Religion

Preacher Autobiographies

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

I’ll be honest, I don’t read too many autobiographies.  But this week I picked up Dr R.T. Kendall’s In Pursuit of His Glory: My 25 Years at Westminster Chapel.  Unable to sleep last night, I read maybe a fourth of this book.  1977-2002 was a fascinating and often highly controversial chunk of history at this famous London church.

Reading of Dr.Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ mentoring of Kendall is very stimulating and encouraging.  Reading of Kendall’s personal insecurities and mistakes is helpful.  Reading of the influence of Arthur Blessitt through three key changes is enlightening.  As I read on I will get to read of one of the most stunning modern-day shifts in a church’s preaching, theology and practice.

This kind of humble and honest personal reflection is surely of value to us all as preachers, wherever we may stand on the specific issues involved.

What preacher autobiographies have you appreciated and why?

For Improvement Just Do This

/ Peter Mead / 5 Comments

It is easy to feel pressure to preach better. We put the pressure on ourselves. Others put the pressure on us, often unwittingly. Perhaps a lack of apparent response in recent months. Perhaps comments about other preachers. Perhaps the big shots on the radio. Perhaps a renewed passion to preach well that has stirred within.

When the pressure to improve is felt, things can often seem overwhelming. After all, there are so many books, so many ideas, so many aspects of effective preaching to consider, indeed, so many preaching traditions to learn from. Maybe you skim through previous posts on this site, or other sites, or magazines, or podcasts, etc. Perhaps you let your mind go back to seminary and you recall all the instructions you received there. It can all be so overwhelming.

This may sound overly simplistic, but just do this: prayerfully endeavor to do the basics well. Try to study the passage effectively so that you are clear on the structure, the author’s main idea and purpose in writing. Try to think through your sermon purpose in light of both the passage and the congregation. Try to determine a clear main idea (doesn’t have to be an all-time great one), a clear and simple structure, a way to start that will make listeners want to hear the rest of the sermon and a way to finish so that the impact of the text will be felt in a specific area of their life. Do the basics well. You’ll probably find the pressure lifts because your preaching is much closer to what you want it to be!

Think Through The Reading

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It is easy to take the reading of the Bible for granted.  It is easy to make a mess of it too!  For example, consider Joshua 6:16-19.  The narrative has built to a climax.  The Israelites are about to complete their silent march attack strategy with the great shout.  As you are reading through this section, if you have engaged your own passion and imagination, then you will be excited to read Joshua’s command.

“SHOUT! FOR THE LORD HAS GIVEN YOU THE CITY!”  Naturally at this point you will find your voice raised and your lungs tight.  The problem is that his shout command turns out to be a somewhat detailed instruction.  What appears at first to be a 9-word exclamation turns into a 104-word detailed instruction on what to destroy, who to save, where to put the treasures, etc.

If you were to read this passage without thinking through the reading ahead of time, you might need a paramedic!  104 words at the intensity of the initial 9 words and you’ll have tight lungs, a raspy voice, a new color of face and about three minutes of recovery time before you can preach on!

It’s a small thing, but length and intensity of speech, along with difficult pronunciations or potential Freudian slips can really derail the message!  Think through any text reading ahead of time.

Texts Only Bend So Far

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Be honest, sometimes you find yourself trying to make a text do something it doesn’t do.  Perhaps you have an illustration you want to use, or a visual aid that would be powerful, or some other motivation.  But when it comes to the text, it doesn’t quite work.  You know the order is backwards, you know you don’t want to admit it, but we’re being honest here.

This happened to me last week.  I’m not one for creative visual aids, but one came to mind.  One that would be perfect and impressive and effective and so on.  But then I went back to the only real text that would work with that visual aid.  It didn’t work.  I was trying to conform the text to the sermon, rather than derive the sermon from the text.  The text wasn’t boss, and I wasn’t happy.

But I felt that the integrity move at that point was to drop the illustration and switch texts.  Let’s be preachers of integrity, people who represent the text well and don’t injure the text trying to fit it into our sermon box.

Tired of Preaching?

