Stage 7 – Message Outline

On This You Cannot Work Too Hard

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Pastoral ministry and family life rarely yield the full quota of hours we would like to perfectly prepare each sermon.  However, there are some elements of a sermon that don’t do well with a short-cut approach.  Time spent on this aspect of the sermon is always time well spent.

Clarity.  It doesn’t come by accident.  The only thing that is clear when you don’t spend time on clarity is that you didn’t spend time on clarity.  It takes work to think yourself clear and then more work to preach in a clear manner. 

However, it is tempting to bypass this aspect of sermon preparation.  This is because everything seems so clear to you, the preacher.  You have spent hours in the text (hopefully).  You have wrestled with understanding the passage and then forming a sermon.  Yet for the clarity to come through, you have to pay close attention to matters of clarity.

I have been both a student and a teacher in preaching classes.  The students know that they need to communicate a clear big idea.  They know that the class will be asked for the big idea once their sermon is over.  Consequently the smart students “work the system” by stating and reiterating their big idea seemingly to an extreme level.  Then when the prof asks the class what the big idea was, there is usually a pause, followed by three or four different ideas.  The preacher sits there with a puzzled look.  “I thought I was being clear!”  If prepped students looking for the idea can’t spot it, what about a congregation who may not even know what a big idea is?  They’ll come up with something, but if you are not clear, then it will not be what you intended.

So before you preach your next sermon, do a review for clarity.  Is the big idea clear?  Does the sermon flow in a clear manner?  Are the transitions clear?  Are you using vocabulary people will understand?  Be clear, be clear, be clear.  If you’re not clear, then what are you achieving?

Hearing Is Not Like Reading

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

The difference between writing for the eye and writing for the ear is often overlooked by preachers.  We tend to be book people – we may have studied formally for more years than many others, then our work requires us to keep on reading diligently.  Perhaps we even write books and articles for others to read.  All this means we too easily write for the eye by default, even when we write our sermons.  But our sermons are not for the eye.  They are designed to be heard.  People can’t go back and re-read what we just said, nor pause for thought when a particular sentence strikes a chord.  Consequently, we need to be careful to prepare sermons that work for the ear.  Various techniques will help our listeners.  Here’s an important one:

Restatement – It is not repetition (saying the same thing again, like a parrot), it is restatement (immediately saying the same thing with different words).  Repetition can sound like you think the people listening are stupid (although sometimes it is appropriate to simply repeat what you just said).  Restatement gives the listener time to take in what you are saying.  It’s useful to use with the big idea, with references to the structure of the message, with major points, etc.  When people are reading a book, they can go back and look at an important sentence to make sure they understood it.  When they are listening they can’t go back, so you need to do this for them through restatement.  Practice saying something and then saying it again in other words.  Train yourself to state your point, but then to restate it in different terms.   

What About Topical Preaching?

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

When I’ve taught preaching either in a course or a seminar, I’ve regularly encountered a certain question. “Why do you focus on preaching a single passage so much and not give instruction on preaching topically?”  My response is hopefully balanced but instructive to those that ask.  

There is a place for topical preaching, but not a steady diet of it.  Sometimes a situation calls for a biblical message that encompasses several passages.  But God gave us a collection of books, rather than topical studies, so we do well to usually feed on the Bible book-by-book.  I remember at seminary that the president was working his way through Luke in the family chapel each Thursday morning.  Then there was a mini-crisis on campus caused by some confusion regarding aspects of spiritual warfare.  So for two Thursdays he addressed the issues in a biblical and clear manner using expository-topical messages.  Then he returned to Luke for the rest of the semester.

Topical preaching is much more work.  For many preachers a topical sermon is a short-cut.  Instead of working in a specific text, they are free to speak on what they want using the verses they know to support their thought.  This may be topical preaching, but it is not expository-topical preaching.  Let’s say a message has three points, each with its own text.  To truly preach that message the preacher has to do all the exegetical and homiletical work in each text, while constantly re-evaluating to make sure the overall message idea is fair to the texts.  In simple terms, three passages mean three sets of study.  To preach this way well is much more work.

Since it is harder, I don’t teach it on an introductory course.  If I were to teach a series of three or four homiletics courses, with each a pre-requisite for the next, then topical preaching would be taught in the third or fourth course.  Hence in a first preaching course I would rather have people understand the basics and do them well.  It’s better to learn to ride a bike first, before introducing complicated ramp stunts.

