A Practical Reminder to be (Slightly) Impractical

There's lots to say about the ultimate goal of preaching, but I've found one of the best reminders to be this one from an excellent article by Lee Elcov (part one and two):

Preaching is the work of spiritually civilizing the minds of Christian disciples...The Bible spends much more time on shaping the spiritual mind than commanding particular behavior. We need far more training in the ways of grace, of spiritual perceptions, and of what God is really like, than we do in how to communicate with our spouse. Understanding the glory of Christ is far more practical than our listeners imagine. Properly preached, every sermon based on a passage of Scripture is fundamentally practical. Every author of Scripture wrote to effect change in God's people. It is our job as preachers to find the persuasive logic of that author and put that clearly and persuasively before our people through biblical exposition.

Read that over again. Preaching is all about "spiritually civilizing the mind." That statement alone can revolutionize your preaching. Good preaching doesn't just tell you what to do; it reorients our thinking. The best preaching aims at something much higher than behavior.

One of the most practical things you can do is to stop being so practical in your preaching. Or, at least delay being practical until the logic of the text changes the logic of the listener. That's when the sermon gets very practical.

Wrestling the Text

I don't know how many times it's happened. I pick a text as the basis for a sermon. I think I know what the text is going to say, but as I study I find out that the text isn't interested in conforming to my ideas. The wrestling match begins.

There are only three outcomes to this wrestling match.

First, I can try to pin the text down and control it. This has simply never worked. The text is simply too powerful for me, and I'm always overmatched. (A lot of sermons are preached that don't say what the text says, but never because the preacher has conquered the text. The preacher can only slither away from the fight and pose as the winner, but we all know the truth.)

Second, I can look for a new text. I've done this, but the new text confronts me with the same problem. I just end up in a new wrestling match, but with less time. You can spend the entire week looking for a text you can control, and still end up in the fight of your life.

Third, the text wins. I'll wrestle the text. I'll stick with it long enough and maybe even think I'm winning. But eventually the text will overpower me and pin me down. I'll stand up and preach that Sunday a bit battered, as one who has been conquered by the text.

The third outcome is the only one that produces sermons worth preaching, or sermons worth hearing. We must be conquered by the text.

My prayer every week is this: Let the text win.

Sunday Morning Prayer for Preachers

This is a great prayer for preachers on a Sunday morning:

Gracious God and Heavenly Father, I bow before you wishing that in this past week I had done my best to present myself before you as an unashamed workman. I wish I could confess that I have spared no effort in my calling as a Minister of the Gospel, charged with correctly handling and proclaiming the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15).

But I can’t because I haven’t…

Read, and pray, the whole prayer.

Lessons from Toastmasters

As you may know, we're starting a new church in Liberty Village, Toronto. Liberty Village is an old commercial part of town that's being transformed into a new community. I'm trying to get to know people, so I attended a Toastmasters on Wednesday night. Toastmasters is an organization that helps people build their communication and leadership skills in a club environment.

William Mounce, an author of , wrote this about Toastmasters:

I find myself wondering if every preaching pastor should not aggressively make Toastmaster part of his or her weekly experience. They would learn a lot about preaching, and they would foster positive relationships with non-believers … I would like to attend a church that shared more in common with Toastmasters than it does with traditional church life.

My observations after Wednesday night.

• It's scary to attend the first time. I imagine that's how people feel attending church for the first time. That was a good thing for me to experience.
• I loved the environment, and I get why Mounce longs for a church that's more like Toastmasters than traditional church life. They're supportive and welcoming. They have a way of getting you involved without overwhelming you.
• This is a great way to get to know people and what they're thinking. Give people a platform and let them talk, and you soon discover what they're thinking and what drives them.
• Most preachers don't get good solid evaluation. Going to Toastmasters is a great way to get honest, constructive feedback in a safe, supportive environment — something that's hard to find for pastors.
• As someone who teaches preaching, I learned lots about how to give supportive feedback. I'm going to incorporate some of what they do in my preaching class this Fall.

I'll be going back.

Deeper Application

I have a problem with application in sermons. It's often poorly done. Granted, this is because application is actually one of the hardest parts of preaching. I agree with what Haddon Robinson has said: more heresy is preached in application than in any other part of the sermon.

One of my main problems with application is that it starts too soon. If a preacher is too practical, the listener can develop application fatigue. Every week there are 5 practical applications to take home. Over the course of the year, this will amount to some 250 practical steps. Most listeners will not succeed at accomplishing more than 10%, leaving the listener feeling overwhelmed and with a sense of failure. When done poorly, application can be the giving of more law, leading to more condemnation and failure. Who needs five more practical steps to apply every week? Not me.

The answer isn't to ditch application. That's not helpful either. Instead, we need to back up and look at the groundwork necessary for application. We need deeper application, consisting of three things:

1. Human Need

Our preaching needs to identify the point of need in our lives. Until we've shown people our need, we're not ready to move on to application. Our need falls under two broad categories: our finiteness and our sin. We are finite, and we are sinful.

George Whitefield preached about the need to raise human need in one of his famous sermons. "Before you can speak peace to your hearts, you must be made to see, made to feel, made to weep over, made to bewail, your actual transgressions against the law of God." If we don't raise our need (what Bryan Chapell calls our Fallen Condition Focus) we haven't set the stage for application.

2. God's Provision

Good preaching shows how our need is met in God. I said that our need falls into two categories: our finiteness and our sinfulness. God's sufficiency meets us in these two areas: he is infinite, and he is gracious.

We are finite, but he is infinite. We are limited in our power, understanding, and time. He is not constrained in any of these areas. Where we fall short, God is more than sufficient.

We are sinful, but he is gracious. We deserve his punishment, but have instead received grace through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Before we can apply a sermon, we must raise human need and God's provision of that need. We need a vision of God and his gospel.

3. So What?

Once we've shown people our need and God's provision, we can get to the "so what?" question. Application fails if you begin here; application can be very effective if you land here after showing our human need and God's provision.

We don't need less application. We need deeper application. We need application that identifies our need and God's provision, and then explains the difference that this makes in our lives. Effective application really requires that all three take place.

Does this make sense? I'd love to hear your thoughts.