Head Heart Hand

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.

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

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.

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

• 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.

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.

See also Internet Christian Library

Complete Hebrew Bible in mp3
Download chapters of the Hebrew Bible to listen to

Brown Driver Briggs Lexicon

Sermon Quotations & Illustrations
You are best to find your own quotes and illustrations, but there are plenty websites out there if you do a Google search and use some discernment.

4. Blogs

I read blogs for five reasons:

• For my own edification
• To build awareness of what’s happening in the wider Christian world
• To discover new resources
• To know what my congregation is reading
• To stimulate sermon ideas

These are the blogs I’ve found most useful for these purposes:

• Challies.com by Tim Challies
• Between Two Worlds by Justin Taylor
• DeYoung, Restless, Reformed by Kevin DeYoung
• The Gospel Coalition edited by Collin Hansen
• Albert Mohler’s Blog by Dr Al Mohler
• Ligonier by R C Sproul and others

I read many more blogs, but these are the ones that best serve the five purposes outlined above. Some others that I find beneficial, and that would also be especially helpful to beginning pastors and preachers are:

• Practical Shepherding by Brian Croft
• Feeding on Christ by Nick Batzig and others
• Kingdom People by Trevin Wax

Also worth keeping an eye on the evangelical portal of Patheos

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?

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!

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.

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.

Further to yesterday's post on preaching without notes (or with less notes), here's the method I follow to decrease reliance on paper in the pulpit:

1. Saturation
You must be saturated in your material. This is one of the benefits of preparing nearer the time of sermon delivery. The longer the time period between preparation and preaching, the more you will have to rely on your notes. I also find that praying over my sermon, applying each point to myself really helps to embed the sermon in the heart as well as in the head.

2. Scriptural
If your text is just a pretext for some topical sermon with little connection to your text, then you will be much more reliant on notes. But if your sermon points and material flow naturally out of Scripture, then you immediately have a huge help to reducing your reliance on notes. If you blank, as we all do, then you should be able to just look at your text for prompts to get you back on track.

3. Structure
You must have a clear structure for your sermon material. It is much easier to remember five bullet points than a five line paragraph. Use the outlining/indenting feature of your Word processor and use the same lettering/spacing standard each time to train your mind to step through the process.

4. Summarize
Try to summarize your points and sub-points, cutting the words down more and more until your main points and sub-points are no more than 3-5 words, and your explanatory sentences are no more than one line long. I would recommend that you end up with no more than one page of a summary. I've attached a sample below from one of my sermons. I may take this into the pulpit in my pocket or inside my Bible as a "fallback" if I blank. But if I've properly prepared by following the other steps outlined here, then I usually don't need to refer to it.

5. Stress
Once you have a one page summary, stress or highlight both your structure and the main word in each point and sentence. Use a highlight marker to color the main points and sub-points. This will help “photograph” the structure into your mind.

Then, using a dark pen, underline the key word in each point, sub-point and line. This word should be one which “triggers” memory of the whole point/line. Write the first letter of each trigger word in the left hand margin. You will then have a series of letters running up and down the left side of your page. Try to memorize one main-point letter and the sub-point letters. Then see if you can recall the word and phrase or sentence related to each letter. The letter should trigger a word which triggers the point (see sample below). 

6. Study
This method does not advocate memorizing the sermon word for word. Instead you are remembering the key points, sub-points and "trigger" words (the skeleton). But you will need to stock your mind with a wide vocabulary so that the "trigger" word will pull in suitable other words to speak. If you don't you will tend to start sounding "samey." You should read widely and constantly to build up a ready vocabulary. Read outside theological books and magazines. Read a reputable newspaper or contemporary biographies. This will keep your vocabulary fresh, contemporary, and less cliched.

7. Start
The hardest step here is simply to start. It is like learning to swim for the first time without a flotation device, or learning to ride a bike without stabilizers. It is a large psychological barrier. So, let me give you some helps to starting.

First, start small. Instead of launching out with a full sermon in your head, choose a small section which you are committed to preaching without notes and follow the procedure outlined above. Next time, do a larger section or two sections, and so on. Your mind will get into a groove and you will become gradually more confident in the method.

