Intersected

Summarized from his blog post on the 9Marks blog

When you come to a passage there are four things you can do:

Illustrate – this is one of the two most difficult to do. “It requires a different part of your brain. You need to think creatively. You need to imagine what your people are or might be going through”

Defend – “it is rarely wise to spend a lot of time defending what your people don’t need defended”

Explain – “If the passage is especially obscure or controversial, it makes sense to land heavy on the E. But sometimes the passage is relatively simple. In this case, don’t spin your wheels on endless word studies that basically repeat with synonyms what everyone can see immediately in the text”

Apply – his is one of the two most difficult to do. “It requires a different part of your brain. You need to think creatively. You need to imagine what your people are or might be going through”

From Jonathan McIntosh at Rethink Mission. Read Part One here and Part Two here

1. What is this sermon about?
2. What do I want people to leave with?
3. What issue, tension, or core problem does this sermon address?
4. Why should people stay awake for the next 40 minutes?
   • if my people don’t believe this truth, or embrace this, or follow through with this – what will happen?
   • Why will this truth change them? What will most likely result if they fail to get this?
   • Answer that question and then tell them. Tell them why it is so important that they are there on this day for this specific sermon. And then here’s the key – tell them in the first several minutes of the sermon.
5. What do I want people to know or believe?
6. What do I want people to feel or experience?
7. What do I want people to do or act on?

I’ve read in many places about the power of the preaching of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. I’m looking forward to reading the 2 volume biography of him (David Martyn Lloyd-Jones the First Forty Years 1899-1939 (v. 1),David Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith 1939-1981 (v. 2)) that I recently purchased to get a better account. Here’s a quick summary from both J.I. Packer and Dr. Lloyd-Jones’ daughter of Dr. Lloyd as written on the 9Marks blog

1. The man deeply felt his conversion.  Dr. Lloyd-Jones never got over the Lord’s mercy to him in saving him and this was clear in his preaching.
2. The underlining issue behind his preaching was the glory of God.  Behind all of his preaching the main point and main issue was always that God be glorified and exalted.  He never treated the Lord casually.
3. He had the presence of a man who dwelt with the Lord in prayer.  When he preached, he sincerely preached as a man that had consistently lingered truly humbly before the Lord and had dwelt on the Truth of God in Scripture.  He brought those meditations and that posture to the people.

Then feel the weight of the responsibility by reading this list compiled by P.J. Tibayan, one of my brothers in Christ and a fellow Re:Train student. Thankfully, the Spirit equips us and it is not our own ability that makes us worthy.

In anticipation of being assessed as a church planter, I wonder how I will respond if my “grade” on the assessment indicates that church planting isn’t the most appropriate ministry for how God has made me. Maybe I’m better suited to pastor or replant an existing church. I don’t know, but I’m definitely praying about it.  This post from Scott Thomas on the Acts 29 Network Blog provides helpful thoughts when Envisioning a Replant.

