Preaching is such a strange thing...such an odd art.
Last weekend I felt nearly dead. Had been without a voice for most of the week.
When it's time for worship, though, it's time for worship. So I gathered up my notes (the manuscript is left in the office and I place a small card with some handwritten notes in my Bible), and headed across the street to preach. I wasn't sure I would get through all four weekend services.
But I did.
And, strangely enough, more than a few people told me it was the best sermon they have heard me preach in the last 12 1/2 years. One of the best parts of the message turned out to be a story I told about my youngest coming home from New York City on a Friday afternoon to ski with me. Being right outside the lake cottage when I was wondering where he was. It was a story I had not even thought of including in the sermon...didn't have it written down. A last- minute thing.
Just goes to show.
As I worked on the message for this weekend, I found myself feeling the pressure to match or top whatever God did in our worship last weekend. That kind of feeling is not a good feeling, let me tell you.
I think preaching is like prayer: it's the way a lifetime of it shapes you. Shapes others. Preaching is not a series of "talks" disconnected or isolated from one another.
That is what people miss when they are in worship only now and then. We have occasional attenders. They're sort of like someone who shows up at a restaurant every Thursday when the special is meatloaf and then they complain because of the lack of variety on the menu. They miss the All-U-Can-Eat Fish on Friday and the Pasta Night on Tuesday. They aren't there. And then they complain because the only special is meatloaf.
Sermons to a congregation are a conversation over the long haul. One message building on the other. Continuing a dialogue.
I don't know what this weekend is going to be like. Long ago I gave up predicting how a message would work...well or not. There is an unpredictable, Holy Spirit part of all this. Sometimes the preacher has worked hard, the pieces seem to be in place for a powerful moment, and things are flat. Other weekends you come exhausted, with a voice that has been reduced to a whisper, not sure if you'll make it...and God shows up in a convincing, powerful, soulful way. You never know.
Sermons are a dialogue...a continuing conversation as the congregation, the preacher and God travel together.
They are also a gift the preacher makes to Jesus. Like the rather crudely made clay bowls made by children in a kindergarten class, the sermon is my weekly gift to the Savior who loves me and died for me on the cross...who lives and reigns. "See what I have made for you this week, Lord" I say. Holding out what I have worked to make...
Showing posts with label preaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label preaching. Show all posts
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Interpreting the Silence..
We United Methodists are a friendly, chatty family. Even in worship. When we pastors invite people to greet the people around them, the members of our congregation jump up and its like a family reunion (without the watermelon seed spitting contest). The room just roars with conversation and laughter!
Even during the sermon there is a low-level "buzz" or hum in the congregation. Not that people are jawing away at one another, outloud. (Well, okay, there are some people who turn to their neighbors and just talk and talk and talk while the preaching is going on. But those verbal non-conformists are few.) But there is a hum in the room.
Every now and then, though, the rooms gets absolutely still. It's like people have stopped breathing.
Now, as a preacher you know people can get quiet because they have fallen into a deep sleep. The way the young man, Eutychus, falls asleep when Paul is preaching in Acts 20:9.
There are other times, though, when the people are absolutely still because the preacher has stepped into a place...a subject...that is so real to them they almost can't bear it. Sometimes people stop whispering to their neighbor, they stop scribbling out their shopping list, and sit absolutely still because they didn't think anyone else in the whole world knew how they were hurting...and apparently the preacher knows. Because she is talking about it as if she is very familiar with the territory of the parishioner's silent, desperate pain. "I didn't think anyone else knew about that," people think to themselves. "In fact...I have been trying to pretend my life, in that particular area, isn't torn wide open."
So you have to interpret the silence.
It is almost always surprising to me, as a preacher. We are working along, the room is humming, and then I make a statement and suddenly everyone is still. When that happens I -deep inside- lean back, and tell myself, "Okay...we have arrived. We're someplace important for these people I love." It's must be the way a deer feels when he walks out of the dense, shaded, undercover and finds himself unexpectedly standing in a open space in the woods. The air is still...the sunlight is bright...and nothing seems to be moving.
"The Lord is in his holy temple," Habakkuk 2:20 says. "Let all the earth be silent before him."
The silent spaces in worship, during the sermon, when the hum stops and people almost stop breathing? They are usually a surprise...unexpected. And they are almost always holy ground.
Even during the sermon there is a low-level "buzz" or hum in the congregation. Not that people are jawing away at one another, outloud. (Well, okay, there are some people who turn to their neighbors and just talk and talk and talk while the preaching is going on. But those verbal non-conformists are few.) But there is a hum in the room.
