Proclaimer Blog
How to be a sermon hack
Enjoyable day yesterday when I gave the East Anglia Gospel Partnership meeting my top ten tips for "how to be a sermon hack and other ministry shortcuts." One minister said to me "that's a very appealing title." Quite. My Alice was a little worried for me. "Dad, what happens if they don't realise you're being serious?" I confess that up to that point I had not thought that very likely; however, her words shook my confidence so I made sure that I prefaced my talk with the encouragement that my sermon shortcuts would enable them to spend more time on important tasks such as admin, committees and pastoring through Facebook. Although, on second thoughts, perhaps that latter suggestion was not immediately ironic either!
The truth was that it was relatively easy to come up with ten tips. I also asked Christopher and Robin for theirs – and we could have based a whole Cornhill term around them. That's not surprising of course. First, the negatives are simply the corollary of the positives. One necessarily follows from the other. If we have thought through carefully the positive exhortations about preaching that we value, it's not too tricky to come up with the opposites. But, more profoundly, the truth is that our list of tips had a ring of familiarity about them. It was not difficult to come up with them because, though we are loathe to admit it, they are all things we've done from time to time.
The slightly nervous laughter at the EAGP meeting gave away that we were not alone! I've written them up for this year's brochure, so you'll have to wait for June to get the full lot. In the meantime, I'm sure you can come up with your own list.
Proclaimer Blog
The language of a sermon
This Sunday, one of our congregation came up to me after I had preached Jude 20-25 and said "nice speech, pastor." I was a little bemused. I suppose, in some ways, my sermon was a speech – I was speaking. But a sermon is more than a speech or a talk or an address. I understand that we might use those terms on occasion, especially with unbelievers present. But we mustn't be ashamed of proclamation language. Like many others, I recoil when, as a preacher, I am introduced with "now Adrian is going to explain the Bible to us" or "now Adrian is going to come and talk." A sermon is not less than those things, but it is certainly more.
And the danger of reduced language is that it soon becomes a reality. Introduce me too many times with the "explain the Bible" thing and, after a while, I might just start doing that and nothing else. We have a South African evangelist in our church – a great man! – and when he is leading the service, he always says, "now Adrian is going to come and preach to us." I like that. He's not ashamed of what preaching is and what a sermon should be. And neither must we be. Moreoever, we have to teach our congregations to believe that a sermon is more than a talk or a speech. It's only when they understand this (humanly speaking) that they will pray, listen and act on God's word as we pray and long that they would.
Proclaimer Blog
How to read the Bible through the Jesus lens
This is a book I really wanted to like. Each book of the Bible is taken in turn and using a biblical theological framework the theme of the book is explained (in a pithy sentence) together with what the author calls "the Jesus lens" (essentially how the book relates to Christ) and "contemporary applications" (which does what it says on the tin). The idea is great – imagine a well presented, short-ish (250pp) summary of Bible books that would be useful on your own bookshelf and something you might want to give to others.
Does it work, though?
Here in the office we haven't read it all through. What we've done is take the two or three books that we're working on in detail at the moment and read those chapters. It's those books we're best placed on to comment, otherwise we're just commenting as generalists.
First of all, I looked at Ezra, my current study project. The Ezra chapter is good, theme "God brings the exiles back to Jerusalem and directs that the temple should be built" gets a thumbs up. The lines to Christ are appropriately drawn (new kind of temple, new kind of building etc) and the applications are sharp. A good start. Then I turned to Numbers. This chapter is poorer, though it still has useful stuff in it. The theme is weaker, "God chastens his disobedient people but reaffirms his intent to bring them into the promised land." Scripture is much blunter about this disobedience and it is telling that in this chapter Michael Williams refers neither to 1 Cor 10 nor Hebrews 3/4, two of the major commentaries on Numbers in the NT.
Robin looked at Leviticus. Proverbs and 1 Corinthians. He's much cleverer than me, so he has these three projects on the go at the same time. He thought the analysis in each of these chapters was warm, but not quite spot on; it could be sharper.
Christoph Christopherson thought the chapter on Job good, though once again the theme sentence was a bit thin. He said that four pages on the psalms is always going to be a struggle to do justice to a diverse book, but it was particularly weaker here on lines to Christ. Good on John, he said, but weaker on Romans. He did have a quick flick through Deuteronomy and said the Jesus lens section there was excellent.
So, all in all a book we really wanted to like. The direction and aim are admirable – but for us it didn't quite click. More B than A student, we might say. That's not to say that it might not serve a purpose, particularly with those starting out reading the Bible for themselves. But we hoped for a little more…
Proclaimer Blog
Weakness and authority in preaching
I have been reading very slowly through 2 Corinthians in my personal bible reading; it has been doing me a lot of good. In chapter 13, Paul is grappling with the tension between weakness and strength in a matter of apostolic discipline in the church. They were asking (v3) for proof that Christ was speaking through Paul. Then he says of Christ that, "He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you. For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God's power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God's power we will live with him in our dealing with you."
