Stage 8 – Message Detail

Neither Padded, Nor Dense

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It takes more than a good story, good actors and good visual effects to make a hit movie.  Think of a movie you particularly liked.  In most cases that movie could have been made in the form of a 10-minute featurette.  It would have been a whole lot cheaper to make, but it never would have made any money.  Why is that?

What is the difference between a 10-minute featurette and a full two-hour blockbuster?  The answer is not padding.  It is almost the opposite.  It is careful development of characters and scenes, giving space for the audience to grow into the plot.  But it is also numerous scenes cut and omitted to keep the flow from being too dense or too long.  All padding is typically cut out, but room to breathe is carefully included.

The same is true of good preaching.  You could take a decent sermon and hammer out the bottom line in a 10-minute sermonette.  You could include the main idea, the outline, etc., but you’d be missing a lot.  And the difference between that and a fuller version of the same sermon shouldn’t be 20-30 minutes of padding, nor should it be 20-30 minutes of dense information.

It is only the beginning preacher that wonders how they will fill the time.  Experienced preachers know the real challenge is in what to leave out.

This week I was speaking with a good friend who has trouble keeping his sermons from becoming overwhelming monsters of content.  All good stuff, but too much to take in for the listener.  We spoke of the main idea and its role in sermon development.  And we also pondered the possibilities of having a three step process.  First, define the main idea.  Second, work out a 10-minute development of that idea.  Third, move up to the full length.

So, how to go from the 10-minute to the full message?  The temptation here is to cram in the information.  But when information is crammed in, then there is a real problem for the listeners.  Actually, there are several problems:

1. They will have to be selective in what they take in.  It isn’t possible to grasp everything when there is too much.  Do you want listeners to pick and choose, or to be gripped by the whole?

2. They may select elements as take home material that was incidental in your eyes.  For instance, the passing remark, the humourous illustration, or the side point, could all become their memorable take home gem.

3. They may check out altogether if it is overwhelming.  While some may selectively choose highlights, others will switch to something their mind is motivated to cope with: their plans for the afternoon, their challenges at work, etc.

4. Their hearts are unlikely to engage.  This one suddenly takes us to a whole new level.  Not only is the issue with their ability to mentally grasp information, there is an issue with their experience of that information.

Tomorrow we’ll probe this fourth point some more.

Preparing to Preach OT Narrative – 5

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

This week I have been getting my head and heart in gear to prepare messages from the book of Ruth.  I’ve pondered issues of contextual unawareness, perceived irrelevance and the challenges of application.  I am not saying any of this should come before issues of study and interpretation, but before the messages can be prepared, these issues have to be faced.  I’d like to raise one more issue:

What is my strategy for preaching through the book?I have four sessions to preach through Ruth.  Slam dunk, decision made, right?  Four weeks, four chapters.  Voila!  Perhaps.  But I’m not a fan of instant obvious decisions.  I want to think through it first.

1. Preaching a narrative means preaching multiple scenes, not multiple chapters.  It may be that there are four scenes in four chapters, but I need to check that first.  Going with chapter breaks is lazy and sometimes naive.

2. How do I keep the unity in mind?  Ruth wasn’t written to be read over four sittings in four weeks.  It was written to be heard in one sweep.  I have to ponder that.  Should I preach the whole narrative in one go?  I could do that week 1, but then what?  I could take three weeks to revisit the text and zero in on specific aspects of the story.  Or I could review the whole narrative at the end.  Or I could let it build week by week, as if people don’t know what is coming.

3. And what about other options given by four weeks?  Maybe I need to take a week on the opening verses and engage the complexity of divine providence, suffering and life as experienced by most people.  Perhaps there are a couple of chapters that could flow together.  Perhaps the ending that points forward to David is worthy of a wrap-up message on its own.  So many options.

Simply splitting it into four roughly equal chunks with a big number at the start does seem a bit too hasty at this point.  I need to spend some more time in the text of Ruth, and be prayerfully considering what would be most helpful to our congregation.