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

It’s Monday morning.  You have woken to a few moments of contentment before remembering yesterday.  Perhaps your sermon flopped.  Perhaps you were strongly criticized.  Perhaps you just felt totally wiped out and emotionally drained.  So today you are tired of preaching.  Here’s a brief perspective fixer for you:

You’re Not Alone – I’ve no statistics to support this.  Only anecdotal conversations with other preachers.  If you are not feeling great about your last sermon, join the club!  Many preachers struggle through the hours or days after preaching more often than not.

Your Perspective is Incomplete – It may have felt terrible to you, but good to others.  It may have stirred criticism from one person, but what of the other person who slipped away feeling convicted or encouraged, like they had just encountered God through His Word?  Unless you interviewed every listener, you don’t know.  (And if you have to stand at the door and shake hands with everyone, you still don’t know!)

Your Best Move is Prayer – Real prayer.  Real honest prayer.  Don’t give God your best stained glass voice, give him your heart, spill your guts, shoot from the hip, let it all hang out.  He can take it.  Job prayed like that.  David did as well.  Jeremiah too. And maybe you’ll experience the same as me on numerous occasions.  After spilling it all, with no energy left, I sense God’s love for me and that burning is still there in my bones!

Your Worst Move is Sin – Pastors often take Monday off for a reason.  So take some time and use it carefully.  Pray.  Refresh.  Energize.  Relax.  Exercise.  Fellowship.  But don’t sin.  Temptations often hit hard when we are feeling low.  Don’t be easy pickings for the enemy!

(PS I wrote this on Friday, so I have no idea how my Sunday sermon will go.  Pray for me on Monday though, just in case!)

Preaching Tired – Part 2

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Sometimes we have to preach tired.  Life seems to work that way.  We try to avoid it, but life happens.  So when Sunday morning comes and you’re feeling wiped out, what should you do?  Well, it seems to me that we need to be aware:

Be aware of your attitude – When feeling tired and a little cranky, it is easier to preach with the voice “frowning” than “smiling.”  A gentle nudge of an application can slip into an insensitive poke from the pulpit.  Encouragement can come across as criticism.  Humor in illustrations can take on an unhealthy edge.

Be aware of your body language – The words of the preacher are supremely important, but they can be undermined not only by tone of voice, but also by body language.  If you look tired or disinterested, then your important words are undermined.  I’m not suggesting you fake your energy, but simply give it slightly more attention than normal.

Be aware of apologies – It is always tempting to begin with some apology about your lack of energy or preparation.  After all, people will understand why my message is not up to par this time, right?  Well, it will probably undermine your message and distract your listeners.  Nine times out of ten they won’t know you were tired or distracted.  But once you apologize they are focused on you rather than your message to them.  Often the temptation to apologize is driven by pride since we want people to think highly of our “performance.”  (Also it may cause low-level resentment if their week has been tougher than yours, but you get the sympathy!)

Remember This

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With the increase in TV, radio and internet, it is easier to hear preaching than ever before.  Along with the blessing this may bring, there is also an added pressure.  Perhaps you sense it, or even hear about it?  People in your pews are listening to the superstars as they drive to work, then when they come to church they get you.  Pressure.

Remember this, even the “great” preachers sometimes preach a weak sermon!  I was just chatting with two friends who travelled many hours to attend a preaching conference.  A great few days of preaching culminated in the last session with the most famous preacher at the conference.  He flopped.  The sermon was as flat as any they had heard anywhere.  They went away encouraged.  Even he preaches poorly sometimes.

I always think back to sitting in the library at seminary and watching a video of a famous preacher, excited to see him in action.  Standing without pulpit or music stand he had his Bible in one hand and one hand free for gesturing.  With that one hand he tried to pull his glasses out of his shirt pocket, then endeavored to open out the arms, in the end resorting to biting one part of the glasses so he could then put them on.  Five minutes.  He preached throughout.  He probably preached well.  But I (and I suspect, the live audience) was distracted.  Distracted and encouraged.  Remember this, no one nails it every time!

Without naming names, what examples do you remember when you feel the pressure of the selected and edited sermons that make it onto the radio or internet?

