Is a Theme Sentence a Main Idea?

May 27, 2011May 10, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

It all depends what you mean. Some people use the notion of a theme sentence to refer to exactly the same thing as the main idea or big idea of the passage or message (the exegetical idea or homiletical idea in Robinson terms). Others mean something entirely less specific.

The main idea, or big idea, or theme and thrust, or proposition, or whatever you want to call it, should express both what the passage is about (the subject of the passage), and what it says about that (the complement of the passage).

When we have only the theme without the thrust, that is, the subject without completing it, then we may have a theme sentence of sorts, but really it is something significantly diminished. The theme without specificity is perhaps a title (though probably a weak one), but it is not the succinct, pregnant, clear, focused distillation of the details in the passage that is a main idea sentence.

If you have a theme sentence that is a couple of words long, and may not even be a sentence (i.e.a title lacking a verb or completion), then you do not have a sermon ready to expand into the time available. You have a title. You have a start. But to have the single sentence summary of the whole passage that is worth it’s weight in gold, be sure to complete the sentence, complete the thought. You’re preaching about God’s love? Great. What is the passage saying specifically about that?

Eight Ways To Dissipate the Impact of Your Message

May 10, 2011May 4, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

The preaching of a Bible text should make an impact, its point should hit home. Yet as preachers there are times when we inadvertently dissipate the impact as we preach. Here are eight ways we sometimes provoke a dissipation situation:

1. By unnecessary multiple cross-references

There may be a need for taking listeners to other Bible passages, but often there is not. If it isn’t really helpful, then piling on references and quotes will only dissipate the impact of this particular text. Don’t steal time from this passage for only a passing reference to something else.

2. By only slightly connected examples

It is tempting to use related examples that may not be specifically related to what the passage is saying. So if the passage is speaking of gratitude toward God for salvation, this may or may not be an ideal moment to tell the “thank you” story you have from your encounter with the child next door, or whatever. Sometimes we see a term and jump to an example that is not really relevant to the specific nature of this text.

3. By unnecessary illustrations

It is tempting to think that we have to add interest to the Bible. Wrong motivation. The Bible is interesting and relevant, our task is to help people see how that is true. If an illustration of some kind will be helpful for explaining, or proving, or applying the passage, then use it. But piling on illustrations is not helpful as it can significantly dissipate the impact of the text itself.

4. By overpowering illustrations

Sometimes a story or image is simply overwhelming. It is powerful, it is effective, it is memorable, but perhaps it is better left out. Is your goal really to have people go away remembering the moving story of the little orphan boy and the sporting achievement, or the message of the passage? If it is too much, leave it out.

We’ll finish the list tomorrow, but please add any that come to mind…

Control Checkpoints

May 5, 2011May 3, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

During the sermon preparation process there are several control checkpoints. These are points at which we get to check the text yet again and make sure our grasp of the text is accurate. Here are some of them:

1. Writing the summaries of the sections within the passage.

When you force yourself to distill the details in a section of the text into a single complete sentence, it forces you to check that your summary is actually reflecting the details in the text.

2. Distilling all the study into a summary of the whole passage.

When you force yourself to distill the details of the whole text into a single complete sentence, it forces you to check that your summary is reflecting the important content discovered in the outlining of the passage structure. Are the key details showing in your summary? (Your statement of the passage idea)

3. Checking the commentaries

Once you have thoroughly studied the passage for yourself, it is good to check with a learned conversation partner or two. If I’m preaching Romans I’d like to interact with Doug Moo, Tom Schreiner, brother Cranfield. If I’m studying Hebrews I’d like to interact with George Guthrie, Paul Ellingworth, Craig Koester, etc. That’s why commentaries exist.

4. Testing the sermon idea

When I start planning the message and shape the main idea of the text into the main idea of the message, then I need to test that I’ve built the bridge effectively. Part of that includes a look back toward the text to see if the message idea still reflects the uniqueness of the text. I sometimes talk about the Bible Expert test. That is, if I phoned someone who really knew their Bible, and quoted my message idea, would they be able to identify the passage based on my message idea? If not, maybe my message idea has grown too generic and lost the specificity needed to really preach this passage.

5. Listening to the message pre-preached

Sometimes it is not until you stand and preach through the message that you hear with your own ears that it actually doesn’t convey the meaning of the text effectively. That is why it is better to preach it through ahead of preaching it publically (better to discover a weakness before Sunday morning).

