Dwell Conference: "How do you like your meal?"

Last night, we had 'table talk', which was a table discussion of some of the ideas raised by the speaker (in last night's case, a fine message by Mark Driscoll).

Our table was talking about Preaching. I introduced the model I was raised on: When preaching, show your exegesis of the text. (John Stott?) We were talking about some of the limits of that model, as well as some of the great strengths.

Someone at our table offered this insight on preaching from his seminary professor:

We (preachers) are there not to take them to the kitchen, but to serve them a meal.

Ok. That insight is certainly the model of many preachers here in the States. They (presumably) do the hard work of exegesis at home, but not (primarily) in the sermon. That would make it labored and less interesting and less applicable.

I responded by saying that the model that I received was the opposite- that we are precisely to 'take people to the kitchen', in order to teach them how to cook and serve a meal on their own, and rely less on the chef.

I'm still processing this. So, over to you:

Do you want to be taken to the kitchen, or would you prefer the meal already served and with dessert?

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Pic by Mikeautry1.

#2- The Gettysburg Principle: Make it only 279 Words.

Regarding my previous post - Here are my thoughts on Lincoln's address:

• It's short.
• It's inspiring.
• It does not meander.
• It is part of the larger narrative of American history ("Four score and seven years ago") and references itself within that narrative. ("Now we are engaged in a great civil war...")
• It exegetes a moment of history ("We have come to dedicate") and yet speaks beyond that moment ("that we here highly resolve ... that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth").

So I get it.

In relation to Sermon Preparation, I now propose The Gettysburg Principle:

'Make your sermon only 279 Words ...(before you ruin it.)'

That is, don't write out your sermon hoping for 4000 words, beginning with a poorly conceived 'hook', and then meandering your way through the 2000 mark, while seeking to guess an ending.

Here is my plan to stop my own meandering. For my next sermon...

• I'm going to write out the entire sermon in 279 words. No more, and no less.
• I'm going to work hard choosing each of those 279 words.
• I will make sure these 279 words are the entire sermon and able to be delivered on their own. (They are not just 'the Big Idea'; or a 'main sentence'; or a goal; or a synopsis.)
• My 279 words will need to exegete the biblical text drawing from the grand narrative of the Christ story.
• I will then ask myself: Are these 279 words worth hearing? Do they take us to a new level? Do they give us a bigger vision of God? Do they propel us to new possibilities of faith for the Glory of God in the face of Christ? Do they challenge the complacent soul and give hope to the hungry heart?
• I will then deliver these 279 words to Dr. Laurel (my personal literature expert) for rigorous scrutiny.

• Then, and only then, will I add any more words or thoughts or ideas or illustrations or applications. And these extra words will be added only to explore and deepen and enhance those 279 words.

• So I may end up with a normal sermon length. Or maybe not. But only when I've gathered my 279 words will I be confident that I will neither meander, nor repeat myself.
  

Otherwise, our words may be lost like the 13,607 words belonging to Edward Everett. History has blown away Everett's 2 hour speech in favor of the wonder of Lincoln's 279 words.

I'll let you know how it goes.

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Pic on Flickr by Andertho.

#1- Gettysburg Address and Sermon Preparation...

I've certainly got old thoughts on Sermon Preparation, and you can read my MO for preaching here. But last weekend, I had a new thought that came while I was reading Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (as you do). It is not that profound, but still helpful to me. I won't tell you my thought until tomorrow or Thursday. In the meantime, you tell me:

What do you notice about the Gettysburg Address as a piece of communication?

Here it is:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Keen to hear your reflection.

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Pic on Flickr by stuck in customs.

#5 - MO for preaching: FINAL Questions

My friend, Scott, asked me a while back: What is your Modus Operandi (MO) for preparing a sermon? I had to break it up into 5 Parts:

Lastly, there are some questions that are good to ask:

• Is it what the text actually says?
• Am I being less insightful than the text itself? (Don't settle for that)
• Am I being more insightful than the text itself? (Resist doing that)
• Am I encouraging 'preacher dependence' by speaking this way?
• Is it geared to the outsider?
• Does it lead to and testify to the face of God in Jesus?
• Am I loving my people?
• Is the tone of the sermon...the tone of the text?
• Am I lifting the vision of the congregation to a higher place?
• Is there an individual, local, global and universal application?
  
• What is the application to a community of people (not just an individual)?
• Am I being clear or clever (always choose clear)?
• Are there breaks for my listeners (like humor or good stories?)
• Is there a joke... Like "Did you hear the story about..."? (cull it Now. Before its too late.)
  
• Will it be moving (where it needs to be moving)?
• Does it have a momentum?

That's about it, Scott.

For anyone out there: Thoughts? Criticisms? Tips for other preachers?

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Pic is of Pulpit Rock by Mimi K

#4 - MO for preaching: Writing, Practicing and Culling

My friend, Scott, asked me a while back: What is your Modus Operandi (MO) for preparing a sermon? Here is what I wrote to him in Five Parts:

#4 The Writing, Practicing and Culling.