Preparing to Preach OT Narrative – 3

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I am preparing to preach a series from the book of Ruth.  This week I’ve been thinking out loud about aspects I need to keep in mind as I head into the preparations.  I’ve thought about the unfamiliarity of the context for the listeners, as well as their perception of the irrelevance of something so far removed from today.

Today I’m pondering a temptation I know I’ll face in preaching the narrative genre.

It is always tempting to multiply applications.  I suppose this is a response to yesterday’s concern with apparent irrelevance.  The preacher can fall into the trap of turning every detail of the text into a point of application.  “Look, Ruth isn’t an irrelevant book, we are only five verses in and here are four principles for keeping your family together!”  Oops.

As a preacher with a desire to be relevant to the listeners, I have to guard against illegitimate application of details in the narrative.  Just because a character demonstrates it, doesn’t make it an instruction for the reader.  Just because it happened, doesn’t mean it should.

As a general approach, perhaps I should put it this way – (1) my effort in preparation should go into grasping the thrust of the whole passage, and then seeking to clearly apply that main thrust.  And there will be ways to multiply the applications of that main thrust.  This will be better than multiplied mini-thrusts based on particular details plucked out of their unique role in the passage as a whole.

That is, all the details matter, but not all the details need to be applied.  Every detail in a narrative is working together to make the whole plot work.  But not every detail is there as a teaching point.  The plot as a whole (either the whole plot, or the plot of a scene if I preach it section by section), the plot as a whole carries a certain thrust that we would do well to open our hearts to and be changed by.

Tomorrow I’ll add a couple more thoughts on applying the narrative.

Preparing to Preach OT Narrative – 2

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Yesterday I pondered the challenges of unfamiliarity of context.  When we preach from the Old Testament, if our listeners are more used to the New Testament, then this will be a challenge.  We thought about the canonical context, as well as the historical context.  There’s another challenge:

Low expectation of relevance.  I have to remember that by the time I come to preach from Ruth, I will have spent many hours in studying it.  It will have taken root in my heart again and God will have stirred me through His Word.  This will not be the case for the listeners.

They will be coming into the meeting with minds and hearts on all sorts of things.  They will be thinking of anything but pre-monarchical Israelite history.  So if I start into the message with an assumption that Ruth is a motivating destination, I may well be starting into my message alone.  I’d much rather take folks with me.  How can I do that?  A couple of thoughts:

1. Introduce with relevance.  I have written this before, but I’ll reiterate because it is important.  It is not dishonouring the text to start with an introduction before reading it.  I think the text can be dishonoured by reading it before people care to hear what it says.  So one approach is to craft an introduction that overtly seeks to connect the listeners and their current state of disequilibrium with the text as relevant to them.  This is not to “pander” to felt needs, but to recognize the reality of life and what it is to be a listener.  Getting relevance into the introduction makes all the sense in the world.  The listeners need an early appreciation of the fact that the preacher is relevant, the message is relevant and the text itself is relevant.

2. Let the narrative bite quickly.  This does not necessarily contradict with the previous point.  With a narrative the preacher has the advantage of the inherently gripping nature of the genre.  TV show producers know that there is a better way to grip viewers than a long series of opening credits with promises of big name actors and actresses (as they did thirty years ago!)  The best way is to let the narrative begin and bite quickly.  Once bitten, viewers will then tolerate the 40 seconds of opening credits (sometimes several minutes into the show).  This illustrates what I am saying here.  The listeners should be gripped if the first three or four verses of Ruth are presented effectively.  Maybe it would be worth getting into the tension of the plot before pulling back to make sense of context, etc.

Preparing to Preach OT Narrative

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I am preparing a series of messages from the book of Ruth.  Consequently I am processing some of the challenges that come with preaching through an Old Testament narrative.  Perhaps some of the thinking might be helpful, or at least there can be a sense of conversing together about this important subject.  As ever, no claim here to being exhaustive, but hopefully mildly provocative in a good way.

