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Can a to-do list make you a better preacher?

May 20, 2011 • By David Murray • 0 Comments

The most effective preachers and teachers have an ability to make the profound simple.

But how?

Tony Schwartz says that such “deceptive simplicity” is the result of:

Rigorous thinking
Skillful synthesizing
A commitment to clarity

And Schwartz persuasively argues that one of the keys to achieving this is a to-do list.

If that doesn’t entice you to click through, then try this:

To manage the storm around us, we need to quiet the storm inside ourselves. By doing that effectively, we can devote more attention to whatever we decide matters most.

Jack Dorsey’s secret

Jan 20, 2011 • By David Murray • 0 Comments

Jack Dorsey has 200 million customers. At least, that’s how many use his product, Twitter, every day. He is also founder of Square, a new way for everyone to accept credit card payments that financiers are salivating over.

Two multi-million-dollar technology start-ups in a few years! How lucky can you be, eh?

Unless it’s something other than luck.

It is.

Both start-ups have been based on the idea of simplicity.

As this interview with Charlie Rose reveals, “Dorsey’s accomplishments have little to do with luck, and more with his focus on creating the purest products by throwing away any unnecessary flourishes.”

Dorsey says, “My goal is to simplify complexity.”

How about that as a motto to hang above every preacher’s desk! In fact, read the following quotes and imagine that Dorsey is talking about preaching rather than credit card payments.

It turns out it’s really complex. It’s really complex to make something simple and especially when you started addressing the financial world.

We have a number of things — in order to accept credit cards you have to talk with a bank. Normally when you’re a small merchant or a business or individual you have to get a merchant account, which means you have a one to two year relationship with the bank, and then there’s always these fees and setup costs and monthly minimums. It’s a mess.

And it’s never really been designed in a beautiful way and that’s what we’re good at. That’s really hard to do.

Dorsey believes the most powerful technologies are those which disappear, like the iPad disappears:

When you’re using the iPad, the iPad disappears, it goes away. You’re reading a book. You’re viewing a website, you’re touching a web site. That’s amazing and that’s what SMS is for me. The technology goes away and with Twitter the technology goes away. And the same is true with Square. We want the technology to fade away so that you can focus on enjoying the cappuccino that you just purchased.

Is that not the aim of every preacher too? That they and their sermon would fade away, leaving the hearers to enjoy the Christ that was just preached!

The simpler the sermon, the more likely that is to happen.

Related article: A plea for profound simplicity

Preachers: Plan on being misunderstood

Dec 10, 2010 • By David Murray • 1 Comment

Here’s a sobering Seth Godin post for preachers:

If you want to drive yourself crazy, read the live twitter comments of an audience after you give a talk, even if it’s just to ten people.

You didn’t say what they said you said.

You didn’t mean what they said you meant.

If the data rate of an HDMI cable is 340MHz, I’m guessing that the data rate of a speech is far, far lower. Yes, there’s a huge amount of information communicated via your affect, your style and your confidence, but no, I don’t think humans are so good at getting all the details.

Plan on being misunderstood. Repeat yourself. When in doubt, repeat yourself.

How much more prayerful should we be in preparing and delivering sermons.

How much more dependent we should be on the Holy Spirit.

How much more thankful we should be when anyone does understand.

Sermon Preparation for Busy Pastors

Dec 2, 2010 • By David Murray • 4 Comments

Some readers have asked me for a step-by-step plan for sermon preparation. A few years ago, a younger (and rather “wooden”) David Murray made a couple of 30 minute videos on this subject. They flowed out of “Moving from Text to Sermon,” an address I gave as a visiting lecturer at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary.
(BTW the videos were shot inside a small, wooden garden shed on the Isle of Lewis – figure that one out!)

Part 1

Part 2

The secret to powerful preaching

Nov 19, 2010 • By David Murray • 8 Comments

There is no secret behind powerful preaching – apart from secret prayer. The biggest mistake we can make as preachers is to think that we can learn to preach powerfully from books, from seminars, or from lectures on preaching. No, for preaching to be powerful it must be preceded by, accompanied with, and followed by prayer.

It is prayer that imparts reality to our sermons. It makes God real to us – His holiness, His power, His love. It makes sin real to us. It makes heaven and hell real to us. It makes eternity real to us. Such reality transforms mere lectures, talks, and Bible studies into living and life-changing sermons. This cannot be learned from books, manufactured or imitated.

It’s an awful experience to stand up to preach knowing that you have hardly prayed about the sermon; that you have spent too long on preparing the sermon and not enough on preparing yourself. Few things drain the power from a sermon as much as prayer-less preparation and delivery.

I’m sure we all pray to some extent before starting our sermon preparation, and hopefully at regular points in the preparation process. But what about praying when we have completed our preparation. I’m afraid that we often just pick up our completed sermon and run to the pulpit with it.

Pray before preaching
I would suggest spending a decent amount of time (maybe begin with 15-30 minutes?) praying over your finished sermon before preaching it. Go over every section, applying it to yourself.

If you are teaching a virtue, pray for that virtue in your own soul.
If you are preaching on a sin, confess your own sins in that area.
If you are teaching about the person of Christ, spend time praising Christ for this aspect of His character.
Pray for the right spirit and manner, for each section. (Try to feel the sermon in your own soul.)
Pray for courage in sections where the fear of man might intimidate you.
Pray to be spared from anger if you are condemning a certain sin in the congregation.
Pray for specific people you are aiming parts of the sermon at.
Pray that God will help you to foresee how some people might misunderstand what you will say.
Pray for help with timing.
Pray for help with complicated sections.
Pray for help to know what to leave out.
Pray for help to remember your message.
Pray that the Spirit of God will give you extra thoughts and words which you had not prepared.

Pray after preaching
It’s a good habit to go apart to pray as soon as you come home and before other duties distract you. Your prayer may be one of thanksgiving or of confession. It may be more for humility or encouragement for yourself. However, it should also be for those who heard it, that the seed sown would be protected and watered and bring forth fruit. Why is it that our prayers before preaching are usually longer and more common than prayer after preaching? Partly it may be natural tiredness after our exertions. But sometimes it may be simply because our own ego and reputation is no longer at stake!

Pray during preaching
We should cultivate the practice of not only praying before and after preaching, but during it. After every main point, or perhaps even after every sub-point, the preacher should briefly pause and silently pray for God to bless what has just been said and to guide in what is yet to be said. If you use notes then why not insert the word “PRAY” between each point in order to remind you. It will soon become an unconscious and unprompted habit. Prayer during preaching reminds us of our need, but also that we are not alone.

