Building Preacher-Listener Connection – Part 2

February 7, 2017February 6, 2017 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

What can you do to build the connection with listeners? Let’s think about the wider pastoral ministry of the preacher.

8. Pray for the listeners. Never forget Acts 6:4. It was when the apostles determined not to be distracted by the business of running the church organization so that they could focus on two things: the word of God and prayer. Many of us today short change both. We can easily think that instant communication means we are the first generation to face the temptation to short change our two primary responsibilities. And how easy it is to focus only on one of them – typically that is not prayer. Our prayer matters. The enemy knows that. We need to believe it. Our churches need to want it (not just tolerate it as they wait patiently for us to be available and leading meetings, but they need to actually want it). It is not easy to promote the value of your own prayer life since there is a need for some secrecy, but I suspect if you just go for it, people will somehow sense it.

9. Connect with the listeners. I don’t have the stats to prove this, but my sense is that the slight majority of preachers are introverts. Most would expect the opposite to be true, but introverts are able to gain energy in the long hours of solitary preparation, and they are typically more comfortable in a controlled environment (i.e. preaching) than an uncontrolled one (i.e. a party). Anyway, all that to say that you need to connect with your listeners. Model the increasingly rare skill of generating conversation by asking questions, be the leader in not turning every conversation back to yourself, and pray for ways to connect with people. You will be tempted to pull back, especially once people have bruised you a few times. It is hard, but it is important, connect anyway.

10. Lovingly study the lives of the listeners. As a preacher you have some level of skill in studying the Bible and understanding the culture. Be sure to put in some effort to study your congregation too. If you are a visiting preacher then you have only very limited opportunities to learn about the people who will be listening. But if it is your own church, then by all means make it a goal to understand their lives, their struggles, their fears, their work situations, their family situations, etc. People will feel loved when they feel known – as long as you actually love them.

So much more could be said about the pastoral ministry of the preacher. What would you add? Tomorrow we will focus on another factor in building preacher-listener connection.

Building Preacher-Listener Connection – Part 1

February 6, 2017 / Peter Mead / 4 Comments

In this post let’s think a bit about the personal life of the preacher. People can usually sense if you are not being genuine. So here are some suggestions to consider:

1. Be genuine. Maybe we are starting with an obvious one, but it is impossible to be genuine without actually being genuine. You can try to fake it, but why do that? The Gospel screams out that God’s grace is for you and so why choose to live inauthentically? And yet every preacher knows there is a temptation to hide yourself when preaching. You can do this by trying to be impressive. You can do this by trying to make your humility or vulnerability impressive. But if this is not genuine then it will show somewhere. People will sense it when they talk to you and find you are only vulnerable on your own terms. Or they will sense it when they find you to be less approachable, humble, personable, etc., in person than you seem to be when preaching. The best solution is not to try harder to pretend, but to instead be genuine. I will offer more suggestions, but this one surely should stir us to pray and lay ourselves out before our good God who sees everything and loves us still!

2. Confess your sin. I could offer a list of possible sins that are choking some life out of you, such as unkindness to your spouse, harshness with your children, self-absorption, bitterness toward an individual, self-indulgence, private addiction to drink, to a food, to alcohol, or to porn (you may have your own “sanctified” version of porn too – a TV show, facebook surfing, or whatever). I could give a list, but actually, when you read the words “confess your sin” you may have had something immediately come to mind. Start there. Talk to God about it. If it is clinging on, talk to someone else about it too. When God’s grace cleanses another corner of our inner life our listeners will benefit, even if they are not sure what has changed.

3. Develop honest relationships. Christian ministry presses us into isolation. Do not let that happen. You need people that are concerned for you heart. You need close friends who will tell you when you are out of line. You need other ministry people who will understand when you just need to vent. You cannot go it alone!

4. Fan the flames of your love for God and His Word. Listeners sense when something is wrong, but they also will be drawn to someone who loves God. Fan the flames of your love for God and your delight in His Word. You will be infectious if you have a strong case of the disease! The blessed preacher delights in the law of the LORD and on his law he meditates day and night. Soak your heart in God’s Word so that God’s heart oozes out of your life.

