Faint Not: The Discouraged Preacher 3

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

Yesterday we looked at some of the causes of discouragement.  But what should we do about it?  Maybe one or more of these suggestions might be the prescription for your particular situation:

1. Cry Out to God.  God was never a huge fan of our independent autonomy, in fact, that notion of functioning apart from Him came with a hiss.  Yet in our upside-down world we can so easily assume that the right response is to grit our teeth and press on, not bothering God with our struggle, but somehow proving something by our faithfulness.  Uh, no.  What we prove by such independent proaction is anything but faithfulness.  Faithfulness carries an implicit sense of trusting dependence upon, and responsiveness to, God.  We are not being faithful when we leave Him out, even if everything we do is technically right.

So while our flesh may urge us to press on alone, our hearts should cry out to God.  Be real with Him.  He is not delicate. He is not easily offended.  Look at the prayers coming from Job, Jeremiah, David, et al., as they vented heavenward in the Hebrew Scriptures.  Why do we think we shouldn’t do the same?  God is not offended by our venting frustration or expressing fear.  He probably is hurt by our stony silence, however.  Cry out to God.  Be honest.  Be real.  Tell Him you need Him.  Express utter dependence.  Express utter frustration with Him if that is the case.  When you’ve poured your heart out and all your strength is gone, lying face down before Him completely spent, then perhaps He’ll pick you up and ask if you are prepared to trust Him.  To serve Him.  To be His.  Like a fire in my bones, as Jeremiah wrote, I have to preach.

2. Cry Out to Another.  Just as our flesh likes to go it alone on the vertical dimension, so we are prone to going it alone on the horizontal.  It isn’t appropriate to blab our problems to everyone.  But it also isn’t appropriate to share our problems with no-one.  Prayerfully consider who would be a wise confidante in a time of discouragement.  Be careful not to slip into gossip or slander, but be willing to be vulnerable with someone who cares, who will pray, who might offer wise counsel, who will give courage to move forward.

Tomorrow we’ll add to the list, but feel free to add your thoughts at any time.

Faint Not: The Discouraged Preacher 2

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

What are the causes of discouragement in life and ministry?  I suspect there may be many, but let me share just a few:

1. Frustration.  When we see things moving forward, when we see progress, we all tend to get encouraged.  The opposite is also true.  When things seem to slow to a snail’s pace, or when there seems to be an invisible blockade in our path, then frustration can set in.  It has been said that we over-estimate what can be achieved in a single sermon, but under-estimate the impact of five year’s of solid biblical teaching.  But sometimes it is the years of ministry without significant progress that wears us down.  It is easy to lose sight of the progress among some, even many, when our thoughts become dominated by one, or a few.

And when we start to feel that what we are giving ourselves to cannot be achieved, then we are very much in danger of burning out.  I remember, as a child, blocking the progress of a scalextric (slot) car on the track.  The engine made noise, but it wasn’t long before a smell of burning electrics started to exude.  Some preachers feel like that, and burnout is a very real and present danger.

2. Failure.  Sometimes it isn’t just a sense of frustration that builds in us.  A loss of the sense of progress.  Sometimes it is outright failure.  It can be the failure of others.  It can be our own failure.  A poorly aimed sermon or two, a misjudged application.  What about getting distracted, or failing to prepare properly?  Then what about personal struggles?  The moral failure of someone we esteem.  The moral vulnerability of our own inner struggles.  We don’t have to look far to see failure and feel discouraged.  Sometimes the mirror is far enough.

3. Fatigue.  In the toil of ministry, combined with family life, all in the context of intensified spiritual battle, fatigue is an ever-present danger.  But fatigue is a symptom, and it can be the symptom of many different issues.  I remember Bill Hybels referring to the warning lights on the dashboard of his life.  He assumed the warning light meant a spiritual problem (inadequacy of devotions, for instance), but found the issue was emotional, relational.  It could be physical.  Sleep.  Nutrition.  Exercise.  There are many factors underlying this one.

4. Fear.  Ministry is not always experienced on the mountain top.  Often it is in the valley.  A dark one.  Lots of threats.  Rumours of threats.  Unseen enemies and breaking twigs.  We minister in the context of spiritual warfare, and in the context of our own struggles and weaknesses.  Whether the enemy is directly attacking or not, we can so easily look away from the Lord to the perceived threat, into the darkness.  Faith is not a commodity we collect or an inner power we muster.  It is a fixed trusting gaze.  When that gaze shifts, fear can flood in.

