Why is Preaching Harder Than It Used to Be?

The ability to preach a meaningful sermon has always been important for a minister. Many pastors feel that preaching great sermons has gotten harder than it used to be. While there may be many reasons why preaching has gotten harder, technology is driving many of those shifts in preaching.

1.Technology makes preaching harder because it allows us to listen to excellent preachers from around the world.

In the past we mostly only heard sermons from our local minister. Perhaps once or twice a year a guest speaker might come through and lead a series of meetings. Perhaps once or twice a year the pastor would allow a young “preacher boy” to fill the pulpit. But for the most part, we only heard sermons from our local pastor. Since that was what we were used to, we accepted whatever his style of preaching was as the “normal” or “right” way of preaching. But now technology allows us to listen to excellent preachers from all over the world. We can listen to them on podcasts, watch them on TV or live stream them on the Internet. This allows us to watch the best orators from all around the world. While this can be helpful to our spiritual walk, it can also make us more critical of our local pastor than we should be. Local pastors are feeling pressure to preach like all the celebrity pastors. But for many, that is an unrealistic pressure. There are only so many David Platts, Andy Stanleys and John Pipers in the world. Expecting our local pastor to preach like them is unfair. It puts far more strain on him than it did on previous generations of preachers. Though we should enjoy all the great preaching that technology allows us access to, we should strive to prepare our hearts to receive something from the sermon in our local church no matter the oratory skills of our local minister.

2. Technology makes preaching harder because it allows us to fact check sermons instantaneously.

Though pastors should strive to be as accurate as possible in their sermon preparation, no one is perfect. Every pastor will eventually misquote a statistic, refer to the incorrect tense of a Greek or Hebrew word, or get the details of some illustration from popular culture wrong. In the past, we might have thought something the preacher said was a bit off, but with no way to verify it until later, we normally let it slide. If we did remember to check the details later and learned the pastor was slightly off, we often still benefited from everything else he said in the sermon regardless of some minor mistake he may have made. Today our smart phones allow us to instantly fact check pastors’ sermons. And if we find that he has messed up some minor detail, we often become so focused on that small error that we are unable to hear the rest of what he is saying. Our immediate use of technology often leads to us discounting the truth of the rest of the sermon over a minor point that really is non-essential to what he was trying to say. This is unfair to the minister. Imagine if a room full of people were fact checking everything you or I said in real time? That is a lot of pressure to put on a minister, or anyone else for that matter. That does not mean that pastors should be sloppy in their research, but it does mean that congregations should not hold them up to some standard that is impossible for anyone to achieve. Let’s refrain from using our smart phones to fact check the pastor during the sermon so that we do not miss the point of what he is trying to say in the rest of the sermon.

3. Technology makes preaching harder because it gives pastors access to other people’s sermons.

At first glance, this might sound like an advantage. And indeed, when done correctly, listening to, or researching, someone else’s sermons can be a helpful part of sermon preparation. However, it also increases the temptation for a pastor to just preach a sermon someone else created. Seldom does that work as well as a sermon that a pastor has embedded deep in his spirit through prayerful mediation and study. Conscientious pastors may use someone else’s sermon for ideas, outlines and research but will not try to pass those sermons off as their own. They may incorporate some portion of someone else’s sermon and give credit where credit is due, but the heart of their sermons will be of their own making. But technology allows pastors who are less than conscientious pretend to be more prepared than they are. Most people see through the ruse and the result is that even when the content is great, the credibility of the pastor is in question, thereby producing a sermon with less impact than it should. When we suspect that our pastor is using someone else’s sermons, we should pray for the Holy Spirit to reveal to our pastor the dangers of that approach. We might also ask our pastor for a copy of his notes from time to time, not in an effort to catch him doing wrong, but in an effort to enhance our own learning experience. By doing that we also help our pastor remain accountable for having notes that came from his own study and were not just downloaded from some website.

4. Technology makes preaching harder because we have become a very visual culture.

As a culture, we have gotten used to graphics, videos, and other digital media to help us learn. Many pastors lack the skills, or the time, to incorporate these technological items into sermons on a regular basis. This is especially true for bivocational pastors, who have very limited preparation time. While it is hoped that pastors will try to learn these skills and squeeze the time in, the reality is that many pastors will not be able to take advantage of all the technologies available for the visual presentation of their content. We should train our hearts and minds to focus on the content of what our pastor is saying instead of judging him for his lack of graphic design abilities.

