Stage 8 – Message Detail

Surrogate Sermons

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

It is easy to preach something less than a sermon.  We thought of one example yesterday – the curiosity satisfier.  Today I’d like to list a few from a list by Dwight Stevenson (published in A Reader on Preaching).  His goal is to help us spot sermon replacements and erradicate them from our ministry.  Here are his titles with brief explanations:

Moralistic harangue – The exhorting, punishing or whipping of our people because they are not living up to their obligations.  Many people seem to appreciate receiving these bashings.  Why?  Perhaps because they don’t like themselves much anyway, feel guilty and appreciate taking their medicine.  “It is a fine way of paying for sin without repenting of it.”

Aesthetic artifact – The carefully produced work of art that one hopes will be a blessing to behold for generations, rather than carefully designed nourishment for these people now.

Pontifical pronouncement – The preaching of one who seeks to do the thinking for the people, standing in authority for the immature who find security in such “assistance.”

Museum lecture – Often the best one can hope for is mildly interesting and informative, but often becomes dull and boring, and is almost always irrelevant.

Palliative prescription – As we run from moralistic harangue we are always in danger of falling into cheap grace, easy assurance, repentance free pardon and superficial pain-relief.

That’s enough for today.  It’s only half his list, but that’s enough.  Again, these examples of surrogate sermons remind us of the importance of the Bible in expository preaching.   The Bible does not merely give a starting point, or illustrative material, or a stamp of approval.  The Bible has to be in charge of the message – the idea, the content, the relevance, the mood, the goals.

Preach to do More Than Satisfy Curiosity

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

The Bible was not given to satisfy curiosity.  It is truth that always intersects life in some way.  Consequently as preachers we must not pretend that arms-length analysis is sufficient.  We have to wrestle with how to help our listeners experience the truth that is being preached.

Haddon Robinson has pointed out that for many people, most of the preaching they have heard has satisfied only to the level of meeting some level of curiosity.  Sadly many in our churches have had years of Bible studies that are not dissimilar to filling out a crossword or Sudoku puzzle.  You get all the parts in the right place, get the thing completed and then feel satisfied.  But the Bible does not work merely at a curiosity level.  It digs deeper, intersects more fully with life.

Haddon was interviewed in 2001 by Preaching magazine.  In his words, “I think God’s truth is always designed to challenge us and change us.”  Let us pray that we never settle for satisfying curiosity when we have the privilege of being involved in transforming lives.

Don’t Shoot the Wheel-Nut

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

Today in the news there is a story of a man who got frustrated trying to loosen the wheel-nut on his car and decided to try blasting it from close range with a shotgun. The ricochet of buckshot and debris peppered him from ankle to abdomen.

While not wanting to make light of his severe injuries, I would like to draw an analogy for our thinking as preachers. Use as much force as necessary to achieve each goal in a sermon, but don’t exert excessive force that will backfire on you. Here are some examples of backfiring preaching techniques:

* Overstating the introduction. Don’t promise to solve all the problems of the world in your introduction if your message only addresses some of the problems. If the goal is modest, then strive to create a thirst for the message, but a thirst that will be quenched. It is easy to take onboard the importance of surfacing a need and then over-promise. It will backfire.

* Overbearing illustrations. Perhaps you come across a moving story, or have a powerful experience that fits with your message. Be careful it is not too powerful or you might overwhelm the message. Illustrations and stories should drive the idea forward, not overtake it. Even if it happened to you, even if it is all true, even if it agrees with the text . . . if it is too strong it may backfire.

* Over-the-top word choice. Sometimes shocking a congregation can be effective, but you must plan carefully. Just because Tony Campolo once swore at a congregation does not mean we should all try it. For effect or shock value or even for a laugh, it is tempting to go too far. Don’t. It will backfire.

Peter has responded to a comment on this post.

Plan to Pause

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

A pause is a simple concept.  Stop for a moment.  A non-preacher might assume it would be easy to stop talking, especially since most people would rather not talk in front of people anyway.  But no, pauses are hard to do.  Almost a constant piece of constructive feedback to beginning preachers is “a few pauses would help.”  I still find it difficult to pause enough after almost 15 years of preaching.

A pause is a very powerful weapon in the preacher’s arsenal.  After a pause, studies suggest that listeners are alert, attention is high and they listen well.  This increased focus will only last for a few sentences before fading to a more relaxed state again.  This means that after a pause we only have perhaps three or four sentences to establish what we’ll be saying next.

