11 Kinds of Preacher: Which One Are You?

By Peter Mead



The fourth world. That’s what Haddon Robinson called it.

He took John Stott’s two worlds of preaching—the world of the Bible and the world of the contemporary listener’s culture—and he added two more. First, the specific culture of the local congregation (which may differ sharply from the contemporary culture in general). Then, the fourth world—the inner world of the preacher. We have to understand all four worlds to preach effectively.
I’d like to probe that fourth world in respect to personality types.

Now I know these are controversial. There are those in favor and those against. There are advocates for this taxonomy and those pushing for another. Some oppose them altogether. Some people refuse to be labeled (perhaps a personality thing); others love it (ditto). I’ll let you chase the type tests and theoretical discussions elsewhere. I’m going to try to avoid an exhaustive taxonomy of personality types and instead probe various possible features with a focus on preaching.

Before we dive into this non-exhaustive interaction with some aspects of personality types, let’s be clear on the premise. If you are a preacher, you preach. As much as I understand the spirit behind the prayer, “Lord, let me be invisible today; let us all only see you!” the reality is that people will see you.

And you will show in your preaching in more ways than just your physical presence. Your personality will be a grid through which the message passes multiple times in preparation and delivery.

So let’s jump in:

1. The Dutiful Preacher

Some personalities are strong on issues of duty. They are serious and diligent, responsible and dependable.

They tend to promote tradition, work hard, and work steadily. I imagine that this type of person will be sure to follow a preparation process carefully (and as a teacher of preaching, I feel encouraged that someone might!). The hours needed for good preaching preparation will probably be found by this personality when others somehow won’t be able to find the same!

I feel like I spend a lot of time affirming preparation on this site, but the picture is not all rosy here. There may be a tendency to look for duty and to prioritize the presentation of duty. Perhaps the motivation will be assumed in others. Energy may be poured into what should be done, without a focus on why, or an understanding of why some seem to be, well, irresponsible. When the gospel sweeps through the hearts of a community, it will change that community for the good. But there is always a danger, for many personalities, to assume that community good is the goal and to short cut directly there. Changing hearts cannot be bypassed.

Continuing my unstructured thoughts on the influence of personality on preaching:

2. The Mechanical Preacher

This person cares about how things work. Practical in skills. Practical in life. They esteem the uncomplicated things in life, yet achieve the complex from the perspective of others. The end can justify the means, as long as a practical solution is found. I imagine this type of person will preach with a good level of applied practicality. Here is a solution to the challenge; go implement it. People appreciate being given the steps to obedience rather than just the expected behavior.

However, there will be a limitation here. People are not machines. It is so easy to preach as if they are. When you face this, do this, think this, remember that, and then you will do well. Actually, life isn’t lived out in logical and practical steps. There is a profound complexity to the motivational life of any person. There is a responsive interconnectedness between individuals in relationship with God and others. Practical preachers are a blessing to the church but especially if they don’t treat people as simple machines.

3. The Nurturing Preacher

This person is kind and caring, sensitive to others and willing to give themselves away for those they love.

I imagine that this type of personality gets people quicker than others, although that quickness may come from lots of time caring, listening, and praying. Such tender sensitivity is a blessing to those loved. We can all learn from the ways warm and caring people communicate warmth and care.

Those who read others well need to be sure to read the text carefully and to preach it honestly. There is a danger that a high concern for others can bias the reading of the text so that messages of help can be sought rather than the message of the text. And then when the text is understood, we all need to have the courage to preach that appropriately to our people. Sometimes, a fear of hurting feelings can undermine caring biblical ministry. Care for people and care enough to invest God’s Word in the life of the church. Perhaps there should be another category of The Conflict Avoiding Preacher ... but then I’d be repeating this paragraph!

4. The Creative Preacher

Developed aesthetic sensitivity, an eye for beauty, an energy for the new and the striking.

I suppose this personality feature will also offer benefits and dangers. New and creative ways of communicating the Word can offer memorable and effective presentations. It can also offer error. Others do, too, but there is something risky about the new in terms of the ministry. Be careful to use the energy for creativity (a godly characteristic) in a way that represents Him and His Word well.
Here are some more musings on the multi-faceted complexity of our inner world. How does your personality mark your preaching?

5. The Writing Preacher

A clear thinking and able wordsmith who can write with considerable natural talent. They can’t imagine living in a non-literary age or living without books.

There are obvious pros and cons here, too. Preaching is also communicating, and being able to think through to a point of clarity is a key skill. However, writing and speaking are very different communication forms. Clear writing can lose listeners. All of us need to learn to write messages in spoken English, rather than written English. Alternatively, we need to not write our messages at all but to plan them as spoken events. That thought would set off some personalities, and not just the lovers of writing!

6. The Professor Preacher

This person loves and retains information. They read, they memorize, they analyze; they store tons of biblical, theological, and historical data.

What an advantage for preaching. The ability to make links with other texts, to hold it all together in the mind, and to draw it all in from various sources without having to chase things from scratch.
But there is a downside. Relevance might get lost. Preaching is not a data dump. Listeners may struggle to follow apparently tenuous connections or just get tired of information overload. The person with this tendency as a preacher will need to learn to cut and edit maliciously. Most struggle to simplify messages enough. This personality type will struggle more than most. Listeners also would probably like to know the preacher beyond the obvious ability to handle and connect information.

7. The People Person Preacher

Great people skills are worth so much and are so complex to have to learn, but they're nice for those who are naturals!  Ability to connect, to interact, to feel comfortable, to tell stories, to be vulnerable, etc.

While a lot of preachers may be more introverted, the advantages of focused solo study can be balanced by difficulties in communication (or more commonly, in post-preaching interaction). The people person preacher can stand up and say the alphabet in a way that makes people feel warm and connected. And hence both pro and con.

