90 second preaching survey

I am writing a book on what we can learn from good preachers and communicators.

I hope to include an online resource as part of the Wycliffe Hall School of Preaching with observations on some of the best preachers today.

Could you take a moment to answer these two simple questions? (use the comment tag below)

I’ll let you know the results in due course!
Simon

 

1.  Who is your most favourite living preacher(s) to listen to?

 

 

 

2.  Can you name what it is that they do that makes you listen?

 

 

Make a house a home

Make a house a home

 Some thoughts on preaching which hits home

We are preparing to move house again soon (2 miles across the other side of Oxford).  As we prepare for the process of transporting all our possessions from one house to another my thoughts turned to what makes a house a home?  The bare structure and location of a property only becomes home when it feels lived in and starts to reflect the personality of its inhabitants.

The same could be said to be true of preaching.  Many sermons which I listen to show evidence of structure, design and effort.  But they often don’t feel lived in.  They lack the warmth and personality which only comes when the preacher has inhabited the text for themselves and taken it home.

What are some of the errors which sermons make?  You can probably think of more, but these few thoughts came to mind.

Pegs

When you first move into your new house boxes get emptied and mounds of clothing, books etc. await proper ‘filing away’.  Should someone come to visit the chances are their coat will need to be draped over a chair or put on the bed.  Hopefully, in time, pegs will appear upon which you may hang your coat.

In a similar way, many sermons which I hear offer nowhere to ‘hang your hat’ so to speak.  There is content, but it lacks pegs.  Without this attention to structure, the hearer can struggle to navigate their way through the sermon.  Without pegs it is unlikely that hearers will be able remember salient points of the sermon for the week ahead.

Rhetoric gets a bad name today. But the later Greek sophists (Isocrates. Cicero etc.) believed Rhetoric to be the ability to speak with such clarity that the audience would be persuaded.  Philosophers think clearly.  Rhetoricians think clearly out loud.  Preachers should be doing the same.  This will in part be reflected by careful attention to the structure and form of the sermon.

Personality

It takes time for a house to become a home.  Over time the inhabitants will begin to stamp their own personality on their property – hanging curtains, arranging flowers, decorating to taste etc. 

Many sermons I hear lack personality.  Phillip Brooks’ now famous comment that preaching is “communication of truth through personality” is exactly right.  Obviously we don’t want the sermon to be littered with personal anecdotes and stories.  It is not supposed to be a talk about them.  However, congregations listen when they can see that for the preacher the message has hit home personally.

They have been moved by the message they are preaching.  They have made the connections as to how it applies to their own life.

Punch

Sermons which hit home are those which apply pertinently and pointedly to today’s world.  They are illustrated in real life.

Too many sermons I hear leave me only in the world of the text.  Now, of course, this is not the worst problem, there are equally many messages that never take me to the world of the text and only start in the world of today.  I guess the former may be the weakness of evangelical expository preaching; the latter is the weakness of liberal preaching.

John Stott has regularly repeated the need to engage in “double listening” – Hearing the voice of the text; hearing the voice of the world. 

When you move into a new house you are inclined to think: however did they live with that wallpaper?  How come they didn’t modernise the bathroom suite etc.  But of course, it is very difficult to see your environment and culture from the fresh perspective of an outsider. 

As preachers we need to retain the fresh “eyes” of an outsider, someone who has not spent the whole week labouring over the text, and who can see the difficult punchy questions which might need addressing.

At home in the sermon

By this expression I don’t at all mean that preaching should be psychologically therapeutic, only comforting and devotional.  What I think I mean is that I expect preaching to give me pegs (to help me recall and apply the bible to my life in the week ahead); personality (so I feel that the preacher has met with God in his preparation); punch (I see the issue with a freshness and pertinence for the week ahead).

Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans launched

UK LAUNCH OF FELLOWSHIP OF CONFESSING ANGLICANS JULY 6, 2009, WESTMINSTER CENTRAL HALL, LONDON

THE launch in the UK and Ireland of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA), an orthodox Anglican movement for mission at global and local level, is to take place on July 6 in London.

The Fellowship is the outworking of last year’s GAFCON conference in Jerusalem, at which 1200 delegates signed up to the Jerusalem Statement. Those attending Gafcon 2008 represented some 40 million Anglicans world-wide, 70% of the total active membership of 55 million.

The launch event, entitled ‘Be Faithful! – Confessing Anglicans in Global and Local Mission’ will be held at Westminster Central Hall from 10.30am-5.30pm. The aim is to encourage and envision Anglicans who are committed to the orthodox teachings of the Anglican Church and who are passionate about global and local mission.