Electronic resources for sermon preparation

Oct 2, 2010 • By David Murray • 2 Comments

I started a lecture this week on “Electronic resources for sermon preparation.” That could be a never-ending lecture. However I tried to limit the resources to what would be most useful to first-year students and those just starting to preach. I have Logos and Bibleworks software on my Mac, and I use both for different purposes. However, if I was just starting to preach and I had to choose between the various Bible Software packages, I would go with Logos, especially now that Logos 4 Mac has been released.

UPDATE: Broken links repaired.

1. Bible Software

Logos 4
Watch the five videos at the top of the page
Manual for Logos 3:
Hundreds of free PBB books at Truth is still truth.
Use this blog to help you download PBB’s.

Bible Works
Brochure (pdf)

Accordance (for Mac)
Demo videos

Free Bible Software
Two hour training video
User created training videos

2. CD or Download Packages

Ages Software
How about all of Calvin’s commentaries for $20 or all of Spurgeon’s sermons for $20?

3. Online Resources

PERT: Puritan Electronic Research Tool
Enter chapter and verse to find books in PRTS library that have sermons on the text. You will find many of the older books on Google Books.

Swift Bible
Google Instant for the Bible

Bible Gateway
See verse in different Bible versions

Net Bible
Great for making progress in original language Bible reading

Sermon Audio
Prepare your sermon first before consulting this and the next two resources!
Use Bible Search to find sermons on book, chapter & verse,

Desiring God (John Piper) Scripture Index to Sermons

Grace to You (John Macarthur) Scripture Index to Sermons

Resources for New Testament Exegesis
This is provided by Dr Roy Ciampa of Gordon Conwell and also has useful links for OT Exegesis.

Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Huge number of online books and commentaries together with a Scripture Index search box that will search all the resources for references to that text.

How to critique a sermon

Sep 30, 2010 • By David Murray • 5 Comments

Yesterday on Reformation 21 Paul Levy offered some helpful comments on the need for preachers to accept criticism. But how should sermons be critiqued?

Puritan Reformed Seminary’s Practice Preaching class begins again next week. In this class a student preaches in front of his professors and fellow students, then receives a critique from his listeners. Here’s some of the advice I’ll be giving to students who may be new to this experience of critiquing a sermon. Some of it may be helpful to others like elders, co-pastors, and pastors’ wives who may be called upon at times to offer critiques of a sermon.

1. Pray for the student who will preach. Keep the rota in your Bible so that when you come to pray each day, you will be praying for the next preacher. If you have not prayed for the preacher, you forfeit the right to criticize.

2. Listen for your own soul. Do not listen primarily to find fault. Try to hear the sermon as God speaking to you.

3. Look at the big picture. Don’t get sidetracked by minor issues like pronunciation.

4. Don’t repeat what has already been said. Only say something if it is something new. The student does not need to hear the same thing ten times.

5. Say one thing. You do not need to tell him every fault. And remember the student has already received significant critiques from the professors.

6. Try to be constructive and positive, especially if you are going to offer a criticism. It is easier for someone to hear criticism if they know you have goodwill towards them. Can you say something good about the introduction or the conclusion? (Don’t say “the best bit was the end!”) Were important words explained and illustrated? Was the structure based on the text and memorable? Was there good energy and eye-contact? etc.

7. Try to be objective. Ask yourself if what you are saying is just personal opinion and reflects your own preaching preferences and prejudices.

8. Be brief.

9. Do not mock or belittle. Be humble in your criticism. Realize that in most cases the student has poured himself into the sermon and poured himself out in it also.

10. Consider private critique. One of the reasons we have practice preaching class is so that everyone can learn from one another. Though I’ve never preached in this class (thankfully!) I’ve learned so much about preaching in it by listening to the critiques of others. However, if your criticism is very personal and not likely to benefit the whole class, then consider if it might be better offered privately.

11. Have regard for the stage the student is at in their education. Do not expect a first-year student to preach like a fourth-year student. Be very gentle in criticizing those who have just begin to preach.

12. Vary your focus. Some students only mention hand gestures. Others highlight deficiencies in gesture or posture. Still others may have a laser eye for grammar. Try to look at different aspects of preaching each time, and don’t become a broken record (that shows my age).

13. Pray for the student afterward. Often students will be licking their wounds a bit for a few days after practice preaching. Make a special effort to encourage such students in these sensitive days.

Perhaps those who have been on the receiving end of “critiques” might want to supplement this list?

Six keys to excellence in preaching

Sep 23, 2010 • By David Murray • 0 Comments

We have over 20 students in our first-year preaching class at Puritan Reformed Seminary. They come from all over the world. And they all want to excel in preaching. They are keen and enthusiastic to learn.

One thing they do not want to hear is that it will probably take them about 10,000 hours of practice to achieve expertise in preaching (hopefully that includes preparation time!). While of course some people are blessed with more natural gifts than others, all the scientific research demonstrates that excellence in any area is not determined by our genes, but by systematic and disciplined practice – 10,000 hours of it to be precise.

Anders Ericsson, arguably the world’s leading researcher into high performance, has constantly insisted that it’s not inherited talent which determines how good we become at something, but rather how hard we’re willing to work. That’s very encouraging to theological students and pastors, especially to those who feel their lack of gifts. But it’s also rather daunting. Because although practice is the most important ingredient in achieving excellence, it is also what we least enjoy and always try to put off.

Tony Schwartz, author of The way we’re working isn’t working recently published on the Harvard Business Review the six keys to achieving excellence that he’s found most effective for his clients in all walks of life. But before I give you these keys, and apply them to preaching, let me just issue a few caveats.

First, it is essential that a man be called of God to preach. Second, the Holy Spirit can and does equip with gifts beyond those we have by nature or nurture. Third, absolutely essential pre-requisites for excellent preaching are a holy life, prayer, and faithfulness to God. Fourth, God is sovereign and at times He overrules all human rules/keys. These principles are all basic and foundational. And they are covered at length in standard works on preaching. So Schwarz’s six keys to achieving excellence assume the foundation and are in addition to it:

1. Pursue what you love. As Schwartz says, “Passion is an incredible motivator. It fuels focus, resilience, and perseverance.” If you don’t love preaching you will never be good at it. If you don’t love preaching, get out of the way and let someone else in who does.

