Hearing the Text

November 4, 2011October 31, 2011 / Peter Mead / 4 Comments

This post is not about amplification, nor about the place and role of the Bible reading. Both issues would be worth considering, but not today. I’m talking about the message itself. It is troubling when you hear a sermon and can’t quite seem to hear the text coming through.

This is where the big idea approach to preaching is so on target. If the big idea of the text is the control mechanism during message formation, then the text should be coming through. Sadly though, too many preach generic messages that essentially disconnect from the text itself.

I suppose preaching is essentially very easy for some folks. A thirty-five minute message is really only a couple of minutes of “worked material” that builds tenuous links between the text and the message. Once the text is tied in somehow, the standard message content can flow freely without hindrance. Easy.

Some people do this by leaving the text behind. It is read, a couple of comments are made, and then the message moves on from the text into generic sermon zone.

Others do this by pulling from the text the three things they want to find there. Perhaps something pointing to human sin, and something to do with God, and maybe something along the lines of consequences, or perhaps a vague segue to Calvary, or whatever. Thus the narrative is plundered for intro links to the message the preacher intended to preach.

Let me encourage you to make the preaching text more than an introduction for the message, or an introduction for the points. Allow the text to be master over the sermon.

Seek to preach so that God’s Word is communicated and God’s voice is heard. Seek to preach so that listeners can clearly hear the text and its influence on the entire message. Seek to genuinely preach the Word.

How Long, O Preacher?

November 3, 2011October 31, 2011 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I’ve written before about sermon length debates, and may do so again. But this post is not about sermon length. It is about the ticking clock. From the moment the sermon begins, how long until . . .

Tick. . .

1. Relevance – That is, until the listeners get the sense that this message is relevant to them. Don’t leave application until a little section at the end, that is way too long. Show them from the very beginning that this preacher, this message, this text, is relevant to them.

2. Grace – That is, until the listeners are clear that Christianity is not about our performance and diligent dutiful behaviour. Don’t preach behavior and conformity and religiosity and law for most of the message and then throw in a bit of grace at the end. It is easy to do a law before grace approach that doesn’t just short-change grace, it positively rips it off. Undermine the religious misunderstanding, don’t reinforce it. Too many are still convinced the Bible is all about the rules we need to strive to obey, but are sadly unaware of the radical grace that stirs inside-out life change.

3. Delight – That is, until the listeners get a sense from your demeanour or expression that knowing Christ is a good thing. It is easy, in the seriousness of the preaching event, to fail to show the joy of the Lord. The pulpit is not the place for crass humour or inappropriate levity, but if we don’t have reason to be joyful, then nobody does!

4. Smile – That is, make sure number 3 shows in more than your words. Just saying you are joyful doesn’t convince anyone if there is no other hint of it!

5. Shuffling – Ok, changing category slightly, but how long until your listeners are shuffling, coughing, looking around, fidgeting, etc.? If this happens during your message, presume the problem is your preaching, not their level of maturity and spirituality. In fact, this may occur sooner that you’d like, because 1, 2, 3 and 4 have not come as soon as they should have.

This is a random list, but I’m sure other things could be added where the clock is really ticking!

The Memorable Outline Myth – Part 2

October 29, 2011October 29, 2011 / Peter Mead / 9 Comments

So yesterday I did the unthinkable. I pulled the pin from a grenade in the sacred space where the notion of a memorable outline is revered as the chief end of preaching. I suggested that people might not be best helped by a set of textual labels that typically lack applicational relevance. I even suggested that people might not review what we have made so memorable!

As I wrote yesterday, if the text yields a clear and applicational sequence of thoughts, by all means preach that. But I fear that in many cases a pre-commitment to paralleled alliterated points may undermine the following aspects of preaching:

1. Is the text being presented authentically? If you are dissecting and squeezing the text into an outline form, you may well be doing it an injustice. Very few texts are actually written as equal paralleled thoughts. Don’t give people a clever outline at the expense of really opening up the inspired text.