Where to Place “The Reading” – Part 2

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

In part 1 we considered the importance of establishing and underlining the biblical authority of a message.  We underlined the importance of a commitment to expository preaching and the need to reinforce that commitment through attitude and action throughout a sermon.  Now some thoughts on reconsidering the traditional placement of the reading before or at the start of the message:

In some sermons the reading “up front” would be ideal.  If you think through the options and conclude that this would be best for audience, for sermon flow, etc., then do not become a rebel against tradition for the sake of rebellion. Reading first is a good option with much in its favor.

If the tension of the sermon is tied to the unfolding of the text, then perhaps reading the passage as you proceed would be better.  It may be helpful for the sake of clarity if the text is read in its entirety first.  However, this does run the risk of dissipating any tension in the sermon.  A sermon without any inbuilt tension can be as dull as a predictable joke (although with more value).  If the text is a narrative, then it is probably better not to read the resolution of the inbuilt tension before telling the story.  If the sermon contains an element of intrigue, then it also may be wise to split the reading throughout the sermon.  If reading the text and then stating the big idea (or even just the “subject” half of the big idea) leaves listeners feeling as if they could leave at that point because they know what is coming, then perhaps the reading should not have been completed at that moment in the sermon.

If tradition requires or expects an earlier reading, perhaps offer a helpful alternative.  If the text for the message would be best, then by all means have it read earlier.  However, if tension would be lost, select an alternative.  (Be careful also not to let worship leaders steal the tension of a sermon by their pre-message comments!)  For example, many New Testament texts rely heavily on one or two Old Testament texts.  So a sermon in 1st Peter could use a reading from the Old Testament such as Psalm 34 (if the passage is focused on the suffering of God’s people in “exile”) or Isaiah 53 (if the passage is focused on Christ’s passion).  Both passages were heavy on the mind of Peter as he wrote his letter.  If a passage is quoted in the preaching text, perhaps reading that passage in its context would be helpful.

Where to Place “The Reading”– Part 1

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Traditionally there are two options for when to read the Bible passage for a sermon. One is earlier in the service, the other is at the start of the sermon. Either of these may be ideal. Neither of these is required. While starting with the reading may help with establishing the authority of the sermon, there are other ways to achieve this goal. Furthermore, there may be good reasons not to start with the reading. Today I will make suggestions for underlining the biblical authority in a sermon, then tomorrow I will give reasons for considering the placement of the reading more carefully.

Decide to communicate the authority of Scripture throughout your preaching. The reading at the start of the message may help, but is not the only ingredient. In fact, reading the passage up front does not guarantee that biblical authority is communicated. Many preachers read a passage and then bounce off it to their own thoughts and message. It is important to commit to, and reinforce, the authority of Scripture in your preaching.

First and foremost, commit to expository preaching. The commitment of the expository preacher is not to a certain form of sermon, but to a philosophy that places the Bible in the main role. The Bible determines sermon idea, sermon content, suggests possible sermon shape, sometimes even sermon illustrations. The message comes from a study of the Bible and is communicated through a study of the Bible using a literal, grammatical, historical, contextual hermeneutic. Without a commitment to preaching an expositional sermon, the following suggestions will be of only minimal help. It is possible to preach a topical-expository sermon, but more of that in a future post.

Reinforce the message of the authority of the Bible through your attitude. Demonstrate a submissive approach to the text, an inquisitive approach, an open to learning approach. Through your attitude and comments throughout the sermon, demonstrate that the Bible is the source of the authority.

Reinforce the authority of the Bible by letting your Bible show. Don’t read the passage, then put your Bible down and preach from notes. This can give the wrong impression. I think it is helpful and important to let people see that you are reading from the Bible (even if you’ve memorized the passage). Don’t let the podium hide the Bible. Don’t just cut and paste Bible text into your notes. Preaching without notes, but with Bible in hand can really help reinforce your view of the Bible. (See earlier posts on preaching without notes.)

Moving Your Preaching Beyond Default­ – Part 2

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

There are many defaults that could be highlighted.  The fact presenter, exhorter and plodder are just three.  Perhaps you can give yourself another title to underline the tendency you see in your own preaching.  Then prayerfully consider how to push yourself beyond what is comfortable for you, or even what is affirmed by others. 

