Stage 1 – Passage Selection

The Preparation Process in Question Form

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Perhaps you have already thought it through in this way, or perhaps this will be helpful to you.  The eight stage preparation process can be stated in the form of questions:

1. Passage Selection – Which passage will you prepare to preach?

2. Passage Study – What does the passage say and mean?  (What is the content of the passage?)

3. Passage Purpose – Why was the passage written? (The intent of the passage.)

4. Passage Idea – What is the author saying about what he’s writing about?  What is the heart of the unit of thought?  What is the main point here?  (The goal is to write a one sentence statement succinctly and accurately.)

At the mid-point (not necessarily half-way through the preparation time), you begin to seriously consider to whom you will be preaching the passage.  Audience analysis is essentially answering the “who?” question in reference to the preaching event.

5. Message Purpose – Why do these people need to hear this passage?  Why will you stand and deliver this passage to them?

6. Message Idea – How can the idea of the passage be stated with an emphasis on the relevance to these particular listeners?  How can the idea be stated in a way that is succinct, clear, accurate and ideally, memorable?

7. Message Outline – How can the purpose of the message be achieved?  How can the idea of the message be delivered?  This is the point of deciding the form of the sermon, the preacher’s strategy.

8. Message Detail – How can each movement in the message be developed: explained, supported, applied?  How can the message be most effectively introduced?  How can the message be most effectively concluded?

Just a couple of observations on this:

Observation A – The idea of a passage must be informed by both content and intent, by both what and why.  Equally, the idea of the message must be influenced by the what of the passage, but also by the why of the message (ie.why preach this passage to these people?)  Too often the idea of a message is influenced by content, but not by a carefully considered purpose for the message.  (Even more “oftener” the idea is absent altgether, but that’s another issue!)

Observation B – The first four stages are all about probing and understanding the passage.  Most of the questions in the last four stages are “how?” questions.  The preparation of the message is largely a “how” issue – a matter of preaching strategy, creativity, deliberate clarity, etc.

Passage Precedes Message

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I just read a post on communication that related to content versus visuals in their relative importance.  The conclusion was that neither trumped the other, but in fact connection trumped them both.  In the more specific realm of biblical preaching, we have to give precedence to the content, but that does not mean we neglect all other aspects of effective communication.

A point made concerned the preparation of a presentation.  It is not good to start by sitting at the computer to plan the visuals.  It is much better to spend time in thought with pen and paper to determine the desired outcome and the best way to achieve it.  How true that is.  It is true for a business presentation, and it is true, with modification, for preaching as well.

How easy it is to slip into starting with illustrations, visuals, message details.  It is also easy to start with thinking about what we want to achieve and then go hunting for a text to utilize in that quest.  But really we should be starting away from the PC, Bible in hand and congregation in our prayers.  Good preaching preparation does logically follow the eight stages I advocate on this site, but this is not a formula.  Good preaching starts with a real soak in the text, out of which can spring the budding thoughts on how to preach that text, outline, illustrations, etc.

It is that initial soaking in the text (study, analysis of structure, content and intent, coalescing of the main idea, etc.) which is the critical first half of the bridge we are hoping to build to our listeners.  Too many preachers build backwards only to discover the bridge is weak on the Bible side and consequently, weak in authority, power, etc.

Preaching Sermons on Sermons

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I don’t mean preaching your sermon based on another contemporary preacher’s sermon.  I mean preaching a sermon based on a Scriptural sermon.  There’s lots of them.  It can be fascinating to wrestle with a sermon in its context since you would expect to find a sense of context, purpose, application, explanation, etc.  If you haven’t given this any thought before, here are some places to go:

The Sermons of Acts – Acts is a book of action, but interestingly, the sermons are not introductory to the action, they are the action!  Obviously the sermons in Acts are summaries of the original message, but studying them in their context and looking for what specifically the preacher was saying can be very satisfying.  Paul has at least three sermons (not counting defense speeches).  Peter also preaches in Acts (very slightly harder to understand and apply directly since things were shifting pretty rapidly in those first months, but still worth studying!)

The Sermons of Jesus – Matthew, for example, alternates between discourse (sermons) and narrative (action).  So you have great blocks of teaching – the sermon on the mount, instructions to the disciples, parables of the kingdom, olivet discourse, etc.  Since some of these are distilled surveys of teaching, it can be hard to define a specific sermon text, but it is so worth the effort.  Who was he preaching to?  Why did he preach it?