Preacher’s Log – 2

May 4, 2011May 1, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Following on from yesterday’s post . . . Sunday is getting ever nearer!

Tuesday to Thursday before – I am busy all day each day with Cor Deo training, so don’t have time for sermon preparation, but am chewing over the passages and their implications during spare moments, praying for Sunday’s messages to go well. I’m also pondering again the people to whom I’ll be preaching these passages, wanting God’s best for this church.

Friday before – Key preparation day. I work on outline of the text, main idea of the text, and prepare to form the main idea and outline/strategy of the sermons. I check a couple of commentaries. Actually, three. I check RT France’s NIGTC commentary, particularly to interact with some key sections of Greek exegesis (I simply haven’t had time to work through the whole section of Mark in Greek, but I do check a few key verses and decide whether I want to change anything based on his input). I check Rikki Watts’ focused presentation of Mark’s reliance on Isaiah’s “new exodus” motif (this was massively helpful in some sections of Mark, less so in others). I check Donald English’s very accessible BST (very good on seeing the big questions of Mark and the larger flow of the text).

Prayerfully thinking about the people to whom I am preaching on Sunday, I think through my strategy (outline) and message idea for Sunday’s messages. I would have liked to get to the details of how I will explain, any illustrative/applicational elements, but have run out of time.

Saturday morning – I have an hour and so can try to catch up a bit and think through the details of the messages. Actually, Sunday morning’s message comes first and so gets the attention.

Saturday evening – I don’t have time during the day (family are important ministry too), but in the evening I take some time and preach through Sunday morning’s message. Couple of things need to change, so I make a couple of notes, then head to bed (better to have slept than to have worked through the night striving for a better message!)

Sunday morning early – I pray and preach through the morning message. It is very hard to think about the evening message with the morning one looming.

Sunday afternoon – I take a couple of hours to look at my notes for the evening message on Mark 10, and then preach it through. Couple of tweaks, but time runs out.

Message is preached.

Monday after the message – I listen through both messages as I prepare the files to put them online. This is a chance to evaluate and also to be thankful to God for His help. I think back on the feedback received and process that before the Lord in prayer.

I was very happy with the Mark 10 message. Wasn’t perfect, they never are, but I am thankful for how that went.

Not Too Good, Just Good Enough

March 23, 2011March 23, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Here’s a quote from David Gordon’s chapter on the state of preaching in Why Johnny Can’t Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers. I reviewed the book on Monday and recommend it as a quick but insightful read. Anyway, here’s the quote:

[People distort my concern with] “Ah, David, you’re right; ours is not a day of great preaching.” This is not my concern. . . . I don’t care about its presence or absence one whit. What I care about is the average Christian family in the average pew in the average church on the average Sunday. And the problem there is not that we don’t have “great” preachers; in many circumstances we don’t even have mediocre preachers. If Jesus tests Peter’s profession of love by the ministerial act of feeding his sheep, our sheep do not need gourmet meals. But they do need good, solid nourishment, and they are not ordinarily getting it. (pp14-15)

I agree. Now let me put this positively. I tend to teach people, particularly in respect to the main idea of their sermons, that the goal isn’t stunning or great. The goal is just good, faithful and clear. We read super-ideas in some preaching books. These stunning, out of the park, hit it for six, idea-of-the-year, super-main-ideas tend to be the very best the author has ever preached. We can’t live up to some of these pithy, witty, clever, assonated, succinct and memorable main ideas. We may never achieve a single one good enough to be published. But the thing is this – if we will just preach consistently biblical, faithful, plain, clear, just decent main ideas that are derived carefully from the text and targeted prayerfully toward the hearts of the people . . . just a steady diet of good main ideas will transform our churches.

Get the Idea? – Part 1

December 28, 2010December 30, 2010 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Over the past few years I’ve come across quite a number of people who talk about preaching and recommend Haddon Robinson’s book, but don’t really understand Robinson’s teaching on the subject. It seems that some people are impressed with aspects of the book, Biblical Preaching, but don’t really grasp some of the core teaching of it. In particular, the nature and power of the Big Idea in preaching. Today I’d like to focus on communication, but will continue the series tomorrow in respect to biblical studies, then finish with a focus on the Spirit of God. Do we really get the Big Idea?