In our church it is fair to say that the majority of messages, from both in-house and visiting speakers, come from the New Testament.  This means that the Old Testament is much less familiar turf. As I prepare to preach Ruth, then, I must take that into account.

Less familiar literary context – I have to be careful not to assume anything here.  Ruth comes in a period of about four centuries covered by the bleak book of Judges.  Here is the jewel on the dark velvet.  But I can’t assume folks understand the book of Judges.  For some it will be a collection of children’s stories (where protagonist is always portrayed as a full-on hero, whatever the text may hint).  For others it will mean nothing at all.  So I need to think through how to make sense of the fact that “In the days when the judges judged” is the opening line of Ruth.

At some point I might think about showing where Ruth came in the Hebrew ordering of the canon.  Not after Judges (in the former prophets), but after Proverbs (in the writings).  Specifically, after Proverbs 31 . . . a wife of noble character, who can find?  Again, I can’t just drop that in without confusing people.  It will need a bit of explanation, perhaps I might use a powerpoint slide to help visualize the difference.  Perhaps.

Less familiar historical context – Not only is the Judges context unfamiliar, so is the culture of this time frame.  It is considerably further removed from today than the more familiar world of the New Testament.  This is pre-monarchy.  This is before the prophets and their impact on the nation of Israel.  I don’t want to preach it with assumptions, and have some listeners envisioning the action in the context of the Roman occupation, or whatever.

I need to think through what is pertinent about the context, the culture, the politics of the day, etc.  And I need to think through how to communicate that in the messages.

The Dangerous Half Quit

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A post on this theme from five years ago caught my eye, so I thought I’d offer a re-write.

There are always reasons to quit. This is true in anything you might pursue. Sport, music, hobby, fitness, work, ministry, marriage. Anyone who has ever been successful at anything has had to overcome numerous opportunities to quit. How true is that in preaching?

There are few things that can compare with preaching – how important it is, how much people need it, how much you give both in preparation and presentation, how emotionally and physically draining it can be, how open to criticism you become, how relentless the schedule can feel, how exacting the standards are in peoples’ minds for every other area of your life. To give the Lord our best as preachers we must exhibit a tenacious relentlessness.

The temptation to quit may always be lingering in the background, but for various reasons, good and bad, many of us would not simply quit. Perhaps it’s a little like marriage among some Christians a couple of generations back. A marriage could go very sour, but divorce was considered so inappropriate that couples would live out a “Christian divorce” – two separate lives lived under one roof for the sake of appearance. That’s a danger for us as preachers. When the pressures build, as they do so regularly, so do the temptations. Temptations to quit may be rejected. But temptations to half quit are an ever present danger!

When the schedule is tight and you are drained emotionally and physically, pulled in numerous directions, don’t half quit on your preparation. It may seem tempting to not really study the text, to short-circuit all exegesis.

When Sunday is rapidly approaching and your energy is low, don’t half quit on sermon shaping. Don’t just go with your study notes, but try to think through your audience and their needs, think through the best way to communicate this passage to them.

When you go through the post-sermon emotional roller-coaster that many preachers feel so often, don’t half quit.  Don’t make decisions that will undermine your subsequent ministry because of how you feel at that moment.

When you are on the receiving end of unfair criticism or unjustifiable sniping, don’t half quit. Don’t steel your heart against the people you minister to so that by not loving them they can’t hurt you. When you love you get hurt, but love anyway.

I’m not saying anything about rest, responsibilities with family, etc. I’m not saying sacrifice yourself to the point of burnout in an attempt to be spiritual. There are all sorts of appropriate balances to wisely employ in ministry. But those are for another post. All I’m suggesting here is that preaching is no easier than most other things you might pursue in life, and in many ways it is harder. To be the best you can be, to give the best you can give, you must be doggedly relentless. Don’t quit. And maybe more importantly, keep leaning on our good God and don’t half quit.

Planks and Slices 4 – Whole Bible Grains cont.

