Stage 6 – Message Idea

Preaching Story: Make the Switch

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

A switch that could make a big difference when preaching narratives.  How do you preach a story?

Common Default Approach – This is the approach that begins the message with the reading of the text, then moves on to talk about the story, noting elements within the text and giving both explanation and application based on those observations.

Strengths & Weaknesses – It is easier to read a text straight through than to interrupt the reading of the text, people know the whole story from the start and it allows great freedom in terms of what you do with the rest of the message.  These are strengths to one degree or another.  However, there are also inherent weaknesses in this approach.  The story becomes a specimen to examine, rather than a narrative to be experienced (once the reading is over).  The inherent tensions within the narrative are essentially lost, although a good preacher will attempt to rekindle them in the elements of retelling the narrative that follows the reading.

Original Force Approach – Okay, I made that name up, but it does convey my point here.  The simple switch I’m suggesting is instead of “read the story and talk about it,” rather try to “tell the story homiletically.”  What I mean by that is allow the form of the story, and the telling of it, to form the spine of most of the message.  In the process of telling the story, combine explanation of context, culture, historical setting, etc., with deliberate application for contemporary listeners.

Strengths & Weaknesses – The weaknesses that stand out to me with this approach are the greater challenges involved in telling a story effectively such as vivid description, maintaining tension, etc. Thus it may be slightly harder to preach well in this way.  However, the strengths of this approach are significant.  The original force of the passage can be recreated for listeners, whether or not they already know the end of the story.  The inherent tensions and intrigue in a narrative can become strengths of the message (you don’t have to create tension with a story, it has tension inbuilt).  Explanation can feel natural as the story is told, application can carry the implicit force of the narrative.  The ability of a narrative to overcome resistance is harnessed rather than lost (in the common default approach, listeners often put their guard back up once you start “preaching” again after the story’s been read).  There are other strengths too – while it may be harder to preach this way, it makes preaching preparation more interesting as you enter fully into the narrative rather than standing over it with scalpel in hand.  So much more could be added . . .

Next time you preach a narrative, instead of reading it and then talking about it, try telling the story so that the original force is felt as the thrust of the sermon.

U.O.P. – Onus On Us

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Unity.  Order.  Progress.  Three essentials in effective communication of a message.  Yet it strikes me that we can sometimes take these for granted when we are preaching on a single passage.  Unity?  One passage.  Order?  Moving through the passage.  Progress?  Getting closer to the end.  If this is all we have, then I suspect our preaching may be bordering on boring, among other things.

Unity.  It takes more than simply having a single preaching text. After all, the content of a message “united” by a single passage can be totally random in examples, references, illustrations, etc.  If we work at grasping the distilled single sentence main idea of the passage, then there is hope of unity in the preaching.  But if we simply bounce off the text and go where our thoughts lead us, then there is no limit to the disunity that can result in our preaching.  How often do we hear preachers supposedly preaching from one passage that seem to feel compelled to refer to fifteen others?

Order.  It takes more than simply having a single preaching text. For example, if you are preaching a ten-verse chunk of text, simply moving from the first to the last does not guarantee a sense of order.  If we fail to wrestle with the text and grasp the essential flow of thought in the passage, then we may simply jump off apparently disconnected thoughts in each successive mini-chunk, resulting in an apparently disordered collection of thoughts.  Surely the biblical writers were not presenting disconnected mini-thoughts?  Yet how often do we hear preachers supposedly preaching from one passage, yet at the end we as listeners have little grasp on the flow of thought in the text, little sense that the passage itself actually makes sense?

Progress.  It takes more than simply having a single preaching text. As we preach, listeners should be moving with us through the combined explanation and application of the text in the experience we call a sermon.  There should be a start.  Then there should be the sense that we’re heading toward a finish.  If we fail to wrestle with the text enough to grasp the movement and purpose of the passage, if we fail to craft the message into a plot or journey that goes somewhere, then what happens?  We end up with a pedantic and plodding presentation.  How often do we hear preachers supposedly preaching from one passage, yet all around we sense that others are looking at the text, as we are, to see how much more of the message there is still to come?  These things ought not to be!

Unity, order and progress.  These are evident in each unit of biblical text.  But the onus is on us as preachers to make sure they are clearly present in our message on that text – the text alone will not guarantee it!