Tomorrow we’ll think about responding to discouragement.

Faint Not: The Discouraged Preacher

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Charles Spurgeon wrote about the minister’s “fainting fits” in his first series of lectures to his students.  He wrote, “Good men are promised tribulation in this world, and ministers may expect a larger share than others, that they may learn sympathy with the Lord’s suffering people, and so may be fitting shepherds for an ailing flock.”

The ministry of preaching seems to be fertile ground for discouragement.  It is so easy to feel deterred, disheartened or hindered in some way.  Sometimes it is only a feeling, but this doesn’t change its influence on us.

The New Testament has a lot to say about not fainting, growing weary or losing heart.  Paul writes of the perishing state of our outward man, while at the same time the inward man is being renewed.  But what about times when that doesn’t feel like the reality we are living in?

Tomorrow I’d like to ponder several factors that may be leading to discouragement.  Then by the end of the week we’ll ponder some pathways forward.

According to John Stott, “Discouragement is the occupational hazard of Christian ministry.”  

Let’s throw in a bit of Luther too, who apparently stated, “If I should write of the heavy burden of a godly preacher, which he must carry and endure, as I know from my own experience, I would scare every man from the office of preaching.”

Our experience agrees that these great preachers knew what they were talking about.  Let’s ponder together what the contributing factors may be, and what might be done about it.

And let’s pray for others too.  Perhaps you know a preacher who is facing discouragement in some form.  Maybe one who is unwell, or who’s context is particularly challenging.  Why not pray for their hearts to be encouraged this week? Maybe link to this post and tell them you prayed for them?  The battle we are in is too much for any of us to go on alone.

Spaces: Thinking Through the Process

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A little while back I offered the preparation process in terms of four locations: Study, Stop and Pray (Prayer Closet), Starbucks, Stand and Deliver (Pulpit).  To finish this series on spaces I want to poke around in each of these four locations and prompt our thinking.

1. Study.  I’ve talked about this over the past few days, but essentially the issue here is both noise and access to resources.  To really concentrate on getting to grips with the exegesis means not being pulled away by other things.  It also means being able to spread out the books, while also opening up the heart.  Is it worth considering a separate desk for this?  Is it possible to make the key resources easily accessible?  Can you put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on your door?

2. Stop and Pray.  This one is all about noise.  The noise of people interrupting, the noise of phones beeping, the noise of tasks calling you.  You need to silence them all.  I suspect many of us can’t achieve this in our study or office.  Would it be better to walk and pray with the mobile phone left at home?  Would it be better to go to the church and pray through this phase in the place where you will preach the message?  I find this helpful as it helps to prompt my prayers toward the specific people and families that will be there.

3. Starbucks.  This one is about targeting the message.  Personally I don’t find coffee shops the most conducive to concentrated preparation.  But I see the argument in favour of them (as long as I have music in my ears instead of loud conversations from the volume-unaware that tend to sit near me in these places!)  Somehow the goal here is to be sensitive and alert to the people and the kind of people to whom the message will be preached.  This could be as simple as putting a couple of pictures up on the screen, or placing names on 3×5 cards on the desk, or being around people.  But, if I can’t help but be distracted by being around people, it is better to get the work done in a room on my own!

4. Stand and Deliver.  Different issue, but worthwhile . . . what are the issues in terms of preaching proxemics?  Is there clutter in the preaching environment?  Am I situated in the best place for this congregation?  Should I come down to their level?  Can I lose the seaworthy pulpit and be seen?  Is there clutter from their perspective?

Space: Dreaming and Planning

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This week I’ve been pondering space, which seems to be increasingly hard to find.  Our world seems to be getting noisier and busier, but also ministry demands tend to increase over time for preachers too (presumably demand drops off eventually!)  In the midst of the busy schedule of the immediate, we need to get time to dream and to plan.

1. Planning future preaching.  Somewhere in the schedule it is worth making time to think through ideas for preaching beyond the present series or preferred sections.  It is easy to get repetitive, or even stuck, when there is no space to pull back, look up and look ahead.  Some preachers take a week out each year and sketch out a rough plan for a year’s worth of preaching.  For others it might not be so organised, but there is still benefit to thinking through where you might do well to go in your preaching.  Obviously circumstances change, the needs of the church change, there has to be room for change.  But it isn’t good leadership to always be in a purely reactive mode.  What sections of the canon have you not touched for a while, or ever?  What types of preaching have you not used in a while, or ever?  What subjects would stretch you, and others?

