Obvious Texts and Not So Obvious Texts

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When you speak on a subject, rather than preaching an assigned text, you have the choice of which text to preach.  In many cases there are obvious texts to preach.  Asked to preach on the church, you might be drawn to Ephesians, or Matthew 16.  Preaching on marriage?  Ephesians 5 or Colossians 3.  Preaching on missions?  Matthew 28 or Acts 1.

There are advantages to preaching the more obvious texts.  First, they are obvious because they address the issue clearly.  Second, people will often feel a sense of an expectation being satisfied, like watching a good movie for a second or third time.

But you might like to go with a less obvious text.  Perhaps a narrative.  Perhaps a text people don’t know so well.  Interest may rise, impact may be deeper, perspective may be enriched.  Preaching on church?  How about the last section of John 17 . . . that’s my choice for today.  The other subjects?  I’ll think about them another time, my mind is captivated by John 17:20-22.

You Can’t Cover Everything

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People appreciate expository preaching if it is done well.  People tend not to prefer the taste of exhaustive preaching.  The preacher is always tempted to try to cover every angle on every detail in the text.  After all, you’ve probably put hours of work into prayerful study and research, much of which has proved to be interesting and helpful to you.  But when it comes time to preach, selectivity is required.

Here is where the Big Idea becomes such a big deal.  Having the sharp focus of a main idea that reflects accurately and relevantly the main idea of the passage allows you to determine how to be selective.  An avenue of detail, or an anecdote of background information, or a cross-reference, or an illustration, or a side-point, or a personal soapbox, or whatever . . . if it doesn’t fully support that main idea, then it is immediately under scrutiny and should probably be chopped.

Selectivity has to take place before preaching.  Preparing to preach is not just about studying the passage.  Effort is required in preparing the message too.  Going into the preaching event stuffed full of information and selecting as you deliver tends to be as effective as planning your conclusion when you arrive at the end of your preaching time.

As Haddon Robinson has put it, “preaching can be like delivering a baby, or like delivering a missile.  In one your goal is to hit the target, in the other, your goal is to just get it out.”  It is in the “baby delivering” sermons that listeners tend to confuse expository preaching with exhaustive, exhausting, rapid-fire or overwhelming preaching.

Selectivity is probably one of the hardest skills and disciplines in preaching to master, but one of the most important.

Here’s a post from the early days . . . just for old time’s sake!

Refreshing Preaching

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As part of the Bible Fresh initiative, an e-book of advice to preachers has just gone online.  Here’s the link – just click here!

There are contributions from various respected voices, plus one from me on page 12.

Feel free to comment on here about any of the articles that you find helpful as you look through it.  (So far I’ve only read Conrad Gempf’s succinct offering, a third of which is: “Cut to the truth of Scripture and you’ll be relevant.  Sometimes too relevant for people’s tastes.”)

Blind Spots

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Eye contact is helpful.  Authentic and natural eye contact is priceless.  So much has been written about the importance of eye contact in communication, but I’ll leave you to search around for that online if you so choose.  I’d just like to share a few thoughts on this for us as preachers.

1. Too fleeting gives the impression of being untrustworthy. It’s tempting to just scan your eyes around while really you are just waiting until you can look down at your notes again.  Just because people see your eyes doesn’t mean you have made eye contact.

2. Too lingering implies intimacy or intimidation. Opposite gender folks will start to shuffle uncomfortably, same gender folks may wonder if you are wanting a fight.  I suppose the danger here is an unthinking “eye lock” on one person as your mind is elsewhere.

3. Too predictable implies eye contact is contrived or secondary. Have you listened to a preacher that alternates between their notes, the clock and a fascinating plant over in the corner?  It’s thoroughly distracting and annoying.  It feels like they are looking up from their notes because they’re supposed to, but the room might as well be empty because their is no connection with the people (and in time may become empty, but that’s another matter).

4. Beware of blind spots and find out what they are. I’ve learned that my blind spot is usually in the middle front of the congregation.  I tend to get the sides, and even singers behind me on the platform, but often fail to make any meaningful eye contact with the front few rows in the middle.  I recently observed a preacher who would look up to the right side up to 17 times before he’d look up to the left side of the congregation.

5. Do you really need to look down? It’s amazing how preachers often claim to have their notes simply as a security blanket, but actually they barely look at them (but when filmed discover they are looking down perhaps 70% of the time!)  Do you need as many notes as you have?  Do you look up as much as you think?  When you look up are you making eye contact with people, or just pausing until you can look down again?

Eye contact is worth so much to communicators trying to appear genuine.  It should be valued even more by those of us who actually are genuine and desire to genuinely connect with people.

Points in a Narrative Text Sermon

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There is a field of homiletics referred to as narrative preaching, but this post is concerned with the preaching of a narrative passage – eg. David and Goliath, Joseph in Potiphar’s House, Hannah & Samuel, etc.

