FINAL: 7 Preaching Discoveries in 7 Years (#6: Be Brief)

See all 7 Discoveries HERE.

1. POSITIVE IS THE NEW BLACK
2. ASK ONE QUESTION, OR EXPLORE ONE ISSUE
3. MAKE YOUR POINTS ACTUAL POINTS
4. WE NEED TO OPEN DOORS, NOT CLOSE THEM

5. AVOID 'SOCIETY THINKS X'...
6. WE NEED THE POETS

7. LEARN TO BE BRIEF.

Learn brevity *before* you embark on 40+ minute sermon.

I say this with some regrets. I used to preach for 40+ minutes, and would complain that I didn't have enough time to really explore the issues of the text. I am seriously OK about preaching for 40 minutes, as long as there is 40 minutes of things worth saying. The way to know if there is 40 minutes of sermon is to first preach it in 20 minutes. Or less.

At my church, God has arranged it so that at 8:30AM I *have* to be speak for less than 20 minutes (or the musicians for 10AM don't get to practice). A mercy on all. It is the 8.30AM sermon that forces the 10AM sermon to be a better one.

Try making your sermon 20 minutes. Make it a valuable 20 minutes. (Or less!) Then and only then add things that make it longer, if you think it necessary. You can make it an hour if you like, but only if you can first do it for a shorter time.

Learn from Abraham Lincoln.

(Or have a read of someone called xposeoffseason on the PROS and CONS of Brevity.)

Got some sundry thoughts about what I think I need to learn next. We'll see how we go...

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Pic on Flickr by andertho.

7 Preaching Discoveries in 7 Years (#6: The Poets)

See all 7 Discoveries HERE.

1. POSITIVE IS THE NEW BLACK
2. ASK ONE QUESTION, OR EXPLORE ONE ISSUE
3. MAKE YOUR POINTS ACTUAL POINTS
4. WE NEED TO OPEN DOORS, NOT CLOSE THEM

5. AVOID 'SOCIETY THINKS X'...

6. WE NEED THE POETS

The Bible is not just facts, and it's not just history. It's not all argument, and it's not all logic. It's not a manifesto, and it's certainly not a tract. It is full of wisdom, poetry and songs. If we desire to be true to the Bible, then we need to re-find the poets, the wisdom writers, and the prophets.

It is one thing to say: 'Be faithful to your wife'. But it is another to muse with the writer of Proverbs: 'Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe.'

So we need a few things: We need wonder, not just exegesis. We need awe of God, not just exposition. We need insight, not just information. We need wisdom, not just your points. We need to wrestle with the Psalmists, and not just proclaim their certainty. We don't just need to 'think Christianly', we need to feel it too. We need Orthokardia.

Buechner on the Prophets:

At the level of words, what do they say, these prophet-preachers? They say this and they say that. They say things that are relevant, lacerating, profound, beautiful, spine-chilling, and more besides. They put words to both the wonder and the horror of the world, and the words can be looked up in the dictionary or the biblical commentary and can be interpreted, passed on, understood, but because these words are poetry, are image and symbol as well as meaning, are sound and rhythm, maybe above all are passion, they set echoes going the way a choir in a great cathedral does, only it is we who become the cathedral and in us that the words echo.

We need the poets.

(For the record, I think I have a long way to go on all these points. Who is not weak...?)

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7 Preaching Discoveries in 7 Years (#5: Avoid 'Society thinks X')

See all 7 Discoveries HERE.

1. POSITIVE IS THE NEW BLACK
2. ASK ONE QUESTION, OR EXPLORE ONE ISSUE
3. MAKE YOUR POINTS ACTUAL POINTS
4. WE NEED TO OPEN DOORS, NOT CLOSE THEM

5. AVOID 'SOCIETY THINKS X'...

Avoid it, unless you can humbly and legitimately show that you have an insight that we haven't yet seen or discovered.

If one makes a huge statement like 'Society thinks X', or 'Post moderns believe Y', or The World say Z', my immediate questions as a listener are: Is that really true? And how do you know? And how has this preacher become an expert in culture and society?

