Stage 8 – Message Detail

Preaching Means Picking Words – Part 4

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Alright, I think this will be the last in the series.  Yesterday I made mention of sensory details and sufficient time for images to form on the screens of the hearts and imaginations of the listeners.  This is all true and important, well worth pondering, but here’s another piece of the puzzle.  Listeners won’t remain listeners unless they are engaged and interested:

Pick words which energize the message! It’s almost a given that most preachers are imbalanced in their reading.  We tend to read books on biblical studies, theology, commentaries, etc.  These books are precise, but rarely energizing or invigorating to read.  But if we preach like a dry and precise commentary, listeners will miss out on the gems in our content.  We need to practice the skill of energizing our descriptive vocabulary.  Did Saul hide?  No, he cowered.  Did Goliath call out?  Or did he bellow?  What about fog, does it come, or does it creep?  Was that a crowd gathered around Stephen, or was it a mob?

Series Conclusion – It would do us all good to do a stock check on our preaching vocabulary.  Is it accurate, or sloppy?  Does it communicate, or try to show off?  Is it lofty, or natural?  Is it vivid, or bland?  Does it engage and energize, or fall flat?  Perhaps there’s one area to work on. Perhaps more than one.  It’s worth the effort though, after all, at some very basic and fundamental level, preaching means picking words!

Preaching Means Picking Words – Part 3

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Precision is good, pride is not.  Pomposity is slightly different than lofty language.  But there’s still more to write on this issue.  When we preach, we pick words.

Develop your descriptive vocabulary. The Bible text is usually quite lean and sparse when it comes to descriptive details.  It certainly doesn’t paint the pictures like contemporary fiction writers do – “It was her long, flowing, mahogany-brown hair that first caught his attention.  Her confident gait held in tension by the reserved expression on her face.  Was it reserved, or was it demure?  He wondered as she approached the ticket desk, lifting her black leather purse onto the high grey surface and leaning forward on her elbows…” I could go on, I know you’re intrigued (she wanted non-smoking tickets).

So if the Bible is lean and sparse, surely we shouldn’t preach like we’re writing contemporary fiction (where it can take 10 pages of description to get to the conversation)?  It’s true, we shouldn’t trivialize the text, or over-describe and assign inspiration to that which is merely sanctified imagination.  On the other hand, our listeners are listening.  They can’t go back over the text and read it again, engaging their imaginations (as they might at home in their quiet times).  As listeners they need sensory details and sufficient time for the story to form in their hearts and minds.

I try to imagine a blank screen in the minds of my listeners.  As I explain the text, tell the story, etc., I am trying to give enough information, using effective word choices, and taking enough time for an image to form on those blank screens.  It is tempting and too easy to preach the Bible at such pace that listeners never get beyond the fog on the screens.  They won’t remember a set of propositions in the same way as they’d remember the mark left by a clear idea imprinted through the experience of the text well preached, effectively forming on the screens of their minds.

Preaching Means Picking Words – Part 2

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Yesterday we considered the challenge of picking the right words to convey the message when we preach.  We need to be precise rather than slack, but strive to communicate rather than to demonstrate our verbal or intellectual prowess.  Here’s another factor to throw into the mix:

Lofty language languishes. Is lofty language the same thing as pulpit pomposity?  Yes and no.  Pompous words are chosen to show off our intellect (or are used carelessly without intent to show off).  Lofty language may be used to show off our spirituality (or simply be used without thinking because we are used to it in our church circles, or because we mistake it for some sort of spiritual humility and genuinely motivated demonstration of sanctification).  The fact is that in almost every setting, listeners find lofty language and tone to be distant, unengaging and even off-putting.  While it may have been acceptable in a previous generation, it seems that in most places the tolerance for inauthentic communication forms has diminished drastically.  In the western cultures, at least, the majority of listeners now esteem authenticity and natural communication.  Having a pulpit voice or a pulpit vocabulary is not worth it, even if it once was (which is a very questionable “if”).

Lofty language languishes, it doesn’t stand up tall and demand that listeners engage with it and its message. Ok, that paragraph was a long one, so I’ll leave it there and add a part three to this series of posts.

Preaching Means Picking Words

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It almost goes without saying, but let’s say it anyway: preaching involves choosing words.  Sometimes the words are chosen agonizingly poring over a manuscript.  Other times words are chosen at an essentially sub-conscious level during delivery.  Whether it takes an age to get the right word, or a split-second to get any word, what word should be chosen?  A couple of thoughts:

Precise words – we really are to carefully choose the best words we can.  One aspect of that choice should be precision.  If we mean something specific, we should say that, and not something else.  Was it Mark Twain who said (probably was, it was usually him) – “Choose the right word – and not it’s second cousin.”  How easy it is to preach in vague words and achieve vague results.

