Let’s Interact Some More . . .

September 22, 2011September 22, 2011 / Peter Mead / 4 Comments

Yesterday I began with three thoughts about interactive preaching. Following on from the importance of knowing the congregation and knowing the content, here are some more thoughts:

4. Expansive questions work better than only one possible answer. Listeners don’t like being asked for something very specific – who wants to get it wrong? They know you want them to say something specific, so chances are stacked against them. Tuesday night’s message worked well because the invitation was for input from a vast array of possible answers. I was primarily asking for examples of incidents in the gospels where Peter and John would have learned from being with Jesus (and since they were almost always there, there weren’t many “wrong answers”). I would be more guarded about asking for input on a single text, since the first comment could give away the whole resolution to the tension of the narrative, or whatever. It can be done, but carefully.

5. Graciousness is key. But how you deal with “wrong answers” matters deeply. If someone had referred to an incident where Peter & John weren’t present, it really wouldn’t help anyone to respond harshly, “uh, no! That was only Nathaniel with Jesus on that occasion!” Making the contributor feel foolish hurts everyone. They would feel for him, they would be less likely to risk talking, they would lose interest in your message (since you don’t seem to care about them). Much better to receive all input positively, “Great thought. Thinking about it, I’m with you on that, I’m sure Nathaniel would have told the others about that even though they weren’t physically present. Thanks.” I was at a conference earlier this summer where the presenter chose to take questions, but was then harsh and sometimes bordering on brutal in how he responded to them. Not helpful at all. (And maybe some preachers simply shouldn’t do interaction.)

6. Non-traditional journeys still need a destination. To put it another way, an interactive message is not a short-cut to avoid preparation. You can’t be at the mercy of those present to make sure it goes somewhere worthwhile. You have to know where you are going and make sure they get there. They are at your mercy, not the other way around. A meandering walk through the forest isn’t good if it ends somewhere in the middle and you then walk away. Make sure you get them to the right place at the right time.

7. Interaction takes time. It is hard to gauge how long a contributor will talk once they start. You have to be able to graciously stop lengthy input, but it isn’t easy. I wouldn’t consider significant interaction unless there was time available for it. Good interaction can be wasted if there is then a panicked rush at the end to get to the destination.

What would you add to this list?

Let’s Interact . . .

September 21, 2011September 21, 2011 / Peter Mead / 6 Comments

Last night I had a great time at a church I’ve visited many times before. I had about 85 minutes and decided to do an interactive message. Here are some reflections and thoughts from me, but feel free to chip in:

1. All messages should be somewhat interactive. Even if you don’t expect the listeners to say anything, good preaching will always be stirring response and comments within the listeners. Good preachers know what listeners are probably thinking and respond accordingly. In these two posts I am thinking about overt congregational participation.

2. Knowing the congregation matters. It does help to know who you’ll be preaching to when you choose to go much more interactive. A few years ago I chose to do an interactive sermon in a church that I hardly knew. I certainly was unaware of the group brought along from a nearby “home” that interacted in an entirely different way than the elderly folks who made up the rest of the congregation! Knowing them matters, them knowing you care matters just as much, but we’ll come to that issue tomorrow.

3. Knowing the content matters even more. This one is massive. As the preacher you have to know the subject and the range of potential input. Taking a comment from the crowd that changes your understanding of the text could be complicated. You get to choose how wide the net is thrown for input, but it is important that you can handle whatever may come from within that range of Bible text (and theology/history/whatever else you open yourself up to). If you are genuinely struck by new insight, great, but if you seem to be informed by everything you hear, you’ll lose their confidence!

I’ll finish this post tomorrow, but feel free to chip in with your thoughts . . .

Deep Conviction

September 20, 2011September 20, 2011 / Peter Mead / 3 Comments

As I waited for my children to get showered and dressed after their swimming lessons I scanned through an old notebook. I took these notes about 15 years ago as I listened to a Howard Hendricks cassette on leadership. As ever with him, good stuff. At one point he was speaking of the need to develop deep personal conviction.

“We live in a day without a cause. Some churches have programs instead of building convictions in people. Only beliefs are not good enough to get job done. The people in your church need to fill their minds with solid Bible study. They need to develop an appetite for meditating and thinking, for praying and pursuing God.” (Rough quote from old notes)

This gives me pause for thought.

First, am I a man of deep conviction? Have I not only learned, but tested and retested in non-cotton wool environments? Do I fire my belief into conviction not only in the furnace of life’s experience, but also in the quiet place of prayer, face to face with my God? Are my convictions genuine so that those I get near have a chance of becoming infected with them? (As Hendricks put it, ‘you don’t catch anything from a man who doesn’t even have a cold!’)