2. Do the hardest work first. Preachers, like all people, are drawn towards pleasure and avoid pain. But to excel we must develop the ability to delay pleasure and take on the pain of the most difficult work first. In other words, sermon preparation is best done first thing in the morning when we have most energy and least distractions.

3. Practice intensely. Schwartz argues for practicing without interruption for short periods of no longer than 90 minutes and then taking a break. He says that ninety minutes seems to be the maximum amount of time that we can bring the highest level of focus on any activity. He also says that we should practice no more than 4 ½ hours a day. Although I’ve preached for 18 years without knowing this, when I look at my practice, it is pretty close to that pattern. Mornings for preparation, afternoons for pastoral visitation. Wish it had produced more excellence than I presently see.

4. Seek expert feedback in intermittent doses. I’ll just quote what Schwartz says here. “The simpler and more precise the feedback, the more equipped you are to make adjustments. Too much feedback, too continuously, however, can create cognitive overload, increase anxiety, and interfere with learning.” That’s certainly been proven in our practice preaching class at the Seminary. I’ve found focusing on one thing at a time for a few months really helps: introductions for a month or so, then conclusions, then illustrations, etc.

5. Take regular renewal breaks. This is something that students especially need to hear, but so do pastors. Research has shown that people learn better who sleep well and also play sports or enjoy hobbies outside of work. And no matter how much we love preaching, we need a few weeks a year with none to really rejuvenate our preaching.

6. Ritualize practice. Schwartz says that the best way to insure you’ll take on difficult tasks is to ritualize them. He says “build specific, inviolable times at which you do them, so that over time you do them without squandering energy thinking about them.” I found it useful to sit down at the beginning of each week and block out sermon preparation time. If I just waited until I felt like it or had all my admin done then I would never do it or wait too late.

Obviously, the Christian student and pastor has more than genes or scientific research and process to rely on. It is one of the great blessings of preaching that the Holy Spirit gives us what we do not have and even have not worked for – at times. But most of the time, God works through ordinary means. He communicates his extraordinary grace through the ordinary means of grace. And for preaching, that includes hard work!

Tell them one thing

Sep 14, 2010 • By David Murray • 0 Comments

Nick Morgan, President of Public Words Inc, says that most presentations fail because the presenter didn’t prepare well enough in two ways. And these two errors are so common and so important that he has written “Two Rules for Preparing a Successful Presentation.”

Rule 1: Know thy audience
Here Morgan lists a number of helpful questions to ask before even starting to type the first Powerpoint bullet. Preachers could profitably ask themselves a version of these questions too. Thankfully, as we don’t preach to inebriated audiences too much, we probably don’t need President Reagan’s after-dinner speech rule: 12 minutes, a few jokes, and sit down before the audience stands up!

Rule 2: Tell them one thing, and one thing only
Though in the business of public speaking, Nick Morgan admits that the oral genre is highly inefficient:

We audience members simply don’t remember much of what we hear. We’re easily sidetracked, confused, and tricked. We get distracted by everything from the color of the presenter’s tie to the person sitting in the next row to our own internal monologues.

So you’ve got to keep it simple. Many studies show that we only remember a small percentage of what we hear — somewhere between 10 – 30 percent.

Unfortunately, we can only hold 4 or 5 ideas in our heads at one time, so as soon as you give me a list of more than 5 items, I’m going to start forgetting as much as I hear.

Morgan’s solution?

Against this dismal human truth there is only one defense: focus your presentation on a single idea. Be ruthless. Write that one idea down in one declarative sentence and paste it up on your computer. Then eliminate everything, no matter how beautiful a slide it’s on, that doesn’t support that idea.

John Stott argues for something similar to this in Between Two Worlds. He says the preacher should isolate the dominant thought of a passage and organize his whole sermon to support that one thought. Jay Adams has the same idea in Preaching with a purpose.

This is perhaps one of the hardest rules for preachers to follow. When we start preparing sermons, and God’s Word starts opening up, we discover vast riches of wonderful truth. We look out on our congregations and see that Joe needs this truth, and Julie must hear that truth, and Ben must get this, and…etc. So we gather all these truths and throw them out at all these people. And we’re surprised that no one seems to hear anything! Hmmm. Wonder why?

But if you need more motivation to clarify and simplify, how about Morgan’s great closer:

Follow these two rules and you’ll find that audience will remember — and maybe even act on — your speeches. After all, the only reason to give a speech is to change the world.

Congregations gone wild

Aug 9, 2010 • By David Murray • 2 Comments

The New York Times seems to have a developed a remarkable new love for pastors. Two articles in one week have expressed compassionate concern for pastors’ health. Last week I commented on the article that encouraged pastors to take sufficient rests and vacations. Then, on Saturday’s Op-ed page a pastor, Jeffrey Macdonald, made the case that there is an even more fundamental problem at the root of increasing pastoral burnout and ill-health, “a problem that no amount of vacations can solve: congregational pressure to forsake one’s highest calling.”

Although the article was rather excessively headlined, Congregations gone wild, Macdonald makes a convincing case that the 50-year trend towards consumer-driven religion has re-written pastoral job descriptions with a knock-on effect on pastoral health:

The pastoral vocation is to help people grow spiritually, resist their lowest impulses and adopt higher, more compassionate ways. But churchgoers increasingly want pastors to soothe and entertain them… As a result, pastors are constantly forced to choose, as they work through congregants’ daily wish lists in their e-mail and voice mail, between paths of personal integrity and those that portend greater job security. As religion becomes a consumer experience, the clergy become more unhappy and unhealthy.

Macdonald says that pastors who continue to faithfully preach the whole counsel of God are coming under huge pressure to compromise, and he’s speaking from personal experience:

In the early 2000s, the advisory committee of my small congregation in Massachusetts told me to keep my sermons to 10 minutes, tell funny stories and leave people feeling great about themselves. The unspoken message in such instructions is clear: give us the comforting, amusing fare we want or we’ll get our spiritual leadership from someone else.

Instead of pressurizing pastors to tone down their messages with a constant diet of amusing and comforting sermons, Macdonald urges churchgoers to ask their pastors to challenge them to higher and holier standards in their faith, worship, and daily lives.

When such an ethic takes root, as it has in generations past, then pastors will cease to feel like the spiritual equivalents of concierges. They’ll again know joy in ministering among people who share their sense of purpose. They might even be on fire again for their calling, rather than on a path to premature burnout.

