Overqualified! Grace, But.

February 27, 2012February 27, 2012 / Peter Mead / 8 Comments

Here’s a quote to start the week. It’s a quote I found very encouraging last night. Yesterday morning I preached the first message in a series on Galatians. Paul pulled no punches and I reflected that somewhat in my message. So this morning I’ve woken up pondering this quote from Andy Stanley:

“The church, or I should say, church people, must quit adding the word “but” to the end of our sentences about grace. Grace plus is no longer grace. Grace minus is no longer grace. We are afraid people will abuse grace if presented in its purest form. We need not fear that, we should assume that. Religious people crucified grace personified. Of course grace will be abused. But grace is a powerful dynamic. Grace wins out in the end. It is not our responsibility to qualify it. It is our responsibility to proclaim it and model it.”

I wonder what proportion of gospel preachers really preach the radical message of God’s grace, and how many feel the need to qualify it and augment it and protect it? How do we over-qualify grace?

1. We preach grace, but insist on human commitment and responsibility in our gospel preaching. It’s so easy to preach of God’s wonderful, amazing, life-transforming, gaze-transfixing, heart-captivating grace. And then in the same breath speak of our need to make a personal commitment, to be diligent, to conform to standards, etc. Either God’s grace is as good as we say it is, or it is lacking and needs human supply.

2. We preach grace, but quickly shift to focusing on our legal obligations as humans. Grace plus works is not grace. Grace minus relational freedom and delight is not grace. Grace with a good dose of law is not more, but less. People might abuse grace? Indeed, so let’s put more effort into communicating how good God’s grace is, rather than feeling obliged to supply qualifiers that are somehow meant to stop people gratuitously sinning in light of the message of the gospel. When a heart is truly gripped by God’s grace, then it is truly free to live a life of love for God and others – will such preaching lead to licentiousness and abuse? Certainly not as much as preaching law will lead to rebellion and the fruit of the flesh.

All that I say here applies to both evangelistic and to edificatory preaching. If the text speaks of our response in some way, or offers guidance on the difference this gospel will make, then of course we must preach the text. But let’s not automatically feel the need to over qualify and potentially lose the impact of the message if the inspired author didn’t add qualification.

Preaching grace is dangerous. It is dangerous because unlike overqualified human-centred preaching, it might actually stir a heart to be captivated by the abundant grace of God and lead to radical transformation!

Narrative as Super-Genre?

February 24, 2012February 20, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

While we tend to think in terms of seven biblical genres, I find it helpful to recognize three types of literature – narrative, poetry and discourse. These types occur proportionately in that order. Narrative is the most common, discourse the least.

In simplistic terms narrative consists of people in plots, poetry consists of parallelism and imagery, and discourse consists of direct speech or correspondence.

For the past weeks I’ve been bouncing around the field of preaching narratives, which I hope has been helpful. But here’s a thought with which I’ll finish this extended series. Maybe narrative should be considered a super-genre.

That is to say, the core features of narrative are not completely absent from the other types of literature. Let’s say the core features include the development and resolution of tension in the situation of characters. There are people with a problem in a plot.

What do we have with poetry? Often we have a person reacting to life in the form of poetic writing. If they are reacting to the threat of enemies, then we might find a psalm of lament. If they have been delivered and are looking back on the experience, then we might have a psalm of praise and thanksgiving. Poem’s often function as a snapshot into the response of an individual to the narrative of life lived in a fallen world, in response to our good God. Most poems are not narratival or complete in terms of plot line. But often poems are glimpses into the narratival nature of life’s experience.

What do we have with discourse? Often we have a person addressing others who are facing the realities of life. In the midst of a problem we might find the text offers guidance or encouragement. In the aftermath of a problem we might find gratitude and thanksgiving. Since no individual or church is ever beyond problems in this life, typically we will find the discourse to be engaging the realities of these tensions in some form. Discourse rarely reflects a complete plot (except in review), but it does give a snapshot into an ongoing narrative. Discourse offers a glimpse into the narratival nature of life for a person, nation or church.