Pomposity & pride are problematic – while it is important to be precise in our word choices, we should watch carefully for the insidious creeping of intellectual arrogance.  It is tempting to show that you know that term, but your goal is to preach the Bible so that the listeners can understand and respond to it, not so that they can praise you for such heady fare.  So beware of “jargon” known only to theologians, literary analysts or even trendy-Christian-fashionistas.  (This isn’t just a simple rule that says, “don’t do it!”  You also need to think through the choices you make.  For instance, avoiding reference to ‘biblical narrative’ by using the term ‘Bible story’ is certainly less technical, but it might imply ‘piece of old fiction’ if your supporting comments aren’t also carefully chosen.  It is vital to know your listeners and choose words accordingly – ‘biblical narrative’ would be considered highly technical by some, not at all by others.)

So let’s be precise rather than haphazard as we choose our words.  At the same time our deliberate approach to word choices should generally tend toward the clear and plain, rather than highly technical and “showy-offy” (technical term).  Poring over a manuscript for precision is one thing, it’s the sub-conscious choices that are the real challenge. Surely that requires us to make a deep-down, heart-level, fundamental, core-value, gut-level commitment to eliminating pride from our preaching.

Unhealthy Division: Style & Substance

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Perhaps people like me add to the kind of division I am thinking about by the labels used in our teaching of preaching, but still, we’d do well to think about this.  Do we too easily divide elements of preaching?

For example, content and delivery, or substance and style.  It’s a simple distinction, and it works for planning a class schedule.  But when you consider the complexity of the act of communication, perhaps the distinction can be unhelpful?  Certainly once we start dismissing style out of a resolute commitment to substance, we are shooting ourselves in the foot.

Now don’t get me wrong.  The term “style” is not the best for what I am writing about.  Even “delivery” can sound like a performance.  The reality, though, is that the message is transmitted through a preacher.  This includes many elements.  Not just vocal production, verbal clarity, non-verbal presentation, etc. (the classic elements of “delivery”), but also that which you might label “ethos” and “pathos.”

I recently tweaked my gradually-improving definition of preaching in one part by adding the two words “and life.”  In reference to the oral communication aspect of preaching, my current best attempt at a definition says that preaching involves “…effective communication through the preacher’s words (and life)…”

Perhaps we would do well to not dismiss matters of “style” and “delivery” as “mere performance.”  It is too easy to take Paul’s self-distancing from the manipulative skill of classical rhetoric (1Cor.2:1-5) and therefore dismiss all rhetoric and homiletics.  The problem with such a blanket response is that Paul clearly utilized both rhetorical and homiletical skill in his writing and preaching.  Instead of a quick dismissal of all style/delivery issues, or at the other extreme, an obsession with delivery that results in a performance mentality, perhaps we would consider more seriously that which results in the pulpit from the weight of who we are personally in our walk with Christ.

Maturity shows.  Passion shows.  Love shows.  Life shows.  Perhaps a preachers style and delivery are a lot more about the preachers inner life and spirituality than our categories tend to recognize?

Thou Shalt Not Bore Through Preaching

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I can’t claim this as an inspired eleventh commandment.  But there have been times when I wished it were there in the text!  In reality I tend to hear myself preaching more than others now, so I need to be careful what I say here . . . but a lot of preaching is just really kind of, well, boring.

We could get into all sorts of reasons for that.  There are numerous ways to de-bore elements of preaching.  But I just want to raise the fundamental issue.  Let’s beware that we don’t bore.  Is it the content?  Sometimes.  Is it the delivery? Sometimes.  Is it the lack of “illustrations” (a common quick-fix diagnosis)?  Sometimes.  Is it the presence of predictable illustrations?  Sometimes.  Is it the attitude of the preacher?  Sometimes.  Is it the personality of the preacher?  Sometimes.  Is it the personal spiritual walk of  the preacher?  Sometimes.  Is it the reality about God?  Never.

There are many reasons why preachers commit the horrifying sin of boring listeners.  But lest I elongate this post and dilute the point unnecessarily, let’s just stop here with two comments.  Let us commit to never boring people with the Word of God.  Let us commit to genuinely responding to God convicting us on this issue (when He does), rather than simply sticking on a band-aid quick fix.