I think Macdonald’s article tells the truth but not the whole truth. Congregations bear some responsibility for this sad situation. However, I don’t think we pastors are entirely blameless. We have feared people more than the Lord and wanted people’s smiles more than the Lord’s. We have re-written the old proverb to: “The smiles of people bring blessing, and he who trusts in his salary shall be safe” (not Prov. 29:25).

As we prepare our sermons this week, let’s ask ourselves, “Why did I choose this verse? Why did I insert that joke? Why did I remove that challenge? Why did I delete that application?”

If consumer-driven religion is your Master, don’t be surprised if you end up being consumed.

Learning to preach from writers

Aug 6, 2010 • By David Murray • 1 Comment

I enjoyed 9 Expert Tips for Better Writing and thought that some of them could be profitably translated for preachers.

1. Preach to make a point not to reach a time limit.

Vigorous writing (preaching?) is concise. ~William Strunk Jr.

2. Help another edit their preaching.

I try to leave out the parts that people skip. ~Elmore Leonard

3. Write something every day that you do not intend to share

This is a bit strong. However I think it is worthwhile, especially for students at Seminary, to regularly set apart some time to prepare sermon themes and outlines, even when they may have no opportunities to preach them.

4. Outline before drafting your sermon

If any man wish to write (preach?) in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

5. Don’t get caught up in re-stating the obvious

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. ~Anaïs Nin

I want to be a bit careful about this, because one task of the Gospel preacher is to keep re-stating the same truth (2 Peter 1:12). However, we don’t need to re-state the same truth the same way every time.

6. Befriend a dictionary

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug
. ~Mark Twain

Again, care required here so that we do not start using words that no one else understands. But, we can refresh our vocabulary with simple words also.

7. Keep a little notebook for moments of inspiration

Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable. ~Francis Bacon

8. Not having a pen in hand does not mean that you are not writing

The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes. ~Agatha Christie

Or as the writer of this article put it: “There’s no such thing as writer’s block. But there are times when washing dishes is a better use of time than staring at an empty screen!”

9. Be kind to yourself

Every writer (preacher) I know has trouble writing (preaching!). ~Joseph Heller

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).

Curator or creator?

May 24, 2010 • By David Murray • 6 Comments

Bloggers are usually either curators or creators. Curators act like hi-tech museum custodians, scanning the worldwide web for quality content to gather, organize, and link to. One of the best Christian curators is Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds. Curators like Justin save many of us lots of time as they search, filter, and organize the best Christian content on the Internet. Brief though helpful comments often accompany the links and steer discussion. In a world of information overload, this is an invaluable service.

Creators, on the other hand, create. They write articles, comment on trends, and pen reflections and meditations. Most of their posts originate in their own minds and hearts. There is often a freshness and originality about their work. A good example of this is Kevin DeYoung at DeYoung Restless and Reformed.

Of course, there are many bloggers who are both creators and curators. The classic example is Tim Challies who writes tons of original content, but also posts his daily “A la Carte.” Trevin Wax does similarly at Kingdom People. But most bloggers tend to fall into one of these two categories.

I think this distinction also applies to preachers. Creators are preachers who pour over the Scriptures, and think deeply upon them, prayerfully meditating and reflecting upon God’s Word. When they begin sermon preparation, they begin with their Bibles, not commentaries. And they don’t open another book (or Logos!) until they feel they have really exhausted their own minds and hearts.

Curators, in contrast, are preachers who do very little of their own thinking and meditating on the Scriptures. They mainly read commentaries and theologies, and listen to others’ sermons. They then cut and paste it all together. Their sermons are usually sound and well organized, but often somewhat stale and predictable.

I’m afraid that there are many more curated than created sermons today. We have so many accessible resources that can save us so much time and effort. If I punch my verse into my Bible software, it opens 15 commentaries at the right page, links me to other sermons on the text, suggests quotations and illustrations, and even produces sermon outlines. That is very, very tempting! Why struggle with the text? Why pray for light? Why beg for the Holy Spirit?

Why? Because, eventually, God’s people can tell the difference between a “curated” sermon and a “created” sermon.

Of course, we have to be careful not to overdraw this distinction. To avoid heresy and dangerous innovation, the creator should check all his conclusions with other commentators. And, of course, the creator is not averse to using commentators. However, he does not simply parrot the commentator. He distills the commentaries through his own mind, “makes the material his own,” and tries to express it in his own words. Also, when not preparing sermons, the creator should be reading good Christian books to keep his heart safe, his mind stimulated, and his thinking fresh.

But, despite these qualifications, the general distinction still holds and produces a challenge. The next time you prepare a sermon, see how far you can get with just a Bible, prayer and the Holy Spirit. Keep resisting the temptation to open Logos, Accordance, Hendriksen or Henry. Keep searching the Scriptures, asking for light, meditating deeply, and writing out your thoughts on the text. And only when you are truly “dry,” open other resources to check, clarify, and contribute to your sermon. And see if your hearers detect a new life and freshness in your sermons.

How can I compete with Internet sermons?

May 17, 2010 • By David Murray • 10 Comments

How can “ordinary” pastors compete with the vast range of well-known and greatly gifted preachers who are just one mouse-click away from everyone in their congregation? I know this is a sore point for many discouraged pastors. They visit their flock and all they hear are comments about the latest Internet sermon by Pastor Faimus and Dr Bigname. The only sermons that people seem to get excited about are ones preached hundreds of miles away!

However, I want to remind pastors of a huge advantage they have over the “popular” preachers of our own day. That advantage is, simply, personal relationship.

I was reminded of this recently when I was asked which preachers I would choose to sit under for a year of teaching. As I reflected on this question, I realized that the men I would chose are the men I know best, both in Scotland and in Grand Rapids. They include Angus Smith, Allan Murray, Foppe VanderZwaag, Joel Beeke, Maarten Kuivenhoven, William Macleod, and Kenny Macdonald. Apart from one of them, you’ve probably never heard their names, have you?

Of course, I deeply appreciate and frequently benefit from the sermons of the well-known preachers of our day. But I don’t know them and they don’t know me. I don’t know their lives and characters, and they have no involvement in my life. We have no relationship. That significantly limits the long-term spiritual impact of their sermons.

But when I have a relationship with a preacher; when I know him and he knows me; when we have wept together and rejoiced together; when I know he loves me and prays for me, then there is an added dimension to his words. They may not be as impressive words, or as well-organized words, or as well-said words. But they are empathetic words, and so they are powerful words.

