We are used to hearing good biblical preaching that leads us to an understanding of the text, perhaps even helping us to understand how that text might rightly play itself out in the practice of our lives. Strangely, even when well handled, this approach can be less gripping than it should. Preaching ought to compel us. It ought not be easily shrugged. Preaching ought to impress its truth upon us in a way beyond a simple sense of duty to the text. Great preaching will get us in the heart, demanding that we reckon with the God we are confronted by.

I don’t need more doctrinal preaching. I need more theological preaching. I am talking about preaching that does not leave me with an idea to be thought about or an application to do something about, but a God to be reckoned with. I need preaching that will lead me to worship – that will lead me into the presence of God in an Isaiah 6 sense, complete with doorposts shaking and knees knocking. I need preaching that gets at the core of the biblical message, not just at its extremities. I need to be swallowed whole by the truth as it is not just explained to me, but encountered by me.

I think this requires an intentional homiletical move on the part of the preacher. When I preach, I want my listeners to see God. I want them to hear his voice. I want them to understand his nature, his character, and his will – and I want that, in response, we all would bow our knees and open our hearts. We need to be intentional about this sort of thing, carving out time in the space of the sermon where we can draw our listeners into our Lord’s presence. It will not happen by accident. We have to lead our people in this direction. We have to plan for it.

I’m saying that preachers are worship leaders. I am tired of ceding this territory to the guitar players. A sermon that doesn’t lead us to worship is a wasted opportunity – incomplete in both intent and effect.

The best way to get there, I would suggest, is to find the theological moment in the text and in the sermon. What are we learning about God’s nature, activity, and will? How does this text and sermon find its place within the saving work of Christ? What is God trying to do among us through this adventure in his presence? How might we be changed by this encounter?

When we can find the theological element of the sermon, giving space for it to do its work, our preaching will find a depth and power beyond what we may have previously thought possible. Our preaching will serve the divine intention. If our preaching becomes more profoundly theological (and not merely doctrinal) our listeners will become more profoundly godly.

For me, the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22 and 23) provide a kind of litmus test for preaching. Preachers must be loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good and faithful. They must speak gently and with evident self-control. If they cannot attend to at least this basic description of Christian comportment, then why would anyone be compelled to listen to what they say, no matter how significant a thing it might be that they are saying.

I realize that this very comment might appear to be in violation of the charitable nature of these categories. No doubt these qualities are owned more by aspiration than actualization in my experience – and in yours. It is hard to offer critique without sounding impatient, perhaps even unloving. The problem is that we seem to have got to the point where some preachers wear it as a value that they incite offence. Some preachers see no irony in that they come across obnoxious, relishing every opportunity to bludgeon people with the gospel.

I won’t name anyone in this, because I know that it is not my place to judge the inner workings of another’s heart. To be truthful, I’m not thinking of any one person at the moment. I am speaking rather of a growing inclination toward a kind of angry preaching –  a preaching that delights in picking out the flaws and rooting out the inconsistencies in another’s faith and practice.

I hesitate immediately, knowing the reservations my comment must incite. Do I not believe in the preaching of the truth? Am I soft on sin and unconcerned for righteousness? Am I weak in my concern for the lack of truth in the preaching of the modern pulpit?

No to all the above. I don’t believe my comments reflect weakness. They are, rather, an attempt to reflect the character of Christ who came bearing grace and truth, and in the spirit of the apostle Paul who taught us to speak truth in love. I am very concerned for truth and righteousness. It is just that I don’t delight in the exposure of its absence. I believe in preaching sin. I just don’t believe in being gleeful about it.

I am not forgetful of Paul’s comment, that it’s worth rejoicing whenever Christ is preached, whether out of good motive or of bad. But I want to be the kind of preacher that God is pleased to use. I tell my students that the manner of their preaching matters just as much as the message of their preaching. If I can’t observe your message by your manner, I will not be open to your discourse. If I can’t see your message with my eyes, how will I ever hear it with my ears?

The preachers featured includes those from the United States: TIm Keller, John Piper, John Ortberg, Mark Driscoll, and Mark Dever; those from the United Kingdom: Vaughn Roberts, Simon Ponsonby, J. John, Nicky Gumbel, Rico Tice, and Alistair Begg; along with one Australian, David Cook to round out the mix. As with any such list, one could quibble about those included or neglected. One could not argue that all of these preachers are worthy of consideration.