Second, is my preaching delivered with deep conviction or with performance hype? I think the difference comes from two factors, among others. 1 – Are there years of study and ministry and life experience standing behind each sermon. And 2 – Have I given this particular sermon preparation enough days to start to take a fresh hold in my heart and life? If I start to prepare this Sunday’s sermon on Saturday, or Friday, then I will be unable to speak out of deep contemporary conviction and will have to rely on long-term life conviction only. Start early enough so this message can really take hold and start to work in me before it is spoken through me.

Third, do I preach and lead and mentor for more than assent? It is easy to preach in order to educate, but it takes much more to preach in order to deeply persuade, to infect, to stir the hearts of those listening so that lives are touched. For a start it takes something more than I can do as a teacher, it takes God at work in the hearts of those listening, so I must be a pray-er if I am to be a true preacher. More than that, I will need to get alongside some people in the church and infect them close up. That gets into mentoring, building a team, mobilising and equipping others. Another post for another day.

Let’s pray that we will be preachers of deep genuine conviction, and that we will be used to spark other genuine deep conviction Christians too.

(Put Some Points in Brackets)

September 16, 2011September 16, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

It seems obvious, but preaching involves delivering a message. It isn’t about delivering your outline via powerpoint, or presenting your outline verbally. It is about delivering the message. The outline is for you, it doesn’t always have to be given to them.

One thing that happens when we feel we need to give over our outline in our presentation is that we tend to always state our points when we start them. You know the routine, “My second point is XYZ.” Then we proceed to demonstrate that point from the text, and explain it to the listeners, and support it with some anecdotal or biblical evidence, and then illustrate it with our pithy little story, etc. This tried and tested approach is big on clarity, but it can also be deadly dull to hear.

I remember sitting in a conference where I’d noticed the sermonic pattern by the second message and was then able to predict what would come next for the rest of the day, whoever was preaching.

Sometimes your next point shouldn’t be given up-front in your first sentence of that section of the message, but rather held back and developed before being delivered. A point in a message might be better delivered inductively, rather than deductively. This avoids the dull tedium of every section of every message being the same. Here comes the verse, here comes the explanation, now he’ll refer to a cross-reference, wait for it, here comes the illustration. Instead you might begin the next point with an illustration, or a question, or an explanation with the point itself held back.

I was taught that an inductively developed point in a message should be written in the outline in brackets. Simple little approach, but it reminds the preacher that the preaching event is not about a slightly animated reading of an outline. Actually, the outline is supposed to record what the message does, how it develops, etc. For some preachers that has become reversed, so that the message is supposed to say what the outline states. Your goal is to preach a good sermon, not to demonstrate or even deliver your good outline.

(Put some of your points in brackets, lest every five-minute section sound essentially the same!)

Preach the Text, Not Just From a Text

September 15, 2011September 15, 2011 / Peter Mead / 8 Comments

Sometimes preachers give away their entire main idea in the title they advertise ahead of time. I think I’ve done that with this title. It’s one of the things that always makes a message feel either like biblical preaching, or not truly biblical preaching. Does the preacher preach the text? Or does the preacher preach from a text, using a text, referring to a text?

1. The difference demonstrates the preacher’s view of the Bible. For some, the Bible is a great data bank to be raided for foundational wording on which they can build their presentation. For others, the Bible is a continual source of delight as they come fresh to texts each time they preach them and encounter God in His Word, before bringing the ancient word ever fresh and new to the listeners. Is your Bible old and static, or dynamic and relationally connecting?

2. The difference demonstrates the preacher’s view of preaching. For some, preaching is primarily about their own craft in preparing a message where the text is an ingredient, a factor. For others, the Bible is the master lens through which God is seen by the needy listeners as His Word is effectively presented in the preaching moment.

3. The difference demonstrates the preacher’s view of the listeners’ need. For some, the listeners come together for a church service in which they need to have the sermon slot filled with good sermonic art and craft, a bit of polished poetry, a touch of humor, a hint of depth and a good measure of preacher’s personality. For others, the listeners have a profound need, whether they are unsaved or saved, of an encounter with the God who reveals Himself fully and freely in His Word.

4. The difference demonstrates the preacher’s view of themselves. For some, preaching is an opportunity to demonstrate their own faithfulness to the gospel, or cleverness with words, or artistry with concepts, or craft with alliteration, or ingenuity with a book of sermon illustrations. For others, preaching is about communicating God’s Word to the people God brings together, in the power of God’s Spirit, and the focus, strangely enough, is on God, not the preacher.