2. Planning future ministry.  There is more to ministry than preaching.  But if we live in the cycle of deadlines, we can easily fall into just preaching.  But what about training others?  That doesn’t happen accidentally.  You won’t mentor and launch others, or mentor to replace yourself, if you don’t put some planning into it.  What about writing?  Some should stop trying.  Others should create time to make it happen.  What about training I should be getting now for ministry in the future?  That could be as informal as reading on a subject, or as formal as pursuing a degree in an area.  None of this happens by accident.

3. Dreaming future ministry.  Somehow planning isn’t enough.  God is able to do abundantly more than we ask or even imagine.  Do we dare to dream?  For some of us, God doesn’t have much to do to surpass our imaginations!  We need to create space to dream of what could be, what should be, what might be.  I know this seems crazy, but imagine if . . . and if God would . . . then maybe . . .   It is hard to quantify what might happen if we all took time to pray and dream, chasing the desires of our hearts with a God who delights to give in line with the yearning He has birthed in us.

Spaces: Noise and Prayer

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Yesterday we thought about the spaces in which we work – both office and study.  One of the key issues that I think we need to face in this generation, even more than ever before, is the issue of noise.  In a world filled with productivity gurus, we as preachers need to be more than productive.

1. It takes more than productivity to produce a profound ministry.  It is great to have such quick and easy access to information.  We can access so much online, some of it worth the minimal effort we put in.  We can order books and have them delivered next day (at least some of us can).  We can use software on our computers that instantly parses verbs, searches for the lexical root and finds all instances of whatever in wherever.  We are so blessed.  But profound ministry is not just about access to information.  It isn’t even just about knowing what to do with it.  We have educational opportunities like never before.  But it takes more than that.  Profound ministry also requires something that has become ever more difficult to find.  You can’t buy it online and you can’t use software to get there.  It is that old fashioned notion of spending time with the Lord, away from all the noise.

2. Noise may be the biggest threat to a substantial ministry.  Noise takes many forms.  It can be the ping of arriving emails, the tyranny of the urgent text message, the variable usefulness of social media updates streaming our way, the fascination of online bunny trails, the old fashioned but ever present junk mail, not to mention the important stuff of family life, church needs and a far more connected realm of extended friendships.  Some of this is good.  Too much of all this and you have a recipe for living in permanent noise.  I suspect it is worse now than when sunset meant reading by candlelight, conversation with those immediately present and hours of quiet to spend with God.

3. A noisy world means we must be proactive in pursing “sunset.”  The old idea of a prayer closet, an undistracted place for meeting with the Lord, shouldn’t be an old idea.  I have had some great times of prayer while driving, but also easily fill that time with noise.  I always find I pray better walking or pacing, but so easily fail to make the most of such simple insight.  How can you be proactive in pursuing “sunset” – a time when the noise grows distant and you can pursue and enjoy intimacy with the Almighty?  I fear that if we don’t do something, the profound ministry of those truly close to God might become a relic of history.

Spaces: Thinking, Reading, Work

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Over the past few days we have been rearranging bedrooms in our house.  This has meant that I have a new study.  What a blessing!  It also means I have been thinking about the kind of space needed for preachers.  Some thoughts:

1. Space does not have to be literal.  Over the past few years I have worked in the corner of our bedroom, in a tiny room, in a larger room, on my netbook in my car parked in the Surrey hills (think Gladiator opening scene, only without the war raging), in a cold church room with a fire pumping out heat, and so on.  Often we don’t have the physical space we need, but it is still worth thinking through the space we need to create for different aspects of ministry.

2. There is a difference between an office and a study.  A while back I read the comment that pastor’s have replaced their study with an office.  This weekend a good friend of mine noted the difference between a study in the home and an office in the church – largely in terms of interruptions that tend to come in the church, but can be avoided at home (people there understand the need for space!)  He told me how he’d put his phone in a cupboard.  It can ring, but it doesn’t always feel immediate and urgent.  Nice approach.  Anyway, the fact remains that there is a difference between an office and a study.  Whether they are in the same space or not, they serve different functions.  My experience of combining the two is that the office tends to win.  I’ve had to leave the office to get to the study, if you see what I mean?