8. The Power Preacher

This person likes to be in charge; they naturally lead groups they find themselves in, and they always look for ways to influence others.

Preaching can be a bit of a no-brainer role for them in some settings. Now there are massive connections between preaching and leading. But there are also massive connections between our content and a non-worldly servant leadership model of the inverted pyramid. This preacher will be able to communicate vision and may have people naturally respond to them.

But it is important to have people respond to the Bible, rather than just to the preacher. Perhaps every personality type would do well to check their motives for preaching, but perhaps this type should do so more quickly and more thoroughly than some others.

9. The Performer Preacher

Typically people-oriented, very extroverted and fun loving. Naturally enthusiastic and potentially highly engaging. They like to be the center of attention in social situations. This person will bring energy into the preaching moment. They will bring enthusiasm and joy. They will bring more emotion than some personality types could dream of expressing. Some visitors will feel enthused; some regulars will excuse and enjoy.

However, this personality type needs to know that their personality will aggravate some others. The energy will grate. The emotion will be considered a false front. The hype will be seen as a poor attempt to hide a lack of content. This personality type can be perfect for some situations. In every situation, there needs to be care for content to come in the package of energetic delivery; otherwise, the naysayers will be proven right.

10. The Inspirer Preacher

Another natural communicator with a natural ability to engagingly explain and apply biblical truth with intensity. This person will be seen as a good preacher by others, whether or not the content is as profound as they give the impression that it is.

However, sometimes the intensity may seem to come with the public speaking rather than from the power of the content. This personality type needs to channel the same energy into their study as they naturally produce in their delivery. They probably need to understand that some personality types will struggle to maintain the level of inspired intensity while listening to them!

11. The Visionary Preacher

Intellectually quick, they see a preferred future in most situations and are able to communicate that sensitively and powerfully. They may have energy for creative planning but lack energy for maintaining the important routines in personal life and church life. People in churches without clear vision and direction can feel starved of leadership. This type of preacher can be a real blessing to such a church.

However, not every visionary statement can be followed through on by all listening. This personality needs to be sure to affirm and to support and to encourage the present activities and routines, where appropriate, rather than only seeing the better future and continually presenting that. People appreciate direction and vision, but they don’t do well being constantly critiqued and evaluated negatively.

I have deliberately avoided 16 types, for obvious reasons. There could be many more than the 11 I’ve listed.

What would you add? Perhaps more importantly, what are some of the features of your personality, and how do they influence your preaching?

Preaching Christ (Reform Preaching)

By R. C. Sproul

R. C. Sproul is the founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries (named after the Ligonier Valley just outside of Pittsburgh, where the ministry started as a study center for college and seminary students) and can be heard daily on the Renewing Your Mind radio broadcast in the United States and internationally. "Renewing Your Mind with Dr. R.C. Sproul" is also broadcast on Sirius and XM satellite radio.

The church of the twenty-first century faces many crises. One of the most serious is the crisis of preaching. Widely diverse philosophies of preaching vie for acceptance among contemporary clergy. Some see the sermon as a fireside chat; others, as a stimulus for psychological health; still others, as a commentary on contemporary politics. But some still view the exposition of sacred Scripture as a necessary ingredient to the office of preaching. In light of these views, it is always helpful to go to the New Testament to seek or glean the method and message found in the biblical record of apostolic preaching.

In the first instance, we must distinguish between two types of preaching. The first has been called kerygma; the second, didache. This distinction refers to the difference between proclamation (kerygma) and teaching or instruction (didache). It seems that the strategy of the apostolic church was to win converts by means of the proclamation of the gospel. Once people responded to that gospel, they were baptized and received into the visible church. They then underwent a regular, systematic exposure to the teaching of the apostles, through regular preaching (homilies) and in particular groups of catechetical instruction. In the initial outreach to the Gentile community, the apostles did not go into great detail about Old Testament redemptive history. That knowledge was assumed among Jewish audiences, but it was not held among the Gentiles. Nevertheless, even to the Jewish audiences, the central emphasis of the evangelistic preaching was on the announcement that the Messiah had come and ushered in God’s kingdom.

If we take time to examine the sermons of the apostles that are recorded in the book of Acts, we see a somewhat common and familiar structure to them. In this analysis, we can discern the apostolic kerygma, the basic proclamation of the gospel. Here the focus in the preaching was on the person and work of Jesus. The gospel itself was called the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is about Him; it involves the proclamation and declaration of what He accomplished in His life, in His death, and in His resurrection. After the details of His death, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of God were preached, the apostles called the people to be converted to Christ — to repent of their sins and receive Christ by faith.

When we seek to extrapolate from these examples how the apostolic church did evangelism, we must ask: What is appropriate for the transfer of apostolic principles of preaching to the contemporary church? Some churches believe that a person is required to preach the gospel or to communicate the kerygma in every sermon preached. This view sees the emphasis in Sunday morning preaching as one of evangelism, of proclaiming the gospel. Many preachers today, however, say they are preaching the gospel on a regular basis when in some cases they have never preached the gospel at all, because what they call the gospel is not the message of the person and work of Christ and how His accomplished work and its benefits can be appropriated to the individual by faith. Rather, the gospel of Christ is exchanged for therapeutic promises of a purposeful life or having personal fulfillment by coming to Jesus. In messages such as these, the focus is on us rather than on Him.

On the other hand, in looking at the pattern of worship in the early church, we see that the weekly assembly of the saints involved a coming together for worship, fellowship, prayer, the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, and devotion to the teaching of the apostles. If we were there, we would see that the apostolic preaching covered the whole of redemptive history and the sum of divine revelation, not being restricted simply to the evangelistic kerygma.

