The Destructive Power of the Patronising Quip

July 12, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

It is simple really, people don’t like to be patronized. So don’t. That is, if you want them to hear what else you are saying, assuming the patronizing comment is not the main idea of your message, don’t do it. It is like speaking to your spouse for ten minutes and throwing in a couple of insults along the way – what do you think they will go away thinking about?

I’m sure we all know what it is to be patronized, but let me share some patronizing comments that I’ve heard from the pulpit in recent years (just to be sure we are all alert to the range available to us if we want to undermine a sermon or two!)

Patronizing the locale – “So this is the little town of…” Maybe it is “little” from the visiting speaker’s perspective, but most locals don’t like outsiders telling them where they live is insignificant. Call it pride if you will, but don’t expect such a warm hearing.

Patronizing the church – “I come from a church of X hundred, but it’s so nice to be in an intimate gathering like this…” It’s like being a tourist. Comment positively as much as you like, but not in implied comparison with the bigger and better that you have come from.

Patronizing the knowledge – “Have you ever considered the difference the next word makes to this passage?” Unless you are claiming to have come up with something new, some of them probably have considered that. (And if you’ve got something new, you may have a different problem on your hands!) Along similar lines, “turn to X in your Bibles, you’ll need to use the table of contents to find!”

Patronizing the experience – “You may not have seen this before…” This is similar to the previous comment, it implies that you are a first time guide (which generally grates on those seasoned travellers through the Bible). Bizarrely I heard one preacher say, “If you read through John’s Gospel every week for twenty years, you would see this…” I don’t know if that is patronizing or just plain deceptive – I struggle to believe the implication that since he had done that he could now show us this wonderful insight in the text (it was a fanciful, or should I say, a theologically driven twisting of the text on that occasion!)

The strange thing about patronizing is that it tends to be in the form of passing comments, rather than overall content. This isn’t a hard and fast statement. Surely some preachers may come across as patronizing in everything they say, but I suspect that is primarily attitude. The point is, people don’t mind hearing basic messages. The way to avoid patronizing is not to wow the listener with new insight, clever exegesis or overwhelming passion. The way to avoid patronizing is to speak with love for the listener. When we are sensitive to how we come across, then we will filter out the unhelpful quips along the way.

Can You See It Yet?

July 8, 2011February 25, 2015 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Here’s a hypothetical suggestion to make a point. The traditional approach to preaching is to announce and read the text very early on, or even prior to, the sermon. What if we did the exact opposite?

I used to watch a children’s television programme in which the artist would be painting away on a wall or large canvas. A stroke here. A bit of colour there. A splash of paint. A few dots. “Can you see it yet?” The impressive thing was that until the very end I would have no idea what he was painting. Then suddenly it would all come together.

What if we preached like that? Hypothetical, but bear with me. You start your message with surfacing a need and you move into the body of the message explaining and applying the text (this is where the idea fails in reality) without identifying it. In your conclusion you read the passage. Just before the conclusion would you still be asking “Can you see it yet?”

If this were possible, it would be anything but impressive. Yet not unusual. When some preachers preach, usually after having read the text on which the sermon is based, the discerning listeners are left bemused by how what they are hearing seems to bear no resemblance to the text. The undiscerning listeners are left with the impression that this is how the Bible should be handled. An anecdote here. A pithy line there. An application. A story. A comment. But can we see the connection to the text?

I’m not suggesting you leave the reading until the end, unless that would help the sermon. I am suggesting the goal in preaching is not to make the connection between text and sermon a complete mystery!

Preacher, Please Know What You Are Talking About!

July 6, 2011July 6, 2011 / Peter Mead / 3 Comments

This should go without saying, but apparently it doesn’t. When you preach, please know what you are talking about! There are few things that undermine integrity as quickly as a preacher making mistakes in what they say.

We all make mistakes, and there is grace, of course. I’ve made mistakes. You have too. But the difficulty here is that ignorance is never obvious in the mirror. It is really hard to know what we don’t know.

I would love to give some examples, but I’ll keep this slightly general. Here are some categories:

1. Do you know the book from which your preaching text is drawn? Now and then a preacher will come out with something about a Bible book that leaves those who know their Bibles thoroughly confused. Actually, they will see through the preacher, but the ignorant will swallow the error.

