Interaction Flops

September 23, 2011September 23, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

For the past two days I have been blogging about a type of interactive preaching, or participative preaching if you prefer. This is not the same as preacher and listeners together discovering the meaning of a text (I’m not convinced about that in a preaching setting). It is the preacher having a specific destination, but allowing the listeners to participate in a significant stage of that journey. In the case of my message on Tuesday, I invited them to imagine what Peter and John might have thought back to during their years with Jesus as they anticipated a trial before the Sanhedrin in Acts 4. They shaped the message in respect to which aspects of the apostles’ experience we imagined together, but I still controlled how the message would end. Anyway, there are numerous approaches to inviting participation from the listeners while preaching. I’d like to wave a red flag at some approaches that seem to flop.

As I mentioned in the previous two-part post, all good preaching should feel somewhat participative, even if the listeners never vocally participate. But problems come when the preacher decides that getting noise out of the listeners’ mouths equates to a higher level of preaching or an automatically more engaged listener. This is too simplistic by half. For instance:

Cultural/Personality Differences – Last year I sat under the preaching of Dr Joe Stowell at Keswick, a preacher I appreciate very much. Joe is an American preacher who invites vocal response and vocal affirmation and audience participation, etc. I don’t know if it is the American versus British difference, or just the warmth of Joe’s personality, but his preaching really was very effective. I’ve seen British preachers doing the same thing in Britain and it fell very flat. Many British listeners aren’t readily participative like other cultures. “Can I hear an amen?” can grate deeply on some congregations. What would naturally and spontaneously stimulate hearty amens and approval in some settings might barely get a low level grunt in others. Trying to whip up a congregation into a non-natural vocal response is generally unwise. They will make some effort to do what you ask, but their discomfort will override their external compliance and have a net negative effect.

Cross-Cultural Issues – When speaking of audience participation, naturally the subject of African-American preaching comes up. There is something very compelling about the rhythmic, call and response, high energy type of preaching popular in some settings (cultural and denominational). But it takes a whole congregation and preacher combination for it to work. Two examples stand out in my memory.

1) I was in Nigeria some years ago and noticed how the believers at this conference responded to the closing prayers of the African preachers – very physical, high movement, verbal agreement, etc. And I noticed how the white preachers couldn’t get the same response when they prayed – congregation standing stock still with hands folded in front of them. Something was different in the mix.

2) I’ll never forget the white preacher preaching in the chapel service of the Bible school where I was a visiting lecturer in Kenya. These listeners did respond vocally, and he couldn’t contain himself. He got swept away on the wave of energy and ended up giving an appalling example of show-off preaching. I think it takes a consistency of preacher and listeners for patricipative preaching to work. Either preacher and listeners are coming from the same tradition, or the listeners are responsive rather than resistant when the preacher is different to them (and the preacher also needs to be understanding when the listeners are different to him in some way!)

This has become a long post, so I’ll spill over to tomorrow . . .

Let’s Interact Some More . . .

September 22, 2011September 22, 2011 / Peter Mead / 4 Comments

Yesterday I began with three thoughts about interactive preaching. Following on from the importance of knowing the congregation and knowing the content, here are some more thoughts:

4. Expansive questions work better than only one possible answer. Listeners don’t like being asked for something very specific – who wants to get it wrong? They know you want them to say something specific, so chances are stacked against them. Tuesday night’s message worked well because the invitation was for input from a vast array of possible answers. I was primarily asking for examples of incidents in the gospels where Peter and John would have learned from being with Jesus (and since they were almost always there, there weren’t many “wrong answers”). I would be more guarded about asking for input on a single text, since the first comment could give away the whole resolution to the tension of the narrative, or whatever. It can be done, but carefully.

5. Graciousness is key. But how you deal with “wrong answers” matters deeply. If someone had referred to an incident where Peter & John weren’t present, it really wouldn’t help anyone to respond harshly, “uh, no! That was only Nathaniel with Jesus on that occasion!” Making the contributor feel foolish hurts everyone. They would feel for him, they would be less likely to risk talking, they would lose interest in your message (since you don’t seem to care about them). Much better to receive all input positively, “Great thought. Thinking about it, I’m with you on that, I’m sure Nathaniel would have told the others about that even though they weren’t physically present. Thanks.” I was at a conference earlier this summer where the presenter chose to take questions, but was then harsh and sometimes bordering on brutal in how he responded to them. Not helpful at all. (And maybe some preachers simply shouldn’t do interaction.)

