Pastoral Picks
Five ways shepherding helps a pastor grow
This is a summary from Darrin Patrick’s new book The Church Planter (via Burk Parsons).
Lots to challenge Seminaries and Churches in Collin Hansen’s interview of David Helm. Mercy Ministries
What do you do when individuals appear at your church with begging bowls? Nick Batzig has put together a helpful checklist of advice for churches and Christians in these situations. Stretches to relax brain and body
Pastors spend a lot of time sitting at desks in horrible body-twisting postures. Sometimes I go home thinking I was laying bricks all day rather then mining the Word. Here are some stretches to ease the aches and pains (hope this isn’t yoga!).
Christ in Creation
I was privileged to serve the Keach Conference (formerly known as the Evangelical Forum) with Dr Tom Ascol last Friday and Saturday. I so enjoyed meeting with Pastor Jeff Riddle and the other warm-hearted believers there in Charlottesville, VA. The subject was “Creation” and Tom and I had two addresses each. I’d urge you to look out for Tom’s two addresses when they appear on Sermon Audio this week. I was especially blessed by his second address on “Man in the State of Innocency.” Here’s a pdf of my first address “Christ in Creation.” (Download here).
I don’t know what’s happening…
“I don’t know what’s happening. Over the last three hours we’ve got so many orders coming in from all over the United States.” That’s the email I received about the God’s Technology DVD when I checked my email in Richmond Airport on route to the Keach Conference last Friday.
What was happening? My first port of call, of course, was Google. I entered a search for “God’s Technology” and limited my search to the last 24 hours. And, once again, Google delivered the goods. The DVD had been favorably reviewed by Chuck Colson and his Breakpoint co-host Mark Earley on the Internet and on the radio. What amazed me most about this was that it was such an answer to prayer. Let me give you some background. As many have found out, it’s easy to write and even publish a book today; and it’s even relatively easy to produce a DVD. But it’s far from easy to promote, market and distribute Christian books or DVDs. Even the words “promote” and “market” sound so unchristian in a way. We see so many unethical and even immoral forms of promotion and marketing in the world that it’s hard to imagine there can be such a thing as “Christian” promotion or marketing. Can we not just leave that to the Holy Spirit? God is sovereign after all, and if He wants people to read your book/watch your DVD, can He not arrange for that Himself? And then there is the whole question of self-promotion. When does our desire to get our book or DVD into people’s hands, hearts and minds become self-promotion? Or is the devil using our fear of being thought of as self-promoting to stop the spread of literature and films that will damage his kingdom and weaken his power? And of course, no one wants to fall foul of the Christian blogger who seems to specialize in cynical finger-pointing at everyone else’s efforts to publicize their work and ministries…while he builds a public reputation and marketing image as the cynical finger-pointer who sees through everyone else! Then there is the difficulty of breaking into an already crowded market when you have limited “name-recognition.” It sometimes appears that once you have a “name,” you can really get off with publishing just about anything, regardless of the quality. And conversely, if you do not have a “name” it really doesn’t matter how good your material is, it’s extremely difficult to interest a publisher. There’s also the problem of distribution. How do get your book or DVD in front of people to interest them in buying it? Well there’s the Internet of course. But how do people find little you and your little book/DVD among the billions of webpages? At Head Heart Hand, we’ve invested a lot of time and effort in making God’s Technology available for digital download. It’s almost impossible for independent film producers to get on to iTunes. So we combined the services of three different Internet companies, Clover Websites, Shopify, and Fetchapp to sell digital downloads of God’s Technology at half the price of the physical DVD. But although people have enjoyed this service, we still have to get people to the site! The most likely customer for God’s Technology are parents, teachers and pastors, and they are still a bit wary of downloading large digital files. They much prefer to have a physical DVD packet they can see and handle. But how do we get the DVD “out there.” Many Christian bookshops will only buy from major distributors. The major distributors will only accept your product if you submit it through their agents. And all these intermediaries need their cut – rightly so. But this bumps the price up again and again. And it’s not fair to Christian ministries who are buying supplies of your book or DVD to then undercut them by selling direct at a much cheaper price! In God’s good providence, Head Heart Hand have been blessed to have a promotional partnership with my good friend Steven Lee at Sermon Audio. Soon, a major Christian ministry will also be partnering with us to promote God’s Technology. And we are about to order our second run of DVDs. We are very thankful. But many of the frustrations outlined above remain. We have a product to help parents, teachers and pastors train their children to use technology for God’s glory. But we lack the contacts, money, and staff to really spread the word. And my remaining Scottish reserve prevents me from knocking too loudly on too many doors! So, last week I found myself knocking on heaven’s door. I was daily praying that someone, someone with a bit of “clout,” would somehow find out about God’s Technology and promote it for us. Answer: “I don’t know what’s happening….”Isn’t it nice, when things just work!
I’ve been preparing a couple of addresses for the Keech Conference (formerly the Evangelical Forum) this weekend. The theme this year is “Of Creation” (Chapter 4, Second London Baptist Confession of Faith 1689). My first address is on “Christ in Genesis 1-2″ and the second is “The Quest for the Historical Adam.” I’m also really looking forward to hearing Tom Ascol speak.
Although I was initially apprehensive about preparing the addresses, I’ve found it a real blessing to my own soul to be in these first two chapters of the Bible for a prolonged period of time. What’s struck me most about them is the sheer perfection of Genesis 1-2. “God saw that it was very good.” The creation, and especially Adam and Eve, must have been so utterly beautiful, with everything fitting together so precisely, and without the least hint of weakness or decay. In contrast, I’ve been in a scrapyard recently, filming for a forthcoming DVD. It’s been quite depressing. You look around at all the thousands of crushed and decaying cars, some piled ten high, others scattered over large fields. They were all once driven out of the showroom bright and beautiful, someone’s pride and joy. And now… But such are are our lives as well. We come into the world to exclamations of “beautiful” and kindle bright hopes in our parents. But before too long we start breaking down – and breaking others down too. “Age and decay in all around I see.” My spirits were lifted yesterday though when my son pointed me to this video (below). What precise perfection! It reminded me of how integrated the original creation must have been, and how everything must have run so smoothly. And it also made me hope and long for the day when God will take our scrappy lives and world and make all things new. And everything will “just work.”Six keys to excellence in preaching
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!