Every now and then, though, the rooms gets absolutely still. It's like people have stopped breathing.
Now, as a preacher you know people can get quiet because they have fallen into a deep sleep. The way the young man, Eutychus, falls asleep when Paul is preaching in Acts 20:9.
There are other times, though, when the people are absolutely still because the preacher has stepped into a place...a subject...that is so real to them they almost can't bear it. Sometimes people stop whispering to their neighbor, they stop scribbling out their shopping list, and sit absolutely still because they didn't think anyone else in the whole world knew how they were hurting...and apparently the preacher knows. Because she is talking about it as if she is very familiar with the territory of the parishioner's silent, desperate pain. "I didn't think anyone else knew about that," people think to themselves. "In fact...I have been trying to pretend my life, in that particular area, isn't torn wide open."
So you have to interpret the silence.
It is almost always surprising to me, as a preacher. We are working along, the room is humming, and then I make a statement and suddenly everyone is still. When that happens I -deep inside- lean back, and tell myself, "Okay...we have arrived. We're someplace important for these people I love." It's must be the way a deer feels when he walks out of the dense, shaded, undercover and finds himself unexpectedly standing in a open space in the woods. The air is still...the sunlight is bright...and nothing seems to be moving.
"The Lord is in his holy temple," Habakkuk 2:20 says. "Let all the earth be silent before him."
The silent spaces in worship, during the sermon, when the hum stops and people almost stop breathing? They are usually a surprise...unexpected. And they are almost always holy ground.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
What Do You Do with the Gift?
When we give time to something (or someone), we are announcing that it (or they) have value.
For the last three days I have been listening to preachers preach, and I have been leaning forward as theologians talk about faith and communication and what it means to follow Jesus in a world that isn't sure what to make of Jesus. I don't take three or four days away for something like this very often. But preaching is important.
Preaching is important. There was a time in the 60's and early 70's when Christian leaders and communication/worship experts thought preaching was an obsolete relic. Dramas, video clips, experiential worship...all of that was thought to be more "relevant" than preaching.
One of the ways I know preaching is important is that we see God using it to change people and change the world. The sermons of prophets like Elijah and Elisha put tyrants on notice that God is a God of justice. When God sent Jesus into the world, he spent his ministry doing a couple of essential tasks: preaching and healing. In Luke 4 he reads from the Isaiah and says, "The Lord has anointed me to preach..." The book of Acts records some of the sermons of people like Peter and Paul, and God used those sermons to turn the world upside-down.
Another way I know preaching is important is that as a lay person I have heard it done well - and badly. When it has been done well, my life has changed. My experience with God has deepened. I have come face to face with a kind of truth that challenged my ways of thinking and living. When sermons have been limp and lifeless, thrown together at the last minute, I have come away hungry...disappointed...frustrated.
As a preacher it is a powerful thing to be a part of a moment when the Word is declared with power and integrity. You can tell when the room changes and we all suddenly realize we are standing on holy ground. When I have preached and failed, you can tell. We can all tell.
I always do my best. You need to know that. One sermon is better than another. One message reaches inside your head and heart with the truth of Jesus. You can't avoid it or escape it. Another sermon doesn't get anywhere close to where you need for it to be. But I always do my best. I give everything I have to the task of preaching.
You may be curious to know what it takes to deliver one of those "talks," as some people outside the church refer to them. A couple of times each year I go away for two or three days to look ahead...open the Bible...pray...and plan preaching themes. I make notes. Identify possible points within the sermon.
The week before the sermon I spend part of Thursday outlining the sermon, and on Friday I begin writing around 9:30 in the morning. (Many people at TUMC think Friday is my day off, but it is usually the longest workday of my week!) The manuscript is finally finished around 6. I walk away. Let God have some time with the words put down on paper.
Saturday afternoon I read the sermon and re-read the manuscript. (It's usually about 10 or 12 pages long!) Before I enter the sanctuary, I jot down some key phrases on a piece of scrap paper, slip that in my Bible, and pray.
Somewhere between the writing of the sermon and the preaching of the message, I "cut out" about one-half of what I have written. Sometimes, from service to service, the message changes as I watch the clock and the eyes of the congregation. At one service a story is shared, and at the next service it isn't. The messages shifts through the weekend as the Holy Spirit works in my. heart and head..in you...between us.
My preaching has changed over the years. I once put a lot of time in making sure the "presentation" was polished. My preaching, like many other pastors, has become much more of a conversation with people. It is more of a dialogue than a religious lecture. So in some sense my preaching is more rough around the edges...and it is more real.