So, again, the kerygma is the essential proclamation of the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and rule of Jesus Christ, as well as a call to conversion and repentance. It is this kerygma that the New Testament indicates is the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16). There can be no acceptable substitute for it. When the church loses her kerygma, she loses her identity.

A Cup Running Over

A Cup Running Over
Learning to preach from the overflow of your deeply satisfying relationship with the Savior


By Dallas Willard

Dallas Willard is a former professor in the School of Philosophy at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and author of numerous books, including Renovation of the Heart (NavPress).

In my early days of ministry I spent huge amounts of time absorbed in Scripture and great spiritual writers. The Lord made it possible for me to spend whole days—without any issue of preparing for something or taking an examination—soaking up the Scripture. I literally wore out the books of great spiritual writers. This focus was foundational to my spiritual journey, to finding satisfaction in Christ.

There is no substitute for simple satisfaction in the Word of God, in the presence of God. That affects all your actions.

Characteristics of dissatisfaction

Preachers who are not finding satisfaction in Christ are likely to demonstrate that with overexertion and overpreparation for speaking, and with no peace about what they do after they do it. If we have not come to the place of resting in God, we will go back and think, Oh, if I'd done this, or Oh, I didn't do that.

When you come to the place where you are drinking deeply from God and trusting him to act with you, there is peace about what you have communicated.

One of my great joys came when I got up from a chair to walk to the podium and the Lord said to me, "Now remember, it's what I do with the Word between your lips and their hearts that matters." That is a tremendous lesson. If you do not trust God to do that, then he will let you do what you're going to do, and it's not going to come to much. But once you turn it loose and recognize we are always inadequate but our inadequacy is not the issue, you are able to lay that burden down. Then the satisfaction you have in Christ spills over into everything you do.

The preacher who does not minister in that satisfaction is on dangerous ground. Those who experience moral failure are those who failed to live a deeply satisfied life in Christ, almost without exception. I know my temptations come out of situations where I am dissatisfied, not content. I am worried about something or not feeling the sufficiency I know is there. If I have a strong temptation, it will be out of my dissatisfaction.

The moral failures of ministers usually are over one of three things: sex, money, or power. That always comes out of dissatisfaction. Ministers are reaching for something, and they begin to feel, I deserve something better. I sacrifice so much and get so little. And so I'll do this. The surest guarantee against failure is to be so at peace and satisfied with God that when wrongdoing presents itself it isn't even interesting. That is how we stay out of temptation.

Characteristics of a satisfied soul

We are long on devices and programs. We have too many of them, and they get in the way. What we really need are preachers who can stand in simplicity and manifest and declare the richness of Christ in life. There isn't anything on earth that begins to compete with that for human benefit and human interest.

When people hear a preacher who is satisfied in this way, they sense that much more is coming from him than what he is saying. When I hear a preacher like this, I sense something flowing from him. Preachers like that are at peace. They are not struggling to make something happen.

That is one of the biggest issues for ministers today because of the model of success that comes to us. We get this idea we are supposed to make something happen, and so we need services to go just right. The concluding benediction has hardly ceased before those in charge are saying to one another, "How did it go?" or "It went really well." The truth is we don't know how it went. From God's point of view it will be eternity before we know how it went. These folks are not at peace if they are trying to manage outcomes in that way.

One mark of preachers who have attained deep satisfaction is they are at peace and they love what they are doing. Peace comes from them. From such preachers I sense something coming to me that is deeper than the words. Hearers sense the message opening up possibilities for them to live. In the presence of this kind of preacher, people find ways of doing the good that is before their hearts.

That is the living water. Jesus brought people that opening up of possibilities. In John 8, when he said to the woman caught in adultery, "Go and sin no more," I don't think she felt, I've got to do that. She experienced Jesus' words as That's really possible. I can do that. That is one characteristic of preaching that comes from a satisfied life.

Another mark of satisfied preachers is they can listen. They can be silent in the presence of others because they are not always trying to make something happen. Such a person has the capacity to listen to people and come to an awareness of the needs that underlie the felt needs. We should be attentive to the felt needs of people, but we should know that the game is at a much deeper level of the soul.

A large part of what the pastor does in preaching and life is to listen and help people feel their real needs, not just superficial needs. The satisfied preacher speaks from a listening heart. Since people often do not know what they really need, such preaching can help them find out. This requires a spaciousness that only comes if your cup is running over because you are well-cared for by God.

Steps toward finding satisfaction

We can take steps to find this deep satisfaction and to preach from the well within us.

I encourage pastors to have substantial times every week when they do nothing but enjoy God. That may mean walking by a stream, looking at a flower, listening to music, or watching your children or grandchildren play without your constantly trying to control them. Experience the fullness of God, think about the good things God has done for you, and realize he has done well by you. If there is a problem doing that, then work through the problem, because we cannot really serve him if we do not genuinely love him.

Henri Nouwen said the main obstacle to love for God is service for God. Service must come out of his strength and life flowing through us into receptive lives. Take an hour, sit in a comfortable place in silence, and do nothing but rest. If you go to sleep, that's okay. We have to stop trying too hard. There may be a few pastors for whom that is not the problem, but for most it is. We need to do that not only for ourselves but to set an example for those we speak to.

There is a place for effort, but it never earns anything and must never take the place of God with us. Our efforts are to make room for him in our lives.

How I Preach From an iPad?

By Jeremy Roberts

Dr. Jeremy Roberts, 28, is the Pastor of Highland Park Baptist Church in Chattanooga, TN.  Previously, he pastored Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, Lenoir City, Tennessee and First Baptist Church of Blue Ridge, Texas.  Dr. Roberts currently serves as a professor at Tennessee Temple University and previously served as Adjunct Professor at Criswell College, Dallas, TX and Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA.  Dr. Roberts served on staff with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia.