Continue reading →

A Point on Points

December 27, 2010December 25, 2010 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

As you outline your message you will probably have some points. My suggestion is to write full sentences that are applicationally/relevantly focused on the listeners (rather than historical/biblical summary statements).

But, you may say, I like to preach the point inductively and arrive at the application toward the end of the point. Of course, that is the normal approach. My suggestion should not therefore be dismissed. Why?

1. Because a brief taste of relevance early in the point will increase the listener’s motivation to listen. You can quickly go back to the text and develop things from there, ending up with a more focused applicational element. Just like in a message, though, if your point starts historical and takes a while to feel relevant, listeners may not be with you once you get there.

2. Because what you write as your point in your outline does not have to be stated at that point in the message. It is a common fallacy that a sermon has to follow its outline so that every line is said in order. The “point” can be the target toward which that section of the message progresses. The advantage of this approach is that you preach with a purpose, rather than starting with a historical summary statement and then expanding that, eventually moving on to the next point after a token attempt at applying the text (sometimes not fully thought through). In a sense, then, your outline point is your fully thought through main idea of that section of the text. Whether you state that at the outset, or later on, is up to you (perhaps you can choose a marker in your notes to indicate that this shouldn’t be stated up-front).

3. Because the commentary-like summary statement is lacking on several fronts. As I already stated, it leaves you open to fading away before you arrive at the point of connection between the world of the Bible and the world of your listeners (you may not effectively build the bridge). Furthermore, a commentary-like summary, or a pithy alliterated heading, is not typically a complete thought. Better to plan a full sentence since thought is transferred by the speaking of ideas, requiring full sentences. To preach with sub-headings sounds like a read outline and requires the listener to fill in the rest of the thought. Generally it is not wise to trust the listener to fill in much of anything in a message (not because of their lack of ability, but because you may not have fully gripped their focus so that they desperately want to do part of your job for you!)

Full sentence, relevant points will make your outlines stronger. They may not make the best 200 word Christian newspaper outlines, but remember, your goal is to preach a sermon. Let your editor turn it into written language before you go to print, don’t make your listeners translate in order to understand!

Preach More Than Truth

November 24, 2010November 22, 2010 / Peter Mead / 8 Comments

That’s a provocative title. Ok, how about a provocative opening volley?

Preaching true truth using a Bible passage is better than preaching error and heresy, but not necessarily much better.

Right, now to dig myself out of the hole . . . what do I mean? Well, it is common to hear preachers take a Bible text and preach a message that is truth. Real truth. True truth. Bible truth. All off the back of the text they read. But the truth preached is not the truth specifically communicated by the passage. This is better than error and heresy . . .

Truth is better than error. Obviously it is better to preach the truth. People need to hear the truth. People need to face the truth. Error and heresy confuse people and mislead people and have eternal consequences. Give me truth over heresy any day.

But it is not enough to preach truth using a passage from the Scriptures . . .

Any truth preached from a Bible passage is not good enough. The real goal in preaching a passage is to preach the truth of that passage. To simply jump off the passage to preach a generic biblical truth can be genuinely harmful, not to mention wasteful.

Why is it wasteful? Because this particular passage is saying a specific something. It is not saying anything. It is not saying everything. It is saying something. If you don’t preach that specific something, then the opportunity is gone and the passage probably won’t be preached again for several years (to these people). While there are consistent themes and big big ideas in the canon, each passage is unique in terms of its specific main idea. Why waste the opportunity to let that passage hit home? (How many “whole counsel” preachers are actually mostly preaching only a single message from a whole host of source texts? This leads to the other matter…)

Why is it harmful? Really, what harm can be done if the truth is preached, if the gospel is presented, if people are brought face to face with the demands of the gospel on their lives? Perhaps none. But what if the listeners look down at their Bible and see what is actually there? One of two things could happen, and both are harmful:

1. They might think that it is normal to read any passage and squish it into a simple presentation of the gospel (or whatever true truth is consistently preached). They will learn to not treat the Scriptures as having anything specific to say.

2. They might recognise that the message preached does not have the authority of the text it is claimed to be based on. The discerning listener may end up rejecting true truth because the preacher acted as if that message actually came from that text.