Proclaimer Blog
Evangelical Ministry Assembly 2012
Here are some fascinating EMA stats:
- in the last twenty years over 5,500 different people have attended the EMA
- in the last five years over 2,500 different people have attended the EMA
- last year we welcomed over 300 new delegates
Perhaps that all sounds a little daunting? Maybe, but it's a cause for great rejoicing too. It's still a drop in the ocean of course, but praise God that younger men are being raised up to serve in local churches. And just like local churches we have to work hard to make everybody welcome. Just like newcomers in the church, we want to welcome, integrate, listen and grow to depend on those who have been around for less time than we have. It's the same for us all at the EMA. We plan hard to make it enjoyable and useful for everyone, newcomer or not.
And it's also why, in 2013, we're on the move to a bigger venue with – and this is key – bigger networking and meeting space, so that seeing friends and making new ones continues to be a key part of the EMA. For the moment, places are filling up at this year's event. We need to know how to preach to the heart; who can say that they have this sorted? So make a date to be with us, we look forward to seeing you whether it's the first time you've been or the 29th.
Proclaimer Blog
Books of the Bible like never before
Don't normally link to things from Challies blog – everyone reads it anyway!! But, just in case you missed it, this is very pleasing indeed. Free downloads in high quality.
Proclaimer Blog
London evenings
It's a great joy to have David Cook back with us. David is the recently retired principal of the Sydney Missionary and Bible College and he will be leading three evenings on the book of Acts this Spring. The session will run on Mondays 16th, 23rd and 30th April from 6.30pm until around 9pm. Each evening costs £12 and includes light supper and refreshments. The evenings are great for getting a handle on the book of Acts and some of the issues that arise when teaching it. As such it will be suitable for anybody with teaching or preaching responsibilities, including occasional preachers and group study leaders. Why not encourage your teams to come along if they are within reach of London? Let's make the most of David whilst he is here! Book here.
Proclaimer Blog
Preaching for your heart
Proclaimer Blog
Rewriting hell
Enjoyed an evening at the opera (*) last week with Mrs R. I say 'enjoyed' but it all actually ended in disappointment. It was fine, lovely even, almost until the very last minute. We went to see Mozart's Don Giovanni which is the tale of a serial cad, the Don, who spends his whole time seducing (and even murdering to help his cause). No shame or regret even though he leaves a trail of battered women behind him. As the opera builds to a climax this trail gets longer and longer. FInally, his murder victim (the father of one of his conquests) appears and drags him down to hell. The cast reappear on stage rejoicing in his judgement and warning the audience not to think they can get away with such immorality.
It was good up to this point. But then, right at the end, the curtain dropped away to reveal hell itself where we saw Don Giovanni grinning from ear to ear with holding a woman in his arms. Hell had been rewritten for the 21st century as the place where evil doers get to keep on doing the things they love, rather than suffering the consequence of their rebellion against God. The audience cheered. Good old Don, good on him. Bravo!
I don't think either Mozart or the librettist (da Ponte) were particularly moral, but they lived in times when people believed actions had consequences. Today we have the caricature of hell being a place where we can spend an eternity doing all the wrong things (which, let's face it, are the fun things after all) we've spent a lifetime doing; that's not so bad. It makes preaching on hell hard work. There is a whole lot to undo, even if people get the idea of eternity in the first place.
Strangely, this was also the subject of the very first EMA I attended – 1994, I think, over in Westminster Central Hall. I was working in the city, but had been taken along by my pastor as he tried to encourage me into ministry (it failed). Bruce Milne expounded this very topic, later it became an excellent book, the BST guide to heaven and hell.
* for those worried about this pretentious hobby, this is (almost) my only one.
Proclaimer Blog
Book review: The hardest sermons you’ll ever have to preach
I've not long finished reading this excellent book. It's a collection of sermons (twenty five of them), together with some short explanatory introductions preached on a variety of occasions. Most are funerals (death of a child, miscarriage, sudden death, murder) etc, situations that one hopes never to have to deal with and when one does, is almost always underprepared. These funeral sermons make up the bulk of the chapters. Then there are some extras like national tragedy, celebrity death and so on. It's a moving book because each sermon (even though the names are sometimes changed) are all grounded in real situations, many of which are individual tragedies. It's also a hard book to read – imagine downloading 25 funeral sermons and sitting through them all.
But it's ultimately worth it for the thinking process behind individual sermons and the way that the pastors choose texts and expound them. I think it's a book worth having, even if you only turn it to once or twice in a pastoral lifetime. But it does have flaws. Few of the sermons are truly expository. I think that's a shame. I can understand how funeral sermons, in particular, call for a very special kind of preaching; but I cannot see why we are so loathe to drop a method we believe in so fervently for every other kind of preaching. Preach on a text by all means, but do the same work, even if you use different language. My best funeral sermons, humanly speaking, have been those where I have stuck to the text.
My second problem with the book is that it seems to take for granted, for the most part, the salvation of those who die in childbirth or those with learning difficulties. I realise that this is a relatively orthodox position within evangelicalism, but not everyone holds it (including me). It makes funeral preaching in some circumstances very difficult; but I'm uncomfortable with the implied inclusivism that the position necessitates. Perhaps a book like this is not the place to address the issue, but I would have liked to see some of the chapters represent a different position.
Still, all said and done, it's worth the cover price.