Preaching? Have something to say

Craig Adams has overcome his aversion to offering preaching advice to share his thoughts about preaching and sermon preparation. It is worth your time to read, ponder, and perhaps argue with.

Here’s a taste. Adams says time spent in crafting a sermon is often wasted.

Why is that? Because the number one rule for preaching (and public speaking, as well) is: have something worthwhile to say! If you don’t have anything worthwhile to say, no amount of sermon technique is going to save you. You are dead in the water.  On the other hand, if you’ve got something worthwhile to say — and you are excited about saying it — you’ve still got a good message. Good technique can make a good message better. But, it can’t save a boring or pointless or vacuous message. That is still boring. (And, don’t bother with the Power Point, either.)

Reading Luke 13:1-9 (a short thought)

A reading for the third Sunday in Lent: Luke 13:1-9

A sermon draft I posted here in 2010, the last time this text came up in the lectionary, has been getting a few hits this week. My thinking has not changed much since then. But I do notice that I must have been preaching from the NIV that week.

In verse 8, the NIV says “the gardener” will spread fertilizer around the tree. The NRSV gives us what I assume is a more literal translation with “manure.”

So, the question arises: Have you been flinging around manure like Jesus this week?

Preaching effects

In the class I teach at Indiana University,  use a classic piece on communication early in the semester to set up conversations with the students about the processes and parts of communication.

Part of the chapter is a four-part explication of what has to happen for communication to have a chance to have the effect you desire.

• You must gain the audience’s attention.
• You must use a set of “signs” that the audience can understand and that the audience interprets in the same way you do.
• You must evoke a need within the audience.
• You must give the audience a way to act or respond that is possible for the audience.

In both the chapter and the class conversation we talked about the fact that communication almost never has the effect we intend if we do not start from where our audience is. You need to start within the beliefs and values the audience already holds and  then try to move them toward the goal.

None of this is new or revolutionary, which is why I use it with sophomores.

But it does get me thinking about the sermon as an act of communication. I hear common sermon advice in here. Andy Stanley wrote a whole book that pretty much covers these same points. Rick Warren writes about the need for to evoke a felt need. Paul in Athens famously followed the bulk of this advice when he preached. Even John Wesley shows in his journals how much he thinks about where his audience is as he determines what to preach.

And yet, I am also mindful of how many voices — especially post-liberals and neo-Barthians — counsel treating the sermon as an impossibility. Will Willimon writes often about the fact that it requires a miracle for us to hear the sermon rightly.

So, I wonder about the balance between technique and Spirit in preaching — and communication in general.

Not just me and Jesus

Talbot Davis, a Methoblogger and megachurch pastor in North Carolina, recently posted the rough version of a sermon he recently delivered that culminated in an invitation to Christian discipleship.

I appreciate him doing this because it is nice to be able to see how a pastor works through a sermon to arrive at this spot. I think we all benefit when we can see how others work. I particularly liked the warning Talbot gave to people before he gave is explicit call to Christian discipleship.

Here it is from his preaching text.

Now: I’m going to give you an opportunity in a few minutes to do just that. But before I do and in order for me to be faithful to the gospel and to this Gospel of Luke, I have to let you know up front: it’s NOT just about you and Jesus. That’s not salvation. I’d not be truthful if I said, “oh, it’s just a private decision you and Jesus in the quiet of your heart.” There’s more. Because after John calls them snakes, the people getting baptized ask three times “what do we do?” Look at the answers in 3:10-14: READ. Notice? All the answers have to do with how you treat other people: sharing, not abusing, and being content. Getting right with God means making right with others. For some of you it will be speaking to that ex-spouse you’d vowed you’d never talk to again.  For others it’s reconciling with those parents from whom you have been estranged.  And still others it’s making the first move with those adult children from whom you are alienated.  No way around it. If you are going to respond to Gospel Decision today, do so knowing in advance that you’re going to relinquish your right to get your way, you’re going to have to go to some people in order to right some wrongs that you’ve caused, and you’re going to practice contentment. Because if you have something private with Jesus and IT DOESN’T EFFECT YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHERS it means you didn’t get right. Getting right means making right and I want you to know that going in.

The preacher’s rhetorical stance

What is your rhetorical stance when you get up to preach?

No, this is not a question about foot work. It is about the way we think about what we are doing when we preach.

Any act of communication can be thought of as involving four elements: the encoder of a message, the decoder of that message, the reality to which the message refers, and the signal that transmits the message. Scholar James Kinneavy wrote that we can think about the aim of any communication by thinking about which of these four elements gets the most emphasis.

Encoder-focused messages aim at self-expression. They are the screams of protest, the intense sharing of personal feelings, or the testimonials of the devoted. The primary concern is what the sender of the message wants to say. In the most extreme forms, they can lose almost all contact with decoders and reality beyond the person who created the message.

Decoder-focused messages aim at persuasion. We are bathed in these messages every day by advertisers, politicians, and everyone else who wants to convince us to do this or that. Many sermons surely fit in this category. Indeed, this strikes me as the presumed focus of sermonic communication.

Signal-focused messages aim for literary effects. Here we put the focus on the artistic elements of language or movement or visuals. Poetry is the prototypical form of signal-focused communication.

Reality-focused messages aim to accurately report on the subject of the message. Journalism and scientific communication are the exemplary forms of this kind of communication. I could also see some forms of expository preaching or preaching as proclamation about who God is as leaning toward this form of communication.

