7 Things Preachers Never Say – pt.2

July 3, 2017 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

This series looks at seven things preachers never say. Last time we thought about the burden of expectation. How about this for another:

2. Both sides of negative response can really sting, that is, both criticism and apathy.

As a preacher, there are hosts of factors at play in my ministry. There are tangible and intangible costs to what I do. There is the immediate and the long-term. As a preacher, I may spend hours during the week praying for the people and preparing to preach to them. As a preacher, I may be forfeiting a number of other paths I could have walked down in life. At times I will see the positives that come from being in a preaching ministry. Believe me when I say it is one of the greatest privileges imaginable. At the same time, some negative responses really can sting.

It hurts to be criticized. It hurts when people criticize your motives or lie about you to others. It hurts when the preacher is being roasted more than the joint of beef during Sunday lunch in every household of a congregation. It hurts when people throw stones and storm out of the door. It hurts when people’s grievances seem to inevitably hit the most visible targets in the church, which tends to be those who lead and preach.

Sometimes criticism is justified. But it still hurts when instead of coming to you, those with grievances decide to broadcast their complaints to others instead. It hurts to have to always be the mature one when others are being profoundly immature. When sheep go on the attack it can really hurt!

But there is another side to negative response:

Apathy also hurts. When you pour out your heart in prayer and burn the candle at both ends in preparation, only to be met with polite apathy, it stings. The polite comments that amount to “nice sermon” when you have just given everything you had to preach it can really sting. When year after year of preaching is met with the expectation that you will just be ready to do it again next week, but without much gratitude or apparent responsiveness, that stings.

We don’t preach for human affirmation. Preachers tend to be like parents – our goal is not to be liked, it is to lovingly give what is needed by the people we love. But preachers are also like parents in that both criticism and apathy can really hurt. We preach for our audience of One, but that doesn’t give us infinitely thick skin.

How Do You Pray for Fellow Believers?

February 28, 2015February 28, 2015 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

There is a strange phenomena in the church when it comes to praying for people. Obviously this is a generalisation, but I have observed it enough to suggest that it may be a pattern.

When people become followers of Jesus our prayers for them seem to change. Before they are saved we pray for God to work in their lives and circumstances, for their hearts to be drawn to Christ, for the spiritual blindness to be taken away, etc. Once they trust Christ and are in the family, then what do we pray for? Often it seems to shift to the more mundane matters of health and career.

This is not just the case in church prayer meetings, but also among leaders too. I know that I am tempted to pray more fervently and more “spiritually” for those who are outside God’s family, or for those who are on the fringes. But for those who seem to be doing well in human terms? It is tempting to assume all is well.

Take a look at Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians in 1:15-23. He begins by referencing how thankful he is for their faith in Christ and love for the saints. These are healthy believers – they have a vertical relationship that is spilling into their horizontal relationships. These are the kind of people I am tempted to bypass as I pray. Not so for Paul!

The One Thing – He goes on to make clear the one thing that he prays for them: that the Father might give them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him! That is, Paul prays for these believers to know God. Simple. Or is it profound?

Clearly he doesn’t mean that he wants them to “come to know” God, but to grow in their knowing Him. He wants their relationship with God to go deeper, that the union they have with Christ should become more vibrant and developed. (Remember that “in Christ” occurs almost forty times in Ephesians – union with Christ is a massive theme in the letter.)

I suspect many of us who have a passion to see the lost brought to salvation may fall into the trap of then missing the growth potential that exists for a believer. There is so much more than just getting saved and then telling others, there is massive potential for spiritual growth and maturity.

The Three Things – Paul spells out this one prayer request with three specifics. He wants God to enlighten the eyes of their hearts to know three things.

First, he wants them to know the absolute certainty of their calling in Christ. We have churches filled with people who carry the label of Christian, and yet have all manner of uncertainty and confusion over God’s calling on their lives.

Second, he wants them to know that they are God’s inheritance – an inheritance He considers to be gloriously rich! This is not something new believers readily grasp. Just as it takes a wife many years to truly believe that her husband really loves her, so it is with God’s people.

