Stage 5 – Message Purpose

Saying the Text’s Something

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You have a text, maybe more, but certainly one.  You study it.  You determine what it’s purpose was and the author’s idea.  Then you consider your congregation and the purpose of preaching the sermon.  You shape the idea, then the sermon and preach.  Simple really.  But there are some traps we easily fall into.  Here are a couple to consider:

Don’t Overqualify.  Often the text will be saying something quite strong.  We want to make sure we’re not misunderstood or somehow imbalanced, so we qualify it.  This text says this.  But don’t forget that other text that says that, and the other that says something else.  Before we know it, we’ve overqualified the message and the force of the sermon has been dissipated like replacing a bullet with two dozen marshmallows.  There are times when we must communicate careful balancing of a potentially misunderstandable idea.  Generally though, don’t overqualify a message and end up saying nothing.  A lot of balancing can come through future preaching of other texts.

Don’t Overteach.  It’s easy to cram a perfectly good message with extra information that would be best suited in perfectly good other messages.  Either we can try to dump every scrap of exegetical inquiry into the message, or we can cram too many ideas into a one-idea time slot.  “Seven great lessons from the book of whatever” would generally be more effective as seven separate sermons.  Once the ideas start to pile up, people will either synthesize the message in their own way (over which you have no real influence), or they will take one “nugget” and ignore the rest (and that nugget may be a merely anecdotal illustration), or they will simply take away nothing.  Generally speaking, don’t overteach in a message so that in saying lots, people actually take home little to nothing.

Don’t try to say everything.  Don’t try to say lots of things.  Don’t risk the people getting nothing.  Say something.  Say the something the text pushes you towards.  Say the text’s something and try to say it well.

Preaching Like Parenting?

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We have been blessed with four wonderful children.  As a father I am very aware of my influence on my children.  Perhaps you’ve heard something along the lines of, “a child’s view of God is largely shaped by their experience with their Dad.”  If their Dad is cold and aloof, this will leave a mark on their spiritual perception.  If their Dad is harsh and legalistic, a different mark is left.  If this is true, and I believe it is, it places a huge burden of responsibility on parents.

I wonder whether this is also true of us as preachers?  Not only do we present God’s Word to people by way of explanation and application, but we also represent God to people.  I would suggest the parents of children leave a deeper mark in those early years than anyone, but still, as preachers we are marking our listeners.  What mark will we leave today?

As well as what we say, we need to think about how we say it.  What is our tone and attitude during preaching?  Just like a parent, we will do harm if we are always harsh and legalistic in our tone.  We don’t help if we constantly demonstrate fear that our charges might hurt themselves.  Equally, we do not help if we are always fun and light-hearted either.

Let’s pray that today, as we head to church, we will represent God well.  In the pulpit, and out of it.  Let’s make sure people get the subconscious impression that the God we know and represent is loving, gracious, inviting, and welcoming, as well as clear on what is right and wrong.  Perhaps preaching, like parenting, is something of a mystery when you consider how much influence God has entrusted to such fallible and weak creatures as you and I!

Don’t Dress Up Non-Preaching In Bible Dress

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you have something to share that is not the normal biblical sermon.  Perhaps you have an announcement to make, a vision to cast, an update on the new building project, some other leadership issue to address.  Even though you are in church, don’t automatically attach a Bible text.

Typically, if not always, there will be a biblical basis for what is being communicated or done.  It is obviously fine to share that, but make it clear that is not an authoritative warrant for the action.  For example, you can present a biblical basis for fellowship, but don’t leverage that biblical content to add pressure for attending a church social event.  There are biblical examples of God’s people working together on a building project, but that is not divine pressure for your people to sign up to the current project.  It is fine to give some biblical support, but evaluate if it is really fair and helpful.

Don’t automatically attach a Bible text.  Just because you’re in church doesn’t mean every announcement has to be “sanctified” in this way.  Let people evaluate what they hear on its own merits, not with the unnecessary pressure of apparent biblical warrant.  This is not a hard and fast rule, it’s a judgment call.  If the church is following through on church discipline, I would strongly suggest you do give a biblical explanation for the procedure.  But for a social event, just take the pressure off and let them choose!

I Can’t Use The Word “Sensitivity” For This

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Yesterday I wrote about careful and considered sensitivity toward diverse groups within the congregation. I deliberately left out a very significant group and would like to mention them today. Problem is, I can’t call it “strengthened by sensitivity – part 2.” I don’t really want to open the can of worms relating to seeker sensitive church models. There are strengths and weaknesses in all these approaches to church, but I don’t want to make us think of that right now.