5. Be growing. It is so easy to stagnate. We can stagnate right after Bible school, or in our middle years, or as we grow older. Be growing. Read books. Read books in different areas. Take a class. Ask someone to teach you a new skill. Stretch yourself. The day you stop learning is the day you stop effectively teaching.

In part 2 we will think about the pastoral ministry of the preacher as we ponder how to promote preacher-listener connection.

The 5 Dynamics of Preacher-Listener Connection

February 3, 2017 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Preaching is a complex art. It requires the weaving together of exegetical skill, theological awareness, congregational insight, clarity of thought, structuring of material for the ear, etc. And yet even though the list of necessary skills can seem endless, preaching takes more than technical skill. There is also the need for listeners to feel connection, to both feel and sense empathy. What is it that forges that connection between preacher and listener?

Over the next few posts I would like to offer small suggestions to generate big gains in this preacher-listener connection.

That there needs to be such a connection is lost on some who seem to assume their role is merely to inform, or to proclaim, or to pressure, or even to fill the time allocated for the preaching of a sermon. But I suspect there are many preachers who innately know that there should be something of a connection, but are not sure how to strengthen it.

So what dynamics work together for preacher-listener connection?

Here are the five dynamics that we will explore in the next few days :

1. There is the personal life of the preacher – this means looking at issues of authenticity and spiritual integrity.

2. There is the pastoral ministry of the preacher – is there an investment of loving prayer behind the scenes for those who will be listening, and is there interpersonal connection outside of the pulpit?

3. There is the content of the message – is it designed to engage the listener at the heart level? Is it marked by a contemporary focus and sense of purpose?

4. There is the presentational dynamic of sermon delivery – is the preacher communicating in the most effective way possible to achieve preacher-listener connection?

5. And there is the heart of the listener – is there a responsiveness to both the message and to the messenger?

Stay tuned for a series of suggestions to help build your preacher-listener connection. It is my hope that implementing some of these suggestions, combined with prayer, will lead you to a greater level of connection with your listeners in the coming weeks.

Share Scars Not Wounds

December 13, 2016 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Knowing how much to share of ourselves is a challenge for preachers. Some tend toward over-sharing, others veer the opposite way. When we share nothing we can give the impression that our lives are perfect, or that we don’t care about listeners because we treat them as recipients of our education efforts rather than the richer fullness of our preaching.

Preaching is so much more than education. It is an incarnational ministry that involves not only the words we communicate but the fullness of our communication. That is, we give of ourselves when we preach. We should do so because we are speaking not only as information transmitters but as ambassadors of Christ. How would he preach? At arm’s length? Dispassionately? Surely not.

So when we speak for Him and of Him, we need to represent Him. Part of that is to be real and give of ourselves so that when we have served in preaching we have expended more than the energy needed to simply stand and speak the words.

But when we decide to share from our own lives, how can we know what to share? Here is one way to evaluate whether something is appropriate or not (the idea was shared by a friend, but it may well come from a book that I do not know)…

Is it a scar or a wound?

A scar is evidence not only of failure but also of healing. Scars speak of the difficulty of life, but also of hope when life hurts. Maybe the scars are from personal failure, or from personal suffering, or from opposition we have faced. Every scar can be a source of hope and help to others as we speak with the credibility of the hope that they can find in Christ in the midst of their current challenges.

However, a wound is different. A wound can be very small but will result in a strong reaction if it is poked. Maybe someone is opposing you at the moment. Maybe you are struggling in the aftermath of personal sin or failure. Maybe you are facing a physical trial right now. It may be possible to share from this as you preach, but be very careful that what is shared is not excessive or inappropriate. If someone is making your life difficult at this time you may describe the situation unhelpfully or say something that you would better keep to yourself. If you are in process in regards to some failure then you may not yet have the credibility to speak of hope for others in that struggle.