Third, he wants them to know how much power there is toward them as they trust God for it. That is, is there enough power for a life like mine to be truly transformed by the gospel? Is there enough power for me to be raised from my sinful state of death to do the works God has prepared for me to do? There is if that power is the same power that raised Christ from the dead, seated him in glory, put all enemies under his feet and made him head over the church!

Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians is incredibly encouraging for us to read. More than that, it is deeply challenging to recognize that this prayer was prayed for those who were already faithful and loving. Let’s not bypass those that seem healthy and established in our churches and in our ministry spheres. Let’s pray for them, and for ourselves too, to be growing in our relationship with God, knowing more profoundly the reality of our hope, his inheritance and the abundance of power available!

Biggest Mistakes Preachers Make – pt 3

February 12, 2015 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

In this series we aren’t looking to tweak at the fringes of preaching, but rather to get a big wrench to the major parts of the ministry. We’ve thought about “harvesting imperatives” and “not preaching the passage.” Here’s another:

Mistake 3 – Not Preaching to the People Present

Preaching is a pastoral role. We are not being called to perform, but to shepherd. We can, and must, do the role of a shepherd as we preach. A shepherd feeds, leads, cares and protects his sheep. In order to pastor through preaching, we need to know and love the people we are preaching to each Sunday.

Obviously if you are visiting a church, or speaking at a special event, then you may only have half an hour to get to know the specific group of people present. Do what you can. It is also important to know people in general, so that you can preach to people in particular, but always seek to preach to those who are present.

Here are some alternative listener profiles to root out of our preaching.

Don’t preach to people who are missing. Some preachers seem to have allowed the richness of the gospel to evaporate into a duty of church attendance. These preachers are then liable to preach frustration toward those who “should” be present, but aren’t.

Don’t preach to an audience your favourite preacher attracts. You might have a favourite preacher who preaches to a cool crowd in some other city in America or somewhere, but if your listeners are from rural Somerset, they aren’t a “Seattle” crowd.

Don’t preach to a culture that isn’t in your church. The culture may be increasingly postmodern, but lots of church congregations aren’t. Don’t seek to overcome issues that your listeners aren’t facing in any meaningful way.

Don’t preach to land another job. I hate to say it, but there are some preachers who are preaching so that their sermon is attractive to a “better” church they’d like to get a call from. Be faithful to your congregation and God will help you adapt if you need to move church for some reason.

Don’t preach to spar with foes. It is very possible to preach targeted comments toward people acting likes foes in your congregation, so technically they are present, but still this isn’t wise. But don’t waste energy preaching to foes not present. Having a go at a high profile atheist doesn’t achieve much. By all means equip your listeners to handle what they are hearing in the media, but that would mean preaching to them. Taking pot shots at people not present isn’t impressive.

Get to know and pray for the people you are preaching to each Sunday. Then your preaching can pastor their souls. If you don’t care about them, don’t preach to them.

Preaching and Other Ministries

February 2, 2015 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Preaching may be the most visible ministry in the church, but it is certainly not the only ministry in the church. How does your preaching relate to the other ministries? Here are some possibilities:

1. Casting Vision – The big church together biblical preaching slot is probably the main time that most people are together during the week. Consequently the leadership functions of the church can be offered in a unique and biblically grounded way during the preaching. If your church divorces leadership from preaching, it will suffer for it. But when a church feels led more by the Bible than by a personality, health can be generated.

2. Creating Atmosphere – Lots of other ministries are massively significant in the life of the church. Small group ministries, age-specific ministries, one-to-one discipleship, mentoring and counseling ministries, evangelism in many forms, etc. But all of these can happen more effectively in the space and atmosphere created by the Sunday preaching of the church.

3. Offering Gratitude – Lots of other ministries can easily go unnoticed. Investing in children in the nursery or children’s programs, one-to-one ministries, practical work – setting up church, maintaining the building, etc. The preaching is a good place to lift up other ministries of the church so that people know the preacher doesn’t buy the hype that can so easily be assumed of the pulpit ministry.