We could go through the genres and see the narratival features of prophecy, apocalyptic, wisdom writings, etc. Space does not permit, this post needs a conclusion:

So what? Well, as preachers, this is important to recognize. This means that we can bring some of the skills needed for effective preaching of story over to the other two types of biblical literature. We don’t preach poetry or discourse as pure narrative. But we miss an opportunity if we preach either as if there is nothing narratival about it.

Our listeners are also mid-story in the narrative of life. They also struggle with the incomplete experience of tensions as yet unresolved. Perhaps a narratival engagement with the emotion of poetry, or the wisdom of discourse, might prove invaluable.

Our listeners are living life in narrative. There’s a reason that story engages listeners. Let’s not miss opportunities to engage present story with biblical story, whether that be a full-blown narrative, or the snapshot offered in poetry or discourse.

This is why I consider narrative to be a “super-genre.”

Lessons from Bible Storying

February 23, 2012February 20, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

In Cor Deo we have been enjoying the benefits of an approach to engaging biblical story known as “storying.” Coming from the study of oral cultures and the field of orality, storying is a mine of ministerial potential currently somewhat restricted to missiologists in non-literate cultures.

Forgive my brevity in description, but storying involves bringing a group of people into the experience of a story through the process of telling the story and having them re-tell it so as to enter in to it. In our setting we have found the Cor Deo participants discovering the interpretational value of extended exposure through the re-telling process. We hear it, re-tell it, critique and correct together, then repeat the process.

What does this have to do with preaching? Well, for one thing, it re-affirms the challenge we have when we seek to communicate a story to listeners and we only tell it once. A cursory overview of a story is simply not enough. People may get the bare bones, but storying tells us that a group needs greater exposure to a story before they are engaging it fully. As preachers we may not be able to go through the group interaction of re-telling story, but we must tell story well enough, in sufficient detail, with enough time, so that listeners have a hope of the story forming in their hearts.

But maybe there’s more than a subtle reinforcement of my “please tell the story and tell it well” theme. Perhaps we need to consider how to help listeners inhabit the experience of a specific character? Perhaps one idea might be to re-tell a story within a sermon, inviting listeners to imagine the events from a different perspective. Perhaps there is potential in this idea of re-telling stories within a sermon. Perhaps there is scope for listeners being less passive in the re-telling process, even within a sermon.

You might enjoy chasing the various approaches to storying and orality-based ministries – not only as a prompt to prayer for the pioneer mission fields, not even just as a source of potential ministry ideas for outreach to certain subcultures on the fringe of your church, but also as a potential nuancing of approach and nudging toward creative effectiveness in your own preaching of narratives in the church.

Preaching Story: The Challenge of the Gospels

February 21, 2012February 20, 2012 / Peter Mead / 4 Comments

Are there specific challenges with preaching Gospel narratives? I believe there are, both in terms of the parables, and in terms of the accounts from the life of Christ. Some points to ponder:

1. We are dealing with two “authors” when we preach from the Gospels. We have Jesus telling the story to a specific audience in about AD30. Then we have the inspired account from Luke or Matthew, etc., some decades later, potentially to a very different audience, and most likely in a different language! The focus of the inspired writer is on the authorial intent of Jesus, so rightly we focus there. But we must see that the writers were inspired to weave together these narratives so that in their arrangement there is meaning conveyed. We need to keep both authors in view.

2. Sometimes we are dealing with more than one account of the same parable or life event. If we don’t compare the accounts we may preach our specific text with inaccurate detail. For instance, caught up in the presentation of the feeding of the 5000 we might get carried away with their plight and describe the terrain as arid or dry (and then have some avid listener point out that the grass they sat on was green from Mark’s rendition). This detail in Mark is not incidental. It fits with the emphasis Mark is conveying, but is irrelevant to the other gospel writers. Be sure to check the others for accuracy.

3. The different accounts offer us more than accurate harmonization. Checking two accounts will allow us to be more accurate in our telling of the story. But more than that, careful comparison will enable us to spot the emphasis in our specific text. What did our specific Gospel writer want to convey? The details included and omitted will help us to determine this (as well as context, flow of narratives, etc.)