Sensible Solo Sermon Selection

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There are times when we can select a single passage to preach, a stand-alone sermon.  Some people only ever preach this way.  Others rarely preach this way.  So how do we select the passage?  Well, it’s a good idea to pick a passage you want to study and preach.  It’s a good idea to pick a passage that appears straightforward in terms of relevance and application (all Scripture is useful, but let’s face it, some take much more work to “land” on this side of the gap!)  Here are a couple of other things to bear in mind:

The time required for preparation should not be underestimated – If the time available is likely to be limited, then it is usually worth building on a foundation already laid, i.e. preach from a book you’ve studied well and fairly recently.  Before jumping into a Bible book you haven’t studied much, make sure you have the time to study the whole, as well as the particular part.  Make sure there is time to get the resources you might need (commentaries, for example).  Make sure there is time to go through that process of wrestling with the details in order to arrive at the idea of the text.

The macro-context should not be underestimated – In order for your “chunk” of text to make sense, you will usually need to give some explanation of the broader context.  Without the benefit of a series in that book, it may take longer to set the scene than you thought.  Often a brief contextual set-up is sufficient, but not always.  Some texts may be better left to a series so that the reinforcing of key themes can occur “naturally.”

The time required for explanation should not be underestimated – For instance, telling a biblical story can take a lot of effort and sometimes it can take a lot of time.  Be aware of how long you have to preach and how long it will take to tell the story, or explain the content sufficiently.

There are plenty of other factors to take into account when selecting a passage for a stand-alone sermon, but these three shouldn’t be ignored.

Preaching Tired

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

A good friend and commenter on this site sent me a list of about twenty lessons he’d noted after preaching a sermon recently.  I am indebted to Tim for the prompts for yesterday’s post, today’s, and probably a few more to come!

Here’s one of those “lessons learnt” – stress and tiredness do affect your preaching.

Sometimes the problem is that we get stressed about being stressed, or stressed about being tired.  Again, if my night was interrupted because of sickness in the family, then God understands and can provide supernatural strength to compensate.   (Thankfully, as well as an awesome God, I also have a wonderful wife who often handles everything the night before I preach!)

However, it is still worth evaluating the sources of stress and tiredness in our schedule.  Perhaps it is worth guarding the evening before we preach – guarding it from late night socializing or hospitality?  Perhaps it is worth adding exercise to increase the stress-threshold and aid in healthy sleep?  Perhaps it is worth taking a holistic approach to scheduling our future preaching – not just making sure we avoid committing to too many sermons, but also thinking about what the sermons will be, and what our other commitments and challenges will be at the time?

Stress and tiredness do affect our preaching, thanks Tim for the prompt!

Last Minute Sermon Preparation

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I have a personal principle on this issue.  If I genuinely have had to prepare at the last minute, then I ask God for help and know that He understands.  But then there is a second part to it too – if I have procrastinated and end up preparing at the last minute, then I confess that, ask for forgiveness and still ask God for help.

The first part of the principle has been forged in the relatively gentle furnace of family life and missions organization participation!  Sometimes life happens and there is no way to prepare as you would like.  God understands this.  Last minute preparation is not ideal, but it is possible and it is still better to prepare as much as you can, rather than not prepare at all.

The second part of the principle is there because I am human.  I admire people with perfect track records in the area of self-discipline (but I also doubt them!)  Rather than make up excuses and try to convince myself that I genuinely could not prepare fully due to life circumstances, I would rather be honest and admit when I have allowed other things, often very good things, to distract me from what was needed as a ministry deadline loomed.  I may have lacked self-discipline, I may even have succumbed to some tempting distraction, but I don’t want to succumb to another temptation and seek to justify my procrastination.  Hence, I sometimes have to repent and ask for forgiveness and then prepare at the last minute.

May we all be Holy Spirit disciplined in our preparation for ministry and maximize every opportunity to preach the Word.  But may we also accept the reality of the grace we preach to others when we sometimes fail to prepare as we should.  Not an abuser of grace, nor a rejecter of grace!