Be sure to pause between the chunks of a sermon.  Give listeners that opportunity to be fully with you as you set off on the next chunk.  Then be sure to start the chunk clearly.  Think through those first sentences and be sure that everyone will be onboard before the relaxation of attention.  If we really think through the power of purposeful pause, we’ll be motivated to pour over our outlines or manuscripts and carefully select key moments to stop.  Plan to pause.

Prayer, Preaching, Professionalism?

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

 

Is there any stage of the preaching process that we should not be bathing in prayer? When people are first exposed to training in homiletics there is often an initial concern. Is this “process” reducing a highly spiritual ministry to a series of stages, techniques and professionalism? That would depend on the instructor, but I’d hope the answer would be no.

We should be praying at every stage. We should prayerfully select the passage and make sure it is a true literary unit. We should prayerfully study the passage and determine author’s purpose and idea. We should prayerfully consider our congregation and determine appropriate sermon purpose, idea, strategy and details. We should even pray about delivery, and of course we should be praying for the people as well as ourselves throughout the process.

Prayer does not result in a bypass around the work. Praying as we select the passage does not mean we will receive direct revelatory guidance about what to preach. Praying during passage study and sermon preparation does not excuse us from the long hours of wrestling with the text or the often grueling work of crafting the preaching idea, and so on. So we don’t pray begging for a hard work bypass. If we do receive an objective direct revelation then we should obey, but prayer is not primarily about that. Prayer is a lot about dependence, about humility, about asking for wisdom as we do our part of His work.

Let us be preachers who do not shy away from the work involved in our ministry, but let us also be preachers who never fail to pray at every stage in the process.

Craving Authenticity

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Our culture has shifted and is shifting.  Certainly in the west there is now a deep mistrust of inauthentic communication.  For example the slick sales pitch of a car salesperson twenty or thirty years ago has largely morphed into a seemingly more authentic approach today.  In reality much of sales communication is learned pseudo-authenticity.  Nevertheless it reflects how things have changed.  People don’t appreciate spin, slick patter or unnatural performance.  This is also true in the church.  People do not respond well to, or respect, the pulpiteering style of previous generations.  Pulpit-pounding ear bashing does not stir as some suggest it did in the past.  So what are we to do?

Work on delivery so that the real you can come through.  Working on eye contact, body language, gesturing, inflection of voice and so on should be done not in order to perform, but to effectively be yourself.  Obviously we all have aspects of communciation style that could be improved, so we should do that.  However, our goal is not to learn a pulpit style or persona.  Our goal is to allow the real person to communicate really effectively.

Be in your message.  People want not only authentic style of delivery, but also authenticity in content.  That means we cannot hide ourselves.  We should wisely place ourselves with appropriate vulnerability into our messages.  As Haddon Robinson says, “don’t be the hero or the jerk” – it is not nice to listen to someone showing off, nor do we want to listen to someone without credibility.  So look for ways to show yourself, but carefully so you don’t overwhelm or undermine the message.

Piper’s Ten Tips from Edwards

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

The final chapter of The Supremacy of God in Preaching by John Piper contains ten lessons from the preaching and writing of Jonathan Edwards. I’d like to list all, but highlight a handful for us this morning.

So here’s a list of half of the ten. Preachers should Saturate with Scripture their messages, and employ analogies and images, driving the teaching home with use of threat and warning. They should plead for a response and be intense. It is easy to see where Piper received his greatest preaching influence. Now the other half:

Stir up holy affections – Edwards was right in recognizing that the theological tradition he was such a big part of can easily fall into a mind and will centered anthropology. He was not an advocate for unthinking fervor, for the preacher must also enlighten the mind. However, if all the preacher does is educate the brain and pressure the will, he is missing the driving seat of a person, namely the affections. This is a lesson we would all do well to ponder biblically. Hence we should probe the workings of the heart.

Yield to the Holy Spirit in prayer – the preaching event is such a divine working that we are foolish to lean on our own “professionalism” as communicators. Who among us would say that their ministry has enough or too much prayer in it? For our preaching to reflect the Christlikeness that it should, we must be broken and tender-hearted – a fruit, in part, of much prayer.

Illustrations of Relevance

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

The whole subject of illustrations in preaching is worthy of consideration.  For some of us, it is a constant struggle.  For others it seems to be an effortless delight.  Here are some points to ponder:

1. Determine the purpose of an illustration.  Instead of placing an illustration in a message just because it has been a while since the last one, try to define the purpose for one at this point.  Is it there to explain and clarify the point?  Or is it intended to support or prove the point?  Or is it moving the listener toward application of the point?  These are the three ways any idea can be developed, so these are the three things that an illustration can do.  There is one other option – an illustration can provide a temporary break allowing for a moment of humor.  This may be legitimate, but choose to do so purposefully.