4. The different accounts may tempt us to preach the harmonization. Generally I don’t think this is a good idea. Our goal is not to make a composite sketch from apparently inadequate eye-witnesses in order to try and come close to the reality of the event itself (I do not believe they were inadequate at all). Our goal is to faithfully preach the inspired text of a specific writer. There is value in harmonizing, but the goal is to preach the text, for that is what is inspired.

Gospel stories, both life events and parables, can offer challenges to the preacher. But they are so wonderful, I hope I don’t even need to encourage you to preach them, and to preach them as well as you can.

Preaching Story: The Challenges of the Old Testament

February 20, 2012February 20, 2012 / Peter Mead / 11 Comments

Are there specific challenges with preaching Old Testament narratives? I think there are a few points worth pondering here:

1. Typically we have less familiarity with the broader flow of the Old Testament and may be tempted to only preach the familiar handful of Noah, Joseph, Joshua, Goliath, Jonah, Daniel narratives. Take a look at some of the lesser known stories. I am willing to guarantee that if you study an obscure story you’ll want to preach it. More than that, if you really wrestle with it in its context, then you’ll probably preach it well!

2. Not only do we have less familiarity with the Old Testament world, but so do our listeners. This means being sure to take some time to orient them to cultural features of the world in which the story is set. For example, we have to help listeners understand what it was like to live in the world of the ancient near east, where the plurality of the gods of the nations made every battle into a playground tiff among the gods (and what it meant therefore to be defeated by a foreign power, and worse, exiled by them).

Typically I think a lot of the challenges here are in respect to two issues:

3. Recognizing the elements of continuity. Even in a radically different world, we can resonate with ancient biblical narratives because human nature doesn’t change, and neither does God’s character. The latter offers another set of issues since many are convinced by the Marcionite confusion that leads to Christians pulling away from the God of the Old Testament. We have to help people see the fullness of who our God is, which isn’t always easy.

4. Recognizing the elements of discontinuity. A lot has changed since back then. For instance, their hoped for deliverer has now been and gone, more than that, he went to the cross, rose again, sent his Spirit, is building his church, etc. So we have to figure out how to preach the text so that we see it in its fullness back then, as well as in its fullness for us today.

Old Testament narratives aren’t always easy, but they are so worth it. Let’s not reduce them to illustrations or children’s talks, but preach them as well as we can!

Top 10 Mistakes Preachers Make Preaching Story – Part 2

February 17, 2012February 17, 2012 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Yesterday I offered five common mistakes made in the preaching of Bible story, let’s finish the list:

6. They come up with a list of “principles.” A story isn’t given in Scripture to make masses of points (some preachers see launch points for pet thoughts throughout a story). To nuance this error further, stories aren’t given in Scripture in order to offer seven principles for a successful business venture, successful pet ownership or successful anything else. This is not some ancient text currently in vogue because of its timeless wisdom for living life. It is a story about people living under the question mark of God’s Word to a fallen world – will they trust Him, or not? Will we?

7. They make it into a human level story – be good, be better, be like. Don’t be blind! The Bible is not just about humanity. There’s a constant theocentric, christotelic, eternal and heavenly dimension. Whether God is overtly stated or not, the Bible story you are reading is written with at least an implicit assumption that these characters are living their lives, making their choices, facing their struggles in the context of response to God. Preach the story theocentrically, not anthropocentrically (i.e. it is God that is the main character, not just a human).

8. They treat it as a context-less moral lesson. Okay, I’m repeating the moral lesson bit to make a point, but actually the error here is to miss the context of the story. Not only does it have a historical context, which the preacher must plumb to make sense of it and preach it well, but it also has a written context. Why did the author choose to put it here in this sequence? It is both historically accurate and artistically presented to convey a theological point. You typically need to observe context to spot this.

9. They don’t apply the main idea of the story. Either they apply every sub-idea along the way, or they don’t apply at all. Stories mark and change lives. Help listeners to see what that might look like as the story preached is translated into their life lived. Never assume people will take general truths and apply them specifically. Never assume that application is automatic. Never believe that positive statements of gratitude from listeners equate to application. Instead, be overt and be specific.