Another change is that the sermons have gotten longer. There was a time in the "Mainline Church" when sermons were 15-20 minutes. More and more, in healthy, vital, growing large churches the preaching time has become a serious teaching time that takes up 30-45 minutes. (Rob Bell up in Grand Rapids often preaches for 80 minutes! Heh...did some of you just break into a sweat?! Don't worry...we're not going to try and head in that direction!)
Preaching, I tell people, is like Jacob's wrestling match with the heavenly messenger. Some weeks I am drained. Some weeks the words come easily and quickly, and some weeks the process of sermon writing is exahusting. Frustrating beyond words. God refuses to let me get a hold of him.
If you find yourself vaguely dissatisfied with the preaching/'teaching ministry at TUMC, it may be your fault. (Didn't expect that, did you?) You play a key role in what happens in our teaching ministry! I challenge you to be praying for the service and preacher as you head to church. I invite you who attend the 8 o'clock service to join us in the Conference Room at 7:40 a.m. every Sunday as we pray for the sermon and the services. I encourage you to read the text of the day before the service begins. The sermon may seem lifeless and irrelevant if you wander in 10 minutes late to worship, work on a shopping list during the Bible reading, and only half-listen while you are trying to decide what you'll do for dinner. Your role in our church's preaching ministry is important!
The art of preaching is something I love to do. Some weeks I do better than others. But I always do my best...give my best...hold nothing back.
Jesus refers to himself, in John, as living bread. I love breaking that bread and sharing it with a hungry world.
For the last three days I have been listening to preachers preach, and I have been leaning forward as theologians talk about faith and communication and what it means to follow Jesus in a world that isn't sure what to make of Jesus. I don't take three or four days away for something like this very often. But preaching is important.
Preaching is important. There was a time in the 60's and early 70's when Christian leaders and communication/worship experts thought preaching was an obsolete relic. Dramas, video clips, experiential worship...all of that was thought to be more "relevant" than preaching.
One of the ways I know preaching is important is that we see God using it to change people and change the world. The sermons of prophets like Elijah and Elisha put tyrants on notice that God is a God of justice. When God sent Jesus into the world, he spent his ministry doing a couple of essential tasks: preaching and healing. In Luke 4 he reads from the Isaiah and says, "The Lord has anointed me to preach..." The book of Acts records some of the sermons of people like Peter and Paul, and God used those sermons to turn the world upside-down.
Another way I know preaching is important is that as a lay person I have heard it done well - and badly. When it has been done well, my life has changed. My experience with God has deepened. I have come face to face with a kind of truth that challenged my ways of thinking and living. When sermons have been limp and lifeless, thrown together at the last minute, I have come away hungry...disappointed...frustrated.
As a preacher it is a powerful thing to be a part of a moment when the Word is declared with power and integrity. You can tell when the room changes and we all suddenly realize we are standing on holy ground. When I have preached and failed, you can tell. We can all tell.
I always do my best. You need to know that. One sermon is better than another. One message reaches inside your head and heart with the truth of Jesus. You can't avoid it or escape it. Another sermon doesn't get anywhere close to where you need for it to be. But I always do my best. I give everything I have to the task of preaching.
You may be curious to know what it takes to deliver one of those "talks," as some people outside the church refer to them. A couple of times each year I go away for two or three days to look ahead...open the Bible...pray...and plan preaching themes. I make notes. Identify possible points within the sermon.
The week before the sermon I spend part of Thursday outlining the sermon, and on Friday I begin writing around 9:30 in the morning. (Many people at TUMC think Friday is my day off, but it is usually the longest workday of my week!) The manuscript is finally finished around 6. I walk away. Let God have some time with the words put down on paper.
Saturday afternoon I read the sermon and re-read the manuscript. (It's usually about 10 or 12 pages long!) Before I enter the sanctuary, I jot down some key phrases on a piece of scrap paper, slip that in my Bible, and pray.
Somewhere between the writing of the sermon and the preaching of the message, I "cut out" about one-half of what I have written. Sometimes, from service to service, the message changes as I watch the clock and the eyes of the congregation. At one service a story is shared, and at the next service it isn't. The messages shifts through the weekend as the Holy Spirit works in my. heart and head..in you...between us.
My preaching has changed over the years. I once put a lot of time in making sure the "presentation" was polished. My preaching, like many other pastors, has become much more of a conversation with people. It is more of a dialogue than a religious lecture. So in some sense my preaching is more rough around the edges...and it is more real.
Another change is that the sermons have gotten longer. There was a time in the "Mainline Church" when sermons were 15-20 minutes. More and more, in healthy, vital, growing large churches the preaching time has become a serious teaching time that takes up 30-45 minutes. (Rob Bell up in Grand Rapids often preaches for 80 minutes! Heh...did some of you just break into a sweat?! Don't worry...we're not going to try and head in that direction!)