Second, have a back-up plan. Even though you are intending to preach a section or two extemporaneously, take your paper with you anyway so that if you do “blank,” you have your paper to fall back on. The great temptation here though is that your mind will take the easiest path and so will you. If you know there is going to be no lifebelt, you will prepare much better for the jump!

Third, don’t try to memorize Scripture references or quotations. Have these written down on a small paper so that you can read from them. That will save you a lot of mental work. Also, quotations tend to carry more authority if read rather than repeated from memory.

Click here to download:

Matthew_6v26.pdf (797 KB)

(download)

Click here to download:

Matthew_6v26.pdf (797 KB)

John Broadus was a pastor and professor of preaching at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the 1800's. Charles Spurgeon regarded Broadus as "the greatest of living preachers." According to Wikipedia, the Church historian Albert Henry Newman said that Broadus was "perhaps the greatest man the Baptists have produced." Brodus's classic Homiletics textbook On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons remains a must-read for all seminary students.

Broadus identified four basic methods of sermon delivery:

The method chosen will determine how much paper is brought into the pulpit. I do not want to set down rules on how much we should read or rely upon notes. Much will depend on the speaker and the hearers. However, if there is a danger in our days it is probably too much reliance upon notes. We are all horrified at the idea of someone going into a pulpit unprepared and just rambling around for a time. However, the Reformed Church is perhaps in danger of going to the other extreme, of having such over-prepared sermons that the amount of paper required to preach them is increasing more and more -  as is reliance on the manuscript.

This is happening at the same time as the people, especially younger people, are going in the opposite direction. People want to be spoken to personally, directly, and relationally. President Obama understood that before he was President, although since inauguration he has resorted mainly to the autocue, diminishing his appeal. In the UK, the present Prime Minister, David Cameron, burst on to the scene at a Conservative Party Conference when he spoke passionately about his vision for the future of the UK, and what caught everyone's imagination was that he did it without notes. After the Blair/Brown years of polished marketing and spin, it seemed much more authentic.

We should always remember that while our pulpit paper may contain what we want to communicate, it can also become one of the greatest barriers to communication. Often the preacher’s eyes are more on this than on their congregation.  Pastor Al Martin commented on this:

The issue is not how much written composition is done in the study or how much written material is brought into the pulpit. The issue is how much dependence upon and preoccupation with written material is manifested in the act of preaching. To state the matter another way, the issue is how much mental and physical attachment is there to one's paper. At the end of the day we are not so much concerned with issues of paper and print, but with the issues of eyes and brains.

And listen to these strong words from Dabney:

Reading a manuscript to the people can never, with any justice, be termed preaching.... In the delivery of the sermon there can be no exception in favor of the mere reader. How can he whose eyes are fixed upon the paper before him, who performs the mechanical task of reciting the very words inscribed upon it, have the inflections, the emphasis, the look, the gesture, the flexibility, the fire, or oratorical actions? Mere reading, then, should be sternly banished from the pulpit, except in those rare cases in which the didactic purpose supersedes the rhetorical, and exact verbal accuracy is more essential than eloquence.

Shedd argued that young preachers should from the very beginning of their ministries preach at least one extemporaneous sermon every week. By this he did not mean preaching without study or preparation – quite the opposite. Extemporaneous sermons require more preparation in many ways. What he meant was reducing your sermon to a one-page of skeleton outline, and becoming so familiar with it, that referring to it during the act of preaching is minimized. Then, throughout your ministry, try to reduce the size of the skeleton, and dependence on it, more and more. Let the ideas be pre-arranged but leave exact expression of them to the moment of preaching.

Shedd gives these requirements for extemporaneous preaching:

• A heart glowing and beating with evangelical affections
• A methodical intellect – to organize the sermon material into a clear and logical structure
• The power of amplification – or the ability to expand upon a theme
• A precise and accurate mode of expression
• Patient and persevering practice

To these we might add, prayerful dependence upon the Holy Spirit for each and all of these requirements.

Tomorrow, I'll pass on seven steps I've followed to help decrease reliance on paper in the pulpit.