Expository Preaching

Lone Ranger Preacher?

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Apart from all the spiritual dangers inherent in journeying alone in ministry, there are implications for preaching too.  As preachers most of us naturally fall into a lone ranger approach to sermon preparation.  The time constraints in ministry, the tendencies of personal temperament (many preachers are introverts, it seems), and often the background of training and observed behavior all push us into a solo approach to sermon preparation.  While some things must be done on our own in prayerful solitude with the Lord, we should proactively engage with others too.  Alternative perspectives strengthen preaching on every level.

While it is still technically a solo exercise, take stock of your reading.  Do you read things from different perspectives, or always the same old familiar authors?  It is easy to become comfortable in reading and lose the glorious benefit of being stretched, challenged, provoked, and perhaps even incensed!

Take stock of your preparation process.  Do you actively engage with others as you prepare sermons?  I’m not saying any of us can do all of these every week, but here are some ideas.  Obviously your spouse, if you have one – the perspective of the opposite gender can really help.  Other preacher or preachers?  Perhaps in your church (perhaps ones you are mentoring or being mentored by), or perhaps in another church – time spent talking through two messages together will probably benefit both of you more than spending that half hour on your own message alone!  A feed-forward group?  That is a group of people brought together to specifically share input for forthcoming preaching – could be content, could be support material, could be giving you insight into how differently people think on an issue, etc.

Being a preacher may be a solitary calling in some ways, perhaps lonely at times, certainly a regular overt entry into spiritual warfare, but is that all?  Let us not forget that God has brought us into communion with His people as well as Him.  Let us not forget that we need others just as others need others.  And let’s remember that what is true of us in life and ministry is also true in preaching – let’s not be lone ranger preachers.  Let us rather strengthen ourselves and our preaching by exposure to greater perspective.

Remind People Of Things Once Known

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I recognize that this site is read by people in a variety of countries, so what I write in this post may not be equally relevant to all.  In the contexts where I do most of my preaching, in the west, there are many changes taking place.  One is the level of biblical knowledge.  Here’s a quote from Craig Loscalzo in Apologetic Preaching (p24):

We can no longer assume our preaching takes place within a more or less “Christian” culture.  The great narratives of Judeo-Christian belief, the pivotal stories of the Bible’s characters, the events of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ either are not known or do not carry the meaning-making significance they did for previous generations.

There are many implications for preaching in this reality.  For example, we should be careful about passing references to biblical stories as “illustrations” in our messages – what use is an illustration that the listeners don’t understand?  We should be careful about assuming people understand background to the text we are preaching.  We should be wary of going “over their heads” by aiming too high and not laying down the basics (but at the same time not merely offering diluted fare).

While there are many implications that come from the lack of biblical knowledge, theological awareness, and Christian thought, there is one main implication that stands out.  Let’s finish Loscalzo’s paragraph (and translate the national reference to our own, if it fits):

Biblical knowledge, Christian doctrine and theological reflection must be presented and re-presented from America’s pulpits – yes, even to American Christians.

Where is the Call to Repentance?

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So many deeply challenging messages fall short of their intent.  After preaching through a powerful passage, the final few minutes often undermine everything.  All sorts of conviction has been achieved, then at the end all open wounds are smoothed over, rather than following through to excise the growth of ungodly matter in the life of the listener.  The sermonic surgery ends in comfort and the problems persist.  Why?

One reason is that too often preachers are too careful to offer balance and comfort too soon.  In effect, the message finishes flat with something along the lines of, “But what if you haven’t lived up to this?  What if you’ve failed in this area?  Well there is grace, God forgives, etc.”  And people go away having felt convicted, but reassured that all is well.  Whether or not all is well, all is back to normal and lives move on relatively unchanged by the encounter with God’s Word in that message.

When the light of God’s Word shines in all its radicality, in all its power, in all its uncompromising directness, let’s be careful not to undermine the whole thing by merely reassuring people.  This is not a call for extreme holiness preaching without love – a sort of military-style duty-driven drill of responsibility.  It is a call for the scandalous love of God in the gospel to reek havoc in comfortable self-absorbed lives. It’s the pulpit equivalent of a Keith Green concert – calling for deep repentance and response, rather than comforting listeners with the “everything is happy” jingles of some “Christian” music.  God’s overwhelming love calls us to full followership, to radical reality and response, and sometimes to tears, silence, repentance and brokenness.

If we preach the Word, but always sooth the listener, then perhaps we fail to preach the Word.  Perhaps we are tickling ears.  Perhaps we are preaching in fear.  Or perhaps we are preaching out of our own limited spirituality.  Perhaps it’s time for some of us, maybe all of us, to be broken ourselves, to be repenting of comfort-preaching, to get real in response to an oh-so-radical Gospel?  Let’s ask ourselves two questions, one concerning our preaching, and first of all, one concerning our own lives.