3 DQ’s – Dynamite Questions

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Okay, that should be “developmental questions,” but they are dynamite.  Sunukjian and others have followed Robinson in making quite a fuss of these three questions.  I would encourage you to do the same.  The questions represent the three ways in which a stated idea can be developed.  There are no other ways to develop an idea than in these three directions:

1. What does it mean? (Explain)

2. Is it true? (Prove)

3. What difference does it make? (Apply)

The great thing about knowing these three questions is that they are so versatile:

Use them in studying the passage – Unless the writer is moving on to a new idea, these three questions can help you understand what is going on in the passage.  Not only do they move you toward an understanding of content, but also authorial intent – which is so valuable as you wrestle with a passage.

Use them in developing your main idea – Consider your listeners in order to determine which of the three developmental questions are needed to develop your message.  If they don’t understand the idea, there’s no point jumping to application without further explanation.  Just because people understand what you are saying, it doesn’t mean they are convinced – perhaps proof and support is needed?

Use them in developing each movement in the message – What works on a macro level also works in the chunks.  With these three questions as keys to developing your ideas as you communicate, you need never scratch your head for things to say (few of us struggle with that), or simply pad the message with pointless filler materials (some of us may struggle with that!)

I don’t advocate a predictable and slavish repetition of these three questions under each point of a message.  I know some that do and the result is both predictable and often unengaging, not to mention how it can turn every genre into a dissected discourse.  However, it is not a bad discipline to be asking yourself these three questions, both in study of the passage and in preparation of the message.

More Sneaky Landmines

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Last week I shared three sneaky landmines that every preacher faces in the ministry. I appreciated the good comments by Larry and Sudhir, so thought I’d bring their suggestions to the fore in this post. More landmines:

Thinking we need something new to say – Now just because a take on a passage has been the main one offered for generations does not make it right. Sometimes the church does put a spin on the truth or downright miss the point for long periods of time. However, as a preacher, my job is not to continually come up with something new. The ageless truth of the Bible, preached again with clarity and emphasizing the particular relevance for these listeners – that is the goal. And if you have a new view untouched by past generations and the scholars on your shelf of commentaries? Probably delay preaching that message for a few weeks, pray it through more and get into conversation with some trusted advisers . . . then if it is what the Bible teaches, preach it!

Majoring on Distinctive Minors – That’s not a new chord progression for the guitarist, it’s a temptation we all face. It is tempting to major on the minors that make us (my theology, our denomination, etc.) distinctive from others. Preach the dominant thought in each unit of thought, don’t make it your goal to always get this feedback: “Ooo, I never would have seen that in that passage!” (This is disturbing feedback!)

Pointing the Preaching Finger at Someone – You know who is at the forefront of your mind. That face that is constantly there as you prepare your message. Perhaps a critic. Perhaps someone who has angered you. Perhaps someone who has made it their mission to bring you down, so you are tempted to make it your mission to launch applicational mortars from the relative security of the pulpit. Don’t. Preach the Word for the benefit of all. Don’t take aim and fire cheap shots. To do so is a poor strategy on many levels, not least the spiritual level!

Balancing the Balancing

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Every text says something.  No text says everything.  Our task is to preach the text’s something in a way that is faithful to the Bible’s “everything”.  Our task is not to preach everything from this text’s something.

Balance – you don’t want to preach something that on its own is faithful to the preaching text, but distorts the message of the Bible.  So we have to think about balancing it. For example, Psalm 1. This passage is saying that lasting blessing comes to those who live according to the Word of God, rather than the words of the wicked.  However, this does not mean that simply obeying the Bible’s ethical instruction leads to eternal life.  Psalm 1 may need balance to avoid misunderstanding or misapplication.

Balance the balance – we need to be careful though.  It is easy to be so excessive in balancing that we end up blunting the force of the passage at hand.  It is possible to always preach a vague biblical message without ever allowing the text through in its power.  So how to know how much to balance?

1. Remember your goal in this message is to preach this text, not the whole canon in one shot.

2. Consider your listeners (preaching Psalm 1 to a group with non-Christians will require more balancing from beyond the passage than preaching Psalm 1 to a group of Christians at a conference).

3. Consider if this is a one-shot, or part of a process?  People at an evangelistic event may only come once, but people in a church get more messages to balance each other.  However, even with evangelism we don’t have to give them the whole deal every time we get them in (but that’s an evangelistic issue).

