would add the comment that in his survey of preaching in the Bible he fails to note the book, or perhaps better, sermon to the Hebrews.)

On the other side there is the faction he calls the anti-monolog brigade.  To this crowd he points out that “monolog = boring” is also flawed logic.  Let me quote him (p161):

Don’t go blaming monolog.  Blame boring monolog instead!  Returning home from this conference [where the avoidance of any “talking head” monolog had resulted in meaningless activity without understanding] I wrote in my journal, “I think the greatest problem facing preaching today is the fear of the monolog.”  There’s a lunatic fringe in the anti-monolog brigade that want to banish the sermon completely.  Fat chance.  The monolog will always be with us.  In large groups and even small, it is a communicational necessity.  But the effect of this scaremongering is a bunch of preachers who keep their monolog to an embarrassed minimum and fill up the minutes with film clips, skits, and roving mike questions.  The problem is this – if they are poor at the monolog, they are probably poor at other forms of communication too!  In this conference I mentinoed, one preacher introduced a series of completely banal and boring skits, but you don’t hear anyone calling for an end to drama!  He also used PowerPoint images that were completely off the point, and he had a person wandering around the audience with a roving mike s that anyone who felt led could interrupt the speaker if something wasn’t clear, but it was so staged we were squirming.  One question was, “Would you say more about the theology of the book in relation to the historical period?”  Well, amazingly, it so happened that this was his next segment of material, with PowerPoints ready to go.  A miracle?  Come on.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but I do know that monologs are not the problem.  Boring monologs are to blame!

We Need Repeated Prodding

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I believe we need repeated prodding on this issue.  It’s a critical issue in ministry and church health.  I believe it is the heart of biblical ministry.  Here’s a prod from Explosive Preaching, 145:

There is no greater tragedy for preaching today than the senior pastor who claims to be too busy to mentor preachers.

I say, amen.  This line comes at the end of a paragraph describing the mentoring of Martin Luther-King Jr by J. Pius Barbour.  He would spend time every Saturday with a group of younger preachers who would practice their sermons in front of him and the group.  Then on Sunday, after he had preached, he would ask them to analyze his sermon under the headings of content, delivery and audience reaction.  Talk about accountability as well as mentoring!

It takes effort, time and sometimes even sacrifice.  Yet mentoring is multiplicative ministry, it is exponential ministry, it is biblical ministry.

What’s Fresh?

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If you are a regular preacher, then the chances are that you have a rhythm in your preparation.  This is good in many ways.  However, it also runs the risk of getting into some well-worn ruts.  If you are an irregular preacher, then perhaps your preparation process lasts over several weeks.  This is also good in many ways.  However, it also runs the risk of getting into ruts (you forget what you decided you should improve next time).

Both schedules also run the risk of lacking freshness in content.  Regular preachers feel the pressure of the weekly cycle, irregular preachers sometimes end up preaching on a passage that they have personally “moved on” from by the time the Sunday comes.

As you look ahead to your next message, whether it is this Sunday or this summer, what is fresh about it?  What will be fresh when it is delivered?  Is it time to freshen up your delivery in some way, or do you have a standard sermon form you always fall into, or is it time to pour effort into specific wording, or perhaps your support materials (or lack thereof)?  And is the text, the truth, the walk with God fresh?

What Is Love? Part Trois

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No reason for the French numbering of this series, just a sprinkling of creativity!  So far we’ve considered the GS, the SE, and the FC people in a congregation.  There’s one category left, according to the pastor cited in Boyd-MacMillan’s book, Explosive Preaching:

AH = Apathetic Horde. This is usually the majority of the congregation.  They know God, but they are struggling to get close to Him.  They are struggling to swim against the tide.  What is love from us?  Well, it is tempting to harangue them, to guilt-trip them, to pile on the pressure.  According to the book, it is also tempting to offer ourselves as their guide who thereby takes away their freedom and responsibility.  The advice on how to love them? “Stay winsome, and resist the impulse to be coercive.”

Okay, in my opinion the majority category deserves the best advice.  I feel this is a bit weak, although accurate as far as it goes.  The book goes on to talk about developing compassion and overcoming compassion fatigue.  How do we love the apathetic horde in the church?  Surely the aim of resisting coercion is critical, but so is the concept of winsomeness.  We need to be winsome, gracious, attractively compelling in our spirituality.  We need to preach to the heart and not just to the mind and will.  We need to preach so that people are given many opportunities to “taste and see that the Lord is good.”  We need to be faithful to the heart-message of the Bible, and not twist every text into a guilt-pressure-cooker to vent your own angst in your half-hour where people at least pretend to listen.

Loving the AH is so important, but not easy.  It costs us to love.  When we love we risk getting hurt, being rejected, seeing failure, etc.  But love we must.  We are compelled by the love of One who gave everything for us, “when we were still sinners.”  That love has spread to us and now yearns to spread through us to others . . . others who may not respond in the right way, or respond at all, for that matter.  Ministry is not about performing certain duties.  It is about serving God by loving people, it is about life-on-life investment – whether we are preaching, counselling, listening, or whatever.

(GS) + SE + FC + AH = the church where we serve … what is love to each?

What Is Love? Part Deux

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Ok, so thankfully not everyone in a church is a government spy or a sworn enemy (although it may feel like that in some churches!)  There are two other categories, according to an Eastern European Pastor quoted in Explosive Preaching, p141:

FC = Fan Club. It can be just as dangerous to accept the ego-stroking adulation of this small but vocal group.  What is love to FC members?  Love is “having the courage to challenge them on what they may not want to hear, and to jeopardize your fan-club status.”  According to the Eastern European Pastor cited in the book, the gospel will offend everyone in the church at some point, but many pastors are too concerned with maintaining the worship coming their way.  Strong stuff.  In reality this may mean querying a “darling distinctive” of your denomination, all the while seeking to maintain fidelity to the gospel message (and not just the popular bits).