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Yesterday I shared two thoughts on preaching Bible-wide thematic grains. It isn’t about chasing every use of a term through the concordance (although that may be part of the study process and a valuable pursuit). Neither is our goal to overload listeners with references. So what should we do?

3. Pursue genuine grains that feed forward through the canon. That is, know the Bible as well as possible and don’t think the concordance is more important than the Bible. Get to know the writers and their books, their sources, their influences, etc. I’m not chasing into radical liberal theories of unproven phantom documents, but the intertextual connections that are present within the text.

Somehow Paul wasn’t only thinking of Roman soldier garb in Ephesians 6, there was some Isaiah 59 in the mix too. Commentaries may help, but the real key is to read the Bible and recognize when an earlier text is influencing a later one. Walter Kaiser speaks about the “informing theology” of a writer. How did Isaiah influence Mark, how did the Torah influence Jonah, etc.

4. Move forward from your text with hermeneutical honesty, avoiding anachronistic imposition. That is, show how the themes in a text progress forward through the canon, but don’t make the text dependent on later revelation. If the listeners are looking at a text in context and can’t fathom how the text had any value without revelation from centuries later, they may question either God’s ability to communicate, or your communication about God. Can the text in question bear its own weight?

When the New Testament is on the Old inflicted, or the Old is by the New restricted, then we can lose too much. Much better to see the richness of a passage, then see how it builds forward to the fullness of all we know now in light of later revelation.

5. Invite people into the Scriptures, don’t intimidate them with your knowledge. Seems simple – if you want people to be in the Bible for themselves, then don’t make them feel completely incapable of finding anything worthwhile without you. If you want them to rely completely on you, something’s gone awry.

Our listeners need to get a sense of the richness of Scripture as a whole.  What strategies do you have for achieving this?

Planks and Slices 3 – Whole Bible Grains

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Some who have only heard the preaching of books in slices may be surprised to discover that there is a long tradition of tracing themes through the Bible. Some who have only heard topical messages may be surprised to discover that some people preach through a book chunk by chunk. Sadly some are surprised to discover how rich the Bible is after only hearing human wisdom launched from the mortar tube of token Scripture readings.

Anyway, enough surprises, let’s get into Bible length grain issues. The Bible has the diversity of different writers, different languages, different cultural settings and writer circumstances. But it also has an amazing unity, almost as if it were inspired by the same Spirit throughout!

Sometimes we will trace grains length-wise through the Bible as a whole. It may be as part of a message, or it may form the entirety of a message. But it is not guaranteed to be helpful. It can be great. It can be terrible. Any pointers?

1. Don’t confuse tracing a theme with going on a wild safari in the backseat of a concordance. There is nothing worse than being in a small group Bible study where people are chasing through Bible references, ignoring the contexts and just noting repeated uses of a term. “Next verse, who has the Deuteronomy one? Thanks Bob…yep, there it is again! Our word for the night: ‘Remember!’ Great, who has the Nehemiah verse?” Okay, there may be one thing worse – a sermon that does the same.

A phenomena of language is that sometimes different writers use the same words in different settings, and sometimes they even mean different things. Linking sections together based on the proximity of concordance placement is not the key to being a master Bible handler. It doesn’t take much skill to chase the chain link of repeated terms through the Bible. We need to know our way through the Bible with a bit more skill than that to preach effectively.

2. Beware of overloading listeners with references. Even if you are legitimately making connections, the listeners have a threshold that is easy to cross with too many cross-references. Preaching is not a competition to reference as many passages as possible.

Sometimes a theme can be fully exhausted with three passages (Melchizedek), or effectively communicated with two passages (I’ve been thinking of Exodus 33 and John 1:14-18, for an example). Adding in Deuteronomy, Isaiah and Malachi may be more complete, but it may deaden the effect of the preaching if listeners feel overloaded.

More thoughts to finish this list tomorrow…

Planks and Slices 2 – Preaching Plank Grains

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Yesterday I introduced the idea of tracing a grain through the length of a Bible book. Today I’d like to offer a few more thoughts before moving on to the bigger idea of tracing themes beyond the borders of a single book.