In other posts I have encouraged the use of full sentence points, rather than descriptive titles that make the message outline look like a commentary synopsis.  The full thoughts help you communicate effectively, generally avoiding historical past tense sentences helps you not sound like a commentary recycler.  But it is worth clarifying a couple of points on points:

1. If the message structure reflects the story structure, then some points may be better stated in historical terms. What I mean is that in an attempt to be contemporary, we can end up making three or four life principles out of the developing elements of the story, rather than allowing the story to be told properly.  The problem then becomes a moralizing approach to the details of a story, rather than allowing the force of the story to stand behind the main point, which itself might best be the only focus of application.  Stories that are told effectively will hold attention, so it is not necessary to generate points of relevance or application throughout the detail of the story.  Pay careful attention to the introduction, generating a definite sense of sermon relevance there, then feel free to be in the world of the narrative for a large part of the message, continually building to the relevance that may only become overt in point 3 or 4 (i.e. whenever the main idea is revealed with its abiding theological thrust).

2. Shorter biblical stories may work best with a default sermon outline. Namely, point 1 is to tell the story.  Point 2 is to state and clarify the main idea of that story.  Point 3 is to reinforce and drive home the application of that main idea.  In this case point 1 is automatically historical.  Point 2 should be written in contemporary terms.  Point 3 has to be contemporary, including all sub-points.  Again the introduction is important, but I suspect that will be the case in almost every sermon that we preach (whether we give it the necessary attention or not).  This approach underlines the fact that the outline of a sermon is for your eyes only.  Once we realize our goal is not to transfer an outline, but to give the text in such a way as to clarify the main point and apply it, then we are freed from the burden of turning every narrative into a parallel rhyming assonated demonstration of guilded wordsmithery.

Managing Message Momentum

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Even the best message preparation often overlooks the critical issue of momentum.  So messages will often follow one of these patterns:

1. “U” … Start with a bang – drag on through the bulk – pick up for a strong finish.

2. “/” … Start slow – gradually increase in energy and get going.

3. “\” … Start strong – lose dynamic after the introduction, or first point, and drag to the end.

Each of these patterns will undermine the effectiveness of the preaching event.  Equally, while some preachers seem content to flatline “_” (i.e. never generate energy or momentum), it is not usually possible for listeners to cope with the opposite (i.e. constant high energy and fast pace).

If you have felt like your preaching tends toward one of these patterns, or if others have hinted at it.  What can you do?

1. Try to work out where the momentum was missing. Was it an unclear transition?  Was it a sequence of explanatory points?  Was it at the point you lost confidence in your content?  Was it just through a lethargic unplanned introduction?  Was it at a difficult juncture in the text?  If you can figure out where momentum was missing in previous messages, this will help you identify where the same could happen in future messages.

2. Listen to yourself practice. Sometimes you can get the sense of momentum struggles in a run through of the message, but not always.  It may be worth recording a run through and listening to it . . . but obviously that requires you to be on top of your preparation.

3. Evaluate the sermon map. Most of us tend to use an outline rather than an actual sermon map, but we can still evaluate it as a map.  As well as evaluating it for location of illustrations (the normal approach, which actually can generate predictability as people see every illustration coming), also look for points of relevance, and consider the terrain . . . will this bit be hard to traverse for the listener?  Marking your outline may allow you to energise a potentially monotonous section with illustration, review & preview, interlude, or even by overviewing rather than detailing a segment.

4. Weigh the sermon on the scales. Many of us tend toward simply making too many points, giving too much explanation, trying to give too much and the sermon is simply too heavy.  What would be lost if you chose to lighten the content slightly and create some breathing space?  If the main point of the text is not lost, then are we choosing to keep content because we want to demonstrate our insight, our study, our knowledge?

Energy, pace, vocal variation, movement, progress, laughter, relevance . . . the complex factors of message momentum.

Do We Need To Challenge Our Implied Assumptions?

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I just read an interesting article entitled Is Leadership a Healthy Christian Aim? It gets into the issue of what we connote by the terms we use.  In this particular case, the fact that adding “servant” to “leadership” doesn’t undo the connotations implicit in leadership language so revered in Christian circles.  I suppose I could argue with the article in places, and perhaps suggest that our goal should be to produce influencers, and influencers, by some definitions, are leaders – whether or not they are recognized officially.  But perhaps I would be falling into the same problem the article is addressing.

So as preachers, do we reinforce, or play along with, common Christian conceptions that actually need overt challenging?  How about the notion that single is second class?  How about the numerous class distinctions still dividing society (especially, perhaps, in the British context)?  How about the idea that only a very few are called to serve in missions?  Or equally, that all are missionaries just by virtue of their existence, wherever they are, irrespective of their attitude to life and ministry? How about the myth of contemporary financial security and its value (irrespective of amount of consumer credit needed)?  How about the notion that life consists in everything to do with this life only?  (How many practical applicational sermons function as if eternity is irrelevant to everyday life?)