The Opposite of Church Growth – Really?

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I recently had a discussion about reaching Muslims with the gospel.  The point came out that to many Muslims, we Christians don’t look any different than the world around us.  We watch the same movies, live the same lives, have the same number of divorces, etc.  After all, overt Christians on MTV (they have a big cross hanging round their necks) sing some of the most atrocious lyrics.  So while their religion changes lives, obviously Christianity is pure fluff.

At one level we see massive misunderstanding.  Just because someone wears a cross on a chain doesn’t mean they are actually followers of Christ.  After all, you wouldn’t watch Friends, see the Christmas tree and therefore assume they are typical Christians, would you?  Many do.  But at another level, it is true that churches tend not to be filled with people living a sold out radical faith.  We don’t see many living totally abandoned lives, in a sort of Christlike Jihad where the weapons are not violent, but stunningly loving, where the armor is God’s armor and the clash with spiritual forces is continual and real, demanding the deepest of devotion to our master and commander.

Perhaps if the church was more uncompromising in its spirituality it would stand a greater chance of communicating the gospel’s power to Muslims?

But then the fear kicks in.  As preachers, if we preached for this kind of radical spirituality, surely we’d offend people and lose people and empty the pews.  It would be the opposite of church growth.  We’d be single-handedly responsible for emptying the church!  Would it?  Would we?  Perhaps the gospel doesn’t need us to excuse it’s strength.  Perhaps the Bible doesn’t need us to undermine it’s powerful call on lives.

Perhaps . . . perhaps if we lived and preached a radical sold-out all-for-Jesus come-live-die uncompromisingly clear biblical message, perhaps we would see the church thinned out.  Perhaps we would see some leave, their desire for sanctified entertainment unmet and their worldliness made to feel uncomfortable.  And perhaps we’d stand a chance of reaching Muslims with the gospel.  More than that, perhaps there would be something attractive about such a message that the hunger for reality in our culture of mind-numbing entertainment would kick in and our apparent attempts to purge the church might result in genuine church growth?  Perhaps.

If the offense is the messenger, we will merely do damage.  But if the offense is the gospel, watch out!

Something to ponder.

Preaching Apologetically

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Is it possible to preach mystery in an age of information, hope in an era of skepticism, confidence in a time of doubt, truth in a climate of relativism?  The ultimate question becomes, can we preach Christ in a postmodern world?  My answer, of course, is yes.  My suggestion is that it’s time to apologize for God.

This is Craig Loscalzo in his Apologetic Preaching, page 22.  Strong stuff.  In case you are worried by that last line, let me quote a bit more:

Far too many pulpits have been, for too long, apologizing – that is, making excuses – for God.  Timid sermons that dismiss the sticky issues of Christian faith, sermons that water down the demands of the gospel, pabulum preaching pleasing to people’s ears but unable to offer transformed lives will be transparent to the skeptical lenses of postmodernity. . . . Apologizing for God means apologizing for God, not making apologies for God.  In other words, it means making a case for the gospel in all its scandalous reality.  Apologizing for God means rightfully reclaiming the apologetic role of the pulpit for the cause of Christian faith.

I agree with this.  But I am also wary as I write this.  I’m wary because too often it seems that a move toward apologetics is somehow a move toward theology, philosophy, academia, but somehow also a move away from the Bible.  By no means!  The Bible is inherently apologetic.  Our apologetics are our attempts to speak for God into this world, but the Bible is God’s Word spoken into this world.  Let us not feel stirred to our apologetic role and thereby drift even slightly from expository preaching.  Preach the Word, God’s Word, preach it with an emphasis on its relevance to your listeners – so that the scandalous reality of the gospel can shine into darkness of the contemporary milieu!

John Stott’s Paradoxes of Preaching

/ Peter Mead / 4 Comments

I’ve seen this list in various forms, but just in case you haven’t seen it before, here’s John Stott’s list of the five paradoxes of preaching:

1.    Authentic Christian preaching is both biblical and contemporary
2.    Authentic Christian preaching is both authoritative and tentative
3.    Authentic Christian preaching is both prophetic and pastoral
4.    Authentic Christian preaching is both gifted and studied
5.    Authentic Christian preaching is both thoughtful and passionate

Stott concludes his article with this important observation:

Our adversary, the devil, is the enemy of moderation and balance.  One of his favourite hobbies, I’m persuaded, is tipping evangelical Christians off balance.  If he cannot get us to dny Christ, then he will be happy if we distort Christ.  Instead I want to encourage the read to develop what I call B.B.C. – Balanced Biblical Christianity.  Let us seek to combine these truths that complement one another, and let’s not separate what God has united.  For it is in these paradoxes that authentic Christian preaching is to be found.