The only complete sermon – I see only one complete sermon in the Bible.  It takes about 50-55 minutes, and it is absolute dynamite.  The book of Hebrews is a sermon written down.  The more I study it, the more I see it as a sermon.  So many features of orality, so much application, so careful in its exposition, so powerful in its relevance to the first hearers.

Other sermons – then you’ve also got snippets of sermons throughout the Old Testament prophets.  What a treasure so often neglected.

A case can be made for the oral nature of much of Scripture.  With diligent prayerful study, you will find preaching sermons on the Bible’s sermons is immensely satisfying for you, and powerful in the lives of your listeners.

Please Ponder Passage Purpose

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I am continuing to read Jay Adams book Preaching with Purpose (1982).  Chapters 5 and 6 concern selecting a preaching portion, but point beyond stage 1 to the oft-neglected stage 3 in my process – passage purpose.  Adams points out that a preaching passage has unity not because of literary convention, or by rhetorical fiat and received homiletical tradition.  A preaching passage has unity because of the author’s purpose (“telically speaking” – major emphasis on the term “telos” and “telic” in Adams!)

Each book has an overarching goal, or perhaps several main goals.  Some books state that goal (see John 20:30-31, 1John5:13), while in others it is through studying the whole that the goals become apparent.  It is the preacher’s task to determine what that overarching goal is, then also to determine what the specific purpose in the indiviual passage is.  This individual passage purpose will relate to the overarching goal(s).  What was the author intending to achieve?  Was this section to inform, to convince or to motivate?  (Three developmental questions in Adams form)

So often preachers study the passage content, but give little or no attention to passage intent.  Without the intention or purpose of the author, the passage remains a collection of content details.  When we add in to the study process the critical element of passage purpose, then we are able to genuinely understand the passage, and hopefully, to beneficially preach the passage.  Without passage purpose, a message is likely to pull a passage out of context and misrepresent the intention of the content.  As I’ve written elsewhere, the message purpose does not have to match the passage purpose, but it does have to begin there and it does have some restraints imposed by the passage purpose.

Next time you are selecting and studying a passage, give some deliberate thought to the passage purpose – you haven’t really studied the passage until you do!

Congregational Calendar Input

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When planning a preaching calendar, don’t forget a key resource – your target audience.  I heard of one pastor who would ask his congregation for passages or doctrines they found hard to understand, then would schedule a series responding to those subjects the following summer.  The advantages included that people felt their needs were taken seriously, they attended purposefully in the summer (rather than slacking in attendance), and it forced the preacher to go where he might naturally steer clear.

It’s an intriguing idea.  Have you ever done something similar?  How did it go?

Invest Some Time to Save Hours

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Perhaps you are in charge of the preaching calendar.  Perhaps you are not, but sometimes get called on to preach.  Either way, it is worth investing time ahead of time to plan out some preaching plans.  Considering the needs of the people and how those might best be addressed from the Bible is an exercise well worth the effort and prayer you’ll put in.  Equally, listing out a set of sermons that you would like to prepare and preach is worth it even if you are only an occasional preacher.

Consider the alternative.  Without a preaching calendar you’ll find that Monday brings an impending sense of pressure.  Without a list of future sermons, an invitation to preach brings a tightness to the chest.  So many preachers waste so much time stressing about what they should preach next.  That time could better be invested in the next message’s preparation.  Whether you are picking a text or preparing to preach that text, you should be leaning on the Holy Spirit – so surely it is better to be preparing the message?  Whether you plan a year out or a week out, either way you should be relying on the Spirit of God to help you.

So don’t act like those hours of stress is a spiritual approach to an otherwise cold and professional approach.  Instead prayerfully plan ahead, thereby giving the Spirit more time to help you be ready when that Sunday finally arrives.  You can always change plans closer to the time, but changing plans is different than having no plans and all the stress that comes with it!

7 Reasons to Preach A Lesser Known Book

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Most preachers do what most Christians do.  They tend to stay in the familiar books of the Bible.  The gospels, the epistles, and maybe some Psalms or well-known Old Testament narratives.  But what about Nahum, Obadiah or Joel?  What about Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, or even 2nd John or Jude?  Here are 7 reasons to select a lesser known book for your next sermon or series.

1. It will be fresh for the listeners. They may be feeling full of your usual fare, so a trip into uncharted territory will be a refreshing and invigorating experience (as long as you preach well!)

2. It will be fresh for you. Ditto.  You will find that once into the study, you’ll be so grateful that you took the plunge into another part of the canon.

3. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful. This means that you won’t come across a chunk of text that is of no value to you and your listeners.  It’s all God’s Word and it is all applicationally useful in our lives.