I bought an iPad the first day they were for sale in 2010.  My main purpose in this purchase was for preaching.  It has been a great transition over the last few years from my leather preaching notebook to my iPad.

I preface my explanation of how I preach from an iPad with the disclaimer that this system may not be best for you, but it is my favorite process after a few years of tweaking it.

1.  I am a manuscript preacher.  I highlight key words and color-code my manuscript to make it simpler to follow.  Click here to see one of my recent sermon manuscripts.

2.  Once I finish my manuscript, I save it in landscape format as both a PDF and Word document.  I save it in landscape because I like to have my iPad in landscape on the pulpit.

3.  I put all of the files pertaining to one sermon in a note in Evernote.

4.  I access my sermon manuscript in Evernote on my iPad, and open it into iBooks.  iBooks has clearly become the best option pertaining to simplicity in flipping through pages.  If you simply preach from the PDF within Evernote, one accidental swipe can cause you to move from page one to nine in the blink of an eye.  iBooks is key to effective page-turning during preaching.

5.  I put my iPad on the pulpit before the service ever begins.  This may not be something everyone does, but I like to just carry my Bible with me when I walk onto the platform.  Furthermore, it’s less cumbersome.  When I walk up to the pulpit, I simply hit the home button, swipe, and the manuscript is right there.

The people sitting in the congregation cannot tell I’m preaching from an iPad, and I like it that way.  I was initially afraid I would appear flashy for preaching from an iPad, but that quickly became a non-issue.  I preach from it for the sake of efficiency.



COMMENTS

1. Great article! I also use my iPad. However, I construct my manuscript in Word on my Mac, then save as PDF and put it in dropbox. I access it on my iPad through dropbox and open it in iAnnotate and leave it ther until Sunday morning. On Sunday morning, iAnnotate allows me to highlight, underline, add last-minute notes, etc. Then, I export it to iBooks at the last minute. What a great tool!
   
2. I preach from an iPad, but I use a teleprompter app which scrolls at whatever speed I choose, but I can pause it slow it down, speed it up at any point. I also love that it tells me how long the sermon will be at various speeds and during practice, it will tell me actual time after I speed up and slow down at certain points. I can set it to show the timers during the sermon (small and on the top of the page) so I can do my best to not go on longer than I intend to. I am not really a manuscript preacher, but rather use an outline to keep me on point. I LOVE the teleprompter app and it only took a few weeks to learn to use it seamlessly.
   
3. I preach from an iPad but I use GoodReader to view the pdf file that I preach from. It has great controls for swiping or tapping to turn the page and works great for me.

4 Guidelines to a Great Children's Sermon

By Mark Pierce

Mark Pierce is the pastor of a new church in Mansfield, Ohio called Church Requel. In the first half of his life, Mark provided investment advice as a Certified Financial Planner. He began his ministry career at the age of 47 as the executive pastor of another church before founding Church Requel in 2009. Mark and his wife, Mary Kay, have four grown children and six grandchildren. He writes about his experiences as a church planter every day at www.ChurchRequel.org.


A mom came up to me at the end of a recent Church Requel service: "I wasn't going to come tonight. I worked all day, and I was tired. I came home, and I just wanted to crash. But Anna would have none of it. 'Mom, I want to go to church!'"

Church Requel is a small church. Typically, we have fewer than 60 people attending our Sunday evening services. Yet our fastest growing demographic is children under the age of 10. Why? Because we make our services child friendly.

This year, we have added children's sermons to our services. We invite the elementary-aged children to come up front with me. Usually, I will sit on the platform and have them sit around me. These talks typically last 7 to 10 minutes. What is it about these short talks that makes a child ASK to come to church? Here are four guidelines that can help you create great children's sermons.

Guideline #1: Use Object Lessons. I usually have a small table up front that contains an object lesson for the kids. It is always covered up, creating a curiosity factor. The kids can't wait to see what is under the tablecloth. Every sermon includes something different. When talking about living a fruitful life, I showed them two dishes—one with really rotten bananas and one with fresh bananas. "What kind of life do you want to offer God?" I asked. When talking about God's help in life, we set up bowling pins of plastic liter bottles. When we tried to do things on our own without God's help, we bowled with a ping-pong ball. With God's help, we bowled—much more successfully—with a basketball. The key is to be creative and imaginative. Kids love seeing how things work, and they have a much greater imagination than adults. Have fun here. Be a kid yourself!

Guideline #2: Focus your entire attention on the children. Usually at first the kids are nervous about being in front of everyone else. Look them in the eyes. Tell them that this is their special time with the pastor. Everyone else can listen in, but this is THEIR time. Ask questions. Listen to their answers. Respond. Don't be locked into a script. Have a general plan, but be willing to adjust on the fly. Kids really do say the darndest things. They will ask the questions everyone wants to know! Enjoy this conversation with the kids.

Guideline #3: Never forget your adult audience. While your attention is entirely focused on the children, know that the adults in the audience will be hanging on your every word. Pastor, you work hard on every adult sermon and dream of the adults tuning in to your every word. After a few years, you begin to realize this will probably never be as true as you wish it to be. Until it comes to delivering kids' sermons! Suddenly adults are craning their necks, leaning forward, entirely focused! Why? Because of the kids. Because of the "who knows what will happen?" uncertainty. Because of the fun. Bottom line: the children's sermon may be your best chance to connect with your adult audience.

Guideline #4: Be simple but not surface. Because your attention will be focused on the children, your teaching must also be at a child's level. Simple should be your motto. One main message. Or one main Bible verse. Or one main challenge. However, this doesn't mean the children's sermon has to be surface only. In fact, if you dialogue with the kids, you'll discover they often are wondering about some of life's deepest questions. Don't be afraid to admit that you haven't got it all figured out yourself. Keep your children's sermon simple, but don't be afraid to go deep!

