Stage 5 – Message Purpose

Lazy Preaching?

/ Peter Mead / 9 Comments

Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Community Church, made a passing comment about lazy preaching in an interview with Preaching magazine.  He was talking about his desire to come up with a statement, a takeaway point in a sermon.  His stated goal was that a listener could come back to the same passage of Scripture later and say, “I know what that means.  I know what that’s about.”  Because of that goal he does not like to say, “Paul said” and “John said that again” and so on.  Here are his words, reprinted in Preaching with Power edited by Michael Duduit:

I hate sermons like that.  When I listen to them, I just turn them off.  I think just one passage that says it is all we need.  Just help me understand the one passage – please don’t proof text every point with a verse.  I think that’s lazy preaching.  It would be easy to develop sermons like that.

I tend to agree.  There are reasons to go to other passages, but far fewer legitimate reasons than many of us think.  When we have the opportunity to preach a passage, let’s do the hard work and really preach that passage.  It’s easy to skip all over the canon, but if there isn’t a genuine reason for doing so, it’s lazy preaching.

Surrogate Sermons – Part 2

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Continuing on with Dwight Stevenson’s list from yesterday . . . “surrogate sermons” we should be avoiding:

Palace propaganda – Catering to the specific audience in a church by giving exactly and only what they want to hear (often determined by their socio-economic class, race, etc.)

Theological lecture – We must be able to give reason for our faith, but that does not mean we substitute dogma for faith in preaching.  Preaching can be doctrinal without sounding doctrinaire.  Preach the inspired text, not only a system.

Argumentation and debate – We are called to be Christ’s witnesses, not his lawyers.  It is easy to level our guns at a theological position, or a moral concern, but let us be careful not to breed counterattack, controversy and division.

Eulogy – A syrupy diet of simplistic non-answers to life’s realities that sound acceptable because they elevate Christ continuously.

Ecclesiastical commercial – The promotional work for the programs of the church can be done effectively and creatively outside of the sermon.

Monologue and soliloquy – Communication that is effectively the act of hearing one’s own voice, because the preacher is unaware of the internal and explicit reactions of the listeners.

Surrogate Sermons

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

It is easy to preach something less than a sermon.  We thought of one example yesterday – the curiosity satisfier.  Today I’d like to list a few from a list by Dwight Stevenson (published in A Reader on Preaching).  His goal is to help us spot sermon replacements and erradicate them from our ministry.  Here are his titles with brief explanations:

Moralistic harangue – The exhorting, punishing or whipping of our people because they are not living up to their obligations.  Many people seem to appreciate receiving these bashings.  Why?  Perhaps because they don’t like themselves much anyway, feel guilty and appreciate taking their medicine.  “It is a fine way of paying for sin without repenting of it.”

Aesthetic artifact – The carefully produced work of art that one hopes will be a blessing to behold for generations, rather than carefully designed nourishment for these people now.

Pontifical pronouncement – The preaching of one who seeks to do the thinking for the people, standing in authority for the immature who find security in such “assistance.”

Museum lecture – Often the best one can hope for is mildly interesting and informative, but often becomes dull and boring, and is almost always irrelevant.

Palliative prescription – As we run from moralistic harangue we are always in danger of falling into cheap grace, easy assurance, repentance free pardon and superficial pain-relief.

That’s enough for today.  It’s only half his list, but that’s enough.  Again, these examples of surrogate sermons remind us of the importance of the Bible in expository preaching.   The Bible does not merely give a starting point, or illustrative material, or a stamp of approval.  The Bible has to be in charge of the message – the idea, the content, the relevance, the mood, the goals.

Preach to do More Than Satisfy Curiosity

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

The Bible was not given to satisfy curiosity.  It is truth that always intersects life in some way.  Consequently as preachers we must not pretend that arms-length analysis is sufficient.  We have to wrestle with how to help our listeners experience the truth that is being preached.