2. Is the listener motivated to return to this text, and the rest of the Bible? If they feel incapable of “finding the three points” in a passage, they are less likely to be opening their Bibles (which is what they really need on Thursday, not just a vague memory of three uninspired descriptive labels from Sunday).

3. Is energy poured into future recall being lost from present impact? Would it be better to have them feel the full force of the text’s impact at the point of preaching, and then be motivated to read more later in the day and the next day, rather than striving to cram in uninspired labels as a memory aid to help them remember a message that may have been only somewhat impactful on Sunday?

4. Is the main idea being undermined by a commitment to a longer list of lower value statements? If you put your energy into one carefully crafted applicational representation of the main idea of the text, that single sentence summary would be more memorable and reach further and make more of a difference than a set of well-stated points that reflect smaller segments within the text. Let the whole strike home to the heart in a single thought.

5. Is the projection of the outline teaching listeners bad listening habits? That is, are we communicating to them that the point of preaching is primarily education, that the goal of listening is recall and that the measure of spirituality is the taking of notes? It’s weird, but when my wife opens her heart to me and speaks, I don’t reach for a pad and a pencil, I open my heart and I listen.

The Memorable Outline Myth

October 28, 2011October 28, 2011 / Peter Mead / 5 Comments

I think this post will tread on some toes. I do it in love.

I think there is a myth among preachers and among listeners, a myth that may be distracting energy from and dissipating the potential impact of the preaching event. It is the myth of the importance of conveying a memorable outline. It goes something like this:

Everybody knows that good preaching will offer a memorable outline of the points of the message, a set of “hooks to hang your thoughts on,” as it were. With this memorability, listeners will be able to go away and recall the message later in the week, thereby being changed by an encounter with God’s Word throughout the week. In fact, this is so important, why not project the outline on the screen – it seems silly not to.

A couple of quick challenges, then I’ll suggest what may be lost in this pursuit of memorability.

A. How often do those who actually write down the outline go on to review and benefit from it, let alone those who walk out of church with just their memories to rely on?

B. How often do preachers actually make their points applicational so that remembering the outline will be life changing, rather than offering labels or titles for content that functions essentially as a set of poor commentary headings?

Now I know that this post is throwing a couple of grenades into a pretty sacred space for many preachers. Let me offer a token caveat – if a text yields a clear, memorable and applicational sequence of points, praise the Lord and preach it!

I do believe every sermon should have an outline. I am not promoting confused preaching. But I think the outline is really the servant of the preacher. The outline is for my sake, not theirs. There are other things that are much more important for them to feel the impact of and walk away with.

Next time I will finish the post by suggesting various aspects of preaching that may be being undermined by this memorable outline myth. And I won’t wait until Monday, I’ll post it tomorrow.

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 . . .

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.

Moving Toward Noteless

August 17, 2011August 17, 2011 / Peter Mead / 14 Comments

Dean asked in a comment about moving from manuscript to notes or even no notes. How is it possible to make that move? A few thoughts:

1. Manuscripting is a great approach to sermon preparation that I affirm. The issue is not writing a manuscript, but relying on it or reading it in the pulpit. Work put in on wording and phrasing in preparation will yield fruit in preaching, so it is worth continuing to manuscript in my opinion.

2. Moving to notes means formulating a distillation on paper. That is, putting in something similar to headings and sub-headings in your manuscript, then removing the text to leave these “headings” and highlights of content. I don’t like to use the term headings because actually a sermon outline is not built with headings, it is made up of ideas. The problem with headings is that they tend to be incomplete sentences, and therefore, incomplete thoughts. If we take the heading approach we will be tempted into clever little pithy alliterations and summary headings that actually don’t reflect the content of the message. Much better to summarize the movement of the message and preach with those “ideas” rather than alliterated bullet points. (That is not to say that you might not be able to use trigger terms to jog your memory of the ideas that constitute the points or movements of the message, but these are triggers for you, not your listeners.)

3. Moving to no notes means a bit more of a step. With notes you can still have a complex message that bounces around the canon like a hard rubber ball in concrete box. When you go no notes you need to simplify the message and tie it in more closely to the text you are preaching. Effectively the text becomes your notes, so you look at the text and see the shape of thought that provides the skeleton for the message. No notes preaching doesn’t require superior memory skills, it requires only greater familiarization with the text and a more accessible / clear / logical / simple message. If a message is so complex that you need notes to help you navigate it, then what hope do your listeners have? You’ve spent hours in it, they only get one shot!