This is not a hard and fast rule. Rather it is a helpful guideline. What clarifications would you add? Scars can be powerful preaching aids, but open wounds rarely are.

Subtlety – A Key in First-Person Preaching?

November 24, 2016November 22, 2016 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Recently I enjoyed a first-person sermon from a student in class. He preached as an observer of Jesus’ healing the paralytic in Mark 2. What he did well made me think about effective first-person preaching. Specifically, he managed to make the first person details subtle.

Let’s see this on a scale:

Zero “Experienced” Detail – This is where the preacher tells the story from an eyewitness perspective, but essentially it is just a grammatical change. Instead of third person, now it is told in first person. Imagine preparing a message normally, then switching to first person at the last minute. Your mind can make the grammatical shift, but there is no added detail. There is essentially nothing that makes this sermon have to be first person. It may add some interest, but the listeners may end up wondering why you did it that way.

Excessive “Experienced” Detail – This is where the preacher tells the story from an eyewitness perspective, but ends up overdoing the added detail. Suddenly we get quotes from all sorts of added characters, extra biblical elements abound, and the listeners are led merrily further and further away from the main point of the text into a fanciful demonstration of historical imagination. This will be intriguing, but the listeners will hopefully end up wondering why you felt the Bible had nothing to say.

Subtle “Experienced” Detail – This is where the preacher tells the story from an eyewitness perspective, but carefully selects only limited experienced detail. In the case of the student I heard, he made an early and late reference to his annoyance at the mud falling on his cloak as the roof was dismantled. That was enough. He didn’t need to pile up layer upon layer of complex imaginations. This made the sermon engaging, and the listeners ended up gripped by the passage that was being preached.

I would suggest that we should aim for subtle rather than zero or excessive experienced detail in a first-person sermon. This is the content equivalent to a similar dynamic in respect to “costume.” If you are telling David’s story with Goliath, much better to have a stone in your hand than to be wearing authentic shepherding garb from 1000BC. If you are telling the Christmas story as a shepherd, much better to just have a crook than to wear full curtains and false beard.

First-person or in character preaching takes a lot of extra effort. It involves studying a passage fully, but then probing further into geographical and cultural background issues to make sure that you can speak of the biblical text with eyewitness accuracy. Put that extra effort into your study for the message. Don’t put that extra effort into fanciful and unrestrained imagination (or an all-out quest for total costume!)

When the Gospel is All Past Tense

November 22, 2016 / Peter Mead / 4 Comments

I grew up in a church tradition that diligently preached the Gospel every Sunday evening. I heard faithful folks pray in prayer meetings that folks might “come under the sound of the Gospel” and I watched the weekly routine of preaching the Gospel message. But something was typically missing.

Essentially the problem was that the Gospel message was preached in past tense. That is, not only was it the preaching of a past event (which it is), but it was also past tense for most of the listeners. They had heard it before, responded before and were saved already.

So more than once I asked what the point of this service was since guests were not a common feature? I was told that it was right to preach the Gospel, and that those of us present who had already trusted Christ for salvation could use it as an opportunity to be thankful, and to pray for the unsaved who may or may not be present. Essentially this meant that I was hearing a Gospel that was not for me.

Here’s the problem: it was for me. Instead of simply being thankful and praying for others, I needed to learn that I needed the Gospel to live the Christian life too. It is not just the way in – responding in trust to the Christ who gave himself for me is the way on too. For years I sat and heard messages that seemed to be targeted at someone else (and often that someone else was not there). What a wasted opportunity.

The Gospel is not just past tense, it is what I need present tense. Why? Because I need Christ and the grace of God that is offered in Christ – I didn’t just need that once. I need that now.

Fully Known, Fully Loved

November 7, 2016 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

(This post was first posted on www.cordeo.org.uk)

Human beings tend to default to a self-at-the-centre mindset in everything. We even bring this predisposition to our understanding of Christianity and end up with variations on the same theme. We are the seekers, we find Jesus, we commit to Jesus, we live for Jesus, etc. If we are not careful we can paint our own self-at-the-centre approach in the colours of Christianity and assume all is well.