Not Every Passage is Easy

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I suppose many of us preachers have a desire to make every passage understandable.  This is good and right on many levels.  Yet some passages, and some details in passages, are tough.  I was leading a Bible study on Isaiah 49-50 the other night . . . there was a tough detail.  Should I force my understanding on people?  What if my understanding of it rests on a broader background than some of those present can draw on?  I’m intrigued by Piper’s point in chapter 14 of Brothers We Are Not Professionals – we should show people why God inspired hard texts.

It is amazing that so much of Christianity rests on the shoulders of a “book,” and some parts of that “book” (technically 66 of them I suppose) are hard to understand.  Why did God do this?  Piper offers four reasons.  1. To stir in us a sense of desperation (utter dependence on God’s enablement).  2. To move us to supplication (prayer to God for help).  3. To prompt real cogitation (thinking hard about Biblical texts – which is no alternative to praying for help!)  4. To stimulate genuine education (the training of young people and adults to pray earnestly, read well and think hard.)

As preachers we must wrestle with hard texts and not simply skirt around them in our preaching, nor avoid them in our scheduling.  On the one hand it is up to us to help make the message of the text clear.  At the same time, we may do our listeners a disservice if we don’t point out when a passage is tough, and look for ways to let that be a motivation for study, rather than a hindrance.

Don’t Dilute By Distraction – Part 2

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In the closing stages of a message, the last leg of the journey, it is easy to lose the focus and momentum of a message.  Yesterday I raised the issue of introducing other texts, which can (not always, but often) dilute the force of the ending of a message.  Here’s another:

Don’t dilute by adding unnecessary new images. After twenty or thirty minutes where the overarching image has been the tender care of a mother for her child, the preacher decides to throw another image into the mix in the closing moments – perhaps the care of a shepherd for the lambs, or a coach for his team, or whatever.  Often a new image, a new illustration, a new set of vocabulary, when introduced in the final leg of a sermon will undermine the strength of what has gone before, or totally overwhelm the message (such as a moving story that is so powerful it makes every other element of the message, including the Bible, mere introduction).  Again, it is not always true.  Sometimes a pithy anecdote, a moving illustration, a well turned phrase, may serve to close a message well…but only sometimes…and not a very big sometimes either.

The final thrust of a message is a critical leg of the journey.  It’s the time to consolidate, not dilute.  A time to pull elements together and drive them home, not add new information that shatters the unity of the whole.

Don’t Dilute By Distraction

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Just a quick thought relating to the concluding movement of a message. This includes the conclusion, but might also bring in the final movement or point of the message. During the final thrust, the crescendo of the message, do not dilute the focus of listeners. It is so easy to unnecessarily add new elements to a message at a time when the need is not variation, nor interest, but focus. For instance:

Don’t dilute by adding distracting texts. It’s so tempting to refer to another verse somewhere or other in the Bible. Often, not always, but often, this is a distraction rather than a help. Evaluate carefully before redirecting the gaze of the listeners to a passage, to wording, to a story, to a psalm, to anything that has not been the primary focus of the message. You may mention one verse, but their minds may blossom out in all sorts of bunny trails, or at the very least, the new information may dilute their focus. Be wary of adding texts in this final leg of the journey. (Sometimes a specific text, painstakingly chosen, and carefully used, may serve to close a message well…but only sometimes…a small sometimes.)

Tomorrow I will bring up another source of distraction that can dilute the end of a message.

The Danger of Disengagement

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Yesterday I enjoyed a couple of very encouraging, although too brief, conversations on preaching.  One thought that was bounced around was one I have addressed on here before – the fact that shortening attention spans is a myth.  People will listen as long as they are engaged.  For some preachers, that means an hour long sermon is entirely possible, while for others, twenty minutes is beyond what they can manage.

This issue of attention brings two thoughts from two very different “homiletics” voices to mind.  First, David Buttrick is among those who suggest that really people can only concentrate in short blocks of time, perhaps up to five minutes.  So the preacher should plan their message in order to recreate attention in these blocks.  I won’t go into detail on that here, just that simple thought may be helpful.

Second, Andy Stanley has helpfully pointed out the danger of disengagement.  What happens once people disengage from our message?  Stanley suggests that once someone disengages, they start to process the preached information in a different way: “this is irrelevant; church is irrelevant; God is irrelevant; the Bible is irrelevant.”  For Stanley the key is to keep listeners travelling with you on a journey.  (For a teaser of Andy’s book, here’s an interview on communication with Ed Stetzer – Andy Stanley interview)

How do we engage our listeners?  How do we keep them engaged?  Do we really recognize the danger when they disengage?