The Morass of Moralism

September 14, 2011September 14, 2011 / Peter Mead / 4 Comments

When the focus of a sermon becomes a moralistic [set of instructions for holy living], listeners will most likely assume that they can secure or renew their relationship with God through proper behaviors. Even when the behaviors advocated are reasonable, biblical, and correct, a sermon that does not move from expounding standards of obedience to explaining the source, motives, and results of obedience places persons’ hopes in their own actions. (B.Chappell, 291)

What are the keys to avoiding the kind of moralistic preaching that Chappell refers to here? He points to the source, motives and results. Good things to ponder. I’ll put it like this:

Remember Who? does the changing – Moralistic preaching will always feel like a burden on the listeners to get their acts together and make the necessary changes. Surely the message of the Bible is that we are responders with the privilege of participating in that change process, rather than instigators with the burden of fixing ourselves.

Remember How? we participate – So how do we participate? Is it by repenting of our badness and striving to have goodness? Or is it repenting of our religiousness and righteousness as well as our overt rebellion, and turning to the One who offers us life and holiness? Repentance is toward Christ, and then salvation (including sanctification) is by faith in Him.

Remember What? is the source of power – How does God change us as we trust in Christ? By the work of the Spirit in us. Moralistic preaching seems to leave God out of the equation (other than being the stated source of excessive requirements). Surely the reality of Christianity is that we now get to participate in the amazing privilege of New Covenant blessings, including the work of the Holy Spirit within us.

Remember Where? is the focus – Moralistic preaching always turns listeners in on themselves. They go from being rebellious to being religious . . . but the gospel calls us out of ourselves and away from both. The focus of biblical Christianity is not my struggles, my weaknesses, my sins, my effort, my discipline, my success, my holiness . . . the focus is on Christ. My part is response to Him, faith in Him, love for Him.

Let’s finish with a Chappell quote:

Preaching application should readily and vigorously exhort obedience to God’s commands, but such exhortations should be based primarily on responding in love to God’s grace, not on trying to gain or maintain it. (B.C., 292)

Sharpen the Arrow

August 26, 2011August 24, 2011 / Peter Mead / 7 Comments

I’m pondering the message I am going to preach in a few days. It is one of several required at a conference. I have the subject, which leaves me with almost the whole canon as potential preaching fodder. Now I am sharpening.

The temptation is not to sharpen, but to cram bulk into the message. How many bits of a brilliant Bible can I pack into the message in order to touch on as many good bits as possible? Bad idea. A big and bulky message will not communicate, it will not carry well. It will drop like a lead balloon before it gets to the first row.

Much better to remove bulk and sharpen the arrow. That is, instead of trying to get a lot across, I should try to effectively get the main thing across. Better for people to leave with the main thing firmly embedded in their hearts than with the experience of watching a preacher fail to communicate (and carrying nothing away themselves). This is obvious, but the problem is that it is also painful.

To sharpen the arrow I probably need to lose the content from that part of the Bible, and that part too, oh, and that bit. The only way to sharpen metal is to remove bulk. So by faith, prayer and work I need to sharpen the message so that it will communicate more effectively.

Preach Text or Title?

August 25, 2011August 24, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

What do you do when you are asked to preach a title with a text? My simple answer is to honour the title, but preach the text.

Isn’t that the obvious answer? No, I think there is an alternative that is very common and may be legitimate – preach the title by using the text. And then there is the option of preaching the title and ignoring, or even abusing, the text. The challenge is where the line is drawn between these two options. So why would title take precedence over the text?

Sometimes the title is highly relevant, or highly theological, or highly specific. What if the title is “What is the Gospel?” and the text is John 3:16. Or maybe “Are there many ways to God?” and the text is Acts 4:12. Or “Guilt and holistic health” with Romans 8:1.

The temptation then is to try to give the definitive lecture on biblical soteriology, or the exclusivism of Christ, or whatever. You’ve gone from preaching the Bible to preaching theology with the Bible as a key exhibit. I won’t say this is totally wrong. We have probably all benefitted from some “definitive lectures” from great speakers. But personally, I find there is something lacking in this approach. I would rather preach the text.

Personally I find it satisfying when I feel like I’ve done a good job of engaging the text and presenting it in such a way that it has “lived” in the imaginations of the listeners. A well crafted lecture on exclusivism is all well and good, but a text genuinely experienced text is much rarer. As long as it addresses the requested subject by way of application, of course.

So in simplistic terms I might be looking at something along these lines:

Intro – raise the question in light of contemporary thinking so people say “yep, that’s a big issue, what’s the answer?”