I want us to think about the next congregation we will speak to, those individuals sitting in the chairs and listening to us preach. Among them there may well be non-Christians. We need to be careful in what we say. As Nathan suggested in his comment yesterday, “Sometimes we pepper our messages with phrases like, “You know the story about Japheth…”, or, “But we as Christians….” These phrases can unintentionally make the non-Christians feel like what we’re saying doesn’t apply to them, and that we’re oblivious to their presence among us. It can also give the impression that church is like a graduate course that requires a bunch of prerequisite courses in order to track along.”

So take a moment to think through who may be there tomorrow. Pray for them. Prayerfully consider whether there are elements in the sermon that could require too much background, or anything that could be misunderstood, or might imply something you don’t intend (in reference to outsiders, or the gospel, etc.)

Let’s pray that tomorrow, whether we are being overtly evangelistic or not, many non-Christians will respond to the captivating work of the Spirit of God and spark celebrations in heaven!

Musts From Beyond The Schedule

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

It is so easy to get into ministry maintainance mode.  We do what we have to do to keep things ticking over.  As soon as one program is over, the next is looming.  And there is certainly something to be said for faithful plugging away in local church work.  But while remaining faithful to what must be done, we should remember that there are other things that must be done too.  These “musts” comes not from the tyranny of the weekly schedule, but from the beating heart of God.

Dream – Take some time to dream.  Let’s unshackle our imaginations and prayerfully imagine what could be.   We should break out of the small confines we easily find ourselves in and engage sanctified imaginations for God.  Imagine what could be for individuals in the church, for ministries in the church, for the church itself.  Dream dreams that don’t fit in the weekly schedule.  Tangibly meeting specific needs in the local community.  Mobilizing missionaries who will actually go and make a difference.  Taking a stand on a key ethical issue and seeing God work through that.  As we walk close with the Lord, His values become our values, and increasingly our dreams should reflect His.

Strategize – Pray about taking steps toward these bigger goals.  Your strategy will go beyond preaching on the subject, but it should include that.  The pulpit ministry of the church has a unique and definite role to play.  Even if you are not able to define a five-year detailed strategy, just taking some steps is worth it.

Preach – It’s easy to lose sight of how influential preaching is in the life of the church.  It’s easy to allow negative feedback or a perceived lack of response to drain your motivation.  But preaching does matter and it does influence.  So preach.  Preach the Word of God for the transformation of lives.

Pursue – If you are pursuing a goal, then pursue it after you preach on it.  That might involve further messages.  It’s easy to expect too much from a single message.  It might involve conversations, convening an interest group, distributing resources, the targeted giving of key books, further prayer, of course.  If you want to lose your passion for something, then reflect only on the apparent lack of response from a message.  If you want to see greater things happening, then pursue with further preaching and more.

Rumors of Commentaries

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

When I get to listen to a sermon, I sometimes pick up on a commentary vibe.  That is, a sense that the preacher has been spending some time in the commentaries.  Sometimes it is overt references to “the commentators” or a specific commentary (I am describing what I hear, not affirming the practice of citing and quoting the commentaries).  Other times it is a series of background facts that feel like they’ve come from some time in the books.

On the positive side I am always glad to know the speaker has been working in preparation for the sermon.  I’d much rather have somebody who has prepared responsibly than someone who is “winging it” without humble reference to “experts” in the field.

On the negative side I sometimes get a feeling of concern.  It’s hard to pinpoint, but it’s a feeling of concern nonetheless.  I wonder whether the commentaries have been conversation partners in the personal study of the text, or crutches leant on to short-cut the process of exegesis.  I wonder whether the commentaries have simulated wrestling with the structure and flow of the text and consequently the sermon, or whether they have merely furnished a dissected structure on which to hang the broken pieces of a partial sermon.

I thank God for commentaries and good commentators.  We are so blessed today with access to these reference works.  I think it is either arrogance or stupidity that would lead us to ignore them in sermon preparation (provided we are blessed with access to them).  However, they are just one part of our preparation.  We have to wrestle with the text, with its flow of thought, its meaning, its purpose, its idea.  We have to wrestle with the sermon purpose, its idea, its strategy, its structure, its flow, etc.

Commentary study alone will provide a veritable pile of tidbits that can easily fill the sermon time.  But remember that as the preacher, our job is not to fill sermon time, but to prayerfully, carefully, and personally develop a sermon that faithfully explains and relevantly applies the text for our specific congregation.