The fact presenter needs to wrestle diligently with sermonic purpose and audience awareness.  The exhorter needs to purposefully engage with the full range of needs present in their congregation, as well as increase sensitivity to the intention of biblical writers.  The plodding passage guide needs to study not just for phrase-by-phrase understanding, but for a fuller understanding of the flow of thought and emphasis, not to mention creative means by which to structure the message.

Here are a few more ways to stretch yourself beyond default, whatever your default may be: 

  • How can you preach so that people will not just know the passage, but also experience it?
  • How can the message itself be constructed as a plot to be experienced by the listeners?  As preachers we can easily dissect a biblical plot (narrative) and end up preaching an interesting but lifeless set of parts.  We should let story be story, but more than that, how can we take a didactic sermon and add features of plot to it?
  • How can the message maintain tension or intrigue throughout?  This means careful consideration of how each point works within itself, and how they work in relation to each other.
  • How can the transitions be worked for maximum effectiveness?  How can they be smooth rather than clunky, clear rather than random?

Moving Your Preaching Beyond Default

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

In every area of life we naturally have a default mode. It’s what comes naturally. It’s the way we function without adding thought and effort. This is true in any relationship, any hobby, and also in any preaching. If you are preaching for the first time, you are probably all thought and effort. You’re probably trying to fill the time, survive the experience and not make a fool of yourself. But for those of us who’ve preached a few times, perhaps its time to evaluate ourselves and push beyond default. In this post I will suggest some default modes I’ve observed in myself and others. In part two I will suggest some ways to crank it up a level.

Default Mode – Bible Fact Presenter. It is easy to study a passage at length and then fill the preaching slot with facts you have gleaned in the process. Historical awareness and Bible trivia may impress people to a certain extent, but this approach will usually hide from questions about purpose. What is the sermon supposed to achieve? Just because your information comes from the Bible or is about the Bible, does not make it a truly biblical sermon. The passage has not been inspired, recorded, copied, canonized and translated just to be a source of trivia.

Default Mode – Ethical Exhorter. It is easy to define a purpose, irrespective of the nuances of a passage, and then harangue the listeners. Some preachers never say anything strong, but others can’t seem to say anything but. Again, some people will be impressed by passionate finger pointing. Indeed, some people seem to have a strange theology that affirms the need to receive a verbal thrashing from the pulpit, somehow fulfilling a kind of personal penitence. The Bible does exhort us in many ways, but it does so much more, and listeners are also complex creatures. We must carefully consider our sermon purpose in light of the text’s purpose and the need of our listeners.

Default Mode – Plodding Passage Guide. Given a biblical passage and a piece of time, it is easy to methodically plod through the passage trying to run out of passage and time at the same moment in the meeting. In this approach every phrase or sentence in the passage is considered equal, given equal explanation and roughly equal time. In reality time will often start to slip away and the last part of the passage will often be short-changed. All Scripture is inspired and every word counts, but not every word counts equally in a sentence or a section. Sometimes a significant proportion of a text may require very little explanation or development, while another part may require diligent focus in our presentation.

Peter has responded to a comment on this post.

The Holy Spirit and Your Preaching – Part 1

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

When it comes to preaching, it is easy to refer to the Holy Spirit by way of excuse. How simple to bring in the Holy Spirit as an excuse not to do some difficult aspect of preparation, or to cover for a lack of attention to some aspect of the preparation process. This is very unfair. Preaching is a spiritual work, and so the Holy Spirit must be given His rightful place. Here are some thoughts that will probably stimulate other thoughts:

Preaching is our work and God’s work, not one or the other. Our responsibility for the mechanics of sermon preparation in no way negates the Holy Spirit’s role in the dynamics of sermon preparation. Likewise, the Spirit’s role in bringing fruit from the preaching event does not remove our responsibility to participate fully.

The foundational concern is the spiritual walk of the preacher. Everything that the Bible teaches in relation to the spiritual walk of a believer is also, and especially, true of the preacher. This relates to character, to life choices, to prayerful preparation for ministry and so on. This means walking in step with the Spirit, not grieving the Spirit, fanning into flame the gift of the Spirit, and living a life controlled by the Spirit.

The preparation process involves the Spirit at every step. Every stage of the process could be prefixed with the term, “Prayerfully. . .” We must prayerfully select the passage, prayerfully study the passage, prayerfully determine the author’s idea and so on. We should not work in a personal vacuum and then merely ask for God’s stamp of approval just prior to delivery.