10. They avoid preaching it altogether and stick in discourse sections. This is a mistake. Maybe they think stories are for children, or they think stories aren’t theologically rich enough, or they think that churches only need to be fed the food of epistolary discourse, or they think that they aren’t any good at preaching story, or for whatever reason, they avoid preaching story. This means somewhere between 50-70% of the Bible will remain unpreached in their ministry. I think it was Tozer who said that nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.

There are lots of other things that could probably be listed, some of which are specific to certain sections of narrative. But let me make the unstated assumption stated – stories are good for preaching, good for listeners and good for the church. Go for it, preach stories and preach them well!

Top 10 Mistakes Preachers Make Preaching Story

February 16, 2012February 13, 2012 / Peter Mead / 8 Comments

As we come toward the end of this series of posts on preaching Biblical narratives, let’s have a list post (they’re always popular!) How about the top 10 mistakes preachers make when preaching stories?

1. They don’t tell the story! They refer to it, they draw lessons from it, they theologize all over it, but they omit to actually tell the story. Big oops! The story is not there to be exhibit A in your demonstration of your theological acumen. The story is there to change lives, so tell it!

2. They don’t tell it well. I don’t like adding to the sin lists already in existence, but making God’s Word boring or telling a story poorly must surely qualify as a transgression or iniquity on some level. God has given us everything necessary for a compelling message – tension, characters, movement, progression, illustrative materials, interest, etc. To tell it poorly is to miss an open goal with the ball placed carefully at our feet and thirty minutes to take a shot!

3. They think their thoughts are better than God’s inspired text. I’ve blogged before about the nightmare I suffered when a preacher read the story of Jesus turning water into wine, then said, “you know the story, so I won’t tell it again…” then proceeded to offer us his fanciful imposition of a theological superstructure all over the text. The text is inspired, it is great, God is a great communicator (so please don’t think God is desperate for you to add a good dose of your ideas to His – please preach the Word!)

4. They spiritualise details into new-fangled meanings. Suddenly listeners start thinking to themselves, “I never would have seen that!” or “I never would have made that connection – the donkey represents midweek ministries, brilliant!” Actually, they never would have seen it without you, not because you are God’s gift to the church, but because your fanciful insertion simply isn’t there. Preach the text in such a way as to honour it, not abuse it. And can I be provocative? Sometimes people force Christ into passages in ways that seem to undermine the whole richness of the text in its context – just because it is Christ doesn’t make it right.

5. They don’t let every detail feed into the powerful point of the main idea. Every detail counts, but it counts as part of the writer’s strategy to communicate the main point of the story. A story doesn’t make lots of points, it makes one point. Develop a sensitivity to the role of details in the communication of the single plot point.

Tomorrow I’ll finish the list with another five…

Bible Story: Read or Tell?

February 15, 2012February 13, 2012 / Peter Mead / 5 Comments

Let’s assume that the reading is taken care of, and as I suggested yesterday this might not mean the reading of the text itself. Now, what to do with the telling of the story? Should we just read it, or should we tell it? I say we should tell it, and we should tell it well (and typically in the telling of it we may add detail not included in the text). Typically we will tell it with certain sections, or even the whole text, read along the way. Why tell and not just read?

1. The preacher’s task is to present the text by way of explanation. A big part of the explanation of the story is the effective telling of the story, and the effective telling of the story requires the preacher to describe the action, the scene, the situation in vivid colour so that the image can form in the hearts of the listeners.

2. The preacher’s task includes applying the story with contemporary relevance emphasized. A big part of the application of the story is helping listeners inhabit the tension of the story, identifying with the characters as they wrestle with life in response to the Word of God. A well told story carries a significant proportion of the explanation and the application of the message.

3. The preacher’s task includes not only saying what the text says, but doing what the text does. To put it another way, we need to honour the genre inspired by God’s Spirit. By telling story, we honour story as the genre of God’s own choosing.