Vibert’s method is to describe each preacher, suggest reasons why each is “a good communicator”, and then offer a number of relevant lessons for other preachers coming out of his analysis. My assessment is that he does a reasonable job of summing up the ministry of each and pointing us to some things worth our attention. The problem is that the chapters are too short to allow for any kind of depth analysis. It may be that Vibert’s take on each preacher is right on the mark, but the book’s format doesn’t really give the space to prove the author’s claims. Vibert doesn’t seem concerned to critique the preachers he features, neglecting to discuss some of the more controversial elements of some of his subjects work. Vibert sees a virtue in Driscoll’s directness, for example, while others take offense. Yet this is probably not the book’s intent. As a summative description introducing the reader to the work of each preacher, this book serves quite nicely.

Reflecting in an overall sense can be fruitful. In the book’s conclusion, Vibert attempts to consolidate his leanings into a kind of master list of characteristics of great preachers. I was more struck, however, by the diversity of these preachers. John Ortberg’s humor is quite distinct from John Piper’s exposition. Vaughn Roberts counsels three point sermons. Tim Keller, not so much. That this is to be expected belies the sense that excellence in preaching can be distilled into formula. Vibert, of course, understands this. The strength of his presentation is in the call that all of us find our authority in the Scriptures, while dedicating ourselves to diligence in the development of the homiletic craft. In that pursuit, good examples are always welcome.

Simon Vibert, Excellence in Preaching: Studying the Craft of Leading Preachers, Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2011

Provocatively, White titles one of his chapters, “Don’t Preach.” “Whatever you, do,” he writes, “don’t preach. I know, you’ve studied homiletics. You know how to say the word God with three syllables. You’ve practiced the deeper voice that kicks in when you step behind the pulpit. Lose it. Lose it all. Don’t preach. Instead communicate (p.141).”

Nothing controversial there, except for the fact that in fifteen years of teaching homiletics, I have never been tempted to teach people how to say the name of God to such a protracted extent. The unnecessary caricature aside, White does have plenty of useful things to say. Among them…

“A good communicator must be biblical. People don’t want a self-help pep talk that is merely one person’s opinion. People want to know what the Bible has to say (142).”

“Being relevant has nothing to do with watering down the gospel (142).”

“Another mark of messages that truly communicate is that they embrace a sense of dialogue. it’s not necessarily literal dialogue, but a sense that you know there is an audience out there listening that is thinking about what you are saying and might just have a question or two (147).”

One of the more valuable things he offers has to do with nature of credibility in preaching. “You have to be believed to be heard. So how do you gain credibility (144)?”

Credibility, White says, has to do with accuracy, which includes pronouncing things correctly. It involves fact-checking so we don’t misrepresent the things we are talking about. Most importantly, it depends upon the personal integrity of the preacher. “No speaker can effectively model the entire body of Christian truth with perfection, but if the gulf is too wide between word and deed, then credibility is at risk (145-46).”

This is pretty good advice for preachers, and for seminary classrooms. It may be, as White says, that there is a limit to what can be taught in a classroom. If so, we will need the help of wise practitioners like White.

White, James Emory. What They Didn’t Teach You in Seminary: 25 Lessons for Successful Ministry in Your Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2011.

In other words, the best preachers don’t just suggest themes for consideration at some more convenient time. The best preachers enact the themes of Scripture, often in the very act of preaching itself.

When a doctor “performs surgery” the patient is deeply and dramatically affected. To “act” on a lawyer’s advice, is to actually make a substantive change that could, in fact, keep one out of jail. To “perform” the Scriptures in preaching, is not simply to state, describe, or recommend the truths found therein, but to act-ually put them into practice. Hooke says, “to perform the text – to learn it by heart, interpret it, and embody it – is to lose this easy familiarity and discover anew its strangeness and unexpectedness (p. 111).”

In my own writing and teaching, I have described the importance of “assimilating” the message and the sermon before preaching it. This is, I have come to see, an act of performance. Hooke says that it is “helpful to “perform” the texts of Scripture on which you will be preaching, which means to take several steps beyond reciting it or reading it out loud.”

This is, she says, “to learn the passage by heart, and then to act out the text as one would act out the script of a play, or to retell it as one would tell a story. To perform a passage of Scripture means to take on the voice of the characters, to stage the action, to decide what the scene looks like (110).”

This has a lot to commend it as a way of thinking about our preparation for preaching. But even more, it speaks to the importance we need to place in our own appropriation of the themes we are preaching. Preaching ought never to be hypothetical. We all must allow the sermon to perform its work upon our own hearts. That will prepare us well to act upon the things that we hear from the Word and then, to “make it so” for our listeners also, through our preaching.

