Religion

The Two-By-Four Rule?

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I was just listening to some training materials on delivery and public speech.  Interesting, although largely familiar material.  I haven’t gone back to double check this, but I think it was called the two-by-four rule: The impact of the first two seconds takes four minutes of further presentation to equal.

If that is true, then perhaps it’s worth giving more attention to such matters as personal grooming, dress, body language, smile, voice and so on . . . especially that initial impression.  Incidentally that initial impression in a church setting is often not the same as in a business setting where the speaker emerges from nowhere to begin the speech.  In church people see you in the car park, in the corridor, during the first part of the service.  Maybe the “I’m-so-stressed-because-Sunday-is-no-Sabbath-for-me” look is unhelpful?

Just Write Them A Letter Instead?

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Some people naively think there is no difference between written and oral communication.  Many of us would agree that there is a significant difference.  Yesterday I was interacting with someone who believes these two forms of communication are polar opposites.  Written communication is linear, it is single channel, it is the way to go when the goal is to inform.  Spoken communication is complex, it involves dozens of channels and it is the way to go when the goal is to motivate, to influence, to persuade.

With all the added channels of communication such as energy, eye contact, posture, body language, intonation, etc., preaching is an ideal opportunity to do what preaching is supposed to do.  Go beyond informing listeners to influencing and motivating response to the Word of God.  Preaching involves explanation of the text, but it is to be applicational explanation.  If all you plan to do in your next sermon is inform, then perhaps it would be better use of your time and theirs to just write them a letter instead?

Preach Deeper

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

I just came across some notes I made a while ago.  It’s a three part description of preaching that I hear.  This is simplified, but perhaps helpful as a stimulus to move from approach 1 to 2 and from 2 to 3.

Approach 1 – Springboard Preaching (Inadequate approach to preaching)

This is where the preacher touches down in a passage just long enough to bounce out of it and into their own thoughts.  A word or phrase may be taken on the journey through the message, but it has long since been ripped out of its passage context.

Approach 2 – Highlight Bounce Preaching (Adequate, but “amateur” approach to preaching)

This is where the preacher is a little more aware of the context of the passage and moves through the passage noting highlights along the way.  Typically these highlights will reflect the best bits of Bible study done in preparation (often the best study moves out of the passage, so the message also can jump to other passages, but I did not want to complicate the diagram!)  This is better than Springboard Preaching, but let me show you a better way!

Approach 3 – “Plumbed” Passage Preaching (Preferable approach to preaching)

This is where the preacher has studied the passage in its context and is able to present the message of the passage to some depth.  This is not a series of mini-messages on various passage details, but it allows the details to work together to shape a single message that truly represents the passage in question.  The depth may vary according to time, skill of the exegete, etc.  But this approach to preaching will result in a coherent message, satisfying presentation of the passage and more accurate understanding of the meaning of the passage.  (Please note that it is never possible to fully “plumb” the depths of the passage, so the term is used relatively!)

For simplicity, I have presumed that each message is based in one text and that each message is making connection to the listeners by way of application.  I have assumed that there is a sense of progress in each message.  (None of these can be assumed in real life preaching!)  The simple focus here is on how the passage is handled.  Let’s strive to be Approach 3 preachers whenever possible.

Revisiting Preaching Style

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I’ve written about style before, but it’s worth revisiting.  Not surprisingly, I am resonating with much of what Jay Adams wrote about style back in ’82.  The reason I resonate is that I still come across pockets of preaching activity that fall into the three inadequate styles he lists in his book (I will quote and condense):

Preacher’s Style – This is a stilted style pockmarked with King James’s terminology and Elizabethan constructions (beloved, unto, beseech, the person of, babe, vale, etc.)  This sort of style, unknown to the apostles, who spoke an elevated (by their content) fish-market Greek, or even the translators of the KJV/AV who wrote exactly as they talked.  This style is a modern travesty totally without previous history or biblical warrant.  Cleanse your preaching of all such “preachy” language.

Scholastic Style – This technical, super-sophisticated and bookish style is equally unhelpful.  The great biblical, theological terms must be used, but not without exlanation, nor should be be used in profusion.  Don’t sound like a theological treatise (or an academic essay).

Chatty Style – This approach majors on the slang and jargon of the day and lacks all form and order.  Again, Adams sees this as unhelpful to effective communication.

Good preaching style is a plain (but not drab), unaffected (but not unstudied) style that gets in there and gets the job done without calling attention to itself.  It should always be clear and appropriate to both content and mood.  The best analogy Adams sees is the news reader on TV.  Our preaching style should not be lower than this, but should be elevated by its content slightly above this standard style with its standard use of language.

That’s Adams take a generation ago, what now?  I know some still choose preachy, scholastic or chatty styles.  Is there a better standard than the TV newsreader?

Practice Preaching With Senses

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In yesterday’s post I highlighted a helpful point from Jay Adams’ book, Preaching with Purpose, in which he emphasized the need for preaching to all five senses.  For some of us this may come easy.  For others of us, this will take some real work.  Here are a couple of practice exercises that may help.

The Study Search – Adams suggests working within the confines of your study.  Touch, smell, taste, listen, and look at everything around you.  What does that wood feel like?  What does that old book smell like?  How does the painkiller tablet taste?  What about the sound of the door opening?  And that pile of stuff on your desk, what does it look like?  Take a few minutes and observe carefully.  Perhaps in the process you will come up with numerous similes and anecdotes to vivify your preaching.

The Scripture Search – Take a poetic passage – a psalm or song.  Carefully comb through it looking for sensory language or allusions (direct or implied).  Make note of ways to preach that text so that the senses are fully engaged.  For instance, try Psalm 113 or 133 for starters.  Then consider a narrative passage – life is lived with five senses, so this shouldn’t be too hard.  What sensory language could be used to communicate this narrative vividly?  Perhaps try Luke 15, or Genesis 39.