A recent study of the “placebo effect” by Harvard Medical School’s Ted Kaptchuk has demonstrated the power of empathetic doctor-patient relationships in medicine. 62% of patients receiving an intentionally fake treatment from friendly, empathetic doctors reported relief from their irritable bowel syndrome, compared with 44% of a group that got the same fake treatment from impersonal, businesslike doctors. “It’s amazing,” said Kaptchuk, “Connecting with the patient, rapport, empathy . . . that few extra minutes is not just icing on the cake. It has biology.”

Researchers say it’s unclear whether the health care system can harness the biological power of physician empathy. But preachers can harness the spiritual power of pastoral empathy. Maybe, instead of spending a further ten hours on perfecting your blockbuster sermon, you should spend ten hours visiting your flock. That could give your sermons new power in your hearer’s lives. And remember, though we are blessed to live in a time with wonderful conferences and 24/7 Internet sermons, God primarily saves and sanctifies sinners through long-term pastoral relationships in the local church.

And let’s encourage our pastors. Let’s tell them that we deeply appreciate their transparent integrity, their sincere empathy, and their sacrificial investment in our lives. Let’s value and cultivate our relationships with them. And let’s tell them how much we’ve enjoyed their sermons rather than everyone else’s!

Screenwriting and preaching

May 14, 2010 • By David Murray • 0 Comments

“Screenwriting is one of the world’s most notoriously elite and inaccessible industries.” But, as Cal Newport notes in How to become a star screenwriter, that doesn’t stop thousands of wannabes making their way to Los Angeles every year. Most of them are following the standard career advice of:

1. Learn the basic techniques (by reading, conferences, etc.)
2. Persevere: get your head down and keep writing and re-writing your blockbuster.

As thousands of wannabes do this every year, and most remain wannabes, Newport adds this further advice:

3. “Immerse yourself in the world of screenwriting, getting as close as possible to scripts people like, and the people who like them. Furthermore, continually extract lessons from your exposure to apply to your own writing.”

Read Newport’s exposition of this advice below and apply it to preaching:

People don’t like this advice because it discounts their dream of writing the next Lethal Weapon during their lunch break. It requires, instead, a complete change of lifestyle and a risky dedication to mastering a tricky craft.

In short, screenwriting requires an apprenticeship, and this is why most working writers have stories that start, like Thomas, with an entry-level industry job — not the writing shelf at Barnes & Noble.

I had lunch earlier today with some executives from Ford. (I’m penning these words from the Detroit airport, after giving a talk at Ford’s Center for Innovation and Research.) Listening to their insider take on the automotive industry, a curious fact caught my attention: It can take 15 years to master the skills necessary to work the equipment in the tool and die industry.

I think this little piece of trivia provides an elegant way of thinking about becoming excellent in competitive industries, such as screenwriting: It’s not just hard work combined with some easily learned tips — “show, don’t tell!;” “use a three act structure!” — it’s a craft. And learning crafts takes not only time, but exposure to master craftsman.

The more I encounter examples of people building remarkable lives by becoming excellent, the more I discover that this model of craftsmanship is alive and well in our modern age. This offers interesting food for thought. When contemplating your own field, ask yourself: are you the wannabe screenwriter reading how-to guides on the subway, or are you, like Thomas, throwing yourself among the masters, and proclaiming: I know nothing, but you do, and I’m not going anywhere until I do too?

Evangelistic Preaching (full text)

May 1, 2010 • By David Murray • 3 Comments

Here is the full text of the series of blog posts I ran this week on evangelistic preaching. May God use it to stir up a revival of Christ-centered gospel preaching to the unsaved.

Evangelistic Preaching.pdf
Download this file

8 marks of an evangelistic sermon

Apr 30, 2010 • By David Murray • 3 Comments

In this last of five posts on evangelistic preaching, I want to describe in a bit more detail what it sounds like.

Present
Evangelistic preaching majors in the present tense. Yes, it deals with biblical data, which is usually in the past tense. But it moves rapidly from the past to the present. These are not sermons that are taken up with large amounts of history, geography and chronology. They may begin there, but move swiftly to the here and the now. They are not 1st century sermons; neither are they 16th century sermons; they are 21st century sermons. They are in the present tense.

Hearers realize this sermon is about here, about now. This is something that is connected to the present, that is relevant, that they must listen to, that has impact on them, here and now, in this day and in this age. Martin Lloyd-Jones used to speak of such sermons being in the “urgent tense,” and that really is what should be communicated. We must show that the ancient Word connects with today’s world, and is relevant both to the present and the future.

Personal
These sermons should also be personal. Yes, again, we begin with explaining the Word as originally given to the Israelites, the disciples, etc. It starts with “they” and “them.” However, in evangelistic preaching, we move rapidly to “you.”

I’m sure we’ve all sat in congregations, heard sermons about the Philistines, the Israelites, the Corinthians and the Philippians, and wondered, “But what about me? Does this have anything to say to Americans, or Scots?” When teaching God’s people we may be able to spend longer explaining the teaching as it applied to the original hearers. But when we are going after lost souls, we have to move more swiftly, we have to engage more rapidly, we have to show relevance much earlier on.

And I would appeal to you, especially in evangelistic preaching, and especially when you are addressing the unconverted in front of you, that you really work hard at moving away from reading notes. When we are speaking to people – appealing, beseeching, arguing and reasoning in a very personal way – let it be eyeball to eyeball, “we beseech you.” Don’t let paper get in the way, distracting, and breaking the eye contact. Let’s really make it personal so that people really grasp “he is speaking to me.”

We can also make it personal by getting inside the minds of our hearers and saying things like this: “Well, you’re sitting there are you are thinking this…aren’t you? But this is what God’s word says. Or, you’re here today and you’re hearing this and you are feeling so and so.” And the person sitting there says, “He is thinking about me. He knows how I think, he knows how I tick; he is concerned to address what is going on in my mind.” Again, it just makes it a very personal intimate transaction. So we aim to be personal.

Persuasion
In evangelistic preaching we are trying to be persuasive. That’s our great aim. So, as we’ve already said, much of our sermons will be taken up, as Paul is in 2 Corinthians 5, with beseeching, pleading, arguing, reasoning. It’s not just, “Here’s some facts; take them or leave them,” as if we are just dispassionate conveyors of information. We are here to persuade. People must see our anxiety that they respond to the Gospel in faith and repentance.

