Abstract Academics or Practical Preachers

Jul 18, 2010 • By David Murray • 0 Comments

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama successfully portrayed the Bush administration as “out of touch…idealogical…and in bed with big business.” He, in contrast, was “down-to-earth…practical…and on the same side as ordinary Americans.”

What a difference 18 months makes.

In an article for the UK’s Daily Telegraph, Peggy Noonan offers advice to new British Prime Minister, David Cameron, as he prepared to visit President Obama in Washington. The sum and substance of the article can be captured by the title: “David Cameron, don’t follow Barack Obama.” There was a common thread to Noonan’s criticisms of President Obama’s first 18 months:

He came across as a detached academic who believed in abstract notions he’d picked up in the faculty lounge.

…It’s the faculty-lounge problem again: people in business deal with real things, people in faculty lounges deal with ideas, abstractions, theories; they’re swayed by this school of thought and that; they’re macro. Businessmen must be micro: “Hey buddy, I’m trying to open a dry cleaners over here!”

He tries, but he can’t get it right because it’s all so abstract to him.

The dictionary defines abstract as:”theoretical, conceptual, hypothetical, unreal.”

It’s antonyms are “actual, concrete, factual, real.”

As I read this I wondered how often I had fallen into this trap myself. Are my sermons theoretical or actual, conceptual or concrete, hypothetical or factual, unreal or real?

It is so easy for us preachers to get so enamored with an abstract point of theology, or a system of theology, that we lose all touch with reality, or the desire and ability to apply that theology to people’s lives (and our own).

Noonan had previously held high hopes for President Obama, but as she looks back on various pivotal points, she says: “He simply wasn’t thinking about what they [the American people] were thinking about.” Noonan’s last piece of advice to Prime Minister Cameron is: “…and care what is on the people’s minds, as much as what’s on your own.”

Noted.

Turn the ministry you have into the ministry you want

Jul 16, 2010 • By David Murray • 2 Comments

According to a recent survey of 5,000 U.S. households, only 45% of those polled say they are satisfied with their jobs—down from about 60% in 1987. Yet, due to the promotion-freezing job-slashing recession, people feel stuck in these unsatisfying jobs.

You could always quit.

But Yale Professor Amy Wrzesniewski proposes an alternative solution in the Harvard Business Review: “Turn the job you have into the job you want.” Try transforming your current job by changing one or more of these three things instead:

1. Tasks. You can alter your job by taking on more or fewer tasks, different types of tasks, or by simply changing the way you do the tasks you currently have.

2. Relationships. Change the nature and degree to which you interact with others. Take on a mentee, or spend more time getting to know people in other departments.

3. Perception. Think about your job in a different way. If there are parts you don’t like, separate them from the parts you do like. See your job as two jobs: one that you must do, and one that you enjoy doing.

Wrzesniewski calls this exercise job crafting, “a powerful tool for reenergizing and reimagining your work life. It involves redefining your job to incorporate your motives, strengths, and passions. The exercise prompts you to visualize the job, map its elements, and reorganize them to better suit you. In this way, you can put personal touches on how you see and do your job, and you’ll gain a greater sense of control at work…”

This got me thinking about what percentage of pastors feel satisfied in their present calling. And I also wondered if pastors in the doldrums might use these same “job-crafting” principles to reenergize and reimagine their pastoral work. It might turn the ministry you have into the ministry you want.

The Men Who Stare at Screens

Jul 15, 2010 • By David Murray • 3 Comments

“Men who spend more than 23 hours sitting have a 64 percent greater chance of dying from heart disease than those who sat for 11 hours a week or less.” (New York Times).

In other words, the ministry is bad for your health

“O, but I workout/jog/play tennis three times a week!”

“We’re not impressed,” reply researchers at the University of South Carolina. In a study published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, they reported:

Many of the men who sat long hours and developed heart problems also exercised. Quite a few of them said they did so regularly and led active lifestyles. The men worked out, then sat in cars and in front of televisions [ed. for pastors read "computer screens"] for hours, and their risk of heart disease soared, despite the exercise. Their workouts did not counteract the ill effects of sitting.

(Apparently Physiologists have a new name for such men: “an active couch potato.” Ouch!)

Last year, The British Journal of Sports Science noted that, on average, adults spend more than nine hours a day in ‘‘sedentary activities,” far more than previous generations. Thanks to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as our productivity has increased, so has our mortality.

In an overview of the consequences of inactivity, Exercise and Sports Sciences Reviews, describe how “our muscles, unused for hours at a time, change in subtle fashion, and as a result, our risk for heart disease, diabetes and other diseases can rise. And regular workouts do not seem to fully counteract the effects of long sitting.“

The solution, says the New York Times, is to help your wife with her daily chores! Yes, grab a mop. Wash the windows. Take out the garbage, etc. Anything that increases physical activity throughout the day helps reverse the damage caused by staring at a screen all day.