Appeal To All Senses

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Just a quick quote today, again taken from Jay Adams, Preaching With Purpose:

Most homiletics books speak about “illustrating” truth and making it “vivid.”  But those terms refer to communication by means of appeal to but a single sense: the sense of sight.  That failure, so inherent in the very single sense vocabulary of homiletics, has led to dull, lifeless preaching.  Of course, there are many dull, lifeless preachers for whom it is difficult to “paint word pictures” that appeal to the sense of sight, let alone learn to help congregations to taste, touch, smell, and even hear with the ear.

I think this is a helpful point.  Listeners have five sense and preachers can communicate to every sense by means of carefully chosen words and well-crafted delivery. I remember sitting under the teaching of David Needham, a master of using words and emotion that caused us to salivate as he described the taste, smell and sound of the golden delicious apples of his Californian childhood!

Adams goes on in the same paragraph to make the same point I want to make today.  When we appeal to the full range of human senses, we only do what the Bible does so often.  Be sure to look carefully in your preaching text for any sense appeal that is already there.  Then think carefully about your message, each detail, and how it can deliberately target various senses as you preach.

If We Believe In Preaching

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If we believe in preaching then we will give our best to preaching.  We will gladly give the hours and the effort needed to preach the Word of God clearly, accurately, engagingly and hopefully effectively.  We will spend money on helpful resources.  We will look to grow as a preacher, be open to constructive feedback and looking for helpful input.  If we believe in preaching then we will give our best to preaching.  But there is something else to mention.

If we believe in preaching we will not only give the best we can to others, but we will submit ourselves to healthy preaching too.  Not as an exercise to learn preaching skills.  Not as an academic endeavor to learn about a new area of Scripture or theology.  Not for our sake as preachers, but for our sake as believers.  If we believe in preaching then we will sit under good preaching for the health of our souls.

Perhaps you only preach periodically, so most weeks you sit as a listener.  Great.  But what if you preach regularly?  It is easy to let the schedule fill and rely only on our sermon preparation for our spiritual benefit.  Certainly when we preach we probably get more from the message than our listeners do.  That’s only natural if the process is good.  But somehow it just seems healthy to carve out half an hour or so to sit as a listener to the end result of another’s preparatory work.

We live in a day of unprecedented opportunity.  I am currently choosing to sit under the preaching of a friend.  It is a series in a church you probably never heard of, but it is healthy, helpful, solid biblical preaching.  I need it.  We all do.  If we believe in preaching, we will not only give, but also look to receive.

Not As Many Churches As There Are Churches

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

It’s a strange statement, but in most places there are not as many churches as there are churches.  I am not referring here to the many church buildings that have been emptied, sold and converted for use as Hindu temples, car repair shops, martial arts schools or apartments (come visit the UK if you don’t believe me!)  What I am referring to here is the number of churches where people will gather today, but come out none the wiser as far as the Bible, the gospel and God is concerned.  How many churches there are that preach the fluff of well-meaning platitudes, rather than the solid substance of biblical truth.

In the city of London there are apparently something like 4000 churches.  But how many will preach the gospel clearly and accurately today?  How many will speak from the Word of God in a manner that reflects its truth, accuracy, historicity and relevance?  How many genuinely believe in a God who is at work in the world today, even during the sermon segment of the service?  As Calvin wrote, “Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and listened to . . . it is in now way to be doubted that a church of God exists.” Let us pray for the people sitting in a church building today, but unclear as to their spiritual state or God’s provision for them in Christ.  And let’s be sure that the church we preach in really is a church today!

Don’t Stop Short

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Tomorrow’s passage is relevant for our listeners.  Hopefully by this stage in preparation we see the relevance and have a message that will present the idea of the passage, built on explanation of the details, with applications that point to the relevance.  But it is always easier to only go 75% of the way there.  Don’t stop short.

Don’t just ask a vague question when the passage is set up for a probing question.  Don’t just make a vague application.  Help people see the specific ways in which this passage can make a difference in their affections, their belief, their conduct.  Their thinking and their actions should be changed by biblical preaching.  It’s easy to keep it general, vague and maybe even nice.  But don’t stop short, push through and drive the message home (with grace, of course, but home nonetheless).

Dense Packing Doesn’t Prosper

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It is commonly referred to as a mistake new preachers make, but we can all fall into the trap.  A sermon will not work well if it is too overwhelming.

Let’s say you study the passage for several hours.  You discover interesting bits of information regarding background, structure, syntax, grammar, word meanings, not to mention parallel passages, cross-references, informing theology and later use of this text in the canon.  You discover fascinating insights through archaelogical reference tools, an interesting textual critical debate concerning one word that may or may not be original, and an interpretational debate that has gone back and forth since Calvin’s commentary was published.  Plus you stumbled across some useful anecdotes, an amusing story or three in a database of illustrations and you heard a great opening remark that you’d love to fit in, somehow.  Several hours of preparation will yield a significant resource pool of information.

But then you have to pack up what you intend to carry into the pulpit.  You only have a limited time.  Listeners only have a limited capacity to take information onboard.  After all your work, you have enough to load up three large suitcases and a trunk, plus a carry-on bag and a personal item.  But you can only pack a small suitcase and take it with you into the sermon time.  Prayerfully select.  Leave some of your work neatly folded for a future journey.  Graciously drop some of it in the waste.  Pack only that which will help you achieve your message purpose and drive home your message idea with application for their lives.  And don’t mention all that you couldn’t bring with you.

When you travel into the pulpit, just take one small case.  Don’t overstuff it either, tempting as that may be.  In the preaching journey, dense packing doesn’t prosper.