If you are the pastor of a small church like I am, you probably wish you had some of the advantages of a larger church. But the children's sermon is one ace you possess that your large-church pastor friends can only dream about. While you are small, you have the size and flexibility to invite all the kids up front. This gives you the chance to know all the kids—and their parents—so much better than you ever would otherwise.

I love the time I spend with our CR kids during the children's sermons. How about you? What are you doing to connect with the kids—and their parents—in your congregation? Leave me a comment below. I'd love to hear your ideas!

Bill Clinton and the Art of Preaching

By Jonathan Martin

Jonathan Martin is the lead pastor of Renovatus: A Church for People Under Renovation in Charlotte, NC. He has been married to Amanda Keen for 11 years, and still finds her delightfully mysterious. Jonathan is an avid collector of comic books and is unashamed of his ten-pound shih tzu Cybil, despite the stigma that comes from being a very large man with a very small dog.



Let’s get this straight: I believe the kingdom of God to be a radical alternative altogether to the politics of the world. I get very nervous when politicians on either side attempt to co-opt the church for political purposes. I get nervous about civil religion in any form. It is very important to me to maintain the “over/againstness” of the kingdom to both right and left.

That said, I’m a student of rhetoric. I love speeches in general and preaching in particular. It’s art to me. I love to hear speakers of all kinds, because I’m always looking for ways to sharpen my craft.

I’ve taken notes from everybody from Martin Luther King to Chris Rock on what effective public speaking looks like. And from a rhetorical perspective, whether you love him or hate him, agree or disagree with him—Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention this year was frankly stunning. That wasn’t just a speech; that was jazz. It was Michael Jordan in game six in his last finals with the Bulls. It was Picasso at the height of his powers.  It was everything that has ever worked about Clinton speeches on steroids—folksy, charming, funny, perfectly paced, combative—throwing punches and pulling them when needed.

Before you write me that scathing e-mail, I am making no value judgments as to whether or not he was right. You may have hated every word, found it disingenuous, disagreed with the policies. But there was one thing in particular about the Clinton speech I loved that I find to be a glaring issue in contemporary preaching, and it makes me wish every preacher I know watched it. It’s just this simple: Clinton doesn’t talk down. Clinton doesn’t patronize his audience. Clinton talked substance last night. For all the rhetorical flourishes and homespun charm, that was a speech chock-full of statistics, facts, ideas—in a word, CONTENT. And you can put facts in quotation marks, question the math, say he took things out of context—have at it, I really don’t care. What I’m saying is that today, after the fact, people are doing a remarkable thing: they are talking about whether or not they agree or disagree with the content of his speech. These days, that’s a novelty.

What makes contemporary politics so insulting to me right now is the shameless parade of sound bites. Both sides do it all the time. Politics have become reduced to sentimentality. You say the right word to the right crowd (“Jesus,” “the wealthy,” “the poor,” “the middle class,” “values,”), and nobody cares about whether or not there is an agenda or a plan—they respond emotionally to the words. In political conventions in particular, when folks are playing largely to their party base, real content is conspicuously absent. We have never been dumber. We are accustomed to being talked down to, we are used to being patronized. So it is honestly surprising these days when anybody attempts to engage us with anything like actual ideas.

And while I’m sad to say it, this is just as true about preaching in this day and age. We preachers, like everybody else, largely play to the lowest common denominator. Preachers speak in buzzwords and sound bites. Preachers don’t talk to people as if they are intelligent.

This is getting worse, not better, because most people don’t care and aren’t going to know the difference. In a culture that values style over substance, you can get a sermon to go over just fine without challenging a congregation. We are far past the days when preachers were prophets who paint an alternative vision of the world. We are not expected to be visionaries, but mere marketing experts. We don’t have enough “prophetic imagination” (in Brueggemann’s phrase), or for that matter, real content to actually shape culture.

Part of what makes Clinton so effective these days, beyond decades of just honing his craft, is that he really does traffic in ideas. I’ve listened to multiple interviews with him post-presidency where he was downright brainy, almost frustrating to interviewers in his insistence to talk substantively about the issues. Whether or not you agree with him, you can’t deny he is a guy who does his homework. No wonder he can go off script for roughly 40% of a speech that big and be so effective—he’s practiced enough and researched enough to trust his instincts, and there has been enough discipline to bring freedom in delivery.

I’m a Pentecostal preacher, so I place a high premium on “leaving room for the Spirit” in a sermon. I think the best messages are less like delivering a speech and more like surfing, a constant awareness and sensitivity to what I feel God doing in the room, what I feel people are receiving or not receiving.

There is so much more to it than intellectual preparation. My grandfather turned in his badge and gun as a Charlotte police officer and was preaching revivals weeks later, so I don’t think everybody has to go to seminary to be qualified to preach. But I do believe that in preaching as well as political speeches, you’ve got to do your homework!!!

I don’t think I’m a great preacher. I really don’t. But I think not believing I’m great is my greatest strength as a communicator. Every single week I’m scared to death that I’m going to forget how to do this, that I’ll fall flat on my face, that God won’t show up, that it will just be me in my underwear up there babbling about Lord knows what. As a result, I stay hungry. I read more than I have to read. I study more than I have to study. I prepare more than I need to prepare. I think about sermons when I don’t need to think about sermons. There is very little in life or culture that is not potential ammunition for the next Sunday. I try to be attentive to what God is saying in the world everywhere I am and whatever I’m doing.

