Preacher's Toolbox

Words fitly spoken: Augustine on Style

“A word fitly spoken,” observes King Solomon, “is like apples of gold in a setting of silver” (Proverbs 25:11). Fitly spoken... an apt phrase, that. It suggests the manner in which a message is spoken can be better or worse. There is a propriety to speech. Style and substance are not so easily divorced.

Saint Augustine wholeheartedly agrees. In our previous Preacher’s Toolbox, we looked at what the great doctor of the Church identified as the purposes of preaching: To instruct, to delight, and to move. But then he goes a step further, again following the lead of Cicero, and attaches a certain style to each of those purposes: Restrained, mixed, and grand, respectively.

Here I will briefly touch on these three registers which he identifies and then make some suggestions for when and how you might incorporate them in your preaching. I also encourage you to pick up Augustine’s On Christian Teaching for yourself.

Continue reading at Craft of Preaching…

The Continuing Conversation: Eugene Peterson on Preaching

I never heard him preach, but he has influenced my preaching as much as anyone.

The late Eugene Peterson, who would have turned 90 on Sunday, has formed me in my pastoral and preacherly identity in more ways than I can number. A quick glance at my bookshelves, I count ten of his books, although I know there are more buried in boxes and scattered at home. Through his writings, Peterson has helped me to see the congregation as a story-formed community, and the preacher as the one with the holy vocation of connecting its story with the Story of God.

In honor of the legacy of Pastor Pete (as he came to be called by his parishioners), I want to share with you a particular insight about preaching from Peterson which I have been ruminating on of late, in addition to the “dirty little secret” of his own sermons.

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The neccesity of clarity

“For the preacher, clarity is a moral matter,” insists Haddon Robinson in his book Biblical Preaching. “If what we preach either draws people to God or keeps them away from Him, then for God’s sake and the people’s sake we must be clear.”

Does that sound like an overstatement? Clarity in preaching is nice, sure, but a moral matter? The profundities of the Bible often require in-depth and detailed explanations, after all. What God has made complicated, do not merely make clear.

There is truth to this. Simplicity should not surrender to oversimplification; clarity cannot come at the cost of faithfulness. When he asserted that, “There was a time when the Son was not,” Arius was disturbingly crystalline.

Yet, I believe Robinson is on to something. The more years I preach, and the more that I listen to preaching, the greater my appreciation for clarity grows, even as my commitment to depth endures. In the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.”

Thus, I have come to share the prayer request Saint Paul makes of the Colossians: “Pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak” (Colossians 4:3-4). Clarity is a moral matter. It is how we as preachers “ought to speak.” So, how can we help the message be less muddled?

Continue reading at Craft of Preaching…

The sound of silence: pauses in preaching

I could tell what he was about to say was going to hurt.

Greg was a faithful member of the field work congregation I served during seminary. He cared deeply for the church’s role in helping to form future pastors. Consequently, he did not hesitate to give constructive feedback to the fledgling preachers who occasioned his church’s pulpit... like yours truly.

I winced as he approached after the service, aware of what awaited me. “Ryan, I can tell you’ve got some really good things to say,” he said with genuine concern in his voice. “Now, if only you could slow down enough for us to hear them.”

Ouch.

Greg’s words stung at the time, but as they have stuck with me in the years since, I cannot help but be grateful. I have been known to get wound-up in my preaching; maybe not so much as the great Walter A. Maier, whose machine gun delivery was clocked at 170 words per minute, but cooking, nevertheless. Greg’s gentle admonition remains with me as a reminder of the power of pauses in preaching.

Continue reading at Craft of Preaching…

What the heart doctor showed me about preaching

No parent looks forward to the situation that my wife and I recently found ourselves in. A few months back, our family doctor noticed a murmur in our five year old’s heart. Could be nothing, he said, or it could require immediate surgery. He ordered an ultrasound and we scheduled an appointment with the pediatric cardiologist.

Needless to say, we approached the appointment with apprehension. First and foremost, we worried for our daughter’s health and what the specialist’s report might hold. Beneath that high-level concern was the layman’s uncertainty of what exactly we were facing—how serious it was and what the options for treatment might be. And then there were the practical anxieties of wondering where you’ll park, whether you’ll be able to find the office, and how the kids will do sitting in the waiting room.

We entered the hospital with a jumbled ball of questions, uncertainties, and anxieties. We left with a master class in effective communication and an inspiring example for those of us who have the enviable vocation of delivering good news.