2. Do you know the context of the cross-referencing you are doing? It is easy to spin off a text and dip into another part of the canon (either quoting or referring to content). But do you know that area of the Bible? If you only studied for your preaching text then you might easily make errors in regard to that other part of the Bible.

3. Do you know your theology as well as you think you do? Sometimes preachers will make theological points that have no foundation in the preaching text (or any other text, for that matter). This might be done when trying to show orthodoxy in some way – for example, wanting to affirm the full deity and humanity of Christ, but forcing that into an explanation of something to do with Christ’s ministry where it doesn’t fit.

4. Do you know the facts of the illustrative material you are using? I heard a preacher apparently trying to quote a key figure in church history, yet his introductory comments about him betrayed a significant ignorance of that church history. The same could be true when presenting a scientific or cultural example – getting the facts wrong, or even looking shaky, will undermine integrity.

5. Last but certainly not least, have you actually looked carefully at the text you are preaching? There is nothing worse than a preacher going off on a point about something, apparently trying to link it to the text, but ignoring the adjacent phrase that undermines the entire point.

Know the text, know the context, know the book, the Bible, and any realm from which illustrative materials are drawn. Hard work? Of course.

Tone Deaf Preaching

July 5, 2011July 5, 2011 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

You won’t hear me starting a chorus in public. Tone deaf. But what about preaching? Is there a need for aural sensitivity in the preacher? I think there is, absolutely.

What is the tone of the text? Some preachers deal with texts as flat data sets offering them a set of information from which to draw a textually rooted sermon (which is better than those who use the text as a springboard to bounce off to reach the heights of their own constructed sermonizing!) But if we are going to be genuinely biblical preachers, then we must develop a sensitivity for the tone of the text. Galatians 1 is very different from Philippians 4, which is neither Psalm 51 nor Isaiah 40. What is the tone of the text? Without sensitivity to the tone, you aren’t grasping a text properly.

What is the tone of your preaching? It doesn’t matter how good a sermon may be on paper, your congregation have to hear you preach it. This means how it comes across is very important. If you are consistently coming across as nagging, or edgy, or aggressive, or disrespectful, or patronizing, or prideful . . . and if you don’t know it, this is a problem. Ask for honest feedback. Listen to yourself. Watch yourself. Is the tone what you want it to be? Is the tone what the text suggests? Is the tone what they need it to be?

The tone of the text. The tone of the preacher. Some preachers seem tone deaf to both. Good preachers aren’t.

Don’t Assume Familiarity

June 30, 2011June 29, 2011 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

It happens all too regularly. The preacher zeroes in on a specific text and preaches it, assuming that the listeners are familiar with the broader context and flow of the book in which it is found.

Even if you are mid-series, don’t assume familiarity. It takes more than one or two brief overviews to help people feel comfortable in the broader context of a passage. It is easy to think that since this is week three of six, they will be tracking on the flow of the book. They may not.

Even if you already gave a a mini-overview in this message, don’t assume familiarity. You might have just given a thirty second sweep over the top of the book in your introduction. But now that you are into your message, you can’t assume they will be automatically spotting the connections you are hinting at in reference to how this text follows on from the preceding. Be overt.

Recognize that many in our churches feel much more daunted by the Bible than we might expect. It is easy to assume a level of familiarity that simple isn’t there. Also, many in our churches dip into the Bible for proof texts and to answer questions in Bible study groups, but don’t read books in flow and so don’t have familiarity with books as a whole.

We would do well to consider it one of our privileges to help folks become more familiar with books as a whole. It takes time, but it is worth the effort. The spiritually mature tend not to be the pocketful of proof text people, but rather the grasping the message of books as a whole kind of folks. So what to do?

1. Repeatedly offer helpful clear flowing summaries of books and larger sections when preaching from within them. It takes work to summarize effectively in order to do this (the kind of work the preacher is supposed to be doing, however!)

2. Consider overview sermons at the beginning and/or end of book series. Why is this so seldom done? Surely having worked with the bits, people would be delighted to see the whole fit together.