As we look over these five paradoxes, where do we see the balance missing today?  Too much tentative preaching?  Too much reliance on gifting alone?  Too thoughtful without passion, or too passionate without thought?  I suppose it is different in each culture, each denomination, each church.  But it is worth the effort to think through where we might be becoming unbalanced.

Preaching to a Postmodern Culture

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

In his book, He is Not Silent, Al Mohler offers a no-holds barred chapter on postmodernity and preaching.  After listing a series of negative observations of the postmodern “mood” (and probably failing to recognize the positive opportunities now presented to us as preachers), he presents a series of principles for proper proclamation in a postmodern culture.  He earths his thoughts in Acts 17:

1. Christian proclamation in a postmodern culture begins in a provoked spirit (v16)
2. Christian proclamation in a postmodern culture is focused on Gospel proclamation (v17)
3. Christian proclamation in a postmodern culture assumes a context of spiritual confusion (vv18-21)
4. Christian proclamation in a postmodern cultureis directed to a spiritual hunger. (vv22-23)
5. Christian proclamation in a postmodern culture begins with the fundamental issue of God’s nature, character, power, and authority. (vv24-28)
6. Christian proclamation in a postmodern culture confronts error. (v29)
7. Christian proclamation in a postmodern culture affirms the totality of God’s saving purpose. (vv30-31)

Principles worth pondering.

What Convictions Do You Convey?

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Over time, listeners catch things from the preachers they hear.  Its not just the content of each particular sermon, but also the personal convictions of the preacher that will mark listeners over time.

What do listeners catch from hearing you?  Do they catch a conviction that God’s Word can be trusted?  That it is enjoyable to read and study?  That God is knowable?  That God is in control?  That Christianity is firmly founded on fact?  That we are deeply loved?  That . . .

These kinds of convictions don’t fully come through because you preach a single message on the subject.  They come through and mark lives when they have already come through and marked your life.  We are not mere transmitters of information.  We are not neutral entities in God’s ministry that somehow hopefully will disappear in the course of our preaching.  No, we are lives that continually convey the convictions and affections that have captured our hearts.  Our passion forged in personal study and close walk with Christ over time will shape the convictions with which we infect others.

What convictions do we convey?

Preachers are Theologians not Therapists

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Following on from yesterday’s post, I found the following quote quite insightful:

The rise of therapeutic concerns within the culture means that many pastors, and many of heir church members, believe that the pastoral calling is best understood as a “helping profession.”  As such, the pastor is seen as someone who functions in a therapeutic role in which theology is often seen as more of a problem than a solution.

This is from Al Mohler’s book, He is Not Silent, p108.  This is a helpful distinction.  Have we fallen into thinking of our function as primarily therapeutic?  Cambridge Dictionary defines therapeutic as “causing someone to feel happier and more relaxed or to be more healthy.”  Yes, in the final element our task does involve promoting spiritual health.  However, not every sermon will make listeners feel happier or relaxed.  Sometimes our task is a discomforting one.

I notice particularly Mohler’s observation about theology.  If preaching and pastoral work is about therapy, then theology is often seen as more problem than solution.  Is this why so many churches promote unity at all costs, avoiding key biblical and theological areas in order to keep everyone happy?  If you were to take the theological pulse of your congregation, what teaching of Scripture would be deficient?  If that were less than comfortable to address, would you still do it?  Later Mohler states that “when truth is denied, therapy remains.” (p121)  May it never be true of us that we pander to the yearnings of our age and only offer therapy to a self-centric people.

Preachers are Theologians

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

The health of any church depends, in part, on its leaders functioning faithfully as theologians.  It’s part of the package for any elder (pastor, minister, leader, whatever term you are used to).  Leading, feeding, caring and protecting.  How are we to lead others on God’s behalf if we’re unclear on the nature of the church, it’s mission, God’s character and plan?  How are we to feed the saints if we’re not wrestling with the great doctrines of the faith and setting them forth?  How are we to care effectively for souls if we never consider what a human consists of and how they function in relation to salvation and walking in the Spirit?  How are we to protect the flock if we’re unaware of theological trends and errors in the general atmosphere of the contemporary church at large?

The pastoral functions of any church leader require that theological reflection and processing be involved in the ministry.  It is a dangerous error to presume that theology is a function of the academy or the research university.  It is worrying to find many preachers and leaders who think that their task is not that of theology.

If you preach, then you influence.  If you influence, then you lead.  If you lead, don’t make the grave error of divorcing your ministry from that of theology.  If you do, then both your ministry and theology will suffer.  You will suffer.  And so will they.