2. Remember that experience is better than mere knowledge.  People will connect more effectively with something they have experience of than something they only know about.  Thus an illustration taken from common experience (such as choosing the shortest line of people and then seeing every other line go faster) is usually more effective than known but not experienced (such as an astronaut walking on the moon).

3.  Their experience is worth more than yours.  Ideally you will find illustrations that both you and they have experienced (then you can visualize and describe effectively, and they can see what you describe).  But if you can’t get both, try to find illustrations from their experience rather than yours.  Obviously this is not always possible, but worth it when you can pull it off.

4. There is a weakest form of illustration.  This is one that is outside both your and your listeners’ experience and knowledge.  This will often take the form of an obscure story from times gone by and distant lands.  These are usually found in books of “5 Million Preaching Illustrations.”  Sometimes these will fit and work relatively well.  Usually not.  

Don’t give a steady diet of illustrations lacking in clear purpose or audience relevance.  Let us try our hardest to come up with the best we can, then when Sunday comes, go with what we’ve got!

Preaching Lessons from TJ Hooker – Part 2

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I certainly don’t want to push this illustrative analogy, but just one more post from the world of 1980’s television drama.  The title is wrong.  These two posts are really preaching theory “illustrations” rather than “lessons.”  Obviously I can’t use the term “illustrations” because it would mislead on a preaching website, but I’m also not saying we learn our preaching from Aaron Spelling TV productions.  The fact is that as times change, so does the presentation style used by the media.  They are driven to be as effective as possible, so they tend to evolve their approach.  Some aspects are negative (more and more shocking content to stir results in numbed viewers), but others are simply neutral (such as the phenomena noted in the last post and this one).

So just one more “lesson.”   A quarter of a century ago, the episode I was watching followed a clear plot line.  A situation thrown into tension by a problem, with the tension then increasing until the moment of resolution, followed by several minutes of denouement – tying together loose ends and returning the viewers to a state of relaxed contentment.  Those last few minutes were intriguing to me.  The program almost landed twice, but still dragged on.  After the satisfying capture of the felons, there were two more scenes.  One in which the arresting officer made a tricky play on words in reference to the length of jail term one would receive.  Then another showing the officers joking together as they headed out of the door. Corny?  Yes.  Necessary?  No.

Compare that with equivalent police or military dramas today.  Often the show ends just before you expect it to end, not three minutes after it should have ended.  Often the show ends with some tension remaining, a thought-provoking scene, or a cliff-hanger.  These two approaches illustrate a preaching lesson that homiletics writers also affirm:

When you come to the end of your message, don’t add three minutes of nothing and a corny freeze frame moment that leaves listeners comfortably returned to a state of relaxed levity.  Instead carefully craft your conclusion to both resolve the message, yet also to leave an unresolved state of heart and mind, a slight disequilibrium that gives some momentum into the application or further consideration of the message.  Oh, and try to do all that and finish a couple of sentences earlier than they expect.

Preaching Lessons from TJ Hooker

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Compare and contrast.  Sounds like an exam question.  I’ve been comparing and contrasting two TV shows.  I’m away from home so I’ve watched a couple of TV shows to unwind at night.  One is a classic police show from the early 80’s.  The other a quality mini-series from last year.  One is compelling viewing, the other is hilarious.  Apart from great clothes, old cars that roll in every chase, shallow plots and pathetic one-liners, what else has changed in 25 years of TV production?

The introduction.  A quarter of a century ago people would gladly sit through three minutes of canned music, watching several action shots and freeze frames of central characters with yellow lettering across the screen, “Starring – William Shatner.”  I can just imagine people making themselves comfortable and saying to themselves, “I’ll watch it if he’s in it!”  After the opening credits there are then a few more minutes of tedious scene setting, relaxed police officers enjoying a few empty jokes.  Finally things start when a crime takes place (unrealistic, utterly ridiculous, but at least it is some action).

Today the opening credits last 45 seconds and don’t come until 8 minutes into the show.  The very first frame of the broadcast is action, tension, intrigue, interest.  Producers know that unless you grab people in the first seconds, you’ll lose them to one of the several hundred other options under their right thumb.

We are not preaching 25 years ago.  People don’t make themselves comfortable and say to themselves, “a sermon about Moses, great!  I’ll listen to it if he’s in it!”  Life is faster, people are ready to move on quicker (not physically, but in their minds).  What can you do in the first three or four sentences to arrest their interest and lock their focus?

I hope your clothes have changed in 25 years, and if the Lord has blessed you at all then hopefully your car has changed too.  Let’s not go retro on the intro.