It will be the first of regular ‘fellowship’ events both in the UK and across the world. Speakers at the July 6 gathering, where around 2,300 bishops, clergy and laity are expected, will include contributors from across the Anglican Communion, including Bishops Keith Ackerman (President of Forward in Faith North America), Wallace Benn (Bishop of Lewes), John Broadhurst (Chairman of Forward in Faith UK) and Michael Nazir-Ali, Dr Chik Kaw Tan plus Archbishop Peter Jensen (secretary of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans www.fca.net).

They, and others yet to be announced, will also lead gatherings in London churches on Sunday July 5th. the day before the launch.

Regional meetings, in the run up to the London event will also be held on:- * May 14, St Batholomew’s,Bath

* May 15, Christ Church, Virginia Water

* May 18, Holy Trinity, Platt, Manchester

* May 19, St Andrew’s, Newcastle-under-Lyme

* May 20, Christ Church, Fulwood, Sheffield

The Revd Paul Perkin, vicar of St Mark’s, Battersea Rise, London, and Chairman of the event planning team, said: “The fellowship is just that, a spiritual movement of brothers and sisters across the nation and the world. It is not a separatist party, nor is it an organisation, but a spiritual fellowship issuing from a concern for truth and unity. It is a renewal of our confessing Anglican roots and convictions, and will be forward-looking in gospel mission locally, and in solidarity globally with Anglicans throughout the world, especially those suffering through poverty or discrimination”.

For further information about the event, email befaithfulanglicans@gmail.com, or book on-line here For further information: Revd Paul Perkin, Be Faithful, Event Chairman: 020 7326 9412 Canon Dr Chris Sugden (Anglican Mainstream): 01865 883388

Feeding your soul and weeding out sin

I was preaching on Matthew 5:27-30 today and used an extended illustration of the health of the lawn being analogous to the health of the human heart.

 

I know it is hard to imagine this at the moment but try to think back to the hot summer months in sultry heat (!), enjoying the lushness of the garden, with a gentle hum of electric fly mowers in the background.

 

It can be quite irritating to have the peace and quiet of summer shattered by lawn mowers, but I suspect that many people mow their lawn frequently as a fairly fool proof way of making the garden look nice and well tended.

 

At the heart of the growing season, if you leave your lawn for little more than a week tell-tale signs of its true nature will be revealed.  This is certainly true in my case.  If I fail to mow regularly, the apparently lush, well tended lawn shows its true nature – dandelions begin to sprout yellow and eventually shower umbrella seed replicating themselves all over the lawn.  Big green dock leaves shade the delicate grass.  Untendered weeds spoil what initially appeared to be a lush lawn.

 

You see the problem with only cutting the grass is that it deals superficially with the weeds.  It doesn’t deal with root causes.  Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount tells me that I must not live the Christian life at the level of superficial appearances.  I can fool other people most of the time; I can fool myself some of the time; but I can never fool God

 

There are two more fundamental care issues related to my lawn which need attending to if I am going to have a healthy lawn – they involve feeding the soil and weeding out the roots of the intruder!

 

Feeding your spiritual lawn means tending your heart.  Psalm 119:9-11 this:

How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word.  I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.  I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. (NIV)

 

Tending to the state of the heart needs to happen in order for the Christian to be healthy and pure and not controlled by lust.

 

Weeding your spiritual lawn requires pulling out sin at its source

Behind adultery lies lust (And behind murder lies anger).  In order to deal with  lust radical action is required – metaphorically gouging out eyes and chopping of wayward hands.  Controlling what we watch and controlling what we do with our hands is necessary for a godly Christian life.  If I make myself blind, deaf, mute and paraplegic, yet retain my soul then I am of greater value than if I have a beautiful body and prefect facilities yet corrupt my soul…

 

As ever, Jesus’ words challenge and provoke.  But a godly life is a healthy life and, moreover is the only way to avoid hell!

 

See www.simonvibert.com for full sermon.

 

 

The Financial Crisis (Part two)

Wycliffe Hall was very fortunate to be able to welcome Lord Brian Griffiths, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, to deliver a lecture on a Christian response to the current financial crisis to our students this week.

His perspective on the causes of this crisis are a combination three things:  excessive public borrowing with the ratio of debt to household income now standing at about 150%;  Banks turning into lending shops, the lack of relationship between lender and borrower, and failures to check people’s ability to pay; and, thirdly, the failures of world governments to regulate what is going on in investment banks.