4. Decide the extent of balance needed (is the message slightly incomplete, or significantly risky?)  Is the main thought of this message biblically true, or is it heretical if misunderstood (especially if easily misunderstood).

There is not a one-size fits all solution.  But I offer these thoughts as a prompt to consider carefully the balancing we do in our messages – not too little, but not too much either.

Question to Ponder – What is it we preach?

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

What is it that we preach?  I’m really “preaching to the choir” in this post.  I’m addressing those who are committed to expository preaching and therefore will unhesitatingly affirm – “we preach the Bible!”  Others may hesitate and desire to preach contemporary ideas or whatever else, but for those of us who, at least in theory, preach the Bible, my question stands.  What is it that we preach?  I see two approaches among expository preachers:

Option A – We preach the main thought of a text.

Option B – We preach an aspect of biblical theology prompted by the main thought of a text.

I see strengths in both approaches.  I see potential weaknesses in the way either approach might be applied by some preachers.  I see different preachers and different “schools of thought” falling under different categories in this over-simplified schema.

So how are we to select our option and move forward?  I see value in both options, but on this site I urge a commitment to option A (preach the text you are preaching), with an awareness of option B (develop the theology of the text biblically if you deem it necessary).  I know and respect others who essentially affirm option B for every sermon (always develop the thought through the canon to its fulfilment).

Identifying these two categories is an intriguing starting point for reflection on my own approach to preaching and hopefully for yours too.  Where might this reflection lead?  Is it necessary to offer rationale and critique of each?  Will people recognize that I am not setting up a permanent either/or mutually exclusive construct, but rather identifying the primary leaning of the expository preacher?

Five Major Failings – Part 2

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Carrying on from yesterday’s two failings, here are the rest:

“3. Vague Phrasing – Preachers seem hardwired to eschew all vivid verbs and concrete nouns, with the result that they sound vague and uninteresting.”

A lack of energy in delivery, a lack of facial engagement, a lack of passion, a lack of effective sensory description and so on are all factors adding to the vague and uninteresting nature of much preaching.

“4. Sub-Christian Resolutions – There is not enough gospel-insight.”

This is a good observation.  If our application and resolution of the message is that we should try harder, do better, be “good-er” or whatever, then we are falling short of Christian preaching.  In my opinion we need not always force a jump to Calvary and Christ, there are times when a theocentric message need not move to the first Easter, but every message should be theocentric.  A try harder message is really anthropocentric (it’s all about us, our needs and our response).

“5. Trivial Applications – The gospel is shrunk down to an individualistic technique that we can use on a Monday, all in the name of relevance, but the grand scope of the gospel as a message that speaks for all time, to nations and tribes as well as individuals, gets lost.  I actually heard someone starting a sermon: ‘The toothpaste squirted out all over my jacket, my alarm failed to go off, and in the shower I used rubbing alcohol as shampoo.  I was having a bad day.’  This was to introduce a biblical twosome who were having a similar bad day – the Emmaus pair.  Come on!”

We do need to differentiate between trivial Monday morning applications and genuine Monday morning applications.  Too much preaching resists the trivial and replaces it with the spiritual-sounding vague applications that all affirm, but none grasp for their own lives.  I agree, let’s cut out the trivial applications, but let’s do so in a way that retains genuine relevance.

Five Major Failings

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

I thought I’d share this list of five major failings of many preachers, according to the book that I am currently enjoying:

“1. Multiplitus – Using too many points until the sermon becomes a starburst that dazzles rather than communicates.”

Well put.  When we try to preach more than one point, we quickly move from communication to fireworks.

“2. Elephantine Introductions – Huge ten or even fifteen minute introductions that contain the guiding imagery to control the rest of the sermon.  Trouble is that the imagery is either tiresome, prosaic, or just misleading.”

I’ve been accused of this at times, sometimes with justification.  I suppose that not having the entire reading up front can sometimes confuse people somehow searching for the end of the introduction.  Nonetheless, the last line is especially important – tiresome, prosaic, or just misleading.  We need to be careful with our introductions.  Essentially we need to “meet the people” and then “motivate them to listen” and without further ado, “move into the message/passage.”  (I don’t know why I used quotation marks there, the ‘meet, motivate and move’ alliterative language is my own – until someone publishes it first.)

