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April, 2013

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April 28, 2013 3:50 pm

Marriable

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by    in Leadership

Believe it or not, that’s the title of an infamous book, which describes all the insider knowledge of relationships. At the risk of disappointing some of you, this post is not a detailed critique of a book which lists, among its female roles, “eating pickles”; and which has a chapter titled “Don’t marry your best friend unless you’re gay”. What I want to focus on, is that the authors went to the lengths of coining the word “marriable”. A ridiculous word, but why?

able

Because it suggests two things: firstly, that some people just cannot be married regardless of whether they might want to; and secondly, that once people have applied all the recommendations coming from the  book, there’s nothing more they can do; and everything that fails to happen is somebody else’s fault.

Let’s face it: the target population of Marriable (which is, incredibly, a serious book) is people who don’t wish to become marriable. They wish to become married.

It’s easy enough to notice it in such a ridiculous example; but anyone in a position of leadership is guilty of the same sin. How many of these words have you used recently?

  • understandable
  • transferable
  • applicable
  • usable
  • likeable
  • accessible

And I’m sure there’s many more. If you write your sermon so that it is understandable, or applicable, you’re stopping shy of your real aim. Rather, you should write it so that it is understood, and so that it is applied. Otherwise, you will find it easy to write independently of your congregation; and when no change happens after you have preached, the cop-out of “they just weren’t listening” is far, far too easy.

Be bold, and plan boldly.

To you who don’t think you are in a position of leadership, you’re not off the hook. Firstly, you are wrong: you are in a position of leadership, to some of your friends at least; but you may not be planning that leadership. Secondly, you are at the receiving end of these sermons. And if you start assessing a sermon in terms of its applicability, but not attempting to apply it yourself, you are not benefiting from it to its full extent.

Let’s get rid of the “-able” suffix. What word are you eliminating?

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April 21, 2013 3:25 pm

When they don’t get it

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by    in Leadership

I’m studying education. I know there is a world of difference between what is to be taught (the curriculum, of sorts), what is taught (what you think you’re saying) and what is learnt (what people  keep from it).

mindthegap

Photo: zimpenfish, reused under CC license

From what I hear, the discrepancy between the latter two is something that preachers experience. A lot. The stories of people going up to the preacher telling them: “I loved that part about how we should not tithe if we don’t feel like it. God loves a cheerful giver indeed”, when the sermon was explaining why we should be cheerful about giving. Or “I  loved how you explained how Catholics are heretics”, when you were actually trying to explain they weren’t.

These discrepancies are often frustrating. As pastors, teachers of sorts, we have a responsibility to make sure that we communicate efficiently, and a responsibility to ensure that what we are trying to say is heard. When that doesn’t happen, we may feel like we have failed. But that view is one I wish to challenge, because it puts the preacher as the sole mediator of the Word: it suggests that everything that the congregation will hear will need to have been pre-digested by the leadership team.

Last Sunday, someone came to me to talk about my sermon from the week before, telling me about how it connected with his experience and that he felt that the person in the pulpit was actually understanding how they were feeling. “Great!”, I thought, a bit full of myself. And then he went on to describe the specifics of his situation, which was as far removed as what I had in mind when writing the sermon as possible! I was talking about fear of the unknown, he was talking about repeated stress.

Should I take this as a sign that my sermon was a failure? Quite the opposite. I take it as a positive sign: a sign that my sermon was aligned with the Word enough that it could just gently guide people to and through the passage, but crucially, that it was the passage that did all the work. The Bible is greater than all of us. That’s why we read it more than just the once, and that’s why we connect to it in different ways; and, for preachers, that’s why we shouldn’t aim to possess it, or to box it in.

To put it in a different way, it is the gap between Scripture and the congregation’s lives that needs to be closed; in priority over the gap between the preacher and the congregation. The gap between what is to be taught and what is learnt; in priority over the gap between what is taught and what is learnt. Of course, the two often work together; but if someone in the congregation is brought closer to the Word through a different path than us, let us still rejoice over it rather than try to bring them back to our way! As long, of course, as they do connect with the ultimate Truth (which may not be the case in the examples given at the start…)

And it feels great! Because through that, we are reminded that, on the one hand, the transformative or exhortative power does not come from us, so that we as preachers may feel anxious about nothing; and that on the other hand, what we’re saying matters and connects with people!

What’s your experience of people not getting it?