When it’s time to deliver the message, I go off script ALL THE TIME. And if it works, first and foremost it is because the Spirit of God is faithful to get the right word to the right people at the right time—it’s about His love for people, not my skill as a communicator. But that said, I still find that it takes a lot of work and discipline to have enough in me for the Spirit to use/leverage/organize/direct when I’m in those moments. The WORST preaching I’ve heard in all of my life is from people who “open up their mouths and let the Lord fill it” as they would say, when in reality they just flat haven’t put in the time and done the work.

I long for the day when we as preachers re-learn the work ethic to put in the time pouring over Scripture, roaming through commentaries, looking at the texts from all angles—studying the information, yet giving room for revelation. Being attentive to the context in which the texts were written, being attentive to the context in which our message will be received.

And then stepping to the stage and speaking a challenging word that calls people to rise up instead of dumbing down. I’d love for us to stop insulting the intelligence of our people, and start being unafraid to give them a meal that may not be easy to digest. Do not misunderstand me: I’m not talking about cluttering a sermon with technical theological jargon. That is self-congratulatory at best and cowardly at worst. We don’t want to be smug or impressed with ourselves. I’m talking about, as Jesus did, speaking plain and using metaphors/images that our culture understands—and yet being okay in sharing hard sayings that people may not be able to immediately receive. I’m talking about not saying the reactionary thing, but the nuanced thing.

I saw a bumper sticker years ago that said “If you won’t make me pray in my school I won’t make you think in your church.” Ouch. While overstated, there is truth in the indictment. We’ve got the most important job in the world. We’ve got to be literate in Scripture and literate in culture, because we are charged with painting a vivid picture of an alternative kingdom to the world, and even with the Spirit on our side it’s going to take all we’ve got. We can’t afford to get pulled into the sound bite stupidity of our times, much less speak in sound bites ourselves. There is no place in the world where people should be forced to think harder about God, life, and the world than where the people of God gather.

The message that we’ve got is too important to be unprepared, and too particular to to not be presented with nuance and precision. And people are too valuable to God to be treated like cattle. We should love people enough to aim high, assume the best, play to the highest common denominator rather than the least. We shouldn’t speak in platitudes, we should deliver substance.

After all, our job is more important than giving campaign speeches. While I am fascinated by politics, I have never been more convinced that our current political process is far too broken to bring the kind of change the world needs. I still vote and participate, but I have staked my hope exclusively in the power of the Church to be God’s embodied presence in the world. Thus while the stakes might seem high for a speech like Clinton’s last night, the stakes for what we are given to do on Sunday are considerably higher.

To be certain, real preaching does not work apart from God’s Spirit. We have to look to Him to do that which only He can do. But that doesn’t absolve us of our responsibility to do what we are called to do—to study Scripture in context, study our culture in context, and generally prepare like mad.

There are no shortcuts for the preacher. We have to completely immerse ourselves in a prophetic vision of the world where the peace of God reigns, and then let God infuse us with the other-worldly confidence to speak the unspeakable. We can’t use the Word as a tool to accomplish our goals, we have to become the tool the Word uses. We can’t just deliver the Word, we have to let the Word deliver us. And that takes time.

Unlike Clinton at the DNC, we aren’t charged with matters so trivial as getting people to vote for our favorite candidate for president. We are charged to give people a vision of Jesus as King—and that’s a much bigger deal.

Biblical Preaching Is About Life-Change, Not Sermon Form

By John Ortberg

John Ortberg is teaching pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church  in Menlo Park, California and author of several books, including The Life You've Always Wanted and The Me I Want to Be.

Taken from Art and Craft of Biblical Preaching, The by CRAIG BRIAN LARSON; HADDON ROBINSON. Copyright © 2005 by Christianity Today International. Used by permission of Zondervan. www.zondervan.com


The core value of preaching that changes lives is that it’s biblical. You and I don’t change lives. God changes lives. For two thousand years, he has used the power of this Word to convict stubborn hearts of sin, to move cold spirits to repentance, and to lift faltering lives to hope.

The question that causes a fair amount of controversy is: What makes preaching biblical?

It’s Not About Form

Often people think what makes preaching biblical is a particular style or structure. Where I grew up, people talked about three categories for preaching: topical, often regarded as not very biblical; textual, where the main point comes from a Scripture verse, which was considered more biblical; and expository, which is difficult to get a clear definition of. Expository is a word that gets thrown around a lot. Some people think of it as verse-by-verse preaching, or where points and subpoints are from one text in Scripture.

There are a number of problems with thinking one particular style or structure of preaching is the only kind that’s biblical. One problem is that Jesus didn’t do that kind of expository preaching.

Mostly he told stories and the implications for listeners’ lives. The apostles didn’t do that kind of expository preaching. In the New Testament you don’t see any sermon that goes verse by verse through an Old Testament text. I’m not saying that kind of preaching is a bad thing. It’s important that people become biblically literate. But what makes preaching biblical is not its structure. To be biblical does not mean the preacher follows a particular form that, after all, human beings created.

It’s About Relevance, Application, and Enablement

William D. Thompson, author of Preaching Biblically, writes, “Biblical preaching is when listeners are enabled to see how their world, like the biblical world, is addressed by the Word of God.” It is important not to be superficial when it comes to what makes preaching biblical. How many Bible verses a sermon has does not determine whether or not it’s biblical. You can have a hundred verses in a sermon and misinterpret every one of them. It is not the structure. Biblical preaching occurs when people listen, are able to hear that God is addressing them as God addressed the world of the Scriptures, and are enabled to respond.

Far too many sermons have lots of information about the Bible but are not really biblical preaching because they do not call and enable people to respond to the Word. There is lots of information about the Bible—exegetical, historical, or theological—with maybe a few applications tacked on the end.

It’s About Working the Soap of the Word Deeply Through the Stained Fibers of Hearers' Hearts

What happens when the Word addresses people? In Ephesians 5:25–26, Paul has a wonderful metaphor. He says, “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the Word.” The church is to be made holy by being cleansed with the washing of the Word. Why do you wash something? Because it’s dirty. What happens when you wash something? Soap and water move through the fibers and lift out impurities from the fabric.