Haddon Robinson has pointed out that for many people, most of the preaching they have heard has satisfied only to the level of meeting some level of curiosity.  Sadly many in our churches have had years of Bible studies that are not dissimilar to filling out a crossword or Sudoku puzzle.  You get all the parts in the right place, get the thing completed and then feel satisfied.  But the Bible does not work merely at a curiosity level.  It digs deeper, intersects more fully with life.

Haddon was interviewed in 2001 by Preaching magazine.  In his words, “I think God’s truth is always designed to challenge us and change us.”  Let us pray that we never settle for satisfying curiosity when we have the privilege of being involved in transforming lives.

Prayer, Preaching, Professionalism?

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

 

Is there any stage of the preaching process that we should not be bathing in prayer? When people are first exposed to training in homiletics there is often an initial concern. Is this “process” reducing a highly spiritual ministry to a series of stages, techniques and professionalism? That would depend on the instructor, but I’d hope the answer would be no.

We should be praying at every stage. We should prayerfully select the passage and make sure it is a true literary unit. We should prayerfully study the passage and determine author’s purpose and idea. We should prayerfully consider our congregation and determine appropriate sermon purpose, idea, strategy and details. We should even pray about delivery, and of course we should be praying for the people as well as ourselves throughout the process.

Prayer does not result in a bypass around the work. Praying as we select the passage does not mean we will receive direct revelatory guidance about what to preach. Praying during passage study and sermon preparation does not excuse us from the long hours of wrestling with the text or the often grueling work of crafting the preaching idea, and so on. So we don’t pray begging for a hard work bypass. If we do receive an objective direct revelation then we should obey, but prayer is not primarily about that. Prayer is a lot about dependence, about humility, about asking for wisdom as we do our part of His work.

Let us be preachers who do not shy away from the work involved in our ministry, but let us also be preachers who never fail to pray at every stage in the process.

A Purposeful Change

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I just returned from the campus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. During the weekend I was able to spend some good time with Mike (the less frequent co-author of this site). He is enjoying a three-month well deserved sabbatical from local church ministry. In one of our many discussions, we decided to make a change to the stages presented on this site (and in preaching instruction I give). We have added a stage and adjusted the order slightly.

The Change – The central stages were previously three; passage idea, passage/message purpose, message idea. Now the central stages in the model are four; passage purpose, passage idea, message purpose, message idea. You’ll see them on the right menu bar.

The Reason – The new order makes sense. Purpose precedes and informs idea. This was true before for the message idea, but not the passage idea. Now the stages are more consistent. The details of the passage are studied for content and structure (stage 2), which helps to reveal purpose (stage 3), that all informs the goal of passage study – the passage idea (stage 4). Then the message development phase begins with sermonic purpose (stage 5), which influences the statement of idea (stage 6), that leads in to the shape of the message (stage 7). Since this is only a website and not published material, we can easily make this change.

As preachers we must be aware not only of the “what” in a text (content), but also the “why” (intent) and the “how” (genre/form). I believe that recognizing the influence of purpose as well as content in the forming of an idea is a step in the right direction.

Application’s Oft-Missing Ingredient . . . ?

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Recently Steve Mathewson wrote a helpful post on the PreachingToday blog concerning application.  He warned of the danger of too many “life application points” in preaching.  How easy it is to overwhelm our listeners with to-do lists.  I agree that this is a huge danger for us. 

In some church circles people have become very fond of what they perceive to be highly relevant preaching.  This often takes the form of “7 Keys to a Happy Marriage” or “5 Smooth Stones for Spiritual Battle.”  Because people seem to respond to this kind of “list” preaching, it is a temptation to incorporate that into a more expositional model of preaching.  So at the end of an expository sermon, the preacher will give a list of life application points.  These are specific strategies to be implemented in daily life.

It is easy to overwhelm list-driven people with more lists to add to their backlog of lists.  So what should we do?  First, we should be sure to apply the main idea of the text/sermon rather than lists of secondary suggestions.  Second, we should concentrate on helping people visualize how this could look in normal life.  Perhaps we share two or three examples, but not as a list.  Rather, this is a selection of possible scenarios out of which at least one will help listeners to see what the idea would look like in action in their life.  Sometimes several scenarios will be unnecessary.  Third, we must look for ways to include an encouraging tone in our application.  This does not just mean an enthusiastic team talk that fires up our people.  It means stirring an inner sense of motivation and a feeling of competence in our listeners.  We easily overwhelm, but instead we should strive to give appropriate encouragement (the oft-missing ingredient).