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April 14, 2013 5:05 pm

Christian heptathlon

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by    in Lists

We like sport. We just put our own twist on it. Here’s what the Christian heptathlon looks like (with links to the event that was the inspiration for it).

athletics

Photo: AdamKR, reused under CC License

  • Bible hopping: quote as many separate and short Bible verses as possible to support an argument. Bonus points for quoting non-standard verses, especially genealogies or the minor prophets. In this contest, speed is of the essence: you do not want whichever passage you’re using to support your argument to actually speak to your listeners directly. Careful, some passages may trip you up, so never stray far from your usual turf.
  • Triple point: write any talk or sermon in a three-point structure. Bear in mind that these points should not be considered in any way that would allow anyone to continue after your work; and that if a four-point or two-point structure were better suited to your argument, such a work would be disqualified.
  • Javelin: use your talk, sermon or other document as a way to attack The Others – be it in terms of theological viewpoint, or in terms of societal issues. Current issues are disqualified, particularly shortly after schisms, where such attacks are far too easy. The Baptists made a commendable effort in 1689, but this effort was not homologated due to the circumstances at the time. You may wish to train by defending your church as opposed to other churches, and move on to a dissing of low/high churches (delete as appropriate) before mocking other doctrinal points.
  • Conceptual hammer throwing: talk about predestination, transubstantiation, cessationism or any other particularly heavy theological topic without explaining what it means, and with no other reason than that you like the sound of your own voice on that matter.
  • 1500s run: only use one theological reference from the 16th Century to inform your thinking – usually the Puritans. Also exists in other eras (100s run is particularly popular these days)
  • Sermon throw: make your sermon as far removed as possible from the text from which you’re meant to be preaching. This sport is commonly confused with the practice of throwing the sermon as far as possible from any form of relevance to the audience’s lives.
  • Service marathon: make sure everybody is keeping their Sunday holy by keeping them in church a minimum of 6 hours. Techniques include: readings which span many chapters; repeated verses and/or instrumentals and/or wo-ohs in hymns and worship songs; organ voluntaries put in the middle of the service; and, most easily, sermons with a minimal length of oner hour. Fringe improvements can be made by making sure that no one knows when their part is – this technique is particularly helpful with dramatised tellings of Bible stories.

Athletes competing in these will be checked for inhalation of incense.

—

In these especially, the first will be the last.

Add your own!

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4 comments!
April 7, 2013 2:27 pm

Four steps to discipleship

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by    in Liturgy,Sermons

Today was my second sermon ever. I mentioned last week how I found I was struggling more than with my first sermon. Before going out to preach, I still wasn’t 100% happy with it; but after having said it, I am actually finding it better than my first sermon. Anyway, here, you can listen to it, read it (although I did ad lib a bit). But as it is long, I’ll provide a summary too.

sermon2

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Sometimes, we are locked in the cage of our own worries: fear of failure, or of what others might think, stop us from acting. And so we try to shut out that fear, going on with our lives as though there was no way to go out of that cage. That’s where the disciples are at the start of the Gospel reading, before Christ appears to them: fear-stricken, behind locked doors. And then something happens that transforms them into the bold apostles who stand up before the Sanhedrin, saying “We must obey God rather than any human authority“.

The transformation happens in this house, in this upper room, when Jesus appears to the disciples. And it has four steps:

1. Receive the risen Christ – and lean on him in all that we do. I cannot stress enough that he is already there, in our midst, even behind locked doors – no matter how many times we go back and lock the doors again. Our part in it is to recognise his presence. And that can be done through pausing, looking around us, praying, drawing near for communion, seeing Christ in our friends. But Christ needs to be the unquenchable source of our discipleship: because if we follow something else, that something will run out.

2. Receive his peace. That follows naturally from step one – as we know that Christ who defeated death is on our side; although sometimes it doesn’t feel quite like that. Again, pause, and make sure you receive Christ’s peace before rushing out. I think that in giving us his peace, Christ unlocks the door – if we run out too fast, we might hurt ourselves quite a bit.

3. Receive and embrace his command, which is simple: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you”. We are to model Christ in our discipleship – be real imitators of him, and that means doing everything out of our love for God and for others, and in a spirit of submission – even when our will goes against what is asked of us.

4. Receive the Holy Spirit: we are not alone in this action!

I think that we each tend to focus on one step rather than all four. But they are equally important, and sequential. You can’t embrace God’s command without first receiving Christ and his peace – that would not be a race of perseverance.

If we follow all four, though, we will run that race to the end, with boldness and with peace. That’s why the liturgy goes: “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord”. We are to go beyond the church’s confines, but we are to be assured of that peace. And the response grounds this action in Christ: “in the name of Christ, amen.”

Peace be with you.

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