BibleFresh

Majority Preacher – Part 2

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Continuing Stephen Gaukroger’s helpful list of necessary considerations for those who want to sustain a long-term preaching ministry in the same setting where they are the main or only speaker:

5. Know thyself – It is important to know your own strengths and weaknesses.  If you’re invited to a big event, then let your prejudices hang out, that’s probably why they invited you.  But in your own church be committed to long-term exposition.  Letting prejudices hang out too much will eventually annoy and cause problems.

6. Develop critical friends (not fans or foes) – Real and constructive feedback from real people will really help.

7. Have regular intentional review of your content and style – Be sure to compare what you have preached on with other lists, the lectionary, theology textbooks, other preachers and other churches.  This will help you spot holes in your own preaching diet.

If you’re preaching almost every week in your church, what would you add to this list?  I’d add something along the lines of “make sure you get breaks, sabbaticals, study breaks, etc. in order to renew your passion and vision.”

What If You’re The Majority Preacher?

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Some churches rely on itinerant speakers, others have a team preaching approach, and many churches have the solo preacher approach.  There are some unique challenges that come from being the main or the only preacher in a church.  At the BibleFresh preaching event, Stephen Gaukroger offered seven quick comments on what it takes to sustain a long-term ministry as the main preacher in a church:

1. You have to be a long-term preacher – That is, our personal integrity only becomes more important in a context where you preach over a long period of time, so you must be refreshing yourself under God’s Word continually.

2. Preach the Bible, the whole Bible – Don’t pick and mix your favourite passages based on personal or denominational biases, but allow the whole Bible to set the agenda over time.

3. Refresh your approach to preaching – Don’t get stuck in a style or always default to your default.

4. Work harder at multi-dimensional application – Not just to the individual and the church, but also to the society and global needs too.  (I would add that application should not just be relating to conduct, but also to belief and affection too.)

Tomorrow I will finish the list, but keep checking the Bible Fresh site as the talk should be uploaded sometime and is worth watching (look out for the quote of the conference about birds and mice!) – click here.

A List of Styles

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

At the BibleFresh preaching event one speaker shared about preaching to the 20’s-30’s generation.  I think his name was Andy West (apologies Andy if I got your last name wrong).  His talk will probably be available online in due course at this site.

He shared four styles of preaching that he observes among effective preaching to the younger adult generation.  I’d like to offer the four styles he listed for your interest:

1. The Preacher Orator: “here is my argument!” – This is the expert speaker who will tend to fill venues with younger generation adults craving an authoritative word in an age where truth and depth are not common currency in everyday life.  People flock to hear Tim Keller, for example.  It is structured, linear, deep.

2. The Preacher Artist: “how would you feel…?” – This type of preacher paints pictures with words, engages through effective storytelling and is creatively imaginative.

3. The Preacher Conversationalist: “I’m like you…” – The preacher is an ordinary person who has honesty and integrity, connecting with the listeners.

4. The Preacher Facilitator: “Let’s go on a journey together.” – This preacher doesn’t so much dispense truth as help listeners to engage with the truth.

A few quick questions spring out of this:

A. Is this list complete, or are there other “styles” that are engaging effectively with the younger generation?

B. How much are we able to switch between styles as preachers in order to offer greater variety and appropriate engagement with our listeners?  (This is a critical question on numerous levels of preaching and with all generations.)

C. Should we be proactively exploring team approaches to preaching ministry that would more deliberately match the preacher to the subject and the listeners for each specific Sunday?

Non Solo Sermon Ministry

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At the BibleFresh conference on preaching – here’s the online magazine – we discussed various aspects of preaching and how it can be refreshed in the UK.  Over the next few days I’ll share a few of the thoughts coming out of that event.

Traditionally the sermon was considered by some to be the full extent of ministry, or at least the primary avenue of ministry.  Today preachers are realizing more and more that the sermon is part of a larger package of ministry.  So this makes me think of several ministry partners for the sermon:

1. Other sermons in your church. This isn’t cutting edge thinking to many of us, but some still don’t see the value of preaching in series and allowing a combination of messages over time to reinforce the message and impact.

2. Other ministries in your church. In recent years many churches have moved to having home groups instead of another midweek sermon.  In many cases churches have tried to connect midweek content to Sunday’s sermon.  Some continue this practice, others have found it to be more difficult than expected (in part because preachers didn’t preach with homegroup on their horizon, and in part because leading a homegroup takes a significant amount of skill which often is not trained in a church).  But whatever your church is doing with “curriculum” for homegroups or other gatherings in the church, how can we as preachers think through how our sermons might actually be reinforcing and motivating what is happening in other ministries of the church.  Too easily the sermon falls into an educative model in which it is the main avenue of information transfer, when actually it might better serve the church in respect to encouragement, motivation, challenge, conviction, vision casting, etc.  It is worth pondering the interface between our preaching and the other ministries of the church.

3. Other ministries outside your church. It was mentioned that some preachers struggle with a sense that they cannot compete with the big event festivals people are attending.  Again, if a significant proportion of the church go away for a Christian event or festival, would it be possible to take advantage of that rather than being intimidated?  Could the church think through pre- and post- event preaching that reinforces the often life-changing crises that take place in these settings?

It is always much easier to just preach a single stand alone sermon, but what might help synergize the ministries of the church and beyond?  Worth pondering, even if there are differences in every situation.