Tweaking Ingredients in Preaching

October 26, 2011October 23, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I spent my first few years in Italy. One enduring result on this is a long-term liking for Nutella. The original and best chocolate hazelnut spread! Australians might love their vegemite and the Americans their peanut butter, but this European can’t get away from Nutella. Except for when I see it in American shops, that is.

In recent years I have seen it appearing in the grocery store during my visits to the US, and have bought a jar or two. Same jar, same wrapping, same colour, but not same taste. One ingredient is different – just the oil. One ingredient on a long list, but it makes a difference.

The same is true with preaching. One ingredient modified slightly and the whole product can taste wrong. Here are some examples of tweaks that might ruin preaching:

1. Tweaking the tone from good news. Same passage, same illustrations, same length of sermon, but if you replace the good news aspect of the message with pressure to conform, guilt for failure or legalistic righteousness, I guarantee the message won’t taste the same!

2. Tweaking “of” to “from.” This is a common one. Instead of passionately pursuing the preaching of the message of the text, many preachers choose instead to preach their message from the text. That is, they use the biblical text as a starting point, but at the end the listeners don’t feel they know the text any better than at the beginning. Don’t preach from a text, preach the text. (I think this is the hardest one to spot in a mirror – every preacher thinks they are explaining the text. Perhaps you should ask someone who knows the Bible well and be ready to listen to what they tell you!)

3. Tweaking the text to fit an outline. Some preachers don’t go near this neighbourhood, but some seem to live there. Its where the text is twisted slightly to help it fit in a certain outline. Perhaps a three-point alliterated outline. Is that really what the writer was doing in the text? Was that his intended outline? If not, you may leave a sour taste for listeners who sense that you’ve done a bit of a number on the text!

These feel like relatively small adjustments, but they leave a very different impression.

Strategic Application Saving

October 14, 2011October 14, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Yesterday I met with a good friend to talk through a passage he is going to preach soon. I love conversations like that! As usual, within a few minutes I was starting to wish I were also preaching that passage. Just a side comment, but pre-preaching conversations about a passage with another preacher can be so fruitful! Anyway, onto the point of today’s post…

I think application is generally best incorporated throughout a message. So instead of lengthy explanation followed by a block of application at the end, we can demonstrate the relevance of the message from the introduction onwards, and at every transition, within every movement of the message, etc. But with the passage we were looking at yesterday, I felt that this was an opportunity for strategic application saving.

His passage has two foci of potential application. One relates to the kind of people we will encounter as we go out into the world to share the gospel. The second relates to the kind of people we are within the church. My suggestion was to make the whole focus on the former, and save the latter until the very end. Why?

My sense was that if he hinted at, or overtly referred to, the possibility that there might be people with false motives in the church, then subconsciously the listeners would have their guard up. Instead, better to focus the application of the passage on “the big world out there and what we will encounter as we share the gospel” for the bulk of the message, allow the listeners to become engrossed in the narrative from Acts, and then at the end introduce the “but what about us in here” target.

Withholding an aspect of application can be very strategic when listeners drop their guard and are therefore more open to be struck by its relevance. Our tendency as preachers is to give away too much early on in the message. Even a little comment like, “this passage speaks to what we will meet out there, and also what kind of people we are…” – that mini comment early on could change the reception of the entire message.

If part of the relevance of a message might be resisted, pay special attention to when you introduce the thought. One option is to avoid early references to it, get the guard to drop, and then perhaps it will hit home more strategically.

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 . . .

(Put Some Points in Brackets)

September 16, 2011September 16, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

It seems obvious, but preaching involves delivering a message. It isn’t about delivering your outline via powerpoint, or presenting your outline verbally. It is about delivering the message. The outline is for you, it doesn’t always have to be given to them.

One thing that happens when we feel we need to give over our outline in our presentation is that we tend to always state our points when we start them. You know the routine, “My second point is XYZ.” Then we proceed to demonstrate that point from the text, and explain it to the listeners, and support it with some anecdotal or biblical evidence, and then illustrate it with our pithy little story, etc. This tried and tested approach is big on clarity, but it can also be deadly dull to hear.

I remember sitting in a conference where I’d noticed the sermonic pattern by the second message and was then able to predict what would come next for the rest of the day, whoever was preaching.