4. It will reinforce to listeners that they can profitably spend time in the whole canon. They will see that the lesser known books are of great value in filling out our understanding of God, seeing how His people are to respond to Him, etc.

5. Moving into a different genre stimulates variety in your preaching. A different genre provides different forms and rhetorical features.  You’ll enjoy the possibilities if you consider the many ways to preach wisdom literature or a prophet.  Let the type of writing influence your type of preaching.  Seek to do what it does, as well as say what it says.

6. It will inform your future preaching of the more familiar books. Typically lesser known books are further back in our Bibles.  Once you have spent time in these books, you’ll have a greater sense of the informing theology of the later and better known New Testament books.

7. It will force you to truly prepare. Be honest, you could probably preach a series in Ephesians or Romans without having to break a sweat (although the series would be better if you did).  But I’d wager that Joel or Nahum might put you to work from scratch (and to pray accordingly!)

Not a Rule, But a Commitment to Expository Order

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I split the preparation process into two.  Stages 1-4 focus on the text.  Stages 5-8 are concerned with forming the message.  Before beginning to think about the message, it is a good idea to consider the listeners (audience analysis).  Until this point the focus is on the text.  From this point on the focus is on both the text and listeners.

Obviously it cannot be a rule that no thought should be given to the listeners in the first half of the preparation process.  Our minds will naturally and often wander onto those for whom we care pastorally.  We will see points of application.  We will have illustrative thoughts coming to mind.  We will remember that their questions of the text must be answered if they are to receive a full message.  At times in the process we will mentally jump ahead and make a note for later in the process (an illustration, a helpful nugget of the wordsmith’s craft, etc.)

However, we should have a strong commitment to keeping our focus on the text in the first part of our preparation.  Brief and even frequent thoughts related to our listeners may be acceptable.  Periodic leaps forward in our notes to record a thought for later in the process is fine.  But first and foremost our objective is to understand the passage.  What did the author mean?  What was his purpose?  What is the idea conveyed in the text itself?

We must make a firm commitment to first truly study the Bible, rather than hunting for a sermon in the sacred text.  The study process should lead to application in our own lives, which should naturally then lead on to an applied message for our listeners.  But our first task is not to find a message, but to let the Scripture be master of our lives, then of our message.  A commitment to expository preaching is a commitment to study the text first.  It’s not a hard and fast rule, but it is a commitment.

Is Preparation Spiritual?

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Periodically I come across people who think it is wrong to study preaching, or to prepare in any specific way for a sermon.  Perhaps there are more, but they don’t make themselves known to me – quite possible.  I like this succinct paragraph from Wayne McDill’s 12 Essential Skills for Great Preaching (p219):

Some preachers are lazy.  Others do not know what to do.  Some rationalize their poor preparation with pious talk about “inspiration” and “just letting the Spirit speak.”  The fact is that God has decided to use preachers.  Our laziness does not help the Holy Spirit; it hinders him.  There is nothing particularly spiritual about poor sermon preparation.

McDill goes on to challenge the reader to work at their sermon preparation in direct proportion to their estimate of the value of preaching.  I like that.  While it may be possible to over-professionalize preaching, leave the Spirit out of our study and lean wholly on our own understanding, there is also real danger in the opposite extreme.  Preparation is not automatically spiritual, neither is it automatically unspiritual.  So let’s be careful to pursue our preparation both diligently and spiritually – all to the glory of God.

The Very Words of God

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Monday’s a good time to pause for thought.  Perhaps you preached yesterday.  Perhaps you’re preaching again next Sunday.  Let’s always remember that God, in His grace, has given gifts to every believer.  To some of us He has given “speaking” gifts.  In 1Peter 4:10-11, Peter urges everyone to invest their lives in each other through the gifts they’ve been given.  Some gifts are “up-front” while others are “behind the scenes” – my understanding of the two terms he uses, “speaking” and “serving.”  None of us have a right to boast in our gift, but all of us have a responsibility.

We have a responsibility to study God’s Word to the very best of our ability, wrestling with the text and allowing the text to wrestle with us.  Thus the first half of the sermon preparation process is so important.  Then, with the humble confidence that we have something to share from God’s Word, then we move on to the second half of the process – formulating the sermon.  The whole process really matters.  The church is a community that may currently or soon be called on to suffer for their faith.  One critical resource for enduring such struggle is the earnest love for one another within the community of believers, and one example of such love is the effective stewardship of our spiritual gifting.  After all, when we speak, we are to speak as one who speaks the very words of God!