Continue reading at Craft of Preaching…

Unparalleled preaching

When the coronavirus pandemic and its attendant lockdowns first struck in the late winter of 2020, like any other sensible person I binge-watched the Lord of the Rings movies and listened to Stevie Wonder’s catalog on repeat in order to cope. But I also picked up a more spiritual discipline, for myself as much as for my people, in preparing a devotional that I called the Daily Psalmanac.

Over the course of the next nine months or so, I ate, drank, and breathed the Psalms. Though they have always had pride of place in my personal meditation, by reflecting on the psalter so deliberately during that time I noticed that not only their content but also their form began to shape my preaching. In particular, the phenomenon of parallelism.

Continue reading at Craft of Preaching…

Holy Hilarity

Can preaching be funny? Some great Christians through the ages have been dubious. John Wesley admonished pastors, “Let your whole deportment before the congregation be serious, weighty, and solemn.” Along with his teetotalism, Wesley must have been a real treat at cocktail parties.

Conversely, one can’t get too far into the corpus of the esteemed Martin Luther’s sermons without coming across a comedic barb (of course, it was often directed at the papacy). As the good doctor once said, quoted as an epigraph to C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, “The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.”

Furthermore, humor is sprinkled throughout the Bible. Perhaps most famous is God’s naming Abraham’s son Isaac, “He laughs” (Genesis 17:19). You think as well of the exchange with Balaam’s donkey (Numbers 22) or the madcap prison break of Peter (Acts 12). And it’s commonplace to note that there’s a humorous touch in Jesus’ nickname for the apostolic brothers James and John: Boanerges, or “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17).

And so there is surely a place for humor in our faith, and perhaps even for preachers to be funny—though that is not to say they should be comics by any means (if you want to try your hand at stand-up, stick to the open mic night at the bar). What, then, is the role of humor in the pulpit? What could be the uses of comedy in preaching?

Continue reading at Craft of Preaching…

Preaching to (un)righteous minds

Over the last few years, preachers have learned a great deal about the political makeup of their congregations—probably more than they ever cared to know. One of the challenges this has brought to the surface is how our preaching can connect with people of varying political stripes: conservative, liberal, libertarian, or some combination thereof.

For this challenge, preachers can learn a great deal from an unbelieving, secular Jewish psychologist by the name of Jonathan Haidt.

Continue reading at Craft of Preaching…

Well begun is half done

The beginning of a thing is precious real estate. The first hook of a song can make or break it. The opening lines of a book set the tone for the story. And among all the exorbitantly expensive advertising slots during the Super Bowl, the first commercial break is steepest of all. The reason is simple: attention is valuable. And people are most attentive at the beginning.

So also when it comes to preaching. Those first few words from the preacher’s mouth are worth their weight in spun gold. I have heard enough sermons that lead off with genteel chit-chat, however, to wonder whether preachers generally appreciate just how precious those first moments of the message truly are.

Continue reading at Craft of Preaching…

Exploiting the ministry tent

Convention season is underway for pastors everywhere, especially those of my Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod tribe. It’s a chance to weigh in on vital (and not so vital) church business, to hear stimulating speakers, to connect with friends and peers, and to enjoy (courtesy of the congregational savings-and-loan outfit) the free beer tent. Especially to enjoy the free beer tent.

And speaking of free stuff: after the beer tent, the next most appealing portable shelter is the one often known as the “ministry tent.” It’s the exhibit for various and sundry ministries and ministry-related products. Folks meander through, pretending to be interested in your mission to Blind Plumbers of the Northwest, but are in fact just scoping out the freebies. Who couldn’t use another stylus or (better yet) miniature Twix? Yes, by all means tell me about your new Bible cover that doubles as a cooler.

In the ministry tent this year, though, I made a discovery more valuable to preachers than a mini candy bar. I’m walking through, giving my perfunctory nods and smiles, when this guy holding down one of the tables grabs my attention with a dad joke (he definitely knew his audience) and offers me a Jolly Rancher. I give a polite chuckle, nab the candy, and prepare to proceed on my way.

But then he says to me, “Hey, do you have just a minute?” Sure, I admit, recognizing that the second pass by the table with Butterfingers would probably be too conspicuous anyhow. He asks, “Can I tell you a story that shows why this ministry is so life-changing?” And he goes on to tell me this moving anecdote of how, through the work of his organization, a young man with disabilities became an icon of the gospel. It was even better than the dad joke.