When we and our congregations come before God, our hearts are like that. They are cluttered with false beliefs and attitudes, misguided intentions, and wrong perceptions.

I could tell you what a few of mine are. I’m walking down the street. Somebody wants money. I find myself looking away from him because I don’t even want to be reminded of that need, and I don’t want to feel guilty by not giving him something. Or I’m at a convenience store in a line of people, and the person behind the counter doesn’t speak English well, and my reflexive thoughts are, I’m in a hurry. Why can’t they get somebody who speaks English well around here? Or another time I’m in church standing next to somebody who’s important and the thoughts that run through my mind are, This is an important person. I wonder what I might be able to say to make a connection because he or she is important.

Those are just a few thoughts in my mind that are dirty. They equip me for bad works. They make bad feelings and behaviors almost inevitable. Imagine having a mind cleansed of all that. Imagine when you’re with somebody, your first thought is to pray for them and bless them. Imagine that if you’re challenged, your first thought is to look to God for strength.

That’s what it would be like to have a mind washed by the Word, and that’s your goal for the people to whom you speak. That’s the goal of biblical preaching. The goal is not to get vast amounts of exegetical information into people. My goal is not to get people all the way through the Bible. My goal is to get the Bible all the way through people.

Biblical preaching answers three questions: What must hearers know, feel, and do? To do that I ask three questions. What do I want people to know? What do I want people to feel? What do I want people to do? I think about these questions for every message I preach because if I don’t address the mind and heart and will—if I can’t answer those questions—then I need not deliver this message because it’s not going to wash their minds in the Word.

Your goal is to wash the minds of your people in the Word so that Christ is formed in them. That’s biblical preaching.

What Do Your People Want to Hear From the Pulpit?

By Ron Allen

Ron Allen teaches preaching and Gospels and Letters at Christian Theological Seminary where he has been since 1982. Prior to that, he and his spouse, the Reverend Linda McKiernan-Allen, were co-ministers of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Grand Island, Nebraska. He has published more than 35 books.


It seems like a no-brainer. Yet preachers rarely seek direct input from listeners about how we might improve our preaching. What do people in the pews want from a sermon? A few years ago, a cadre of teachers of preaching sought to ask listeners what we could learn about preaching from them. We invited people from the pews to teach us how they listen.

Supported by the Lilly Endowment, we interviewed 263 people who regularly listen to sermons to identify qualities in preaching that most engage (and disengage) them. The interviewees include younger, middle-aged, and older adults in small, medium, large, and mega congregations largely associated with the historic denominations such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church, various Baptist bodies, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, Disciples, Episcopalians, Church of the Brethren, Lutheran bodies, Mennonites, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and United Methodists.

The detailed findings are reported in four books listed at the end of this article. For now, I report some points at which our research confirms common wisdom in preaching and some points at which the study challenges prevailing assumptions.

The study's most important finding may be the high value listeners place on sermons. Almost every one of the 263 interviewees indicates that preaching is meaningful to them. They look to sermons to help them make sense of life by helping them identify God's presence and purposes and helping them figure out how to respond faithfully. In today's congregation, when so many responsibilities lay claim to a minister's time, members encourage ministers to give the best of themselves to sermon preparation.

One of the most reassuring discoveries is that most listeners think the Bible is a significant resource for interpreting God's purposes. Their perspectives on the authority of the Bible vary, of course, and no one wants the sermon to be nothing more than a history lesson. Yet virtually all interviewees want to know what the Bible encourages people to believe and do. They also want the preacher to help them connect the world of the Bible to the world today.

Midway between confirmation and challenge, many listeners stress that they want the sermon to connect with their living experience today. They want to know the implications of what they most deeply believe for their workplaces, homes, schools, civic affairs, and leisure activities. Along this line, they yearn to know that preachers understand what their worlds feel like. They are willing to be challenged (see the next point), but they want to know that the preacher understands the complexity of their lives. One of the most communicative ways for preachers to do so is to draw from the preacher's own life experience.

The most surprising challenge to emerge from the data is a request to preachers to bring controversial issues into the pulpit. Yes. You read that correctly. Many of the listeners want ministers to help them wrestle with God's purposes in connection with matters such as war with other nations, abortion, and same-gender relationships. As someone said, "Who else is going to help us think about these things from God's point of view?" The respondents in our study do not want preachers to tell them how to vote or what to think, but they do want help interpreting issues from a theological point of view and considering possibilities for faithful responses.

The study also challenges ministers to listen to members of their own congregations regarding characteristics in the content, development, and embodiment of the sermon that help local listeners enter the world of the sermon and those that prompt congregants to keep their distance. Such an effort requires courage on the part of the preacher as well as candor on the part of congregants. But such listening can take place in ways that minimize anxiety and that foster mutual encouragement. Indeed, listening to listeners can become a means of enacting the priesthood of all believers.

How to Preach with Authority and Sensitivity?

Kenton C. Anderson is dean and associate professor of applied theology at ACTS Seminaries (Northwest) in Langley, British Columbia. He is author of several books, including Choosing to Preach (Zondervan).

My daughter and I had a disturbing conversation a few months ago. She wanted to do something I thought might be inappropriate, and I said so with all the fatherly tenderness and respect I thought necessary for such an occasion. She was quick, however, to sense the nature of my rebuke. "Dad, I don't need to hear a sermon," she said as she turned her back on me and walked away. She was 9-years-old.

Her response stung, given that I make my living preparing and delivering sermons. Unfortunately, it is not only my daughter who has decided that listening to sermons has become unnecessary. 