Passionate
To be really persuasive, we must also be passionate. Let people see that we feel this deeply, that we fear for their eternal state, that we are anxious over them, and that we love them deeply. Let that be communicated in our words, but also in our facial expressions, our body language, and our tone.

I’m not arguing for acting here. This should come naturally from us. Sometimes, before preaching an evangelistic sermon, I spend some time trying to think of lost unbelieving souls in my congregation, and even of particular individuals. I may try to see their faces (often lovely characters, by nature – helpful, kind, loving people – but lost). I try to see them dying, going to judgment, and then their faces as they hear the verdict. Then I envision them sinking into the bottomless pit, being burned in eternal fire, going to the company of the devil and his angels. I try to see them there, try to hear them there. Sometimes I might even think of one of my own unsaved family members, just to try and bring home the reality and the enormity of the unsaved’s predicament. I think if we can really feel it ourselves, we will be passionate in our pleading, in our loving, and in our reasoning.

Plain
Evangelistic preaching will be plain. If we love sinners and we are anxious for them to be saved, we will be clear and plain in our structure, content, and choice of words. If we can use a smaller word, we use it. If we can shorten our sentences, we do so. If we can find an illustration, we tell it. Everything is aimed at simplicity and clarity, so that, as it was said of Martin Luther, it may be said of us, “It’s impossible to misunderstand him.”

And this is exhausting work. People may think at times that doctrinal sermons are harder to prepare and preach than evangelistic sermons. Not if you are really going to edit and trim and modify until your message communicates the profoundest truth in the simplest way possible. That involves real labor, sweat, toil and tears. In Preaching and Preachers Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote:

If I am asked which sermons I wrote, I have already said that I used to divide my ministry, as I still do, into edification of the saints in the morning and a more evangelistic sermon in the evening. Well, my practice was to write my evangelistic sermon. I did so because I felt that in speaking to the saints, to the believers, one could feel more relaxed. There, one was speaking in the realm of the family. In other words, I believe that one should be unusually careful in evangelistic sermons. That is why the idea that a fellow who is merely gifted with a certain amount of glibness of speech and self-confidence, not to say cheek, can make an evangelist is all wrong. The greatest men should always be the evangelists, and generally have been; and the idea that Tom, Dick and Harry can be put up to speak on a street corner, but you must have a great preacher in a pulpit in a church is, to me, the reversing of the right order. It is when addressing the unbelieving world that we need to be most careful; and therefore I used to write my evangelistic sermon and not the other (pp. 215-16).

Powerful
When we go into the pulpit with an evangelistic sermon, let’s not go in defensively, and apologetically. Yes, it may be an “apologetic” sermon, but we are not apologizing for the truth. When we go in front of sinners with the gospel, let’s not come across as if we have something to hide or be afraid of. Let’s not hedge and qualify. Let’s not “discuss” or “share.” Let’s preach with powerful, bold, divine authority. People need to hear, “Thus says the Lord.” This isn’t an option, this isn’t just another idea. This is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Perseverance
And let our evangelistic sermons also be characterized by perseverance. We preach. No one’s converted. We do it again. We preach. No one’s converted. We do it again, and again, and again.

How often should you preach an evangelistic sermon? As I mentioned before, I was expected to preach an evangelistic sermon every Sunday evening. My friend Danny Hyde commented that he does it on Sunday mornings. Maybe once a week is too much to introduce all at once. But why not once a month? And tell your congregation that on such a morning/evening this is going to be a sermon for the unconverted, so that Christians will think, “I can take my friends to this. This is something I know my boss could listen to with some understanding.” So make it regular, and make it known that this is what you are going to be doing.

Prayerful
Above all, of course, evangelistic preaching is to be prayerful – before, during, and after. Pray to be delivered from the fear of man, pray that God would give you passion for souls. Pray that you would be able to communicate naturally and easily and freely. Pray that you’d get a hearing for the gospel and you’d be able to present Christ so that you “disappear.” And pray afterward that the seed sown would bring forth a harvest of saved souls, and that the church will be revived and built up.

“And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever (Dan. 12:3).

Four kinds of evangelistic sermon

Apr 29, 2010 • By David Murray • 1 Comment

Every sermon text can be preached with an evangelistic application. But this isn’t what we are calling evangelistic preaching. Remember our previous definition: Evangelistic preaching is preaching that expounds God’s Word (it is expository) with the primary aim of the conversion of lost souls (rather than the instruction of God’s people). So, though every text can be preached with an evangelistic application, there are certain texts and topics that are especially suitable for such evangelistic preaching. Let me propose four categories of evangelistic sermon:

“Warm-up” sermons
These are sermons we preach to clear and prepare the ground for the gospel. They address some of the common objections to Christianity; the caricatures of and prejudices against Christianity. Such “apologetic” sermons will set out to prove the truth and relevance of Christianity and demonstrate its doctrinal and practical superiority.

Examples: (i) proofs of the resurrection, (ii) evidence for creation v evolution, (iii) one way or many ways to God, (iv) do only good people go to heaven? (v) Bible’s analysis of current economic, social, moral problems, etc.

These sermons are aiming at conversion, especially the early stages of conversion. They are clearing away all the rubbish that has accumulated in a sinner’s mind, to gain a hearing for the gospel. They deal with issues that will open the pathway for Christ and His grace. That’s why I call them “warm-up” sermons. We are taking sinners who are cold, prejudiced, and opposed to Christianity, and using God’s Word to break up the soil, warm the heart, and provide an opening for the core message of Christ and His grace.

Warning Sermons
Some warning sermons are characterized by a focus on the more threatening aspects of God’s character, especially His attributes of holiness, justice, sovereignty, and power. Other warning sermons may focus on human sinfulness, inability, frailty, and mortality. We may expound and apply the law, showing what God defines as sin and wickedness. We might deal with the speed of time, the uncertainty of life, the imminence of death, the certainty of judgment, the length of eternity, the reality of hell, etc. These are all warning sermons. They are designed to alarm the complacent, the comfortable, and the thoughtless; to make them anxious, and fearful, and even terrified.

Examples: (i) Remember Lot’s wife – and Saul, and Judas, (ii) God’s law, (iii) the end-of-time parables, (iv) Revelation’s great white throne, bottomless pit, etc., (v) Ecclesiastes’ view of the best this world can offer, etc., (vi) The Psalmist’s view of our frailty and mortality, etc.

The great aim of these sermons is to convict, to bring our hearers to an awareness of their perilous state before God, and their need of repentance.