Hooke, Ruthanna B. Transforming Preaching. “Transformations” Series edited by James Lemler. The Episcopal Church of the 21st Century. New York: Church Publishing, 2010.

I loved this church. We would enjoy an extended time of musical worship, led by one of the most talented teams I have ever encountered. But then the “worship” would end. The platform would be changed with a pulpit brought out. The children noisily would leave. People dug out their papers and pencils. The pastor cracked a few jokes while fiddling with his lapel mike.

Everything about that transition signalled that we were no longer worshipping. Now we were about to receive teaching – valuable teaching for sure, but we were clearly no longer engaged in the act of worship.

For that reason, I was pleased to receive Michael Quicke’s new book, Preaching as Worship: An Integrative Approach to Formation in Your Church. The concern is timely and Quicke’s instruction is both thorough and insightful.

Integration is a difficult thing, and so it is probably fair to say that this book has more to say about worship than it does about preaching. I might suggest that it is probably best to read Preaching as Worship alongside Quicke’s earlier book, 360-Degree Preaching. Integrating these two resources will give the reader a fuller understanding of the ways by which biblical preaching and worship can combine to good effect.

Quicke applies some of the same tools that he introduced in 360-Degree Preaching, most notably, “the preaching swim” which here he re-purposes as “the worship swim.” ‘Swim’ is Quicke’s metaphor for the process of preparing to preach/worship. The book is helpful in describing tangible ways to go about creating a greater sense of collaboration between preachers and worship leaders, an aspect that is missing from many other similar books.

We should probably acknowledge, however, that all of this is going to take a lot more of our time – or perhaps will require a re-allocation of some of the ways by which we use our time. I would quickly add, however, that we don’t have to reject this approach for that reason. It may be that by embracing a more collaborative approach to our worship/preaching that we will end up with a more powerful result.

For example, I thought Quicke’s encouragement to use blogging as a way of enhancing this collaboration to be both current and helpful. I might add that involving worship leaders in the development of one’s sermonic thinking will lead to deeper, more reflective preaching as well.

The early stages of the book offer a deep theological discussion of the nature of both preaching and worship and how the two are properly read together. I particularly liked Quicke’s use of the term “myopic preaching” which he uses to describe preaching that avoids the “big picture” in favor of smaller, technical, bits of exegesis, unfortunately isolated from larger trinitarian themes. We ought to listen closely to Quicke on this matter.

At its best, the preacher is the church’s primary worship leader. Preaching ought to worship. Worship ought to preach. Quicke’s reminder of these things is welcome.

Michael J. Quicke, Preaching as Worship: An Integrative Approach to Formation in Your Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2011.

Manipulation, literally means that we are putting our hands on something to direct it in an unnatural way. In terms of preaching, I might suggest that we are manipulating people when we are leading them to an irresistible response. God has created us in his image, which means that we have dignity. God is sovereign, but he still gives us the right to our response – even if that response is to walk away from him. If we preach in such a way that listeners have been denied their own choice, then we have manipulated them. If we lead them so completely that they have not consented to their response, we are guilty of manipulation.

I’m often unsure what to make of decisions made during the 12th chorus of “Just as I am” with “every head bowed and every eye closed.” While I believe in the value of calling people to decision, I want them to own their decision in the cold light of day and not believe that they had been snookered, somehow, into an inauthentic response.

I said in a previous post that emotion and tone are a valuable part of the preaching process. I appreciate that there can be a fuzzy line between legitimate use of emotion and an illegitimate use of manipulation. I suspect that we will know when we have crossed that line, fuzzy as it is, by evaluating our own motivations. It is perhaps not so amazing to discover that temptations to manipulate are strongest when our motivation is more for ourselves than it is for our message.

I would agree that tone ought to be secondary to content in our preaching. Poor content is not enhanced by dramatic delivery. That would be manipulative. It is true, conversely, that great content can be enhanced by effective delivery. Great content delivered without passion risks being overlooked and under-appreciated. Great content delivered with a matching passion in tone can take a sermon to another level.

Of course, overly dramatic preaching can be just as difficult for the listener. Simply raising the decibel and intensity levels can flatline just as much, though perhaps with greater irritation for the listener. The key seems to be an intentional variation of tone. I encourage preachers to track the emotional shape of the various moments of the sermon. Like a sculptor, we need to work to shape the tone of our sermon, varying the pace, volume, and intensity to match the content as it is communicated.