Ok, tomorrow I’ll share the other three major failings according to this writer, along with my own comments.

Do We Get It Backwards?

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Here’s a provocative quote from Charles Kraft:

The amount of crucial information involved in Christianity is, I believe, quite small.  The amount of Christian behavior demanded in response to all that information is, however, quite large.  We have, however, given ourselves over to a methodology that emphasizes the lesser of the two ingredients. (Jesus Model for Contemporary Communication, 123)

I essentially concur with this and want to make a couple of comments.  Obviously Kraft is not saying that Christianity is simplistic or lacking in content.  I’m sure he’d agree that we will never exhaust the riches of God’s Word.  However, for each truth in that Word, there are numerous necessary applications to real life behavior.  As preachers we tend to explain, explain, explain some more and then finally squeeze in a couple of minutes of application.  Perhaps we would do well to follow the advice of Don Sunukjian along the same lines, when he says we should explain as much as necessary, then apply, apply, apply.

In reality I find a lot of preaching is lacking in application, but not really because the text is being over-explained.  I would suggest, perhaps provocatively, that I rarely find a text even decently explained.  What many preachers tend to do is fill time with talk.  Random details in the text, other texts, illustrations lacking in defined purpose, filler words and noise.  I find it so refreshing when a preacher actually explains a text, and it is time to celebrate when there is specific and substantial application added to the mix.  I know there are still some exegetically heavy lecturers getting into pulpits, but probably far less than in the past.  However, it would be wrong to flatter many preachers who lack in application by suggesting they explain too much.  In reality many preachers neither explain nor apply well.

Many preachers tend to feel they have not done their job if they only preach one text, one main idea, one truth and then apply it well.  They perhaps feel that such preaching might be too lightweight or thin on content.  So they try to pack in more information, more texts, more truths, etc.  What could have been a powerful, penetrative, convicting, focused, applicational and memorable sermon becomes an overwhelming speedboat charge through the jungle of the catechism, or through systematic theology, or through all things Bible (complete with the resulting spray in the face that makes you do that squinting, blinking thing with your eyes!)

If it means actually seeing lives changed, let’s preach lightweight.  Actually, I don’t believe that.  Let’s preach one text well.  Well focused, not going anywhere else without good reason.  Well explained, but not an information dump.  Well applied, specific and with the appropriate grandeur for such a biblical truth.

Reflections on Foreign Language Preaching

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

It has been an interesting weekend of preaching for me.  For the first time in almost four years, I preached in Italian.  Actually, three times in two churches.  (Background: I spent my first five years in Italy and have visited many times while growing up, my Italian is quite poor, limited vocabulary and by no means fluent … but just about able to preach in Italian which is probably better for listeners than using translation.) So I have been reflecting on the experience and what it shows me in reference to first language preaching:

Being aware of possible confusion prompts greater focus on the main thought. Since I know my Italian is severely limited, I know that I can easily miscommunicate at any moment.  This forces me to stay more focused on the main thought that threads through the message.  On reflection, the reality is that I can easily miscommunicate at any moment, even in English.  It’s not just my use of the language, but so many other factors than distract listeners for a moment and cause a loss of understanding.  Preaching in Italian has only served to reinforce the value of the central idea in preaching.  Preach one thing.

Transitions really do matter a lot. It is so easy to lose people in the curves of a message, in the move from one section of the message to the next.  Again, preaching in a weak second language made that sensation obvious to me, but perhaps I would be helped to remember that in every message.  Transition super clearly.

Listeners are really gracious. In recent years I’ve taught people who have been required to preach in class, but not in their first language.  I’ve always told them that although it is so much harder to preach in a second language, there is also an advantage.  Listeners feel for the preacher in such a situation and try to understand, they put in more effort.  As the recipient of such gracious listening again I am reminded how true that is.  I suppose the same principle would apply to first-time nervousness, to preaching when ill or injured, etc.  As long as the limitation is not overbearing, listeners are gracious (at least in the Italian culture and in my preaching classes!)

Respect to those who consistently preach in a second language. Sure, I know that some missionaries get to the stage of thinking and preaching fluently in a second language as if it were their mother-tongue . . . but it takes massive effort to get to that stage, many never do, but press on anyway.  Respect.

More thoughts may come to mind.  This weekend I have another three Italian messages to give.  (If I come to mind and you want to pray for me, that would be appreciated!)