Time for Feeding Instructions

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

When you start a new series consider whether it’s time to be more overt with some study instruction.  This is especially helpful when shifting to a new genre.  For instance, after spending some time in an epistle you shift to a series from Proverbs.  Help people re-orient themselves by deliberately setting aside a message to communicate the basics of Proverbs – how they work and how to study them.  By demonstrating this with a particular proverb the sermon still has definite value in itself.  However, if you are able to equip people to study the Proverbs for themselves, then the sermon’s value is inestimable.

Instructing and equipping people to handle the text should be an ongoing project, but why not let that project boil to the surface when moving into a new genre (Psalms, Proverbs, Parables, Prophets, ePistles, etc.)

Know Your Theology and Preach Your Bible

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Last week I wrote a post that spoke against theological agenda-driven preaching.  Yesterday’s post affirmed the value and relevance of theology.  Are these positions contradictory?  Not at all.  We are living in a generation where there is an increasing biblical and theological illiteracy.  So as preachers we have a responsibility to really know the important doctrines of the faith.  And as preachers we have the responsibility of preaching the Bible so that listeners will know where that doctrine comes from and how to get it.

Here’s a quote from Spurgeon’s Lectures to My Students that seems appropriate:

Be well instructed in theology, and do not regard the sneers of those who rail at it because they are ignorant of it.  Many preachers are not theologians, and hence the mistakes which they make.  It cannot do any hurt to the most lively evangelist to be also a sound theologian, and it may often be the means of saving him from gross blunders.  Nowadays, we hear men tear a single sentence of Scripture from its connection, and cry “Eureka! Eureka!” as if they had found a new truth; and yet they have not discovered a diamond, but a piece of broken glass. . . . Let us be thoroughly well acquainted with the great doctrines of the Word of God.

Know your theology, and preach the Bible well so that people can see not only what to believe, but how to derive that belief from the pages of Scripture.  There are two potential challenges in this.  One is ignorance of sound theology.  The other is adherence to a system of theology not firmly rooted in the Bible.  Let us preach to counter the increasing biblical and theological illiteracy, and let’s do it demonstrating healthy handling of the text!

Practical Vs Doctrinal – No Contest

/ Peter Mead / 4 Comments

I was just reading a little book by a famous seminary professor.  He referred to the thousands of chapel services he has sat through in his time.  The one thing that bothered him perhaps more than anything else was when a visiting speaker would say something along the lines of:

I am going to leave the theological instruction to your faculty here, but today I just want to be practical!

It is important to demonstrate the consistent link between the biblical/theological and the pastoral/practical.  We do our listeners a disservice when we imply a disconnect between the two.  People need to understand that the most theological or doctrinal passages in their Bible have real-life relevance to them.  People need to recognize that instruction purporting to be practical and relevant but lacking a solid biblical grounding is inherently weak.

It may sound like an understatement in English, but all Scripture is both God-breathed and useful.  Don’t give the impression that some sermons are biblical, exegetical, theological, doctrinal, while others are practical, pastoral, relevant and helpful.  Strive to demonstrate that both sides are really on the same side – there really is no contest.

Demonstrating Key Values: Application

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People may hear words, but they sense values.  Values are caught as much as taught.  Watch a dysfunctional family situation where the children are verbally instructed with one set of values, but observe the flagrant disregard for those values in the parents.  Or watch the influence of a preacher who may state the importance of application, but demonstrate that they don’t really value it.

If you value application, do it.  As Robinson’s definition explains, expository preaching means that the biblical concept is first applied by the Holy Spirit to the life of the preacher, then through the preacher, to the listeners.  To be an applicational preacher, be an applicational Bible student first.

If you value application, include it.  Might seem obvious, but if we believe application is important, we should use sermon time to present it.  What value is communicated by a conclusion that merely states, “Now may the Holy Spirit apply to our hearts what we have heard in the last hour!”

If you value application, integrate it.  The traditional, rhetoric-driven, place for application is the end of the sermon.  There is good reason for this.  People generally need to understand and be convinced of the “what?” before they are willing to face the “so what?”  Yet in our day we are very aware of the complexity of communication.  People value relevance, so we need to integrate application and need in the introduction and movements of the sermon.  We must show why the “what?” matters to them before they will sit and listen to our explanation of it.  The “what?” and the “so what?” feed on each other.

If you value application, highlight it.  Try to use comments like, “so we understand it, but our Bible study is incomplete without trying to apply it – let’s think this through in practical and specific ways.”  Try to avoid comments like, “we’ll spend most of our time addressing the ‘what?’ and by the time we get to the end of the sermon, you’ll probably not even notice the ‘so?’”

By our attitude and our passing comments, we contagiously spread the value we place on application.