So, if you want to extend your ministry, go find the vacuum cleaner. Or (maybe easier on the ego), walk around your office when reading.

PS. Hope my wife doesn’t read this one.

When Pastors’ Kids Go Bad

Jul 14, 2010 • By David Murray • 0 Comments

And here’s another great post by Jerrold Lewis, this time on the perils of being a PK.

Preaching Without Notes

Jul 14, 2010 • By David Murray • 2 Comments

My friend Jerrold Lewis, Pastor of Lacombe Free Reformed Church, has written a great article on preaching without notes. As this is one of my own passions, I asked Jerrold for permission to re-post it on Head Heart Hand, which he kindly agreed to. The original post is here.

OK, so I have been reading three books on extemporaneous preaching. The subject has always intrigued me, and frightened me at the same time. Up to this point, I have preached about half of my sermon from a manuscript, and half “from the moment” (that is what extempore means). However, recently I have begun to wean myself from my notes. The best I have done is 2 pages. We will see how it goes. So far I like it very much, because it gives me a larger contact point with my congregation. I’m not sure if they have noticed any difference in my preaching, which could be a good thing, or a bad.

I have found out recently that whenever you mention extemporaneous preaching to others, especially to others in the ministry, you are often met with some serious cautions such as, “Extemporaneous preaching lacks direction. It is less doctrinal. You will find yourself falling into the same rut, saying the same thing over and over”, etc. But what I have come to discover is many people confuse extemporaneous preaching with impromptu preaching. There is a big difference. Impromptu preaching is preaching on the spot, off the top of your head with no preparation, relying on the Holy Spirit to guide you. I am opposed to this practice as a model based on 2 Timothy 2:15, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth”. I think this is mysticism plain and simple. However extemporaneous preaching is not of this species, not at all.

In each and every book I am reading on the subject, the message is the same: a sermon with little or no script notes needs to be as well developed and meticulously crafted as the full writ sermon. It will require the same amount of original language work, commentary discovery, and direct application as any other sermon, week in and week out. I have discovered, both by research and practice, that there is no substantive difference in preparation of an extemporaneous sermon than in a written. Dispel the myth! The difference is in the delivery.

So what are the advantages of preaching in this way? Here is what I have learned so far.

Augustine’s dictum about the gospel sums it up well: Veritas pateat, veritas placeat, veritas moveat. “Make the truth plain, make it pleasing, make it moving.” When Christ preached, it is said that the common people hear him gladly (Mark 12:37). There was something warm, engaging, and true in Christ’s words that made Him compelling. If history has taught us anything on the subject it is this: that the best extemporaneous preachers were popular, not just because of “what” they said but “how” they said it. I think people are naturally drawn to someone that is not reading, but is looking. Why is it that President Obama uses the TelePrompTer? Because even the world knows that a speech that is spoken to the eyes, is more believable and engaging that one read from notes.

At this point one will say “but not all extemporaneous preachers were as successful as these men.” True, but the same can be said of those that preach from the full manuscript. Both sides can produce monuments of disaster. But this does not remove the benefits of the practiced discipline of note-less sermons. Dr. Webb, in his book Preaching Without Notes insists, “One can move people by reading or speaking from notes, but one cannot move them very far.” I am in no way arguing that everyone must preach this way. I don’t even know yet if I should. But why is this aspect of homiletics no longer encouraged in our seminaries when it reflects such a large portion of preaching successfully in the past? As Dr. Carrick of GPTS points out in his wonderful lecture The Extemporaneous Mode of Preaching, it was the moderates or libertines in the Church of Scotland that began to preach from full manuscripts in the 1700′s, making the sermon more academic and less applicatory. The conservatives, or evangelicals resisted it as long as they could, but eventually the full manuscript became the new standard.

Much more could be written on the subject. For instance, there are several different kinds of extemporaneous preaching (no notes, outline, partial manuscript, etc). But before I go any further, I have more to learn myself, both cerebrally and experimentally. I would encourage you all to listen to the lecture of Dr. Carrick linked above.

The books I am reading on this subject?

Preaching Without Notes by Joseph M. Webb.

Extemporaneous Preaching by W.G.T Shedd

Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching by Henry Ware .

Also read, My Heart for Thy Cause (Borgman), Preaching and Preachers (Lloyd-Jones), Lectures to My Students (Spurgeon), Thoughts on Preaching (J.W. Alexander), and Homiletics and Pastoral Theology (Shedd), Evangelical Eloquence (Dabney).