We don’t always appreciate that we have much control over this sort of thing. We sometimes believe that we are what we are and that there is little to be done about a lacklustre style if that is our natural bent. Putting all of our energy into the ideas in the sermon, we tend to think that how it comes out is simply how it comes out. I have come to see, however, that every preacher has an emotional bandwith. In some cases, that bandwidth is narrower than others, but we all can work to stretch and max our range. Whether we are quiet or boisterous by nature, we can all attend to a variation of our tone.

Our sermons should have contemplative moments, motivational moments, light-hearted moments, and intellectually challenging moments. A great preacher will sculpt the sermon intentionally to lead the listener through all such ways of being.

http://trevinwax.com/2011/07/11/our-ears-still-itch/

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Tim. 4:3-4)

When we come across these words from the apostle Paul to Timothy, we tend to see this verse as a description of our day and age. How else do we explain the elegant churches whose liberalism has overtaken their once-glorious heritage? Or the masses that fill stadiums to hear prosperity teachers tell us how good we are and how much God wants to bless us financially?

Preaching that tickles the ears. We nod our heads in agreement and pray …

Lord, deliver us from the liberals who don’t believe anything and don’t preach the truth.

Lord, deliver us from those who give good advice and moral platitudes without the Good News of individual salvation.

Lord, deliver us from the stand-up comics who fill stadiums with ear-tickling, side-splitting sermons that are all about us and not about God.

Then, we sit back on Sunday mornings with a smile, satisfied in our assurance that our ears don’t itch.

But are we deceiving ourselves? Do we truly believe we have escaped the temptation to listen to pastors who tickle our ears? Is it possible to preach harshly against certain sins and yet still be an ear-tickling preacher?

The prophet Jeremiah tells us the human heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. We think that if we attend a church where the pastor consistently preaches hard messages with hard truths, we will never succumb to the “itching ears” syndrome. But such is not the case. Paul tells Timothy that itching ears accumulate for themselves teachers who will tell them what they want to hear. Itching ears desire teaching that suits their own passions.

Many laypeople hope to listen to a preacher who every week will tell them what’s wrong — with everybody else.

The congregation of teetotalers wants a pastor who, week after week, condemns alcohol from the pulpit.

The anti-war congregation hopes to hear a rousing sermon against those warmongering conservatives.

The congregation of staunch Republicans smiles as their pastor rails against “the gays” and “the liberals.”

The Calvinist congregation wants to hear a theologian/pastor who will preach against the errors of those Arminians.

The congregation of door-to-door soul-winners hires a pastor who will mock the namby-pamby “lifestyle” conversations that pass for evangelism in this day.

The charismatic congregation loves when its pastor tears into the dry, ritualistic worship of their liturgical neighbors.

And the liturgical congregation nods approvingly at critiques of their neighbors who manufacture emotionalism.

Can you hear the hearty “Amens” coming from the pews? Yes, Lord! Thank you for showing us what real Christianity is! Lord, help us not be like those Christians who are too blinded by their biases, who have been co-opted by the culture!

Of course, there are times when a pastor should address the issues above. Church members should expect pastors to preach boldly, to condemn sin, to faithfully exposit the biblical text, and to speak to the current issues of the day.

But let us not underestimate the evil intentions of the human heart. We crave a message that puffs us up. We read Jesus’ parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector and rightly condemn the Pharisee for his pompous prayer, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people — robbers, evildoers, adulterers — or even like this tax collector.” Then we thank God that we’re not like the Pharisee.

Ironically, the very message that is supposed to cut us low, the message of the Cross, can be delivered in such a way that people walk out of the sanctuary patting themselves on the back. Thank God I’m not like those people!

Somewhere in the darkest places of our hearts, we take joy in preachers who put us on a pedestal, who remind us who all the bad guys are, and who assure us that we’re okay. We sing and read and preach about grace, but too often, our talk about grace is simply another method of preserving our self-righteousness.

The preaching we listen to on Sundays may be truth-filled and Bible-centered, but if it only points out the problems of everyone else in the world, it misses its target. Our ears are tickled, but our hearts are unchanged. Ear-tickling preaching may step on toes, but they’re never the toes of the people in the pews or the pastor in the pulpit.

Next time, your pastor preaches a challenging message that convicts you of sin, say “Amen.” If your church is not of the Amen-shouting variety, meet your pastor at the door and offer a word of encouragement. Allow the Sword of God’s Word to perform surgery on our own hearts before wielding the Sword in the faces of everyone else.