4. Providing Vocabulary – An effective illustration or thought through wording can become vocabulary for the church. Recently I used an illustration of living in our thimble while Jesus has an ocean perspective – there may be some “thimble” conversations going on as a result. Sometimes even just offering permission to start a conversation, for instance, “I may be completely misunderstanding this situation, but the preacher on Sunday encouraged us to use him as an excuse for coming and raising it with each other, so here’s my ‘help me understand you on this little thing’ . . .” Big church preaching can prompt the one-to-one conversations that need to happen in a church community.

5. Building Unity – Churches are filled with humans and humans bring their lifelong saturation in the brine of Fallenness along with them. So people distrust people. Ministries will easily compete with ministries. The preaching is an opportunity for the wise preacher to let God’s Word build unity and trust within a church by offering both vulnerability and vision.

6. Co-Labored Stirring – The preaching can and should co-labor with other ministries. It may be that a sermon unlocks an apparently unresponsive individual, or offers new hope to an apparently committed-to-drift couple, etc. Then it may be another ministry that continues the work toward fruitful life change.

7. Setting Example – Probably this is already covered implicitly, but let’s be overt: the preaching can set the tone for other ministries . . . i.e. submission to the Word, honoring others above ourselves, vulnerability, tenderness, courage, etc. Can the church leadership ask others to minister in a way that the pulpit does not demonstrate?

Preaching is important, but it is not the only ministry of the church. Does your preaching support and strengthen the ministries of the church? Or does it inadvertently undermine and compete?

But They Know Actual People

December 9, 2010 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

It seems inevitable that a biblical ministry that brings the message of the Bible to people in this world will frequently have to engage with sin. If you have figured out how to preach only positive messages, then you probably should preach from more than the first couple and last couple of chapters! So as we preach we address sin. Here’s my one point for this post, although much more could be said on numerous levels, of course: sometimes we can make reference to certain sins in the abstract, but f0r some listeners these things are not abstract. We may speak about the sin, but they know actual people who engage in that sin.

For example, it is easy to zoom in on the sin of a certain addiction or behaviour. From your perspective what you say is fine. You are looking out at a broken world and speaking about it, hopefully using biblical support for what you say. But some of the people listening aren’t working in the abstract. They are wrestling with the issue themselves. Or they have a friend or relative who is caught up in it. They know the back story. They don’t want to excuse the sin, but they feel for the person entangled in it.

What to do? One approach would be to tread softly around all issues, never get specific, always speak happy thoughts in abstract and vague ways. Doesn’t sound like the best approach when you’re reading the Bible and seeing God’s spokesmen in action, does it? Perhaps the better approach is to address whatever issue and instead of saying less, say slightly more. Sometimes just including an acknowledgment of listeners’ feelings and the complexity of sin makes all the difference. For example, avoiding the obvious ones so we don’t get distracted from the point of the post, perhaps you are addressing the sin of eating peanuts (and have biblical support for your position!) You might have said some things already about the prevalence of this addiction, but then maybe you include something like this:

“Perhaps you know someone who struggles with this. You know what the Bible says, but you also know them and you care about them. You know what they’ve gone through in recent years, or how they were hurt by that failed relationship, or the scar left by their absent father. This is not some sort of abstract issue for you because as soon as it is mentioned you see their face. I understand that. We live in a broken and hurting world filled with real people with real stories. Sin is real and it hurts.”

Then you continue with your point. If the transition to this content and from this content is smooth, it won’t jar, but it will keep listeners with you as you touch on a subject that hits a nerve. Sin is always viewed differently when it touches close to home. When you preach to a decent sized and diverse congregation, sin issues are always touching close to home for someone. Be sensitive to them. Win an audience for the Word.

What Should You Be Delegating?

August 26, 2009August 8, 2009 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

In calling for pastors and preachers to take up their apologetic mantle as theologians for the church, Loscalzo makes a passing comment that I agree with wholeheartedly. Let me quote first, comment second.