Perhaps we have heard counter arguments against our being the seekers. After all, the great initiative surely rests with Christ in this regard since he came from heaven to earth, from the throne to the manger, from God’s side to ours. As one of the great punchlines of Luke’s Gospel tells us, “the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:10) The story of Christmas and the first Easter are conclusive, “while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

Accepting that Jesus moved toward us before we could ever move in his direction, let’s ponder what we might call the encounter. In John’s Gospel we get the stunning opening prologue that introduces us to the Word of God who is at the Father’s side, but who pitches his tent among us, comes to reveal the Father, full of glorious grace and truth, who comes to his own but they do not receive him, and yet is able to give the right to become the children of God to those who do.

After this prologue, the introduction really continues for the first four chapters or so as we are introduced to great themes that will continue to develop under the intense pressure of the tension between Jesus and the authorities. In these opening chapters, we are introduced to themes of belief, of glory, of signs, of witness and more. And in these opening chapters we get incident after incident of people encountering Jesus.

John the Baptist comes as our first witness to Jesus, declaring that he is not the Christ, but is just a voice preparing the way. He declares that he is just baptizing with water. But he points to the coming Christ who is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and the one who will baptize people with the Holy Spirit. The focus is well and truly on Jesus when he finally walks into the action and starts to meet people.

After a couple of John’s disciples follow Jesus, one of them brings his brother to Jesus. Jesus seems to already know him. As soon as they meet, Jesus renames him. Next verse we have another person being brought to Jesus by the witness of another, this time it is Phillip bringing Nathanael. Nathanael is understandably skeptical about the idea that the Messiah could come from Nazareth, but as he approaches Jesus he also finds that Jesus already knows him.

What Jesus says to Nathanael seems to stir an extreme change in Nathanael. Jesus makes one comment about the lack of deceit in Nathanael and he suddenly declares that Jesus is the Son of God and king of Israel. That is a big shift from his skepticism about Nazareth. Looking at the clues in the text at this point it feels like Nathanael may have been pondering the story of Jacob as he sat under the fig tree, maybe he was praying about it. Jesus knew Nathanael. He knew what he had been thinking or praying and proved it with his deceit comment. He reinforced it with a reference to angels ascending and descending (but notice who is the connection between heaven and earth – it is Jesus!)

In the second chapter, Jesus starts to reveal his glorious kindness, sensitivity, and power at the wedding in Cana, before heading for the temple in Jerusalem. He created a stir there and people started to trust in him at some level. But interestingly we are told that Jesus did not entrust himself to them. Why? Because he knew what was in man. So we are introduced to an example man – Nicodemus.

Jesus and the teacher of Israel have a conversation in chapter three that again begins with Jesus revealing that he does indeed know what is in man. Nicodemus comes to Jesus with kind words and Jesus seems to rebuff him by stating that unless he is born from above, then Jesus can’t chit chat with him about the God subject. Jesus knows that this great teacher is actually still spiritually dead on the inside. Nicodemus is confronted not by a Rabbi come from God that he can approach, but by someone who sees to the core of who he is and what he lacks.

In chapter four we get another person encountering Jesus. This time it is a troubled woman shunned by her own peers who meets Jesus at a well. Not surprisingly it soon becomes clear that Jesus knows what is going on in her life too. While she is still thinking this is just another man trying to make a connection with her, Jesus tells her about her five husbands and live-in lover. She is undone.

Just as we cannot take credit for seeking Jesus, nor can we take credit for getting to know him first. When we meet Jesus we are meeting one who knows all about us. Maybe this is an aspect of evangelism that we have let slip over the years? Perhaps we are proclaiming a gospel that focuses too much on the person, and too little on Jesus? Perhaps as people encounter Christ they will be undone as they come to discover that he already knows them, and yet loves them still!