(Ramesh Richard has a helpful appendix on the Holy Spirit and preaching in Preparing Expository Sermons which influenced this post.)

Is Paper PC?

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I teach people to use a series of sheets of paper when preparing a sermon, just as I learned from my first preaching professor, John Wecks.  The sheets allow you to catalogue thought in appropriate compartments.  They allow you to write a thought and put it aside until it is time to consider that element of the sermon.  Let me list the sheets I would suggest.  Then I’ll suggest reasons to use real paper or virtual paper on the PC.

The Sheets – The first one to be used is the “Questions of the Text.”  Use this on your first read through and list everything that is not clear.  This sheet will be very helpful as you finish your sermon and prepare to preach it.  See previous post on this subject – August 14th.   Then I’d suggest sheets for exegetical notes (multiple sheets may be required), author’s idea, author’s purpose / sermon purpose, notes on congregation, sermon idea, sermon structure, possible illustrations, areas of application/pictured relevance, introduction, conclusion and then the manuscript (multiple sheets required).

Why go with paper? – No matter how much our computers improve, there is still something special about a desk covered in open books and paper.  So much sentimentality for one so young!  Some people may find the paper approach helpful, others may find it necessary.  It works.  In fact, I would suggest working on paper until it becomes a familiar process.  Then, if you like the reasons given below, shift over to the PC.

Why use a PC? – I suppose some comment about saving the rainforests would be a pc comment about use of a PC.  To be honest, my motivations are more selfish.  If it is on PC then I have a lasting record (as long as I back-up my files).  I have the ability to cut, paste, edit, etc. I can actually read what I have written!  I can cut and paste the Bible text from Bible software, quickly study the original languages and paste in helpful comments from commentaries and lexicons.  I sometimes have a list of unused potential illustrations that can be mined when preparing future sermons.

The PC is a helpful tool, but a Bible, some paper and a pen work amazingly well too!

Litfin’s Study of Paul’s Theology of Proclamation

/ Peter Mead / 6 Comments

Dr Duane Litfin, president of Wheaton, studied Paul’s theology of proclamation for one of his doctoral dissertations. His study reveals how Paul’s view of preaching contrasted with the first-century Greco-Roman rhetorician. The biblical focus for the study was 1Cor.1-4, where the issue is addressed most directly. The following points may give you a taste of his study and its relevance for us as preachers:

1. Language and ideas have the power to sway people. Paul knew that, and we must recognize the power of language and ideas in order to comprehend the reality of ancient rhetoric and the contrast with Paul’s preaching.

2. The ancient rhetorician tailored his efforts to achieve a result, whatever it took. Paul was different. Paul, like the rhetor, viewed the audience as a given, but did not take unto himself the task of inducing belief. For Paul, this was the task of the Spirit of God.

3. Paul proclaimed, and as a herald he announced, but it was not his task to persuade. So he would “placard” the cross before his hearers. He could not allow for the possibility of the listeners’ faith being a product of the preacher’s ability to induce faith by rhetorical technique.

4. Paul did not somehow disavow every element of rhetorical technique. It is clear in his letters, and in the speeches in Acts (if they are accepted as representative of Paul rather than Luke’s writing ability), that Paul did use various elements of rhetoric in order to communicate effectively. In fact, the ancient study of rhetoric was descriptive more than prescriptive, it was determined by observation of what effective speakers did. In light of this, Paul would not have had to study rhetoric in order to learn the skills he demonstrates. But he did put his own preaching in sharp relief to that of the rhetoricians. What was the difference?

5. Paul did not pursue the third step in persuasion. Persuasion theorists break down the process into five steps. (1) Attention, (2) comprehension, (3) yielding, (4) retention, and (5) action. Rhetoric placed heavy emphasis on step 3, yielding. Paul aimed his presentation at step 2, comprehension. Obviously, as people were persuaded by Paul’s preaching, an observer might credit him with the whole process. But in reality, Paul held back from any strategies that might induce a yielding in the hearts of his followers. Without making a cheap shot at ancient rhetoric as being mere manipulation, it is clear that Paul was wary of anything that might cause his hearers to come to faith based on his technique of persuasion. We should be wary of the same.

Peter has responded to a comment, and gives a link to a Litfin article.