Wooing Sermons
Having prepared the way for the Gospel with “warm-up” sermons, and having shown the need for the Gospel with warning sermons, we then come with a wooing word. We explain the wonders of the Father’s willingness to send his Son to sinners, and to save them by His sufferings, death, and resurrection. We also focus on the Lord Jesus; His willingness to come, suffer and die for sinners; His tender, wise and winning ways with sinners. We explain the powerful work of the Holy Spirit in regenerating and renewing the hardest of hearts. We explain that God saves by grace through faith, not by merit through works. We are trying to address people who are trembling, who are fearful, who are scared, and are seeking to draw them in to the love and the mercy and the grace of God. No pastor can pluck the chord of grace enough.

Examples: (i) The prodigal son, (ii) Christ’s tender dealings with sinners during his ministry, (iii) the sufferings of Christ on the cross, (iv) the atonement, (v) the Gospel invitations and commands, (vi) the sufficiency and suitability of Christ, etc.

If the aim of the warm-up sermon is to demonstrate relevance, and if the aim of the warming sermon is to bring people to repentance, the aim of the wooing sermon is to bring people to rest in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Will Sermons
Every sermon is ultimately addressed to the will. Yes, we address the head; and through the head, we address the heart. But we don’t just want to give people facts and feelings. We want changed lives, changed behavior. That’s surely the aim of our preaching. Ultimately, then, every sermon is addressed to the will. But evangelistic sermons, and especially this fourth kind of evangelistic sermon, are addressed especially and repeatedly to the will.

These are sermons that bring people to the signpost at the junction, with two choices. These are sermons that bring people to the ballot box, where they must cast their vote. They bring people to that point where they are faced with the two great and ultimate options: faith or unbelief, life or death, heaven or hell. These are sermons that are full of persuasion, pleading, and arguing and beseeching.

Examples: (i) Paul and Agrippa, (ii) Jesus and the woman of Samaria, (iii) Parable of the wedding invitation, (iv) Paul on Mars Hill, (v) Peter at Pentecost, (vi) Choose you this day whom you will serve, (vii) Narrow/broad way (viii) Revelation 22:17, (ix) Elijah on Mt Carmel, etc. (x) “Stretch out your hand” (Matt. 12:13), (xi) “Lazarus, come forth” (John 11:43).

But, is man not totally depraved? Are we not “dead in trespasses and sins?” Are we not spiritually “disabled?” Is the will not in bondage? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. There is no question the Bible teaches this. However, as the examples above show, the Bible also describes the depraved, dead, disabled and enslaved will being addressed. It may seem illogical to us, but God has chosen to free the will, enable the “disabled,” and give life to the “dead” by the persuasive preaching of the Gospel.

These sermons have content for head and heart, but are especially focused on pressurizing, yes pressurizing, the will. The truth is pressed home so closely that every hearer is “forced” to make a choice. The Puritans used to speak of the Gospel vice that squeezes hearers so tightly that they cannot but say “yes” or “no.”

Conclusion
I hope you can see that this isn’t the kind of preaching that is going to sound repetitive. There is a great range and variety of evangelistic sermons. There is no need for us to sound the same every time we do this. The Word of God has provided us with so many models and so much material that we can preach evangelistically and freshly each time.

Tomorrow we will finish this series by looking at the results of evangelistic preaching – what it looks and sounds like in reality.

Why preach evangelistic sermons?

Apr 28, 2010 • By David Murray • 3 Comments

Yesterday we looked at the rarity of evangelistic preaching (see here for definition). Today I want to explain the reasons why we should engage in evangelistic preaching.

The most obvious reason is biblical warrant. The Old Testament prophets were passionate pleaders for the souls of their fellow men and women. Deuteronomy reads like an Old Testament evangelistic tract, as Moses expostulates with Israel and beseeches them to embrace the God of Genesis to Numbers. Study the weeping reasonings of Jeremiah and the powerful pictorial pleas of Hosea. Even apocalyptic and enigmatic Ezekiel contains the most beautiful calls to Israel to turn from their evil ways and live. In encounter after encounter, in public and in private, Jesus exhorted souls to seek salvation. The Acts of the Apostles show us Peter and Paul pleading with individuals, groups, congregations, and public gatherings. “Teacher” Paul cannot resist tearful expressions of angst and desire in Romans 9-11, that most doctrinal of letters.

Then we could turn from the Bible to church history and consider the regular evangelistic sermons of Bunyan, Whitefield, Edwards, Spurgeon, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, etc. But I’d especially like to argue for evangelistic preaching by considering the effect of its absence

Preaching becomes lecturely and academic
When sermons are almost exclusively aimed at teaching Christians, and rarely aimed at the unconverted, preaching begins to sound more like cold, objective, academic lecturing.

But, when a preacher has caught a glimpse of hell, when he really grasps the terrible spiritual predicament of the lost in his congregation, and when he is gripped by the urgency of the Gospel in the looming shadow of judgment and eternity, his preaching is transformed into present tense, personal, passionate preaching of the truth. The lecture hall is left behind as we enter the presence of God. The lectern becomes a pulpit. The “professor” becomes a preacher.

Christians become forgetful, proud, inward-looking, and prayerless
It’s not just the unconverted that are damaged by the lack of evangelistic preaching; Christians are too. As Dave Thomas commented yesterday, Christians also need to hear evangelistic preaching. Why? Well, in the absence of it, Christians forget. We forget the pit we were dug out of, we forget the debt we were in, and we forget the remarkable work of God in our life. In the absence of evangelistic preaching, the memory of saving grace fades, weakens, and disappears. In its place comes proud self-confidence and self-focus, which quickly drains prayerful concern for the souls of others. As the Gospel no longer grips our own soul, we have little motivation or desire to tell others.

But, if the Gospel is regularly preached to Christians, then they are re-humbled, re-convicted, and re-minded of what they have been saved from. They re-repent, re-believe, and re-kindle their first love. The contagious Gospel passion in the preacher infects the hearers, and the hearers become enthusiastic carriers, as they go out into the world with a renewed and prayerful vision and mission for the lost and the perishing all around them.

Christians do not bring friends to church
One of the reasons why Christians seem to have stopped bringing friends to church is that most preaching is directed largely towards already well-taught Christians. Many Christians feel that if they take a friend to church, the message will go “way over their heads.” Many of us have taken someone to church, and to our disappointment and embarrassment, there was little or nothing that our guest could understand or relate to.