I could go on with random statements, but the point is important.  It is easy to fall into the trap of preaching in such a way that we actually reinforce wrong thinking.  We can do that by the words we use, the illustrations we choose, by what is said and by what is not said.  Enough said.

What An Email!

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I just received an email from a friend.  Allow me to quote from it for our benefit:

I’m going to preach in 10 days. I’ve been wrestling a lot with pride and the desire to show off, and no matter how hard I tried to meditate on verses such as “what do you have that you did not receive?”, these tempting thoughts did not leave.

I then listened to an interview. I realized then that I was only praying for myself, for the sermon preparation, for strength and understanding and clarity, but I wasn’t praying for the people to whom I was going to preach. So I decided to pray for them.

I’ve since realized that praying for the congregation is one of the best ways to fight against pride and the desire to show off. As we pray for them, we start loving them and long for them to be amazed by God and not by ourselves, the preachers.

I’ve spent the afternoon trying to understand the passage, but it was too much of an intellectual exercise and not enough of an heart-level meeting with God. I then read this article and this one. I’ve realized that I first need to be impacted by the passage in my own life before I can communicate it to others. I don’t want to simply convey information but I want to share God’s heart with them.

Such an encouraging email!  May God protect us all from preaching out of pride, or from preaching unfelt truth.

Purposeful Selection Then Forgotten

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The first logical step in preparing a message (once you’ve been asked to preach, which is presumed), is to select your passage(s) on which to base the message.  Sometimes the invitation comes with the passage, sometimes with a theme, sometimes an open invitation.  Select then forget.  What do I mean?

1. When you’re invited to preach with a passage assigned. You may be tempted to skip the Passage Selection phase of preparation altogether, after all, job is already done, isn’t it?  Well, not fully.  You need to double check that you are handling a full unit of thought (i.e. not half a story, half a proverb, half a psalm, half a paragraph, etc.)  Whatever you are asked to preach, you have to study the full unit of thought in its context, so there is a need to check the selection.  In doing so, especially if a title has been assigned, you may get a clear indication of what they are wanting from the message.  Great, a church or ministry being purposeful is a good thing. But for the study phase (stages 2-4), you need to forget that purpose and seek to dwell in the text.  Reintroduce that purpose in your thoughts for message purpose, stage 5.

2. When you’re invited to preach with a theme assigned. You go on the hunt for an appropriate passage on which to preach that theme (or a combination of passages).  Once you’ve selected your passages, forget the theme for a while.  The text has to be free to speak for itself.  Any imposed message makes it something other than truly biblical preaching.

3. When you’re invited to preach and free to choose. This is hard work.  You can easily waste a lot of time pondering where to go.  You may go where you go for a variety of reasons, but once you’ve gone there, forget your motivation (for now) and allow the text to speak for itself.

What if it is different? At times I’ve been faced with a passage that doesn’t do what I thought it would, or doesn’t do what a title suggests.  Well, then, either preach the passage or pick another.  Simple really, but vital.  When we are studying passage (stages 2-4), we need to let the text be boss, and then let that authority linger through the message formation phase of the process.

Pick a Preacher to Ponder

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All of us are naturally drawn to some people, and less so to others.  At the same time, all of us are busy and often live in the frenzy of the urgent.  But there is real value in stopping for a few moments and pondering a biblical preacher – that is, a preacher in the Bible.  Perhaps their situation will draw you, or their personality, or their apparent failure, or their success.  Perhaps in pondering their life and ministry you will recognize something for which to pray in respect to your own preaching, or perhaps an encouragement in difficult days.  So think for a moment . . . who?  Why?

The Lord Himself – Obvious choice I suppose, but not simply the agrarian story-teller people describe him to be.  His preaching polarised people, could be profoundly clear, or blindingly opaque.

Stephen – A masterful sermon that gets by far the longest summary in the book of Acts (a book where the speeches seem to be more action than the action!)  He nailed his opponents with a strong idea and followed through for maximum response.

Paul – Sometimes unimpressive, sometimes apparently unsuccessful, regularly opposed, yet faithful.  He was not just an apostolic brain, he poured out his life, his heart and love for the people he preached to and alongside.

The Preacher to the Hebrews – Engagingly biblical, alternating between exposition and exhortation, presenting compelling images and preaching a profoundly moving word of exhortation.

or perhaps, Elijah, Ezekiel, Micah, Jeremiah, Jonah, etc. – from eccentric to downright hard-hearted, from unheard to massive negative reaction, the prophets were covenant enforcers proclaiming in louder and bolder tones what God’s people had so long ignored, or what the nations needed to hear.

Noah – big on obedience, with the biggest of visual aids, perhaps the longest preaching ministry without fruit, yet an ancestor of us all.

Asaph – a worship leader who almost went over the edge, but felt the tension of what that would do to the generation he led if he spoke up.  A man able to see clearly because of drawing nearer to God and recognizing the significance of God’s dwelling with humanity.

Who would you choose?  Why?  What might the fruit of such pondering be in your preaching ministry?