3. Consider stand-alone whole book sermons. With the overt goal of motivating people to get into the book for themselves, these can be highly profitable messages.

4. If your messages always skip around the canon like a four-year old after cake, or if your series are always topical in nature . . . consider the benefits of teaching through a book now and then.

Preacher, What is Your Role – Part 2

June 29, 2011June 28, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Yesterday we listed five pseudo-preaching roles that people fall into. Let’s finish the list and in doing so remember that to preach the Bible is to speak God’s Word into the lives of contemporary hearers. So we already considered advice dispenser, public entertainer, time filler, worship balancer, and life coach. Furthermore, preacher, you are not supposed to be:

6. Guilt Giver – It is a generations-old tradition. Selectively quote, misread your passage, partially preach the text. Pound the pulpit, point the finger, induce guilt at every opportunity. After all, waiting for God to touch hearts and change lives can feel like a slow process. So why not hurry it up by coercing people through guilt? Don’t shortcut. Preach the Word.

7. Revelation Provider – The Bible, to some, seems to feel so passe, so old-school, so done. Much more exciting to seek to always offer new revelation. In some circles this is about fresh “thus saith the Lord” declarations, in others this is done surreptitiously through the “I prayed about this and God gave me…” If He truly did, great, give it to us. Yet the preacher has a lifetime of wonderful objective truth to expound. Preach the Word.

8. Exegetical Innovator – Along similar lines, when you are looking at the Bible your job is not to see something new. You don’t have to find obscure little references in Chronicles, nor do you have to see something nobody has ever seen before in Psalm 23 or Romans. This tends to lead into subjective typology and fanciful interpretations. Be faithful. The freshness is still there. Preach the Word.

9. Societal Commentator – Oh it is inevitable that we do speak about and into the contemporary state of society. But that is not our main job. Instead of waxing forth on societal ills, speak to the people listening. They need to hear from God’s Word. If your main aspiration is to be a commentator, write for the local paper. If you are going to preach, preach the Word.

10. Rhetorical Artist – Maybe you’ve noticed how many contemporary preachers have become so “natural” in delivery style. Surely something is being lost. Don’t descend into maintaining earlier generational styles of hyper-alliteration, tongue-rolling flourishes, affected vocal delivery and wooden gestures deemed appropriate only for preaching. Preach the Word.

What would you add to this list?

One Simple Truth

June 27, 2011June 27, 2011 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I have to admit, I like a lot of what Andy Stanley has to say about preaching. One thing he does well is to say all that needs to be said, but without over packing the sermon. He sometimes speaks of preaching “one simple truth.” This issue tends to stir a reaction one way or the other:

On the one hand there are those that simply can’t find their way through a download of exegetical information. It is all too foreign. Too distant. Too technical. Too alien. Too irrelevant. So a dense sermon will leave little to no mark on them, other than boring them away from God and His Word.

On the other hand there are those that simply can’t cope with a sermon so simple that they gain nothing new from the experience of listening. It is all too simple. Too be there, done that. Too basic. So a lightweight sermon will leave little to no mark on them, other than boring them away from God and His Word (and probably exacerbating their pride, which helps nobody!)

So what to do? I don’t advocate simplistic preaching, nor dense preaching. I think we need to prayerfully pursue an engaging and accessible re-presentation of the biblical text, seeking to apply the text to the hearts and lives of those listening. With this as our goal, we should be able to satisfy most who want something of substance. At the same time, a loving consideration of listeners will allow us to avoid going over the heads of the listeners. It is our job to make the difficult accessible.

There may be a handful that can’t ever be pleased. Anything more than “do this, do that” and it is too complex. Anything less than rabbinical midrash and never-before-seen pesher and it is too basic. But for the most part, engaged and touched listeners will not be thinking “too basic” or “too complex.”

It is the disengaged and untouched that tend to swell the ranks of dissenters and create the tension.

What If?

June 14, 2011May 29, 2011 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Thankfully most churches do not descend into the superficiality of contemporary TV games shows. Now I would be highly relevant and refer to one, but I don’t watch any, so I’ll have to be slightly generic. Imagine for a moment that your church instituted a new slot in the church service. . .