In the end, of course, most forms of communication touch on all four aspects. This cannot be avoided. All four are necessary elements of every act of communication. But it can help us think about our purpose in preaching if we consider our point of emphasis.

For instance, if the greatest emphasis of a sermon is supposed to be on the effect it has on the person who hears the spoken word, then we have to ask at everyone turn what effect we are trying to produce and how well are we producing that effect. We should be students of rhetoric and persuasion who seek to know as much as we can about those who hear our sermons and what is likely to move them.

Describing the sermon this way may strike some as too grace-less. It appears to make the effect of preaching all about technique and not at all about God’s gracious action.

Such reactions are, I think, what leads a Karl Barth to declare that preaching should be nothing more than a restatement of the things the Bible already says. He moves to the sermon as referential restatement of the Bible, leaving the effect of this preaching to God.

In the end, I find myself uncomfortable leaning to much toward the persuasive aim. I recoil at anything that feels like manipulation. This may be a fault in a preacher. But I am hoping that self-understanding will help me improve.

Even mediocre sermons can’t stop God

The first preaching book I ever read reminded me that God can use even mediocre preachers and mediocre sermons to do his work. I am reminded of that today after a sermon that I was not that happy about spoke in important ways to a couple members of my congregation who took time to mention that to me.

God is good.

The sermon as travel writing

William J. Abraham has been arguing for more than a decade that we have gotten Scripture — and other canons of the church — all wrong. Scripture does not exist, he argues, to settle our debates and disputes about truth and doctrine. It exists to help usher us into the kingdom of God. It is, in other words, a means of grace.

Now, one paragraph by me does not do justice to the complexity of his argument or his project. But it does represent the thought that has been knocking around in my cluttered attic of a brain for the last year or so. Today, I am asking myself how I should conceive of the sermon if Abraham is correct that the Scripture is primarily a means of initiating people into the kingdom of God? What then does the sermon do?

I think one implication of this is that Scripture is not — contrary to much preaching advice — a repository of principles or truths that the sermon exists to apply to contemporary life. And yet, the sermon is still closely concerned with how we live.

Paul’s language about being citizens of heaven comes to my mind as I try to work through this. We are citizens of heaven. And yet, we are also still citizens of this world. We are invited through the means of grace to live more and more into our heavenly citizenship. The sermon is one means the Holy Spirit uses to draw us into that.

My mind turns to travel journalism — perhaps because of my past as a journalist. The sermon serves to introduce the citizen of Earth to the strange world of heaven. I see several moves. We learn about this place and life, even perhaps before we learn that we have citizenship papers waiting for us at the consulate. We might learn about it. We might visit as a tourist, hitting the hot spots and major attractions. We might take a deeper step and move in. We live among a community of ex-patriots in this new land, where we gain a deeper immersion than the tourists ever do. And we may eventually go native, becoming foreigners in our former home land.

The sermon is at turns a publicist, a travel guide, a real estate agent, and a mentor into this life in the kingdom of heaven.

All this is too muddled to be very useful or practical. I am not terribly good when it comes to how-to lists. (Hey, I’m an English major.) But these are some of my thoughts today thanks to Abraham, a former life in journalism, and too much time spent in a room with the travel channel on TV.

What is the purpose of a sermon?

Some comments taken from a question Scot McKnight once asked: What is the purpose of the sermon?

First:

From this perspective (an admittedly limited one) I think that a good sermon will hold my interest, teach me something new or provide a different perspective or twist of insight into something I know, encourage or convict me to actually live out my faith.

Second:

My view of a “good sermon” is one that is really educational about Faith, scripture, and practical application to the real world. It’s nice to be feel good and lofty in idealism, but at the end of the day, The Word needs to be viewed with the real world in mind so it can convey a practical, meaningful message.

Third:

I’m most fed when I either learn something (about God, Jesus, or how I can better relate to Him), when I’m motivated to act out my faith, or when I’m encouraged. I guess I would say that the purpose is to preach the Gospel and to edify the church.

Fourth:

Sermons engage me when it’s clear that the preacher has some understanding (need not be exhaustive) of what is being conveyed. There needs to be a flow of ideas and not a lot of “uhms” and circular statements: please, take me somewhere! I personally need to know how what is being preached bears on the meaning of scripture, or the liturgy, or life in God- hopefully all three. And I believe this can be done in less than 15 minutes, preferably no more than ten. I’m also in a church with a Eucharist-centered service.
I’ve been churched all my life. Memorable sermons? About five. Details? Nah- what I remember is the Main Thing. But there’s a better chance that later Sunday or during the week I’ll think about the ideas in the sermon if I’m engaged as above.

Fifth:

I’m tired of sermons that are nothing more than a prepared speech. There needs to be more spontaneity, honesty, conversing and less shouting, fist-pounding, and clever plays on words or three-point alliterated outlines. It needs to have relatability. For me the sermon starts me thinking to such a degree that I don’t forget it immediately after the service but keep mulling over its contents during the week, maybe doing my own study or checking out some other’s comments, incorporating the challenges into my prayers and using it as a framework for my personal conversation with God during the week. … In essence, a sermon needs to be memorable and inspiring beyond the time it takes to shake the preacher’s hand and say ‘nice job.’
It’s been a long time since I heard such a sermon at my church.

This is just a selection. I tried to pick comments that were written by listeners rather than preachers. I hear two things. Teach me something I did not know. Tell me what I can do next.