Sometimes your next point shouldn’t be given up-front in your first sentence of that section of the message, but rather held back and developed before being delivered. A point in a message might be better delivered inductively, rather than deductively. This avoids the dull tedium of every section of every message being the same. Here comes the verse, here comes the explanation, now he’ll refer to a cross-reference, wait for it, here comes the illustration. Instead you might begin the next point with an illustration, or a question, or an explanation with the point itself held back.

I was taught that an inductively developed point in a message should be written in the outline in brackets. Simple little approach, but it reminds the preacher that the preaching event is not about a slightly animated reading of an outline. Actually, the outline is supposed to record what the message does, how it develops, etc. For some preachers that has become reversed, so that the message is supposed to say what the outline states. Your goal is to preach a good sermon, not to demonstrate or even deliver your good outline.

(Put some of your points in brackets, lest every five-minute section sound essentially the same!)

Bible Reading Introductions – Part 2

September 5, 2011September 2, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I wrote last time about why I generally prefer not to launch the message with the reading. This is my response to what may be the response of others to that post (ie. I am writing this one at the same time!)

Someone may respond: “But the reason I read the text first is to honour the text and put it in the place of authority, rather than making it my servant for my message.”

Honouring the text and letting the text be the authority. Absolutely great goals that I affirm wholeheartedly. There are a couple of issues with this logic though.

First, this doesn’t overcome or negate the issues raised last time. That is, people may not be focussed, or aware of the relevance of the reading, etc. Just because you put it first, doesn’t mean your reasons for doing so will be achieved. If I have something really important to say to someone, I don’t launch by saying it. I get their attention first. I highlight the importance and relevance of what I’m about to tell them. I don’t want them to miss it. I’m honouring the message I have and underlining its authority by not placing it dead first.

Second, there are multiple means by which we honour the text and its authority, or fail to do so. Placing it first is just one element of the entire mix. I’ve heard many sermons where the text is read first and then dishonoured by being left behind as the preacher goes on to preach his own ideas, or dishonoured by being handled superficially, or dishonoured by being mishandled. I’ve blogged before about people preaching “my message on this text” rather than “the message of this text.” How you handle the text for the entirety of the message is the measure of whether you honour the text, preach the text and appropriately respect the authority of God’s revealed Word. Where you place the reading is no guarantee that your goal of honouring the text will be successful.

Many of us feel constrained by all sorts of “unwritten rules” that guide us in our preaching. Many of these unwritten rules could also be unlearned for the sake of better biblical preaching.

Bible Reading Introductions

September 2, 2011September 2, 2011 / Peter Mead / 3 Comments

If you’ve read posts on this site I hope you’ve noticed that I am committed to the Bible. I want preaching to be biblical. However, to be honest, I generally avoid starting a sermon with a Bible reading. For many, this is the way to start a sermon. After all, you are supposed to read the text and then preach your sermon on it, right?

Here are some reasons why I might not make the reading the very first element in the sermon:

1. It is too good to waste on the distracted. There are a couple of levels of distraction to be overcome. The first is the immediate circumstantial distractions. I don’t want people missing the Bible because they are trying to get comfortable after standing to sing, trying to find a pen that works, negotiating seat space with the extra guest that just arrived, etc. The second level of distraction is the larger life issues. I think we are naive if we think listeners are as motivated for the next chapter of 2Kings as we are. We have been studying it all week and loving what we’ve discovered. They have come to church with unresolved tension from the morning’s hectic preparations, with concern over a medical symptom they haven’t told anyone about yet, with financial burdens mounting, with a sinister request to see their boss looming for the next morning, etc. So if we stand up and begin with, “Turn with me to 2Kings 14…” they may not tune in again. Better to motivate people for what they are going to hear before reading it.

2. I want listeners tuned in to what they will hear. We live in a text for considerable time before preaching it (I hope), but listeners are coming in cold. Like stepping out of an airport into a foreign city, it can take a while to get oriented. To launch instantly into a reading can result in a coherent message being read, but only random Bible words being heard. Better to orient people to what they are going to hear before reading it.

3. I may not want to give away the tension. In some cases, especially narrative, but not exclusively narrative, I may not want them to hear the whole thing yet. Perhaps the text raises a question and answers it. It may well work better for me to develop and clarify the question before reading the answer. There’s a danger of sounding like that person you know who refers to the punchline and then tells the joke. Better to expose people to the text at the right time in the development of the message.

4. It can be a great way to lose people. Just reiterating the first couple of points again. An opening reading can confirm the subconscious fear of listeners that this will be half an hour of irrelevance. Convince them that you, your message and this text is relevant to them. Better to have listeners really hear the text when you read it.

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.