Whether by intentional design or by default we pastors have relegated our task of being a theologian to some unknown entity while we spend our energy on matters that someone else in the church could better handle. In other words, too many pastors spend their time organizing vacation Bible school while neglecting Karl Barth [ed. insert your theologians of choice here]. Too many ministers aspire to be better managers of church programs. Many pastors have their hands in every administrative pot in the church. Every committee action must have their stamp of approval. These pastors micromanage everything from the church’s budget to Wednesday night suppers to the selection of wallpaper for the nursery. No wonder churches languish from theological malnutrition. The one charged with feeding them persists in obsessing over matters that they could delegate to abler hands.

What is true in terms of theological reading, reflection and output is equally and overlappingly true of Bible study, reflection and output. I remember one pastor I was influenced by encouraging me to always break what I do into four categories, and then delegate one of them. Probably sound advice. What do you do? Whether or not you’re a pastor, or in full-time ministry, or in secular employment . . . considering the work you do in the church, what do you do? Four categories? Which one can go? What can and should you delegate? Squeezing bible, theology, apologetics, etc., is too great a price to pay to keep your finger in all those pies.

What Convictions Do You Convey?

August 14, 2009August 6, 2009 / 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

August 12, 2009August 12, 2009 / 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.

More Sneaky Landmines

May 21, 2009 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Last week I shared three sneaky landmines that every preacher faces in the ministry. I appreciated the good comments by Larry and Sudhir, so thought I’d bring their suggestions to the fore in this post. More landmines:

Thinking we need something new to say – Now just because a take on a passage has been the main one offered for generations does not make it right. Sometimes the church does put a spin on the truth or downright miss the point for long periods of time. However, as a preacher, my job is not to continually come up with something new. The ageless truth of the Bible, preached again with clarity and emphasizing the particular relevance for these listeners – that is the goal. And if you have a new view untouched by past generations and the scholars on your shelf of commentaries? Probably delay preaching that message for a few weeks, pray it through more and get into conversation with some trusted advisers . . . then if it is what the Bible teaches, preach it!

Majoring on Distinctive Minors – That’s not a new chord progression for the guitarist, it’s a temptation we all face. It is tempting to major on the minors that make us (my theology, our denomination, etc.) distinctive from others. Preach the dominant thought in each unit of thought, don’t make it your goal to always get this feedback: “Ooo, I never would have seen that in that passage!” (This is disturbing feedback!)

Pointing the Preaching Finger at Someone – You know who is at the forefront of your mind. That face that is constantly there as you prepare your message. Perhaps a critic. Perhaps someone who has angered you. Perhaps someone who has made it their mission to bring you down, so you are tempted to make it your mission to launch applicational mortars from the relative security of the pulpit. Don’t. Preach the Word for the benefit of all. Don’t take aim and fire cheap shots. To do so is a poor strategy on many levels, not least the spiritual level!

Goals For Your Ministry?

March 3, 2009February 21, 2009 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Some people have goals for every five-minute segment of the day, while others balk at that approach to life and deliberately claim to have no goals at all. While goal-setting can be taken to a manic extreme, it is healthy to have goals in the important areas of life in order to avoid aimlessness. Derek Prime and Alistair Begg, in their book Being a Pastor, cite the following six goals for those in this kind of ministry:

1. Feed the flock – John 21:15-17

2. Proclaim the whole will of God – Acts 20:27

3. Present everyone perfect in Christ – Colossians 1:28-29

4. Prepare God’s people for works of service – Ephesians 4:12

5. Equip God’s people to be fisher’s of men – 2 Timothy 4:5

6. Keep watch over oneself until the task is complete – 1 Timothy 4:16

Whether you are officially a “pastor” or function pastorally in the church under some other title (or no title), these six goals are worthy of your attention and action. Feeding the flock with everything God gave in His Word so that they should be everything God made them to be, prepared for all ministry, including outreach beyond the church, and all the while making sure you are not disqualified from the race. There’s a goal!