4. Moving to notes or no notes requires practice. I don’t mean just trying and failing in the pulpit (in reality you won’t “fail” as easily as you expect). What I mean is running through the message without the manuscript. Prayerfully practicing before you preach is not at all unspiritual. I would encourage preachers to preach . . . often a message makes sense on paper, but simply won’t flow from your mouth. Better to find that out before you preach it on Sunday! Remember, the goal of sermon preparation is an oral communication event, not a polished manuscript for publication.

Not a Fig

August 16, 2011August 10, 2011 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Oliver Wendell Holmes is credited with this great quote – “I wouldn’t give a fig for simplicity this side of complexity, but I’d give my right arm for simplicity on the other side of complexity.”

Preacher, where do your sermons sit?

Cheaper than a fig – This is preaching that is simple because it is shallow. The preacher hasn’t wrestled with the text, hasn’t entered into the complexity of the passage, it’s theology, the interface between ancient text and contemporary listener, etc. The preacher is just demonstrating shallow incompetence. Technical commentaries have been ignored. The text has received only scant attention. The sermon is simple because it is simplistic. It doesn’t engage listeners. It doesn’t shed light. It doesn’t stir hearts. It has the nutritional value of a burger bun.

Complexity – This is preaching that has gone beyond the fig stage. The preacher has started to wrestle with the text. The preacher may have engaged in dialogue with some technical commentaries. The preacher has mapped out some or all of the complexities of the theology and its interface with contemporary life. It may be complex because the preacher hasn’t cut out unnecessary detail. Or it may be complex because the preacher hasn’t really got to grips with the details. Or it may be complex because the preacher is trying to impress. Whatever the cause, it is complex. Hard to listen to. The listener has to really work to benefit. Much nutrition, but as hard to digest as day-old steak.

Costly as a right arm – This is the goal. The preacher has gone beyond the shallow into the depths. The preacher has studied, and wrestled, and prayed, and thought themselves through to a place of clarity. This isn’t simplistic, this is profound, yet accessible, relevant, clear, engaging. They often say that the very best sportsmen and women make hitting the ball, shooting for goal, playing the game look so easy. It isn’t because they are just natural at it. It is because they have endured the work necessary to get to the other side of complexity. That’s why we pay so much to watch them. Too many preachers are worth less than a fig because they are simplistic, or so complex that the gold seems hard to mine. If only more preachers were right arm types – having thought themselves through to a level of clarity that is blessing to all who hear.

Momentum Matters

May 31, 2011May 21, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

When you are preaching, your listeners will subconsciously be looking for unity (a single focus to your preaching), and order (a clarity of structured presentation), and progress (a sense that you are moving forward and getting closer to the end). It is this progress that can be easily lost causing the message to feel like it gets stuck in the mud.

What causes momentum to be lost? Could be one of several things:

Is momentum about content of the message? Yes it can be. Is one part of the message too dense or extended in terms of explanation? Is there too much repetition that might give the sense of you losing your way or going round in circles? Content issues can cause a loss of momentum.

Is momentum about structure of the message? Yes it can be. If you haven’t previewed the structure, or don’t give effective and deliberate transitions, then it can all meld into one and feel dense or still instead of progressing. If you structure your message so that you keep jumping around the text, listeners can lose the sense of progress that comes from a sequential following of the passage (it can be appropriate to do this approach in a text, but make structure and transitions extra clear).

Is momentum about delivery of the message? Yes it can be. If you lose energy, or become monotonous in voice or visual presentation, then momentum can seap away. If you lose your initial enthusiasm (or if your enthusiasm is at a constant high pitch without releasing that tension), then momentum can be lost.

Momentum can be hard to get hold of, but for preaching to engage listeners, we have to consider not only unity and order, but also progress. Don’t take this the wrong way, but they like to know you’re getting closer to being done!