Technology is changing how we communicate, including how sermons are prepared and preached. Some of those changes are great. Others are not as helpful. We must commit ourselves to making the best use of technology and avoiding the pitfalls of it.

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Dr. Terry W. Dorsett has been a pastor, church planter, denominational leader and author in New England for more than 20 years. He is a happy husband, a proud father and adoring grandfather. He is a cancer survivor and believes that God works powerfully through times of suffering. He writes extensively and you can find all of his books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Dr.-Terry-W.-Dorsett/e/B00405U4NY

Using Biblegateway.com for Study, Part Two - Guest Post by Brendan Ian Kennedy

In part one of this series, we discussed how to use biblegateway.com’s basic study functions, such as the concordance and reading parallel English versions. These are suitable for Bible students at all levels. In installments two and three we will cover the more advanced features.  Most of these will be more useful to pastors and others who are interested in using the biblical languages for sermon preparation or other higher-level study.

We previously learned how to use the parallel button in order to read multiple English translations on the same screen. After you open parallel versions, the concordance function will search all of them at once. If you enter a term or phrase in the search box while multiple versions are on the screen, the result will be a greatly expanded list of verses that are marked by the translation that each one appears in. This may alert you to differences of opinion on what exactly is meant by each translation in a given verse. For example, if you open up the NIV, the NASB, and the New Century Version (NCV) in parallel, and do a concordance search on “love,” you will turn up 861 results. The very first result, Genesis 4:1, appears only in the NIV. Why only the NIV? The other two versions choose different words to express that for which the NIV chooses “love.” At this point there are two options. One is to click on the verse address to the left, which will bring up Genesis 4:1 in the NIV. You can then open the NASB and NCV in parallel to it. The other option is to click on the “other translations” link just beneath and to the right of the verse. This will display a page containing all of the English translations of Genesis 4:1 that are accessible through biblegateway.com. In this way you can multiply the scholarly expertise of different translation teams by comparing and contrasting them, while keeping it in a language (English) that you understand well.

            Here is where the study capabilities for pastors and scholars really come into their own. If you have some ability in Hebrew or Greek, you can use the parallel function to set up an interlinear Bible by selecting biblical Hebrew or Greek to appear beside the English version of your choice. Interlinear Bibles are great for those who have had basic Hebrew or Greek and want to use them in ministry, but are not comfortable enough with them yet to rely on the original language text by itself. Both biblical Hebrew and biblical Greek are included among the world languages contained in the drop-down menu that is used to select versions to read. The Aramaic portions of the Old Testament are displayed when biblical Hebrew has been selected for display, and an Aramaic passage, such as Daniel 7, is entered in the search box. If you are conversant in another language, such as Spanish, you can read Spanish and English side-by-side in the same way.

The Hebrew text available on biblegateway.com is the Masoretic text as found in the Westminster Leningrad Codex (WLC). The WLC is an electronic representation of the standard scholarly edition of the Hebrew Old Testament, the Leningrad Codex B19a. It is maintained by Westminster Theological Seminary (WTS). The consonants, vowel points, and accent marks are displayed. It is not a perfect copy, and researchers at WTS are constantly correcting it to agree with the hardcopy facsimile edition of the original. You can find it beneath the English and Spanish versions under the heading עִבְרִית (the letters for “Hebrew”). The size of the font may be difficult to read, but that can be helped by pressing Ctrl-+, which will enlarge everything on the screen.

Four different Greek editions of the New Testament are available: the Stephanus, the Westcott-Hort, the Scrivener, and the SBL Greek New Testaments. They may be found very close to the Hebrew in the drop-down menu, beneath the English and Spanish versions, and under the heading κοινη (the Greek word for “koine,” the language of the Greek New Testament). The Stephanus and Scrivener versions are based on the Textus Receptus, the Greek text behind the King James Version. New Testament scholars today generally consider them to be less reliable than today’s standard scholarly version. If you prefer to use the KJV, then the Stephanus and Scrivener editions will be very helpful. The Westcott-Hort New Testament is the 19^th century forerunner of today’s scholarly edition. The SBL Greek New Testament is an alternative modern edition.

In the next part we will continue with the strengths and weaknesses of the original language study tools that are available on biblegateway.com, and survey some other resources as well. May the Lord bless as you keep studying and preaching!

 

Brendan Ian Kennedy, Ph. D. (cand.)

Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Ten Things My Father Taught Me

My Dad - Wayne Dorsett

Today is Father's Day. I am thankful for my dad today. Among other things, he taught me:

1. A real man loves God with all his heart.

2. A real man always loves his wife and remains faithful to her.

3. A real man takes his family to church every week, not just once in a while.

4. A real man works hard, even when it doesn't pay much, because there is more value in work than in sloth.

5. A real man serves in his church because he is a giver not a taker.

6. A real man sacrifices for his family but also knows when to assert his authority and tell the family what to do when he needs to.

7. A real man encourages his children to get a good education but loves them just as much if book learning is not their strength.

8. A real man does not complain about stuff, he just does what needs to be done.

9. A real man is not afraid to make a big move away from all that he is familiar with if God opens a door and tells him to go.

10. A real man can enjoy a hobby, or two, but does not let them take away from the family.

Thanks dad for helping me learn how to become a real man.

Dr. Terry W. Dorsett is a church planter in New England. He is a happy husband, proud father, giggling grandfather, thankful cancer survivor, and the author of numerous books aimed at helping small churches become healthier and individual Christians grow in their faith. You can find his books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Dr.-Terr

Learning from Experts

Many of us have a love/hate relationship with “experts.” By experts, we mean those people who have both extra-ordinary knowledge, and a proven track record of success, in some field of expertise. We are not talking about people who just pretend to be experts; we are speaking about those who actually are. They may excel at sports, business, plumbing, auto-mechanics, psychology, ministry, or any number of other subjects, but some people are just extra-ordinary in their skills. Some of that expertize comes from natural giftedness, some of it comes from an intentional effort to learn new techniques and expand their skills, some of it comes from unique experiences that put them in the right place at the right time to become something more than they could have been on their own, but clearly some people are outstanding in their field.

We love to be around people who are great in their field because they can teach us a lot that we may never figure out on our own. A few afternoons spent with an expert at a sports camp can move a middle school athlete to the top of his game and help him make the varsity squad in high school. A few months learning under an expert can make the difference between a “jack of all trades” and a master electrician or master plumber. A one year internship under an expert mentor can help a recent college graduate actually land a job in their chosen field instead of landing in their parents’ basement with a pile of student loans they are unable to pay. Spending time with people who are great at what they do just makes sense.

But if we were honest, we would also have to admit that sometimes we hate to be around experts because they reveal things that we are doing that may not be working very well. They point out weaknesses in our skill set. They expose errors in our thinking. They tell us we must not rely solely on our natural skills, or simply hope to be in the right place at the right time to discover our big break. They remind us how much we still have to learn in order to excel at whatever it is we are trying to be. They push us out of comfort zone and make us stretch ourselves in ways that we may not like.

When we spend time with someone who is an expert in their field, we have to decide how we are going to respond to what they are trying to teach us. Though it will probably be useless to attempt to imitate every aspect of what others, do since we are all individuals with our own unique set of skills and ambitions, if we approach learning with an open mind, we can become better at whatever we want to accomplish. We will learn to incorporate various aspects of what we learn into our regular routines and continue to make improvements and enhance our thinking and our skills. We may well become the experts someday in whatever it is that we are trying to accomplish.

However, those who think they already know it all will spend all their energy explaining why the expert has no idea what he or she is talking about. Those who refuse to learn from those who are more experienced will be less productive and most often try to blame their lack of productivity on someone else. They will dismiss whatever the expert says, even if that expert has proven that the concepts and skills taught will work in real life. Those who refuse to learn from more experienced people will often say, “I have my own style” or “My way works for me.” Sadly, most people who are observing such a person would not agree. Perhaps the company sent the person to a training program precisely because their “way” was not working or their “style” was ineffective.

Though none of us like to admit it when our system is ineffective, sometimes it is, and it is better to admit it, correct it, and then move to a place of effectiveness instead of clinging to a way that is not working. People who fail to learn from those who are more experienced, or grow in their skill set, will never be seen by others as experts. In their own arrogance, they may think of themselves as experts, but no one else will share that thinking. If they persist in their unwillingness to be stretched by those who are more knowledgeable, they may lose their position completely and not only not be an “expert,” they may not even be “good” or “fair” or even on the list of competent practitioners.

If we want to become something more than we are and improve our skills in some area, we need to spend time with people who have already done it. We should listen to what they have to say, try to use some of their techniques, and improve our own abilities. We should avoid thinking too highly of ourselves and instead have a learning spirit. By doing this, we can improve our own abilities and someday be in a position to teach others, just as we were taught.