6. Non-traditional journeys still need a destination. To put it another way, an interactive message is not a short-cut to avoid preparation. You can’t be at the mercy of those present to make sure it goes somewhere worthwhile. You have to know where you are going and make sure they get there. They are at your mercy, not the other way around. A meandering walk through the forest isn’t good if it ends somewhere in the middle and you then walk away. Make sure you get them to the right place at the right time.

7. Interaction takes time. It is hard to gauge how long a contributor will talk once they start. You have to be able to graciously stop lengthy input, but it isn’t easy. I wouldn’t consider significant interaction unless there was time available for it. Good interaction can be wasted if there is then a panicked rush at the end to get to the destination.

What would you add to this list?

Let’s Interact . . .

September 21, 2011September 21, 2011 / Peter Mead / 6 Comments

Last night I had a great time at a church I’ve visited many times before. I had about 85 minutes and decided to do an interactive message. Here are some reflections and thoughts from me, but feel free to chip in:

1. All messages should be somewhat interactive. Even if you don’t expect the listeners to say anything, good preaching will always be stirring response and comments within the listeners. Good preachers know what listeners are probably thinking and respond accordingly. In these two posts I am thinking about overt congregational participation.

2. Knowing the congregation matters. It does help to know who you’ll be preaching to when you choose to go much more interactive. A few years ago I chose to do an interactive sermon in a church that I hardly knew. I certainly was unaware of the group brought along from a nearby “home” that interacted in an entirely different way than the elderly folks who made up the rest of the congregation! Knowing them matters, them knowing you care matters just as much, but we’ll come to that issue tomorrow.

3. Knowing the content matters even more. This one is massive. As the preacher you have to know the subject and the range of potential input. Taking a comment from the crowd that changes your understanding of the text could be complicated. You get to choose how wide the net is thrown for input, but it is important that you can handle whatever may come from within that range of Bible text (and theology/history/whatever else you open yourself up to). If you are genuinely struck by new insight, great, but if you seem to be informed by everything you hear, you’ll lose their confidence!

I’ll finish this post tomorrow, but feel free to chip in with your thoughts . . .

(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!)

The Morass of Moralism

September 14, 2011September 14, 2011 / Peter Mead / 4 Comments

When the focus of a sermon becomes a moralistic [set of instructions for holy living], listeners will most likely assume that they can secure or renew their relationship with God through proper behaviors. Even when the behaviors advocated are reasonable, biblical, and correct, a sermon that does not move from expounding standards of obedience to explaining the source, motives, and results of obedience places persons’ hopes in their own actions. (B.Chappell, 291)

What are the keys to avoiding the kind of moralistic preaching that Chappell refers to here? He points to the source, motives and results. Good things to ponder. I’ll put it like this:

Remember Who? does the changing – Moralistic preaching will always feel like a burden on the listeners to get their acts together and make the necessary changes. Surely the message of the Bible is that we are responders with the privilege of participating in that change process, rather than instigators with the burden of fixing ourselves.

Remember How? we participate – So how do we participate? Is it by repenting of our badness and striving to have goodness? Or is it repenting of our religiousness and righteousness as well as our overt rebellion, and turning to the One who offers us life and holiness? Repentance is toward Christ, and then salvation (including sanctification) is by faith in Him.

Remember What? is the source of power – How does God change us as we trust in Christ? By the work of the Spirit in us. Moralistic preaching seems to leave God out of the equation (other than being the stated source of excessive requirements). Surely the reality of Christianity is that we now get to participate in the amazing privilege of New Covenant blessings, including the work of the Holy Spirit within us.

Remember Where? is the focus – Moralistic preaching always turns listeners in on themselves. They go from being rebellious to being religious . . . but the gospel calls us out of ourselves and away from both. The focus of biblical Christianity is not my struggles, my weaknesses, my sins, my effort, my discipline, my success, my holiness . . . the focus is on Christ. My part is response to Him, faith in Him, love for Him.

Let’s finish with a Chappell quote:

Preaching application should readily and vigorously exhort obedience to God’s commands, but such exhortations should be based primarily on responding in love to God’s grace, not on trying to gain or maintain it. (B.C., 292)

Over Qualified Sermons

September 12, 2011September 12, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

As I have written before, one of the hardest things in preaching is choosing what to leave out. And one of the sources of extraneous material is the qualifications we tend to add to every point in the message. You know how it goes: the next point Paul makes is ABC . . . of course, we have to balance this with DEF from Paul’s other letter, and GHI from Peter’s second epistle, and JKL from Proverbs, and MNO from our general experience, and PQR to keep pressure group 1 happy, and STU to avoid criticism from fashionable trend watch group 2, and VWX to touch the pet peeve issue of in-church political group 3, and YZ to… By the time you get through that nobody has a clue what the actual point of the message, or the text, actually was. Over-qualified sermon.