There are, of course, ways to moderate cultural assessments that don't have hubris embedded in them. Show your 'working out'. Saying 'It seems to me that...' is very helpful. Or trying reading someone else's quote about society and interact with that. There are many ways to critique and pull apart culture in ways that we will believe you. That's better than pronouncements.

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7 Preaching Discoveries in 7 Years (#4: Open Doors)

See all 7 Discoveries HERE.

1. POSITIVE IS THE NEW BLACK
2. ASK ONE QUESTION, OR EXPLORE ONE ISSUE
3. MAKE YOUR POINTS ACTUAL POINTS
4. WE NEED TO OPEN DOORS, NOT CLOSE THEM

When a preacher attempts to fully answers the question (if that is possible), or wraps up the issue neatly, he sits down with a sense of completion. But the Christian life is yet to be completed. Our job is not to close doors, but to open them. It is possible to defend certain truths and doctrines so that we are left in no doubt of their truth, but with no next steps.

For example, don't close the door to the Resurrection, by 'proving it'. Open that door. Show us why the Resurrection cracks open every part of our lives. Swing open the door so that I am left with new and righteous things to think and feel and do after hearing you preach.

Show us that God has for more for us than we dare ask or imagine.

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Pic on Flickr by Criggchef.

7 Preaching Discoveries in 7 Years (#3: Make Points)

See them all HERE.

1. POSITIVE IS THE NEW BLACK
2. ASK ONE QUESTION, OR EXPLORE ONE ISSUE
3. MAKE YOUR POINTS ACTUAL POINTS

i.e. not catch phrases or random words

This one I picked up from Richard Coekin from London. Richard saw one of my outlines 7 years ago and lambasted it. It was a lashing I needed. I had a good question. That part was OK. But my answer wasn't an answer. It was a series of random points. Like this:

• The Case for Love.
• Jesus and Love.
• Being Transformed.

What?

Make your points sentences. Short ones. Memorable ones. But actual ones. If you can't say what your points are in the seconds before you preach - in actual helpful sentences - then how will your hearers know what they are? We won't remember it if you haven't said it.

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Pic on Flickr by convexstyle.

7 Preaching Discoveries in 7 Years (#2: Ask One Question)

Read them all HERE.

1. POSITIVE IS THE NEW BLACK
2. ASK ONE QUESTION, OR EXPLORE ONE ISSUE

After starting with potentiality and possibility, I now usually ask one question, or explore one issue. Mostly the former. And I try not to sow it up in neat packages: I work towards an answer, or I take steps forward in exploration. In the end, I know that we all have further to go: more of the Scriptures to read, more of our God to love. And the one question we raise has to be both the burning question of the text, and at the same time the burning issue for the hearer.

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Pic on Flickr by Sean Dreilinger.

7 Preaching Discoveries in 7 Years (#1: Be Positive)

Someone emailed me recently to comment on a sermon I preached 7 years ago. I shuddered to think! Not that everything was bad 7 years ago, but of course, one learns so much over that time. I'm not setting myself up as an expert, and I've got a long way to go, but I am going to write 7 things I've discovered about preaching over 7 years, with some suggestions. You can read this alongside an MO for Preaching. Keen for your thoughts.

1. POSITIVE IS THE NEW BLACK

My tongue is firmly in my cheek as I write that, as if being negative where ever trendy. But there is truth here.

My Modus Operandi used to be: Start by telling us what we currently 'think', why it's wrong and why the Bible is right. The trouble with this is that it could be an exercise in power. And it gets tiring for the hearer too. Better, I think, to start by asking what God has for us that is good and right and reconciling, even if sometimes difficult to for our sinful hearts to hear. That is, what faith can be cultivated in dark times? What hope will we be lifted up here this morning? What love is possible? What ways can I be resourced to live the Christian life? What things do we do to banish error and take every thought captive to Christ?!

I certainly do preach negatively, but I now make it part of the body of the sermon, rather than its focus. Unless it is obvious that something strong needs to be preached. I'm thinking of Galatians here. But the default position must be to construct, rather than deconstruct.

Positive is the new black.

Discuss.

#2 to come.

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Pic on Flickr by my way home.