1. “Knowing tones” don’t do the job of preaching the richness of the Bible. It is easy to preach through a book and emphasize certain terms with knowing looks, vocal emphases and passing remarks. This doesn’t mean that you are doing anything significant. People may not get the point that unity has emerged again in Philippians 4 after taking a back seat in chapter 3, just because you intonate in some way. They haven’t been soaked in the text as you have…

2. Be overt in highlighting some grains if it is helpful to the listeners. Not only should we be overt to help people spot it, but we need to be clear in explaining what we are referring to. We can’t assume listeners have picked up on something subtle. If we make only a subtle nod toward a theme, then we can’t rely on that nod to carry the sermon forward significantly.

3. Be clear in explaining how a thematic grain is worth noting. Most people aren’t collecting biblical trivia as they listen to us preach. Some love that kind of stuff, but most tend to value things based on their perceived value. We need to be clear how the theme is present and what the writer is doing with it.

4. Preaching thematically doesn’t negate the need for deliberate message unity and purposefulness. It may be tempting to see thematic grains as something that is overlooked by preaching textual slices, and therefore a shortcut to preaching “something new” . . . this is not the goal. We need to preach clear, biblical, relevant and engaging messages. Help people see the grains, but do so with a purpose in line with the purpose of the text itself.

5. Beware of repetitious overload in a series. We need to repeat things in preaching, but beware that a shorthand reference to a theme can creep in, especially in a series. The negative here is that some may not understand the knowing tones and passing asides, while others who have heard about it before may not be finding the rediscovery of a theme as a wonderful delight. Be sure that each sermon preaches effectively, and that the whole effect of the series is sensitizing rather than dulling to listeners. Let the main thought of a passage drive the message. Sometimes this means that a theme may recede in a particular message, even if present in the text.

Tomorrow I’ll start to ponder canon-wide thematic grain issues.  What would you add here?

Planks and Slices

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If you take a log, there are various ways to cut it. It doesn’t take much skill to hack at it and get it into chunks. But a skilled woodcutter can produce a beautiful slice showing all the rings. Or, they can produce a long plank of wood that reveals some of the grains working their way through the entire log.

Typically sermons are like slices. We take a unit of thought and seek to bring its impact into the lives of those listening. But there are times when we should be working with planks, and specifically, with tracing a grain or two through the whole book or Bible. Let’s probe issues of producing planks for the pulpit!

Today let’s think about working with a single book. Here are some thoughts:

1. Every book has grains working through it, and the best way to find them is to spend a lot of time in the book. Seems obvious, but if we preach after only spending time in a slice, we will miss the grains that are present. Be sure to read whole books multiple times.

2. Some grains will be more pronounced than others. It isn’t a competition between grains, but we should be alert to those that are real building blocks for a book. It would be a shame to spot the eschatological hope theme in Romans, but miss issues of justification, righteousness and faithfulness. In Mark a lot of comments go to the “immediately” and the “secret” themes, but we mustn’t miss the question of who is Jesus, or the issue of the cross.

3. Some grains will be located in a section, others will traverse the entire book. The theme of the eschatological city in Hebrews 10-13 is massively important for that section of the book, but it might not register in the earlier two-thirds. However the motif of forward momentum does carry the reader through the whole sermon to the Hebrews.

4. It won’t be possible to have every grain have impact in a sermon, so select carefully. For instance, in John’s gospel, themes abound including belief, glory, light/dark, world, truth, I am, the Spirit, abiding in, etc. To preach with all possible grains highlighted in any section will probably overwhelm listeners.

5. Tracing the grain can bring great variety to a series. Instead of just chopping a book into chunks, why not introduce and conclude with an overview that traces a particular grain through the whole. It will bring out a whole new dimension for people.

I’m pondering table fellowship in Luke, but also pondering how to not overwhelm with a theme that pops up in almost every chapter.