The most interesting bits of his lecture were his three implications arising out of his Christian convictions.  Regrettably time was short, so these were little more than snapshots:

a.  Throughout Scripture debt is viewed as something that is problematic; e.g. laws about the land, debts and usury in the Pentateuch as well as the perspective of Proverbs 22:7 “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender”

b.  The cycles of economic life (upturn, downturn, boom, recession) need to be interpreted in the light the cyclical flow of the Sabbath, the jubilee provisions etc.  A good example is the Millennium commitments to the forgiveness of debts.  It is even more important that as we go into recession we hold to these commitments.

c.  Jesus says: You cannot serve God and Mammon (Mammon being the personification and deification of money).  Greed is not good – in fact, greed is the cause of excessive worry (according to Jesus in Matthew 6:24ff.).

As the financial crisis continues to deepen, it is good to be reminded of our commitment to care for the poor (and not renege on this as we feel the pinch) and the challenge to ensure that we love the Lord as our highest and best love, not the things of this world.

Wouldn’t it be good if Christian leaders faithfully teach the Kingdom standards set out in the Bible and help God’s people live wisely in testing times?

If probability taught that there was no God – would you stop worrying?

Apparently no one can bend it like Beckham, except, I guess a bendy bus with a message of false comfort sponsored by atheists: THERE’S PROBABLY NO GOD. NOW STOP WORRYING AND ENJOY YOUR LIFE.

In The Independent (25th October) Howard Jacobson points out the false comfort which such an advert offers:

“As for the rest of the bendy bus message, it makes not a grain of sense. THERE’S PROBABLY NO GOD STOP WORRYING? That’s a non sequitur. Why should the non-existence of a God stop us worrying? Who ever claimed it was belief in God that caused us to worry? Some of the least worried people I know are unworried precisely because they believe in a benign creator who takes individual care of them. We might think of them as deluded crackpots – we might be driven crazy ourselves by their baseless blitheness and serenity – but if not worrying is to be the measure of happiness then, like it or not, they’ve found happiness in spades. Ivan Karamazov on the other hand, is misery incarnate, unable to enjoy a moment of mental peace because he cannot see how, if God does not exist, anything can be deemed unlawful. SINCE THERE’S PROBABLY NO GOD it would say on the bendy bus Ivan hires to drive around St Petersburg, START WORRYING BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED”.

For my money, though, the pursuit of happiness seems inextricably intertwined with the pursuit of God.  For sure, for some, this has ended up in craziness and a fog of despair.  But when you consider that the God of the universe came in pursuit of us – “seeking and saving the lost”, as Jesus put it – we find that “holiness and happiness” are not that far apart.

Blaise Pascal wrote:

“All men seek happiness. There are no exceptions. However different the means they may employ, they all strive towards this goal… The will never takes the least step except to that end. This is the motive of every act of every man…

“Yet for very many years no one without faith has ever reached the goal at which everyone is continually aiming. All men complain: princes, subjects, nobles, commoners, old, young, strong, weak, learned, ignorant, healthy, sick, in every country, at every time, of all ages, and all conditions.

“A test which has gone on so long, without pause or change, really ought to convince us that we are incapable of attaining the good by our own efforts. But example teaches us very little. No two examples are so exactly alike that there is not some subtle difference, and that is what makes us expect that our expectations will not be disappointed this time as they were last time. So, while the present never satisfies us, experience deceives us, and leads us on from one misfortune to another until death comes as the ultimate and eternal climax.

“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.

“God alone is man’s true good, and since man abandoned him it is a strange fact that nothing in nature has been found to take his place…” (#428)

Well said!

on being salt and light and impacting Christians

I was preaching on a very familiar passage this morning, Matthew 5:13-16, which can be difficult.  Not because it is complex, but rather because it is hard to say something that hasn’t been heard by the congregation many times before.

So this morning, preaching at St Ebbe’s Headington, I reminded the congregation of the hidden, preserving impact that Christians are supposed to make on society by being rubbed into the world as salt is rubbed into meat.  Jesus emphasis is that Christians, and Christians alone are salt and light preventing the world from decaying and shining for God.

If Christians are “the light of the world” one assumes that this is only by way of reflecting Christ as ”THE light of the world”.  If He is the Sun (Son) we are the moon.  Our job is to spotlight Jesus, search out the lost and glow for God’s glory.