Suddenly it dawns on me: this whole tent is filled with people like this, ready and eager to tell stories like this. Can I tell you a story? is a question that most anyone will answer in the affirmative, and preachers even more so. We are collectors of stories; shoot, we are gluttons for stories. Preachers gobble up stories the way that my dog gobbles up crumbs from the table.

And here in the ministry tent are dozens of folks, just dying for the chance to tell their tale. And not just any stories, mind you, but those that recount how they have seen the Lord at work in powerful and poignant ways—in other words, precisely the sort of stories for which preachers are always on the look out.

I don’t mean to sound like a mercenary here. These ministries are invariably doing good work that deserves our hearing, our prayers, and our support. Moreover, listening to the stories from the dedicated staff and volunteers that man those tables is personally edifying for your faith: look at what God is up to! So I don’t mean to suggest that you ought to storm the exhibitors in order to pillage them for sermon material.

I do encourage you, though, to make a more intentional visit to the ministry tent. Don’t merely pass through without a second thought to the ways that God has been at work through these organizations that are taking the time to be present. Be proactive and ask, “Can you tell me a story of how your ministry has made an impact?” I doubt you’ll be disappointed.

My moment with the Jolly Rancher guy gave me a new perspective on an old institution. For preachers like myself, the conference ministry tent is typically regarded as a spot to make connections, kill time, or scrounge empty calories—all of which have their place. What I found out, though, is that the ministry tent is in fact an unexpected gold mine for gospel proclamation. And come to think of it, that might even beat free beer.

First published at Craft of Preaching

The simple tool every preacher needs

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. It’s zero dark thirty on Thursday morning, but the dog’s bark or the baby’s cry stirs you from a sterling slumber. Suddenly, in that liminal space between waking and dreaming, the sermon pops out of your head fully-formed like Athena from her father Zeus. It’s a miracle of biblical proportions, almost literally.

Except that your bed is exceptionally cozy, and the thought of getting up in the still-dark night to type at your glowing computer screen is as appealing as a warm beer. And so you roll back over in bed, assuring yourself that the good Lord would never disrupt the best sermon of your life!

Right.

The novelist William Faulkner, asked what the process of writing is like, said, “You grab any board or shingle flying by or loose on the ground and nail it down fast.” That’s a fair description of preparing to preach as well. Alas, too much exceptional exegesis and too many poignant points and dynamic illustrations have escaped the memories of preachers the world over because they didn’t have the right tool at hand to seize them when they came to mind. No, dear preacher, you need to nail down those choice nuggets before they fly away. But how?

Continue reading at Craft of Preaching…

Engaging sermons start in the narthex

Imagine you’re at the movie theatre. You’re scanning the offerings, deciding what to see. Here are some of the titles:

  • Tortured savant can’t commit to love

  • Girl learns true love is sacrifice, not a kiss

  • Undersized linebacker justifies existence by making Notre Dame’s team

  • Boy sees dead people because he’s dead

Now, you might still be intrigued enough to see one of these films. But Good Will Hunting has lost the mystery surrounding its protagonist, Frozen has surrendered its biggest twist, Rudy suddenly seems less romantic, and as for The Sixth Sense—well, I suppose you can probably save your time and money on that one.

Hollywood comes up with poetic, ambiguous, intriguing titles for their films for a reason. If you’re sufficiently interested in the star, you might still go see a movie with a prosaic title like the imagined ones above. Your engagement in the plot, however, is undoubtedly going to suffer.

Engaging movies thus start at the box office (if not before). A title that grabs your attention and piques your interest primes you for a satisfying moviegoing experience. “The Sixth Sense? I wonder what that might be…” This is such an obvious point that I hesitate to belabor it. And yet many preachers have not absorbed the lesson.

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This Preacher's Greatest Fear

I want to get this out on the table straightaway. I’d like to put my greatest homiletic fear out there, which I have reason to believe is the summus terror of many of my fellow preachers.

The fear is not that I’ll lose my place in the sermon or forget what I’m saying; not that I might accidentally say something heterodox if not heretical; not even that my sermon will inadvertently go viral because of some supposedly regressive comment I made in the pulpit—though I’m not particularly keen to experience any of these, either.

No, my greatest fear is simply this: that I’ll be exposed for the phony I am.

Continue reading at Craft of Preaching…