Text – take them back there, set the scene, make it vivid, help them experience the unique reality of the situation, and preach the text.

Application – return to today and answer the question . . . “so if that was true for them, what is true for us, under pressure to conform to the world’s way of thinking?” Preach the point of the verse again in reference to the opening of the sermon.

The big thing to remember is that you can either formulate the most brilliant systematic theological presentation of the issue and impress a few. Or you can make the text live, preach vivid and engaging . . . and as long as you answer the question, everyone will love it. And, also, you’ll probably love it more because you will feel like you’ve truly preached the text, rather than pulled a phrase out of context in order to satisfy a contemporary theological question.

Don’t Move Away From the Bible

August 22, 2011August 22, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Yesterday may have passed without you noticing the date, but it was the 766th anniversary of the death of Alexander of Hales. I would have missed it too, except for a brief article I read that began like this:

A decisive moment in Medieval scholasticism came when Alexander of Hales substituted Peter Lombard’s Sentences in place of the Bible as the basic text for his teaching.

In his day he was called the king of theology. Alexander (I won’t call him Alex as I can’t pretend to be too close to him), pioneered the dangerous habit of making a summary of Christian theology using Aristotle as the authority. Summarizing the Christian faith in answer to numerous questions sounds safe enough, but when Aristotle is quoted as a reference in almost every question, something unhealthy might just be brewing. In fact, it was Alexander’s fan, a certain Thomas Aquinas, who is best known for blending Aristotle and Christianity.

Now I am not suggesting that you or I are going to have the same long-lasting consequences as can be traced from Alexander of Hales and those he influenced. Nevertheless, we will do damage if we make a move away from the Bible in our ministry. But, you might say, where could we go from the Bible? After all, we are committed to being biblical preachers . . . okay, some tempting avenues away from the Bible, in no particular order:

1. Theology – Don’t get me wrong, I care passionately about good theology, but I also see the temptation to become “sophisticated” and leave the Bible behind. Don’t do it!

2. Philosophy – Speaking of sophistication, it doesn’t get much more tempting than leaving the Bible to become something of a philosopher. Bad move for a preacher to make.

3. Mysticism – Other extreme, but still a speculative pursuit, some choose to leave the Bible behind in order to go after a greater mystical experience. Oops.

4. Revelation – Along similar, but distinct lines, is the temptation to treat the Bible as passe in the pursuit of new revelation from God. Careful!

5. Culture – Here’s a popular pursuit. How about essentially moving beyond the Bible to being a cultural commentator. Pas une bonne idee.

6. Coaching – Listeners, of course, crave relevant instruction for life in a complex world . . . so why not put the Bible aside and offer engaging applied training in “living life, for dummies.” Well, let me give you six reasons that’s bad practice…

7. Entertainment – Let’s face it, we could always just go for numbers of happy people by squeezing out the Bible in order to offer entertaining sets of humour and anecdotal pulpit pithiness. Yes, but did you hear about the preacher who did this and…

There may be some value in some of these pursuits, but keep your feet firmly planted in the Bible and don’t stray off down a dead end.

Post Sermon Text Test

August 5, 2011August 5, 2011 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

We preach hoping and praying for the message to mark and transform lives as it is preached. But what about after? I want to preach in such a way that the following things are true:

1. The listener will continue to be transformed by the text in the coming days. If the text were merely a source for data and sermonic stuff, then chances are the listeners will lose track of where the message came from. For the text to linger in their hearts and minds, the preacher needs to shine light on the text and shine the message of the text on the screen of their hearts. If they have only heard about it, there is less chance they will remember it than if they have “seen” the text painted vividly during the sermon.

2. The listener will be able to go back to the text later and understand it. If the listener were to look up the text later, then I want them to be able to understand it. That means that they have had it clearly and effectively explained. Not only what does it mean, but why does it mean that? Knowing that I take it a certain way is nowhere near as good as them seeing that that is what it is saying.

3. The listener will want to go back to the text later to read it. This is a biggie. If we assume that listeners go home and re-read the preaching text and carefully work through the notes they took, then we are naive to say the least. The preacher has to stir motivation for them to want to go back to the text. That motivation will come from an effective message, including instilling a confidence in them that they can see the why behind the what of the text. Why does it mean what the sermon said it means? They also have to be convinced of the relevance of the text to their lives. Irrelevant or inaccessible texts are least likely to be return destinations in the days after a sermon.

4. The listener will know how to make sense of it when they go there. This is like number 2, but slightly more than that. Number 2 was about them being able to understand the text itself. This one is about them being equipped to handle the text. That comes down to the instruction given in the sermon (and many sermons over time).