Each week two preachers take turns to give the opening five minutes of their sermon. Then the audience get to vote for which sermon they get to hear that day. Perhaps the losing introduction gets less travel expenses. Perhaps the church could install a praise-o-meter and the selection could be made via volume of singing in two subsequent songs. Ok, enough of that.

Thankfully most churches don’t descend to such a level. We have a bit more of an appropriate atmosphere and ethos around the worship time and the sermon. Or do we?

Even without the flashing lights of the praise-o-meter, or the host with his “able assistant,” or the hype of a vote, something similar does happen each week. At the end of the introduction, each listener chooses whether they will engage or disengage for the rest of the message. Few, if any, will leave. But many may leave internally, heading for the golf course, or the weekly to-do list, or the forthcoming interview, or whatever. In fact, by the end of the introduction, many leavers will already be long gone. The first moments and minutes of a message are so vital!

Preaching is no game. But let’s not neglect the importance of arresting attention, surfacing a need, engaging the listener, demonstrating earliest possible relevance of speaker, text and message. Don’t depend on their dutiful commitment to listen to the Word. Win them so they can’t help themselves!

Facing a Phrase Unneeded

June 13, 2011May 29, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

When I listen to others preach, there are a handful of phrases that always stir a little reaction inside me. One is, “of course we all know…” or variants. “I’m sure you know the story of…” or “To quote a verse you probably have memorised…” or similar.

Why do people say this? I think it is about a sort of humility. It is a shorthand way of saying, “I know many of you have been Christians for many years and I am nervous, if I am honest, that I am not bringing anything new to the church today, so since my message is the same old same old, I’m going to pre-empt your critique that it was all the same old stuff by acknowledging that as I preach…” That would be cumbersome, so “As we all know…” it is, then. Hang on. Perhaps that family of phrases is unhelpful.

What if somebody doesn’t know it? We live in an age of increasing biblical illiteracy. People in our churches do not know their Bibles, generally speaking, as church goers may have done a generation or three ago. Giving the impression that everyone in the church knows something can be very unhelpful for the individual who doesn’t know that (uncomfortable to be the odd one out, even if actually there are many in the same boat, they will all feel alone at this moment)! Which leads on to a second point…

What if somebody is visiting? Chances are, an outsider is already feeling like an alien who has unknowingly landed on a different planet as they try to figure out the customs and culture of this thing called church. Don’t add to it by making them feel stupid because they don’t know what “we all know.” But there’s another reason I’d like to throw in here too:

Is the Bible really same old same old? Absolutely not! If you think it is, don’t preach it, please. The ancient documents collected together that we call the Bible is more fresh and alive and new and relevant and powerful and engaging and poignant and stirring that today’s newspaper headlines. We preach it and we preach it and we preach it again because it isn’t old news. It is fresh and relevant and more for today than anything else any of us could come up with. So preach with enthusiasm and excitement, not just for the visitor who may well have never heard it before, but for the most tired looking saint of the decades who needs to feel the force of the freshness of the Word anew right now!

Two Main Types of “Illustration”

June 3, 2011May 10, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

I recognize that there are multiple legitimate ways of “illustrating” a sermon, although I suspect the helpful options are sometimes more limited than we might imagine. I sometimes prefer to think in terms of explanations, proofs or applications rather than the more generic term “illustrations” (which can and does slide into time-fillers, interest-adders or expected-anecdotes . . . all of which I would resist). To simplify things, I think there are essentially two sources of helpful “illustration” that we should always look at.

1. The Contemporary Life Example. How did Jesus illustrate? Generally not with other biblical passages/stories (and this to very Bible aware Jews, totally unlike the increasingly biblical illiterate listeners of today). Nor with historical examples (and this to a very historically oriented people). But with everyday examples that listeners could easily relate to. Good illustrative material comes from the everyday experiences we can describe and use to help people to understand biblical truth, or visualise themselves applying the message.

2. The Inherent Textual Imagery. Generally speaking, Jesus was teaching new and direct truth, we are teaching Bible passages. So the other main category of “illustration” material is the imagery right in the text itself. Help people to see what the passage is saying (whenever possible use the imagery implied by the passage itself rather than rushing to another passage, or rushing to some “interesting” extra-biblical material).