I was going to give the other category too, but this is worth pondering.  Who is in your “FC?”  Have you compromised your fidelity to the message at all in order to keep them in the FC?  What situation may be brewing right now that will give you the choice of self-seeking, or gospel-serving in light of these people?  Pray for yourself in this, pray for a pastor/leader you know as well.

What Is Love?

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

In Explosive Preaching, the author refers to a system he learned from an Eastern European pastor.  It is a simple categorization system used with a list of church members that helps him know how to love different people in his congregation.  Here it is in simple form, for more, see p140ff:

GS = Government Spy. Not a category most of us have to deal with, but if you do, ask yourself carefully, “what is love for a GS?”

SE = Sworn Enemy. A self-confessed leader of the “oust the pastor brigade.”  What is love for this category?  According to the pastor, “You have to love them enough to remember the reasons why they have such an excess of negativity, and reach out to them with winsomeness, not vindictiveness.”  Oh, and he added that if they win, your goal is to bring more glory to God in your going than in our staying.

The reality of such “well-intentioned dragons” is very real for many reading this post.  So I’ll leave it there for now.  If you have SE’s in your church, take some time to ponder your love for them and pray for the grace you need to reflect God’s character in such difficulties.  If you have no SE’s in your church, or you’re not a leader (i.e. target), then take a moment to pray for a pastor you know (he probably has some SE’s)!

Proxemic Considerations

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Just a little thing, but prompted by a recent experience in a church.  It was a small church, perhaps 30 people packed in to what is essentially just a room.  At the front there is the preaching platform, raised probably six to eight inches off the floor.  Then there’s me – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  Well, not quite, but I felt more than a bit Gulliver when I stood on the platform in that small room.

I felt more than a little silly on the platform.  But it’s what they are used to, I am just a visitor, what difference does it make how I feel?  Actually, that’s not the main issue, although it is a factor.  How does it make the listeners feel to have someone towering over them to preach in a tiny room?  I asked permission to stand on the floor, made a gentle joke at my own expense (to avoid any perceived rudeness toward their church furniture), and proceeded to preach from the floor.

Inasmuch as you can ever evaluate a single element within the complexity of a communication situation – it worked.  There was a relaxed, interactive and open atmosphere.  The sermon was received very well and it seemed to be one of those times when the Word of God is moving freely into the hearts of the listeners.

All that to say, consider the proxemics of preaching now and then (and probably always when in a new environment).  Is the preacher standing above the listeners, below them, or on the same level – each has an effect.  Is the preacher distant or close – each has an effect.  Are there objects between the speaker and the listeners, such as church furniture?  It has an effect.  There is a helpful introduction to this subject in Duane Litfin’s textbook on communication, if you have it sitting on your shelf.

We probably don’t need to worry ourselves too much with the technical terminology of proxemics, kinesthetic factors or even the sociofugal-sociopetal axis!  But we should be more than a little concerned with whether we are communicating in the way we intend.

Pre-Review: Explosive Preaching, by Ron Boyd-MacMillan

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Subtitle: Letters on Detonating the Gospel in the 21st Century.

explosivepreaching

Published in 2006 by Paternoster.

I was urged to get this book in a brief lunch-time encounter last month.  Based on the enjoyable nature of our conversation, I trusted the advice of this new friend and bought the book.  I’m glad I did.  This book is comprehensive in scope and highly helpful in content.  The author works for Open Doors International and serves, among other things, as a tutor to preachers and speech-makers.

It contains 31 “letters,” I suppose in the style of Screwtape Letters, although essentially the letter style is not really sustained within each letter to any meaningful extent – it simply allows the author to pour forth his thoughts.  Since I am only half-way through the book at this point, I can only give a pre-review.  I’ll review the whole book once I get to the end.  This is the book I have been referring to over the past few weeks.

So far I have read this book with an almost constant smile on my lips, even though I acknowledge that much of the content is very serious, sobering and challenging.  The book is still an entertaining read.  I suppose it is also tempting to be as condescending toward the book as the author is toward other homiletics writers (perhaps myself included – would I fit in his category of puerile homiletics writers that keep on stating the obvious or making the whole task seem unnecessarily complex?)  But rather than feel condescending toward a book with an edge, despite our denominational, ecclesiastical and even slight theological differences, I would rather engage with the book and learn from it.

The first two sections of the book deal with the problems in preaching and the elements of preaching. So far I’ve found much that has been challenging and helpful.  I am looking forward to the subsequent sections on the history of preaching and the life of the preacher.  I suspect this book might creep into my top books page, but I’ll read the whole of it before I make such a major decision!

Five Major Failings

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

I thought I’d share this list of five major failings of many preachers, according to the book that I am currently enjoying:

“1. Multiplitus – Using too many points until the sermon becomes a starburst that dazzles rather than communicates.”

Well put.  When we try to preach more than one point, we quickly move from communication to fireworks.

“2. Elephantine Introductions – Huge ten or even fifteen minute introductions that contain the guiding imagery to control the rest of the sermon.  Trouble is that the imagery is either tiresome, prosaic, or just misleading.”

I’ve been accused of this at times, sometimes with justification.  I suppose that not having the entire reading up front can sometimes confuse people somehow searching for the end of the introduction.  Nonetheless, the last line is especially important – tiresome, prosaic, or just misleading.  We need to be careful with our introductions.  Essentially we need to “meet the people” and then “motivate them to listen” and without further ado, “move into the message/passage.”  (I don’t know why I used quotation marks there, the ‘meet, motivate and move’ alliterative language is my own – until someone publishes it first.)

Ok, tomorrow I’ll share the other three major failings according to this writer, along with my own comments.