Maybe this is an aspect of our own relationship with Christ that has slipped from our awareness too? How easily we can slip into presenting ourselves carefully to Christ as if he does not know all the gritty reality of our inner lives. How easily we can pray wearing a mask. How easily we forget that Jesus really knows us, and fully loves us. We are totally vulnerable before him, whether we know it or not, he knows us. We are fully known, and yet fully loved!

Illustration Variation

October 21, 2016October 20, 2016 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Be careful that you don’t get stuck in a rut with your illustration material. Here are some favourites that preachers sometimes find themselves repeating:

1. Sports – it may be your favourite team, or the sport you played in college, or sport in general, but remember, there are people listening who don’t relate to sport in general, and even more to your sport in particular. Variation needed.

2. Stats – some preachers love nothing more than a statistic. Barna surveys get lots of attention. Again, some people appreciate stats, but others can’t connect with them at all. Variation needed.

3. Anecdotes/Quotes – you might be one of those preachers that loves nothing more than dipping into your stash of Churchill quotes, or General Lee anecdotes, or Bono lyrics, or whatever. It can all seem a bit distant. Variation needed.

4. Movies – some preachers love to tie their message to some scene from the big screen. I won’t get into the complexity of citing movies here, just to say that some people won’t appreciate a constant flow of movie quotes and references. Variation needed.

5. Family – your family is a constant source of illustrative material, but it may not be wise to use too much of that great store. For one thing your family might appreciate not being the focus. For another, there will be people listening who feel an inner pang at a steady stream of marriage stories or children stories. Variation needed.

Maybe you have another rut, or maybe you have struggled listening to another rut. None of these are bad sources of illustrations, just be sure to vary it for the sake of your listeners.

Sermon Planning Strategy

October 19, 2016 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

As you plan your message you have some critical strategy decisions to make. Let’s consider a couple of them:

Where will you make the relevance of the message show?
Where will you reveal the complete idea of the message?

The answer to the first one should be fairly simple. My suggestion is to demonstrate relevance at every opportunity. Don’t assume people will listen to 90% of a message before hearing some sense of relevance in the form of application. You can demonstrate relevance in your introduction, in the wording of your main points, in your “illustrations” (illustrate application when you can), in your transitions, etc.

The answer to the second question is more complex. Will you reveal the main idea early in the message? This approach, known as a deductive sermon, has some definite advantages. It tends to be strong on clarity, it can be strong in respect to simplicity, and it also allows for re-accessibility (i.e. when someone has to go out to the nursery for some reason, they can re-enter the message at the next transition point).

But there are negatives to consider too – the deductive sermon will tend to be predictable and reject-able. People may fill in the rest of the message as soon as they hear the idea and they might not like what they anticipate is coming.

Another option is to plan an inductive sermon, which is where the question being answered is given at the start, but the idea is not completed until later in the message. The impact of a well-worked inductive sermon can be immense and long-lasting. Furthermore it tends to be less offensive at the start if people are not going to agree with the substance of the message.

However, it is difficult to maintain tension for the amount of time necessary. If listeners have to check out (or if you lose them and they mentally check out), it can be much harder to re-enter the listening experience. Worst of all, if you promise well, but under-deliver, then the whole experience can be very negative.

As you plan the strategy for your message you will need to take into account the text you are preaching, your strengths as a preacher, and who the listeners are going to be. Pray about it and make a plan – a meandering message lacking in strategy will tend to be the worst of all worlds!

Cor Deo Intensive – Chippenham, UK

September 28, 2016September 28, 2016 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

If you are within reach of Chippenham, please take a look and get in touch for more info or to book your place. If you’ve never heard of Chippenham (England), then there is no need to keep reading.

Cor Deo Intensive

Tuesday 22nd November – Friday 25th November
9:30am – 4:30pm

In these days together we will soak in Galatians together, explore the wonder of the New Covenant, and ponder what it looks like to live for and with Jesus today. Four days together, but a lifetime of implications to explore and enjoy. This week has a suggested donation of £150 (flexible), including lunch each day. We can help arrange accommodation if you need it.

To find out more about the Intensive, or to book your place, please email us through info (at) cordeo.org.uk