So, here’s a principle (and, ironically, a gentle qualifying follow up):

Principle – Preach the passage with its full force. Allow other passages to be preached another time. Your job is to faithfully and effectively communicate this particular passage with relevance to the listeners. Your job is not to cover every possible qualifying statement and pack so much material around all that you say that the cutting edge is not only dulled, but totally hidden.

Qualifying follow up – Preach the passage with fidelity to the whole canon. This doesn’t mean you have to refer to the whole canon, or even any of the rest of the canon. But you do need to think about whether the point could be misapplied or whether the truth, the gospel, etc., could be misunderstood. Qualify as much as necessary. Often the only thing that needs to be added is a brief statement such as, “what we are saying here doesn’t mean we should never do XYZ, but we’ll talk about that another time. Don’t miss what this passage is saying . . . ”

How do you handle the qualifying issue in your preaching?

Breaking Space Promises

September 6, 2011September 5, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

My friend Tony wrote to me about this issue. It relates to telling people that you are going to give them space to think and respond, but then breaking up the silence with additional comments. So easy to do, so annoying for the listener.

1. A break can be a powerful time. Giving people 30 seconds, or two minutes, or whatever, to respond to the message can be an effective means of allowing the message to sink in and response to be formulated. Rather than an overt show of response, it allows for individuals to pray, to reflect, to allow God to search their hearts, etc.

2. The speaker usually feels the instructions were slightly unclear. This leads to added comments coming as interjections that break up the silent period. There is no intent to annoy, but only to clarify and help nudge people in the right direction.

3. Interruptions are generally exasperating. Listeners are used to hearing your voice, but they are not used to being quiet and processing for themselves. It takes time to switch gears and “go there.” An interruption is not like pressing pause on the CD player, meaning that the break continues when pause is pressed again. It is like pressing skip back on the CD, so that they have to start again. Do that several times and people will be exasperated!

4. If you promise a period of silence, give that full period. There is nothing unspiritual about the preacher checking his watch to make sure he follows through properly. (Just as there is nothing unspiritual about using your car to get to church in the first place!)

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.

Illustration Saturation

August 31, 2011August 25, 2011 / Peter Mead / 4 Comments

When speaking in general, most people affirm the value of illustrations. When speaking specifically, illustrations are sometimes the cause of frustration. What kind of illustrations can annoy listeners?

1. Arrogantly Familial – Sharing the odd story about an in-home experience can convey warmth, humility, normalcy, etc. It can also be a bit annoying to keep hearing about darling children’s spirituality, or rebellious children’s shenanigans, or holiday adventures, etc. Frequency is key here, along with avoiding showing off.

2. Obsessively Sporting – Some of us preachers actually enjoy sport and even have loyalty to particular teams. No problem, but it can be a bit annoying when the listener feels like the repeated beating of a certain drum is drowning out the deeper and more important affection in the preaching. Frequency is an issue again, sensitivity to non-sporting listeners, and discretion isn’t a bad idea either.

3. Predictably Popular – So a certain film has been in the news for the past five weeks. Can your listeners guess which illustrations you’ll be using before you preach? Don’t try too hard to be “cool” – it usually backfires. The ability to be subtle is key in this regard. Many a good illustration was ruined by being too blatant.

4. Scarcely Believable – So you are saying that happened to you? Did it really? Some preachers have a tendency to tell stories that sound unbelievable. Hear me carefully, even if it did happen, don’t lose integrity by sounding unbelievable. And if it didn’t happen to you, stop lying!

5. Obviously Canned – Ok, so here he comes out with the quote from General Rommel, or Napolean, or whoever. If you get it from a book of stunning illustrations, don’t be surprised if it sounds like you got it from a book of stunning illustrations.

6. Unnecessarily Extended – Maybe that was a good story, but was the point you were making in the message worthy of that amount of energy? Sometimes a good story is simply too bulky to fit the location you want to squeeze it into. This is annoying for listeners who lose track when the message loses its way.

7. Inappropriately Emotive – So you told me a tear jerker and now you want that emotion transferred to the point you are preaching? Why do I smell a distinct odour of manipulation in the air? Please don’t try to manipulate me, I’ve been getting that all week!

Maybe there are more that you would add to this list?