So far, so familiar, I guess.  At the end of the sermon I encouraged the congregation to buzz in small groups.  My contention is that none of this is hard to understand, but like so many passages in Scripture, the challenge is to put it into practice.  From the comments I got back from people this was the significant part of the morning as the congregation buzzed with ideas over how individually and congregationally we might be rubbed into Oxford culture and shine for Jesus in this part of the world.

Upon reflection, it made me think that the combination of teaching from the front and small group buzzing, including a subsequent email around to local congregation members to take part in a community social in a couple of weeks by way of application, is a good model for teaching.  Did not Paul encourage the Corinthian congregation: … everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort.  (1 Corinthians 14:3).  This kind of prophecy is surely the application of the word of God for the building up of the congregation alongside and accompanying the preaching.

And, the “you” of Colossians 3:16 is “plural” implying that the word should dwell, not just in the individual’s heart but more particularly in the corporate gathering of the congregation: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.   And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Col 3:16f.)

Of course, the preaching of the word by a prayerfully prepared preacher is essential.  But it does not go far enough if it is not accompanied by smaller groupings of Christians working out the implications of the word for their lives and communities.  The simple fact of the matter is that we need longer rubbing up against each other if we are going to be effective in also getting rubbed into the world.

Atlanta and home…

Just spent 5 days in Atlanta on Wycliffe business along with Richard Turnbull.

The main purpose was to renew friendships with Episcopalians and Presbyterians over here.  We had a good morning with Ravi Zacharias whose RZIM partners with our Wycliffe Apologetics school (www.rzim.org)

We spent an interseting day with Bob Luckman who is a businessman who has coordinated major projects to revive urban areas in Atlanta.  He persuades businesses to invest in a layered housing scheme in an attempt to regenerate the city centres with a socially and economically diverse group of people living alongside each other.  In addition to regenerating Urban centres he has encouraged Churches to give money and plant in these areas, employ community chaplains and build businesses.  It is a great model and very encouraging to see.

We met Michael Yousef, leader of a large independent Anglican Church in Atlanta (www.leadingtheway.org) He trained at Moore Theological College in Sydney, having been brought up in the Middle East.  He is clearly having an effective ministry in Atlanta and beyond with a particular passion to reach those from a Muslim background.

We had a dinner on the 25th floor of a private club in Atlanta overlooking the rather splendid skyline.  The main purpose of these occassions is to gain some friends across Episcopal and a broader evangelical spectrum, and perhaps in due course to encourage some of those friends to give money to our capital project at Wycliffe.

This morning I attended two Christchurches Independent Anglican (under the oversight of Archbishop Greg Venables http://christchurchatl.org/; and PCA (led by Paul Gardner founder of FWS (www.fows.org and friend from England http://christchurchatlanta.org).

A bit of a whirlwind tour, but well worth it.  As the world seems to get smaller, the friendships across the water become all the more valuable!

Preaching Week in Sweden

I have just got back from 4 days teaching at a Homiletical week in Uppsala in Sweden, 45 minutes north of Stockholm.  The Johannelund bible school has 80+ students many of whom are training for ministry in the Lutheran, Church of Sweden. 

The staff made me feel very welcome and seemed appreciative of my 4 lectures on Preaching from Old Testament narrative, 1 Samuel.  The students were also engaged and asked some good questions.  Many of them are quite young; lots of them do 5 years study and end up with a Masters Degree. 

The Lutheran Church seems fairly ‘mixed’; whilst some of them would have a strong preaching, evangelical ministry, the state Church is also quiet ‘high’ with some of them seeing themselves in a sacerdotal ministry.  The denomination is also struggling with many of the same issues with respects to homosexuality, pluralism and interfaith issues as the Church of England.  I guess one factor which plays out quite differently for them is the taxation system in which those who register as Church members are required to pay into central funding, so despite falling Church attendance there seems to be plenty of money around.

We had an interesting discussion about the use of the liturgy.  Unwittingly I put my foot in it!  I was asked by one of the students about preaching from the lectionary (i.e. the set readings for each Sunday) and responded by saying that whenever I could I didn’t and have always preached through books (or part of the book) of the bible over several weeks.  This is because I feel that the agenda is set by the Scripture rather than by the lectionary or by the preacher.  Also, it enables the congregation to begin to get a feel for what the Bible message is.  My concern with Lectionary preaching is also that preachers spend their time trying to locate the ‘golden thread’ that runs through all three lectionary readings to find a uniting theme rather than do justice to 3 or even 1 of the passages listed.