4. The Bible text tends to be both lean and distant. It is lean in that every detail counts and every detail carries significance in the telling of the story. It is distant in that the original writers could assume awareness of culture, politics, history, geography, flora/fauna, etc. To simply read the text is, in some cases, to dishonour the inspired story by not allowing it to hit home in the imaginations and hearts of the listeners.

I could probably offer more reasons to tell the story and to tell it well, but I’ve gone long enough for today!

Preaching Story to Children and Adults

February 13, 2012February 13, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

As I was sharing about preaching Bible stories recently a friend jumped in and exclaimed their encouragement. “What you are describing as an approach to preaching to adults is what we do in the school ministry with the children!” What I had suggested was a basic outline from which to build. Here’s the outline:

Tell the Story
Make the Main Idea Clear
Apply the Main Idea

In a bit more detail, here’s my suggested “default” starter outline:

Introduction – whatever is needed to make people want to listen to you and to the passage and message.

Tell the story – tell the story so people can imagine it happening. Tell it accurately, tell it engagingly, tell it with energy.
Main Idea – make it clear what we are supposed to learn from this story. What is the main point the author is trying to communicate?
Application – take some time to describe the difference this idea could make, should make, to our lives. Be specific.

Conclusion – review the main point, encourage application, stop.

So here’s a question from Philip on this site the other day: What differences should their be when preaching narrative passages to an audience of children as opposed to an audience of adults? Will the differences be in the manner the story is told or taught? Or only in the truths the story teaches?

Difference in Manner? I would say not especially. While we might feel the need to be more exaggerated and “hyped” to keep the attention of children, I suspect they can be gripped by a well told story minus excessive clowning from us. On the other hand, perhaps we need to utilize more energy and motion in our story telling to adults!?

Difference in Truth? I would say not especially. We might state the truth more simply to children, but a story has one main idea. That is the main idea whoever the audience. A story isn’t theologically loaded for adults, but a simple moral instruction for children. What changes is how we present and apply that specific truth.

Difference in Application? Yes, this would be different. We don’t need to help children imagine trusting God’s goodness in the face of employment challenges. But the same truth is needed in their school and home experiences.

Difference in Awareness? Yes, this is the main thing that comes to my mind. Children don’t have the same historical and geographical/spatial awareness that adults tend to have. We need to beware of assuming too much knowledge with adults too (in an increasingly biblically illiterate society), but I think details in a text that may be fascinating to adults can be confusing to children.

Same passage, same truth, but differing levels of detail, and differing specifics of application.

What do you think?

Saturday Short Thought: Fresh Over Abundance from a Can

February 4, 2012February 4, 2012 / Peter Mead / 3 Comments

This week the blog has been pondering issues of recycling sermonic materials and also recycling other peoples’ materials. Meanwhile we’ve welcomed a healthy baby daughter into our home and we are both thankful to our gracious Lord and very tired! So just a short thought to finish off the week.

I understand the challenge faced by many preachers with other work commitments and family priorities. I understand the feeling that some express, namely, that without borrowing the outlines and sermons of other preachers from the internet, they would never be able to preach a sermon on a Sunday.

Just as we close the week out, I’d like to offer an encouragement. Even if you are limited for time and feel unable to do the work of fully developing a sermon for your listeners, consider not taking the short-cut of outline borrowing or sermon lifting. Even if you are only able to develop what feels like an inadequate sermon for Sunday, try it anyway (how about next week?)

I suspect your listeners would prefer to feed on the real food of your Bible study in preparation than the canned contents of some internet repository. Your intro may be weak, your conclusion may be unsophisticated, your illustrations may be lacking, your outline may be undeveloped and your main idea might be just plain, well, plain.

But if your heart has engaged with God’s in prayer for theirs, and you have spent time with the Lord pondering how to present this text with relevance emphasised, then your listeners will be better fed than if you offer a sophisticated super-sermon that is not your own.

When we have guests, it is always hard to serve less than an adundant feast. But the truth is, visitors would rather have home cooked food than an abundant but canned meal.

You will also find that with regular practice, the process becomes more manageable, even on a very limited time budget. Let’s go for fresh over canned, for the sake of souls: both ours and our listeners’.