Whether they learn to misread the Bible, or they distrust the message, harm is done by preaching true truth that is not the truth presented in a passage.

Hope You Don’t Mind a Re-Heat

September 17, 2010September 20, 2010 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Sometimes we’ll have a meal that consists of leftovers reheated. Sometimes this tastes better than the first time it was served. Anyway, I was looking back at some of the earliest posts on this site and decided to re-heat one that I’ve often thought back on, or even referred to: The Preacher’s Cutting Room

Watching a movie on VHS was simple. Watch it, rewind it, return it. Now we use DVDs – watch it, then watch as many hours of extra bonus material as you can tolerate! You can enjoy “The Making of . . .” and “Meet the cast . . .” and “Humorous gaffes.” Then there is also “Deleted scenes.”

A scene might take days to film, more days to edit, cost thousands of dollars, and then be mercilessly cut from the final edition of the film. One such scene was in the movie Gladiator. As Maximus waited under the Coliseum, he looked out through a barred window to see Christians praying as the lions approached. A powerful scene, very moving. It was cut.

The director’s commentary on the scene explained the situation. It did not help the progress of the plot. It was potentially overwhelming, too weighty.

After many hours of preparing a sermon, get out the scissors. It isn’t easy, but there may be an element of explanation, an illustration, or a story that does not help the message, or may overwhelm it. If it would not be missed, or if its absence would not result in reduced understanding of the message . . . cut it. Perhaps when your sermon is on a DVD you can make it available, but for now we are still preaching in VHS.

I suppose I could try to bring the imagery up-to-date with some reference to Blu-Ray preaching (sharper and clearer?) or 3-D preaching (content doesn’t matter as long as there’s some special effects 🙂 Actually preachers do fall into the latter, don’t we? Remember the early days of overhead projectors with acetates, or of powerpoint? Suddenly the technology was exciting and some settled for sermons that simply used it for the sake of it. Over time, hopefully, preachers learn that tools are servants, but the message still has to be genuinely focused, contentful, well-honed. I suspect preaching with twitter feedback, and other such contemporary ideas, may become part of preaching in some circles, but will be completely ignored in others. Either way, the preacher will always have a cutting room.

Any time we study God’s Word and prayerfully consider preaching it to others, we will probably end up blessed with more content than is really needed for that specific message from that passage to those people on that occasion. Don’t dismiss the cuttings, some may be very useful, perhaps reheated in another message, but don’t overpack the sermon either . . . let it be as focused as it should be.

Idea to Idea, or Outline to Outline?

September 14, 2010September 20, 2010 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Some preaching methodologies suggest that the main idea is what crosses from textual study to sermon preparation. Others suggest that the outline of the text crosses over to form the outline of the sermon. Which is right?

Both, but with qualifications.

The idea is in charge of the message, the outline is not. Remember that the main idea of the passage was what the author was seeking to communicate to the recipients, and he chose to do so making choices about genre, structure, details, etc. Everything after the idea is a matter of authorial strategy. As we prepare to preach, our goal is to firstly grasp the main idea of the text, process that idea so that it takes into account the needs and situation of the listeners, and then consider how to form a sermon that will effectively deliver that main idea.

The outline of the text is not boss, but it does matter. In my approach, I teach a narrowing focus in the textual study that culminates in the defining of the main idea of the passage. That idea is then influenced (in certain respects) by an overt awareness of the listeners which determines the purpose of the message, and then the message idea is then in charge of the subsequent decisions relating to strategy (including the message structure, the illustrative details, intro, conclusion, etc.)

Having said all that, when it comes to the structure or outline of the message, where do I begin? With a contemporised outline derived from the passage. In effect the work done on the idea is also done on the outline. So why don’t I overtly state that in the 8-stage process?

The outline of the passage is a starting place, but it does not always have to be obeyed. My default approach is to follow the strategy the author used by following the order and structure of the passage in my message outline. However, I don’t feel restricted by this approach. Sometimes the contemporary listeners are in a different place to the original recipients. Sometimes they need differing strategies to drive the main idea home. Perhaps extra info is needed, or a different starting place, or perhaps a different ordering of the content of the passage.

The passage outline is the place to start when it comes to the message outline, but it is not a requirement. (However, I do feel constrained by the main idea of the text as I work at the level of main idea – hence my approach that emphasises the progress from passage idea to message idea).