Apparently one of the previous speakers had used a very similar illustration to my ‘golden thread’ line commending the lectionary and, moreover, there is a high expectation that preachers keep with the lectionary.  Oops!  To which the best answer is that they should be encouraged to expound one of the three readings set for the day rather than try to speak on all three.

However, the sessions seemed to be well received and I noted quite an appetite among students and staff, and, after all they had invited me to speak on Expository Preaching!

I had a very nice day in Stockholm, enjoying the wide tree lined promenades, eating Swedish meatballs and drinking strong black coffee in a street cafe overlooking the lovely waterfront.  It was cold mind you, feeling quite autumnal by comparison with Portugal or even Oxford!

Finally, I visited the famous Vasamuseet.  It houses a ship that sank on its maiden voyage in 1628, built as the pride of King Gustov Aldoph.  I commented on the great self-deprecating nature of the Swedes in building such a monument to a huge failure!  The great interest is the fact that in the 1960’s the boat was raised and rebuild in the museum giving a great example of a 17th Century warship.

So, I had a tiring but profitable trip.  It would seem that there is a great need to continue modelling and encouraging faithful expository ministry and I feel privileged to be involved in some of this ministry.

The illiberality of a liberal nation is mimicked in the church

I have been criss-crossing the country on Wycliffe business recently.  As I was waiting for my train wandering around one of our fine cities the other day the “illiberality of a liberal nation” struck me forcefully!  All over the city centre there was posted dire warnings of the penalties of dropping your cigarette butt on the ground, or failing to put your litter in the bin.  Lined up outside every public building, in pouring rain I hasten to add, were clusters of smokers having a quick puff before they lurched back inside.  On the train on the way back I read a couple of articles in a magazine which seemed to reinforce this:  One concerned a campaign to ban smoking in the street; the other was from a columnist who appeared to agree with those who were banning children from Church weddings on the grounds that they might cause a disruption.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  Smoking is a filthy habit and passive smoking is dangerous to asthmatics like me.  And our filthy streets certainly need a clean up.  And screaming children in the middle of a wedding service can be irritating.  But at what point does a liberal society say to a litigious government and local council: “butt out”!  Because as the government seems to stray further and further into the area of legislating against civil liberties, it at the same time is the most liberal in its attitudes towards church and family life.  Yes, there is the civil partnership act.  But this “liberal” attitude has chipped away at the bedrock of a healthy society by privileging anyone but married couples bringing up children in lifelong monogamy.  And it seems to afford clergy of the Church of England little freedom to do their job in seeking to be the conscience of the nation.

It is a worrying trend that has repeated itself in degrading societies down the ages.  The open minded-ness of liberal thinking knows that it has no real power to change people’s hearts and lives.  The result is that a whole raft of rules and regulations are thrown at the society in a perverse attempt to allow the freedom which they claim.   The street preacher is arrested and forbidden to preach in the town square.  But the thief is no longer put in jail but is fined (not that I think that the latter is necessarily a bad way of dealing with this crime).

It is this cultural drift which has wafted into the Church of England.  We want to exist in the nation; for the nation.  But as DL Moody once pointed out: the place for the ship is in the sea, but woe-betide the ship into which the sea gets!

John Richardson makes a similar point in this regard in his recent blog about  the Church of England (http://ugleyvicar.blogspot.com/2008/07/reasons-to-be-cheerful-maybe.html).    He points out that the Clergy Discipline Measure has produced legislation which is hot on dealing with issues of straying over diocesan boundaries, operating without proper ecclesiastical authority etc.  The result is a document which is giving registrars and diocesan bishops quite a headache up and down the land.  Yet, the CDM never completed its task and produced a Clergy Discipline (Doctrine) Measure presumably because we live in a denomination (infected by the society) which is unable, and probably thinks it is unbecoming, to interfere in private and personal beliefs.  One noticeable trend in recent years is that the General Synod Reports have been rather more robust in their theological thinking than 20 years ago (including Some Issues in Human Sexuality), but this has had little or no impact on what actually happens when it comes to the conduct of some clergy and some bishops on the ground.

John Stott warned (see later blog for this full text) that Conservatives have a tendency to be biblical but not relevant.  Liberals have a tendency to be relevant but not biblical.  The transformation of our culture will surely only happen if we are listening to the Word of God and allowing it to transform our thinking (Hence, Romans 12:1f metamorphe) and allow it to rigorously transform Church and Nation.  The only way to stem the tide of illiberality in the Church and nation is not by increasing litigation, but rather by humbly sitting under God’s word and allowing the full implications to seep into Church and land.