If you didn’t see Steve’s post, it is well worth a read: http://blog.preachingtoday.com/2007/10/the_challenge_of_application.html

Preach To The Heart, Then Put Feet On It

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

It is a constant temptation for preachers. In fact, it is a feature of some streams of preaching. To preach at the level of behavioral change. You take a biblical story, draw out a moral (or several) from it, usually at the level of the characters’ ethics. Then preach a moralized version of the passage. The Bible is more than a book of moral case studies. Preaching should go to the level of God (theocentric) rather than just humanity (anthropocentric). Yet the message must also be relevantly addressed to a human audience.

People are heart driven creatures, so preach deeper than the mind and will. Of course we are called to inform peoples’ minds and exhort the will. Yet our preaching will always fall short if we don’t address the heart, the values, the desires, the passions, the feelings and the attitudes of our listeners. Whenever possible, target your message at the hearts of your listeners.

Heart level preaching is not merely conceptual, put some feet on it too. It is easy to preach at the level of attitudes or values and end up with a very conceptual and abstract message. It is important to try and earth that preaching in the every day world of your listeners. What does that mean when they watch the news on the TV? What will that look like when that person starts to flirt with them? What should they do when the temptation comes? Preach to the heart, but then help them visualize successful application of that preaching. They may agree with you and desire to change, so help them see what that will involve by putting feet on your heart-level preaching.

How Do Ideas Develop?

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

If communication is all about ideas, which it is, then what happens to those ideas? Haddon Robinson regularly states that there are only three things that you can do to develop an idea. You can explain it. You can prove it. Or you can apply it. There is nothing else that can be done to develop an idea.

* In a biblical passage, what is the author doing? Is he explaining/clarifying, is he proving/convincing, or is he applying/exhorting? It is helpful in Bible study to discern what the author is actually doing as his thought develops.

* As you preach the passage, what does your audience need? Do they need explanation? Do they need to be convinced? Do they need to consider application?

* You do not have to do just what the passage does. It could be that a passage spends no time explaining a concept, but your listeners need that extra explanation. We must know our listeners and their needs as well as possible in order to communicate effectively.

* There is a logical progression to the three developmental options. Generally explanation precedes proof/convincing, and both proceed application. The progression is important to note, even though this does not require us to therefore be rigid in our preaching. We do not need to always follow a formula of stating, explaining, proving, applying, etc. This can be both tedious and unnecessary. But it is important to understand the three options, and to think through what is necessary at each stage of each sermon.

Lack of Application? Not Just A Pulpit Problem.

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A follow-up thought to yesterday’s post. The difference between a true expository sermon and an interesting biblical lecture is often the speaker’s awareness of sermonic purpose. As Bryan Chappell wrote (Christ-Centered Preaching, p52) “Without the ‘so what?’ we preach to a ‘who cares?’” In his own way Haddon Robinson has put it like this, “Preaching can be like delivering a baby, or like delivering a missile – in one your goal is to just get it out, but in the other your goal is to hit the target!”

Perhaps the problem goes deeper though. While it is true that we must think through the purpose for a sermon before preaching it, there seems to be an issue at an earlier stage in the process. Are we saying that it is possible to study a passage, but not follow through and consider its application? Hermeneutical purists argue about whether application is a part of the hermeneutical process. Yet as preachers our concern is not academic wrangling, but bringing the Word of God into the lives of His people, by the power of His Spirit, to see His purposes worked out. May we never fall into the trap of studying a passage, determining the author’s intended meaning, but failing to consider the contemporary application of that passage in our own lives.

Perhaps a lack of application in the pulpit is the fruit of a lack of application in personal study. The implications are frightening.