3. Don’t let the business of life and ministry drown out the eternal work that occurs in the study.  Emails and phone calls and administration and distractions abound in the office.  If we aren’t careful, the prayer and reading and thinking and study that takes place in a study can be forfeited.  I now have a bigger study.  Solution?  I’d pondered a separate desk for study purposes.  Instead I’ve gone with a huge leather chair from a second-hand store.  I love it.  At least, I will, once I get the room organized enough to reach it!  And if I don’t?  Then it will be a daily reminder that the office work at this computer and filing cabinet are stealing me away from what I claim to be most important.

Making Truth Understood

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So we’ve thought about making biblical truth memorable, and making it known, but what about making it understood.  Is that what preaching is?  Yes.  And no.

1. Contemporary listeners need help understanding the Bible.

There is a significant distance between today’s world and the world of the Bible.  As the preacher, you have a key role in helping to bridge that divide.  This means overcoming differences in culture, in language, in politics, in religion, in worldview, in geography, in customs, in perspectives, etc.  When you preach the Bible you need to help make sense of a very different world for the sake of those in yours.

This means we can’t just read the text and then apply it.  We have to make sense of what is going on.  This means plumbing not only the historical setting and context, but also the literary setting and context.  We have to help people make sense of not only a strangely different world, but also an unusual collection of texts.  People need to understand the canonical structure, the development of thought, the informing theology feeding into a passage, the shape of the story beyond the passage, the nature of the genre of the passage, the forms of literary design within the passage, etc.

And all this means that as preachers we have to make value judgments.  We can’t just dump all the information we know and learn into a message.  This would make it overwhelming and too long.  So we must decide what needs to be said, this time, to make sense of this passage.

2. Your listeners need more than just understanding, but not less.

Just to make matters worse, understanding is not the only goal.  It is the foundational step.  That is, without understanding, then we cannot build effective application, and we cannot expect genuine transformation.  It is no shortcut to bypass understanding and go straight to application, pressing for compliance or hoping for transformation.  Application and transformation must be built squarely on clear understanding of the text.  God is not into radically new revelation.  He has given us His Word to transform lives. He invites us to engage Him there, and as we do so, He also encounters us to change us now.  God hasn’t appointed us to simply explain the truth of His Word, nor to simply seek transformed lives by means of pointed application.  He has appointed us to put it all together – explain, apply, pursue transformation.

Making Truth Known

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Yesterday I critiqued the old idea that homiletics is about making truth memorable.  I’d like to ponder a similar issue with both affirmation and critique.  Can we say that preaching is about making truth known?  Yes.  But not only.

Preaching is certainly about declaring and proclaiming truth.  We live in a world of lies and confusion.  Whether we are focusing on evangelism or building up believers, there is a massive need for the proclamation of biblical truth.  Here are some pointers:

1. We cannot assume that people have knowledge of truth.  We live in an age of increasing biblical illiteracy.  Actually, we also live in an age of increasing access to information, but increased shallowness in engaging with available information.  People are not well-read.  Thus it is not wise to assume that people have a certain level of knowledge of the Bible, or philosophy, or history, etc.  Assuming knowledge can lead people to either disengage from presentations, or to take that information and wrongly integrate it with their own perceived insight.

2. We must demonstrate the authority for our authoritative statements.  We do not live in an age where a person’s perceived authority can be assumed based on position or title.  Simply because you are the speaker does not mean much anymore.  Thus we have to demonstrate and prove authority for what is said.  Obviously we must be well-read and accurate in our handling of information.  More than that, we need to help people see for themselves that what we are saying from the Bible is what the Bible actually says.  They may or may not accept that the Bible is inspired by God, but we must show that we are not simply giving our own personal take on what it says.

3. We must recognize that truth statements alone will not suffice.  We should be declaring truth, but let’s be sure to proclaim a person.  People are trained to hold any truth statements at a distance, but we are wired to engage with other persons.  Thus we don’t just state truth, we proclaim Him.  We have to have an authentic personal relationship with the One we then seek to offer to others.  We need to speak from a life of authentic integrity, not performing, but sharing genuinely.  And we need to recognize that we are not simply addressing a brain in a body, but a person whose heart determines the value system of their life.