Preaching, I tell people, is like Jacob's wrestling match with the heavenly messenger. Some weeks I am drained. Some weeks the words come easily and quickly, and some weeks the process of sermon writing is exahusting. Frustrating beyond words. God refuses to let me get a hold of him.
If you find yourself vaguely dissatisfied with the preaching/'teaching ministry at TUMC, it may be your fault. (Didn't expect that, did you?) You play a key role in what happens in our teaching ministry! I challenge you to be praying for the service and preacher as you head to church. I invite you who attend the 8 o'clock service to join us in the Conference Room at 7:40 a.m. every Sunday as we pray for the sermon and the services. I encourage you to read the text of the day before the service begins. The sermon may seem lifeless and irrelevant if you wander in 10 minutes late to worship, work on a shopping list during the Bible reading, and only half-listen while you are trying to decide what you'll do for dinner. Your role in our church's preaching ministry is important!
The art of preaching is something I love to do. Some weeks I do better than others. But I always do my best...give my best...hold nothing back.
Jesus refers to himself, in John, as living bread. I love breaking that bread and sharing it with a hungry world.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Sometimes Silence is Good.
After 13 years serving a congregation you get to a point where you don't have the energy to play church. You get real. You get honest.
This weekend was one of those days when we talked, in worship, about some real stuff.
You can tell when the message is getting close to the hearts of people, you can tell when you are shaking some of the foundations and assumptions of peoples' lives, because they get very, very quiet.
This weekend it was like people had stopped breathing.
We were talking about how determined Joseph and Mary were to love their son, and introduce him to the God who loves him with everything he has. They had their son circumcised and named on the 8th day after his birth. They took him all the way to Jerusalem 40 days after his birth for the Jewish ritual of purification. They took their son to synagogue every week. They told him the stories of the faith.
A look at attendance patterns in our Sunday school shows the children from our most active families are present about once every three weeks. So we talked about this. We talked about how parents fool themselves into thinking their children are getting a spiritual foundation when we are only around enough to give our children spiritual quicksand.
I challenged parents to make God a commitment -not an afterthought. I reminded them that if they are here now and then, their child is always going to feel like an outsider...a stranger. I spoke to those who are sort of on the fence about being here because they have heard of a better nursery or children's ministry or youth center or teaching ministry in another church down the road. I said what most pastors would say: "If your heart is somewhere else, then go! Don't stay on the fence, sort of here and sort of not, because you're not helping your children...our church...or the other place. Go! Be all in or all out...but make a decision!"
It was quiet.
Sometimes silence is good, I think.
The people attending the synagogue in Nazareth, when Jesus preached from the prophet Isaiah, tried to kill him. They didn't like what he was saying.
No one threw a shoe today. No crowd tried to throw me off the sledding hill at Oxbow Park.
It was just quiet.
And I think that is okay.
This weekend was one of those days when we talked, in worship, about some real stuff.
You can tell when the message is getting close to the hearts of people, you can tell when you are shaking some of the foundations and assumptions of peoples' lives, because they get very, very quiet.
This weekend it was like people had stopped breathing.
We were talking about how determined Joseph and Mary were to love their son, and introduce him to the God who loves him with everything he has. They had their son circumcised and named on the 8th day after his birth. They took him all the way to Jerusalem 40 days after his birth for the Jewish ritual of purification. They took their son to synagogue every week. They told him the stories of the faith.
A look at attendance patterns in our Sunday school shows the children from our most active families are present about once every three weeks. So we talked about this. We talked about how parents fool themselves into thinking their children are getting a spiritual foundation when we are only around enough to give our children spiritual quicksand.
I challenged parents to make God a commitment -not an afterthought. I reminded them that if they are here now and then, their child is always going to feel like an outsider...a stranger. I spoke to those who are sort of on the fence about being here because they have heard of a better nursery or children's ministry or youth center or teaching ministry in another church down the road. I said what most pastors would say: "If your heart is somewhere else, then go! Don't stay on the fence, sort of here and sort of not, because you're not helping your children...our church...or the other place. Go! Be all in or all out...but make a decision!"
It was quiet.
Sometimes silence is good, I think.
The people attending the synagogue in Nazareth, when Jesus preached from the prophet Isaiah, tried to kill him. They didn't like what he was saying.
No one threw a shoe today. No crowd tried to throw me off the sledding hill at Oxbow Park.
It was just quiet.
And I think that is okay.
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