But, if Christians know that, say, every Sunday morning, or every second Sunday night, their pastor will preach “simple” evangelistic sermons suited to the special needs of the unsaved, or even the unchurched, then they will be much more motivated to invite their friends, family, neighbors etc.

Children growing up in the church assume they are saved
The absence of regular evangelistic preaching often means that children grow up in churches hearing teaching and doctrine addressed to Christians. Without being continually reminded that they must be born again, they presume they are “just like the other Christians” and so never seek regeneration or saving faith.

But, if they often hear of their vile natural condition, their perilous spiritual state, their need for personal regeneration and conversion, the insufficiency of their own worth, words and works, then they will much more earnestly seek the Savior. In the church of my childhood, I was reminded every Sunday night, in no uncertain terms, that I was not a Christian and that I needed to seek the Savior. It was not comfortable or pleasant. It ruined many a Sunday night sleep. But I knew without a shadow of a doubt that if I went to judgment in the same condition I was born in, I was going to hell…forever. I also knew, although I wished I didn’t, that Christ was calling me to turn, turn, why will you die!

Lost souls go to hell
I’m not saying that lost souls can’t be converted through teaching sermons. Of course they can, and of course they are. But evangelistic preaching is especially blessed to the conversion of souls. If you were to take a survey of the whole world, I’m sure that the vast majority of true Christians will say that it was an evangelistic sermon, a sermon specially directed to appeal to lost, perishing sinners that God used to turn them from their idols to Himself.

Who knows what a revival of preaching, evangelism, mission and worship might result from a widespread return to evangelistic preaching in the reformed church!

Tomorrow, I will survey the range of evangelistic sermons.

What’s happened to evangelistic preaching?

Apr 27, 2010 • By David Murray • 7 Comments

Yesterday I defined evangelistic preaching as preaching that expounds God’s Word (it is expository) with the primary aim of the conversion of lost souls (rather than the instruction of God’s people). I also said that while I welcomed the upsurge in “consecutive expository preaching,” I was concerned at the increasing rarity of “converting evangelistic preaching.” It used to be much more common. Even the great expository preacher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, made sure that at least one sermon every Sunday was directed primarily to the unsaved in his congregation. In the Scottish Highlands, it was traditional to preach a teaching sermon, mainly addressed to Christians, on Sunday morning, while Sunday evening was given to evangelistic preaching addressed to the unsaved (when more attended). But most reformed churches have no such distinction today. Both morning and evening sermons tend to be primarily teaching sermons for God’s people. Why is this so? That’s the question I want to address today.

The Preacher
We start by pointing a finger at ourselves. Many of us have to admit that we much prefer to be teachers than pleaders. It’s easier to engage in explanation than application. It’s more socially acceptable, it’s more dignified and respectable to be engaged in calm reasoning and deduction, rather than in anxious weeping and beseeching. I think we’d all have to admit that it is easier emotionally and socially to be teachers than evangelists. And that prejudice, that bias, influences our choice of text and the way we preach our texts.

In addition to our prejudice, there’s also our pragmatism. Let’s get people in first. Get them used to our church. Then we will become more “evangelistic.” After all we don’t want to put them off by telling them they are sinners who need a Savior; or that they must abandon their own works and trust in Christ’s grace alone; or that without faith in Christ they will be punished forever in hell, etc. Surely it’s much wiser to begin more slowly, more carefully, more diplomatically; and then once they are in a while, we can begin to be a bit more confrontational and demanding. But then more new faces appear, and so the pragmatic cycle begins again.

Presumption also lurks in the background of many preachers’ minds. As Carine commented yesterday, some pastors dangerously presume that their hearers are already saved. Assuming that all is well with their souls, they teach, instruct, and give guidance on how to live the Christian life. They may preach on the Christian view of culture, sport, business, politics, family, etc., but rarely preach for conversion.

The Congregation
When we preach evangelistic sermons, the mature Christians in our congregations, those we often lean on for our encouragement and strength, might feel (or even say), “Well there wasn’t much for me in that sermon…that’s more like milk for babies than meat for the mature.” They are maybe less than enthusiastic about simple preaching of the Gospel to lost sinners. They may not respond so appreciatively as they do to our epic sermons on Romans. That lack of response can impact what we preach and how we preach.

Also, we might not have many unconverted people in front of us. My first congregation had only 20-30 people. Sometimes there were maybe only 3-5 unconverted hearers in an evening service. It’s a lot harder to preach an evangelistic sermon in these circumstances, because everyone knows to whom you are directing your warning, wooing, and pleading words. Teaching messages are so much more comfortable than convicting messages – both to preach and to hear. That’s especially true if our few unconverted hearers are very “moral” or “churchy” people.

There may also be in our congregation those who might view evangelistic preaching with a suspicious eye, especially if they come from a hyper-Calvinistic stream of Christian upbringing. Maybe others have come out of Arminian easy-believism, hyper-emotionalism, and decisionism, and react against any kind of emotional appeal to the unsaved. We don’t want to offend these people, we want to keep them on our side, and so again perhaps we hold back from regular, full-throated evangelistic preaching.

The World
We are not pluralistic. We believe, surely, in the exclusive claims of Christ. That’s what we swear to, sign up to, and state at our ordinations. But, we live in such a pluralistic, many-ways-to-God world, that it’s extremely difficult not to be influenced by that, even subconsciously. Maybe, in the back of many pastors’ minds, the sharp edge of Gospel exclusivity has been blunted by worldly influence. They may not deny that Christ is the only way to heaven, and they may not preach many-ways-to-God. But they do not keep the believer/unbeliever distinction or the heaven/hell contrast constantly and vividly before their minds. And of course that’s going to affect their preaching – both its content and tone. The real test of incipient pluralism is, “How do we really view the unconverted?” Is our first thought when we see them, “These precious souls are hell-bound, without Christ, lost, under the wrath of God, however religious they may be?” I’m deeply afraid that a kind of incipient, subtle, often unnoticed pluralism has blunted the sharp edge of evangelistic preaching.

The Devil
Then, of course, there is our great enemy, the devil. If there’s any kind of preaching that has been more successful in stealing captives from him and claiming them for the Lord, it is passionate evangelistic preaching. No weapon in the Gospel armory has been so effective in rescuing souls. Of course, he is going to fight it, and he is going to supply every excuse not to preach in an evangelistic way.

Tomorrow I will look at a number of reasons for engaging in evangelistic preaching.

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Informing Minds. Moving Hearts. Directing Hands.