I write my sermons out in such a way that I won't ever read it out. (You have to see how I order it to know what I mean. Happy to send a formated copy of this sermon to anyone who emails me). That means that I do not write it out in prose. But in ideas and subset ideas. I learnt that doing MTS.

I know I do not stay to a text, so a 25 minute sermon cannot be any longer than 1900 words.

I practice as I go. And if I'm bored by what I prepare, I go back and start again.

Culling is the most important part. If you don't cull, you'll lose the game. (I'm not so good at culling, and so I know and feel the weight of this.)

PS -- Cafedave asked about timing. For a regular 25 minute Sunday sermon, I'm going to say 12 hours is average for me. Sometimes more, sometimes less. It's hard to say, because you live with it all week. I reckon something like 2/3 hours reading (more or less depending on what/where the sermon is, and whether you've done reading on it before, or if it's a text or topic), 2 hours on structure, 5 hours on writing, 2 hours culling and practicing. It's slippery.

It used to take me longer.

ONE MORE TO COME... (Just added an extra).


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Pic is of Pulpit Rock by Mimi K

#3 - MO for preaching: Structure

My friend, Scott, asked me a while back: What is your Modus Operandi (MO) for preparing a sermon? Here is what I wrote to him in Five Parts:

#3 Preparing a Structure

Then I sit with a "blank sheet of paper" (or blank computer screen) and I create a structure for the sermon out of what I’ve been reading. What's the one question to answer, or one issue to explore?

That takes AGES.

Ages.

It takes me close to as long as the preparation, and sometimes (not all the time) as long as the writing of the sermon. I go through maybe 20 versions of how to structure it, changing the wording and ideas etc. And I’m only dealing in a few words, usually. I swap the words around. I scribble them out. I start again. I sleep on it etc. This is the most frustrating part for me. Because I know if I get this, everything else will fall into place. I aid this process by asking:

• What’s unique about this text that I’ll find nowhere else in the Scriptures? (To stop me saying the same thing every week)
  
  
• What is the main image here? (The mind is not a debating Hall, it is a picture gallery)
  
  
• What is the emotional content here? (To keep me thinking about real lives and hearts)
  
  
• Why is this text life or death for us? (To stop me from getting trivial)
  
  
• And of course, how does this text alter how I live my life? (To keep it from being un-devotional).

Most of my sermons are exploring one issue, or answering one question.

In the case of the sermon last Sunday (Click HERE), it was simple: "What value is there in this very surprising 'Parable of the Dishonest Manager'?"

The structure of the sermon is will mostly fall out of the text. It writes itself. So instead of the normal 3 points, I wrote 4 surprises (16:1-7) and 2 things to learn (16:8,9). The text lends itself that way.

That’s what I write on the one Blank Sheet of paper.

I live with the structure and think about it lots (I learnt that from a young Andrew Rees 10 years ago), and I scribble thoughts wherever I can.

Last one to come.

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Pic is of Pulpit Rock by Marcus Ramberg.

#2 - MO for preaching: Listening

My friend asked me a while back: What is your Modus Operandi (MO) for preparing a sermon? Here is what I wrote to him in Five Parts:

#2 Listening:

I try to listen to some examples of sermons on the same text. So I download and listen to a few MP3s on the text for homiletic help. My advice is - don’t just listen to the gurus. It’s often the young guys who are been more rigorous with the text. And when you listen to them, you are more likely to think about the text, than about celebrity skills. (You will never learn baseball from Babe Ruth, but from someone who is like you, stands near you and can guide you).

That having been said – If going for a name, then generally, I listen to someone who helps me with great exegesis (Like John Stott or John Woodhouse); someone to help me put some humble 'steel' into the sermon (Like Rico Tice or John Piper), and I might buy Tim Keller to explore (in my case) a kind of exegesis of the soul of a New Yorker, and also how to present a theological case winsomely.

These will not 'write your sermon' for you (and they shouldn't). But they may yield some homiletic insights, where the commentaries may yield theological insights.

More to come.

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Pic is of Pulpit Rock by Beniot Derrier.

#1 - MO for preaching: Reading

My friend Scott asked me a while back: What is your Modus Operandi (MO) for preparing a sermon?

I punched out an email for him. What I say below is not the ‘correct answer’, nor does it cover some very important ideas. So this is not Preaching 101. It's simply me answering a dear friend.

Here is what I wrote to him in Five Parts:

#1 Reading:

Read text over and over and over: All week, at your desk, in the subway, on the bus, with your wife etc.

Get to know what the text says in its original language. Translate it yourself if you feel competent. I’m pretty average at language skills. So if you don’t feel competent, make sure you get a friend who is skilled in Hebrew or Greek to translate it, and talk you through it.

Get your commentaries. Get good commentaries, but I’d dare say – get any commentaries. They stimulate, as much as educate. (But commentaries rarely dictate what I say. I get exegetical and theological help from them, but I usually get zero homiletic or rhetorical help from commentaries, save maybe one or two dodgy illustrations).

Are there other things that you can you read to aid your preparation?

Speak to as many people (believers and not-yet-ones as well) about the text and the issues that it raises for you and for them.

More to come...

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Pic is of Pulpit Rock by Marcus Hannson.