Sometimes it seems the whole culture has concluded that preaching is a relic of bygone times.

The preacher's job is to help the listener take hold of the message offered.

 

I have concluded that preaching in these days might demand some fresh thinking and an alternate form.

Authority: "Oh yeah? Who says?"

There are two primary issues relevant to the task of preaching. The first is the matter of authority. Those who wish to persuade must provide warrant for their claim. Listeners have one finger on their mental remote controls, challenging the preacher to prove that this sermon is worth the investment of their time and energy.

"Love one another, " the preacher says. "Be good to your enemies. "

"Oh yeah? " the listener responds, "Who says? "

"Well, God says, " the preacher answers. It is a good answer, but for many it may not be enough. Listeners today come ready-built with their own authority. They could choose to daydream or close their mind. They could get up and walk out. The listener has power in the transaction known as preaching, and they are not afraid to use it. In the minds of some, the preacher, then, must make an authority level choice between text and today, between divine authority and human authority.

On the one hand, the case is made on the basis of God's revealed Word. "Thus saith the Lord " settles the question.

On the other hand, the point is established upon the foundation of the listeners own preset assumptions and experiences. "Sounds about right, " listeners say, processing the message through their inborn authority system.

Apprehension: "Okay, how can I help you? "

The second primary concern for the preacher is to discover the most effective means of helping the listener own the truth. Apprehension is the taking hold of a truth, like a policeman apprehending a suspect or a student taking hold of a book. The preacher's job is to help the listener take hold of the message offered.

There are two primary approaches a preacher could choose. The first is by means of explanation, and the second is by means of experience.

Traditionally preachers have emphasized the cognitive path, explaining the propositions of the text and sermon, making things clear and orderly. The idea is that if the truth is made comprehensible to the mind, the listener will be compelled to respond, and we will have done our job.

More recently, preachers have been rediscovering intuitive experience as an avenue to listener apprehension. Gripping stories and emotional appeal compel a listener to want to respond to the message.

Integration: "Refuse to Choose. "

The recent history of homiletics has tended to describe a spasmodic lurching from pole to pole in the struggle between text and today, explanation and experience. Cognitive forms of exposition square off against more intuitive, narrative-sermon forms. Text-based authority structures stand against listener-based "seeker " forms. In the end, however, such polarized approaches might not be helpful.

Integration describes the bringing together of seemingly contrary options in such a way that the integrity of each substance remains uncompromised. Is it possible that preachers could integrate text and today, explanation and experience? Is it possible that preachers could refuse to choose?

Overlaying the two continuums, authority and apprehension, creates an interesting opportunity for preachers to integrate these seemingly opposing concerns. Integration results from the following sermon moves:

Move 1
Experience (apprehension) of the text (authority)

Move 2
Explanation (apprehension) of the text (authority)

Move 3
Explanation (apprehension) of today (authority)

Move 4
Experience (apprehension) of today (authority)

God endorsed integration as a means of communication in the incarnation of his son, Jesus Christ. The Word become flesh is more than just an analogy of the preaching task. It is the substance of the preacher's message.

Let me elaborate on these four moves.

As we prepare a sermon, the four moves above can be uncovered by asking four questions.

Move 1: What's the Story? (Experience of the Text)

Even in the Book of Romans, there is always a story. There really were Romans. They lived in Rome. They had lives much like the lives of people today. For example, when I preached from Romans 8:18-25 (Read this sermon at preaching.org/groaning.htm), I noticed the text set up the present "groaning" of the people with the "glory" that would one day be revealed in them. I found it helpful, then, to help my listeners identify with the Roman Christians, who were groaning just like we groan over many of the same things. Identifying the story of the original audience can help the listener see the humanity in the text, creating an experiential encounter with the message that will not easily be shaken off.

Move 2: What's the Point? (Explanation of the Text)

The Bible, while not exclusively propositional, is conceptual in its makeup. The Bible offers truth that can be examined, detailed, ordered, and for the most part, understood. The preacher need not shy away from offering points, well explained and carefully put. This was a key component of my Romans 8 sermon. The problem I had, however, was that the passage was almost too rich. There were many aspects that could have been developed for the profit of the listeners. I decided to focus on the big idea, "We won't groan forever. " Focusing my explanation around this simple idea allowed me to help the people understand that pain and suffering is temporary and of little consequence when weighed against the glory that God has made available to us in Christ.

Move 3: What's the Problem? (Explanation of Today)

The problem with biblical propositions is they are not always easily accepted. The Bible is profoundly countercultural. If a preacher offers biblical truth with integrity, there will be inherent conflict in the engagement with contemporary listener presuppositions. Acknowledging the problem from the perspective of the hearer will be important if we care about listener comprehension and assent. In my Romans sermon, I was able to focus on the innate aversion humans have to suffering. Deferred gratification is not a value today's listeners hold dear. Acknowledging that reality and struggling with it in the sermon helped my listeners see the credibility of the message and deepened their receptivity to the truth of the text.

Move 4: What's the Difference? (Experience of Today)

Of course, head knowledge without heart response is hardly worth the effort. Every text intends a response from the listener as they grow in obedience to the God who created them.

In my sermon from Romans 8, my challenge was simple. I was counseling patience. I was concerned to help the listener hold on, despite the discouragement that inevitably comes. My goal, then, was less to educate at this point as it was to inspire. I was looking to instill a measure of hope and confidence in God's promise. This hope would play itself out in specific responses to the challenges of the listener's daily life.

These four questions will help us organize our notes into a form that can integrate the concern for text and today, explanation and experience. They can help the preacher speak to a variety of cognitive styles. They can help the preacher help the people hear from God.

This article is adapted with the author's permission from the first appendix of his book, Preaching with Conviction: Connecting with Postmodern Listeners (Kregel, 2001).