1. Envision what the worship gathering could be (Acts 2:42-47).
   • Attitude of body during worship
   • Music
   • Prayer
   • Teaching
   • Communion
   • Children
   • Exaltation of God
   • Incorporation of arts
2. Envision what the evangelism could be (Matt. 28:18-20; Acts 1:8).
   • Who can you reach immediately?
   • What attitudes toward evangelism need to change?
   • Where or how could you boldly make an impact with the gospel?
   • What steps of faith need to be taken to reach the unchurched and the unsaved?
   • How could your youth evangelize?
   • How could households evangelize together?
   • What worldwide impact could you make as a body (i.e. foreign missions)?
   • How are you going to be an eternal value to your community?
3. Envision how education and discipleship could be effective (Acts 2:42).
   • How will it become a passionate pursuit of the body (“continue steadfastly in the Apostles’ doctrine,” Acts 2:42)?
   • What resources (people, qualities, gifts) do you have in place to launch greater disciple-making?
   • How will the fathers and heads of households (single moms, etc.) be trained to be the priest and spiritual head of their homes?
   • How will the older men and women teach and interact with the younger men and women? (Titus 2)
   • Will the age groups be segregated (children, youth, singles, college, married, etc.) or will they be integrated into the body?
   • What role will small groups play?
   • What training will be needed to help develop disciples who are passionately pursuing Christ?
4. Envision an Acts 2 commitment to fellowship (Acts 2:44-45).
   • In what ways will the body seek to meet the needs of one another (spiritual, social, financial, physical)?
   • What attitudes need to change to be sacrificially generous with time, money and resources for the encouragement and edification of the body?
   • How will the body serve one another actively and responsively in an unprompted way?
   • What will the membership requirements be? How will it communicate a covenantal commitment?
5. Envision an effective youth and children’s ministry.
   • Will they be integrated into the church ministry? If so, how?
   • How will families be strengthened through the student ministry?
   • How will the youth be encouraged and trained to evangelize their friends?
   • What role will the heads of households play in the student ministry?
   • Who (person or groups) will lead the youth and children’s ministry?
   • What facility changes are needed to communicate the value of children and youth?
   • What other positions of leadership need to be filled to be effective?
   • What leadership development with the students will be put into place?
   • What programs or customs need to be extracted from the youth and children’s ministry to avoid distractions from the ministry goals?
6. Envision an equipping staff (Eph. 4:11-13).
   • What changes need to be made with the staff (paid or volunteer) to meet the church’s goals?
   • Are the staff members doing the ministry or leading people to do the ministry? If they are doing the bulk of the ministering, how will they develop the body to do the work of the ministry?
   • Are you over-staffed or under-staffed to meet both financial obligations and the development of lay people (taking responsibility for ministry)?
7. Envision a body not reacting to finances to determine God’s call (Matt. 6:24).
   • How will faith in God calling a body to reach out to the community and world be weighed against financial responsibility and stewardship?
   • If mortgages or debts exist, how will they be paid off in a realistic way over a reasonable time period?
   • What attitudes or practices about money and finances need to be changed?
   • Is a budget in place? Is it a true reflection of the church’s giving and spending (balanced budget)?
   • What expenses can be cut immediately to be redirected toward the church’s mission?
   • Is the body (especially the leadership) making decisions based on finances or on God’s calling?
   • What creative ways can you generate more income without sacrificing resources, biblical principles, or expending paid personnel?

This list of seven qualifications of a church planter is comparable to other lists, but serves as a reminder of all that church planters are called to do and be. This post was written by David Nicholas, the founder of The Church Planting Network.

1. Has a working knowledge of God’s Word.
2. Godly Character
3. Communication skills
4. Evangelistic fervor
5. Leadership abilities
6. A good fit for the area
7. Self-knowledge of personal giftedness and personality

Michael Mckinley recommends a booklet that helps people learn how to listen to sermons. It is written by Christopher Ash and is entitled Listen Up! A Practical Guide to Listening to Sermons.The fact that society has many fewer opportunities to listen to spoken word for long times almost necessitates a book like this be required reading for all church attendees.

Jesus tells us to be careful how we hear (Luke 8:18).  Yet many Christians approach the Sunday sermon with little to no game-plan for listening well.

To address that problem, Christopher Ash has written and outstanding booklet: Listen Up! A Practical Guide to Listening to Sermons.

The booklet is very accessible.  It is short (only 31 pages), well designed, and written in an informal, catchy style.  And the content is pure gold.

It is broken into several sections.  The first and longest part is devoted to seven ingredients for healthy sermon listening.  They are:

1. Expect God to speak.
2. Admit God knows better than you.
3. Check the preacher says what the passage says.
4. Hear the sermon in church (as opposed to solely listening to sermons on the internet).
5. Be there week by week.
6. Do what the Bible says.
7. Do what the Bible says today — and rejoice!

Each of these “ingredients” comes with practical examples and a list of “practical steps to take” at the end.

The second section deal with listening to “bad” sermons, particularly dull sermons, biblically inadequate sermons, and heretical sermons.

The final section reminds us that congregations often get the kind of preaching they tolerate and encourage, and then provides seven suggestions for encouraging good preaching,

I found this booklet very, very helpful.  If you are a preacher who wants to train your people to listen well to God’s Word, this is the booklet you want to use.  If you are a regular hearer of God’s Word, this booklet will give you a great perspective and a ton of practical strategies for improvement.

The process of preparing a sermon is fascinating, at least to me. Josh Harris did a series on his blog last year where he got sermon notes / manuscripts from Mark Dever, Mike Bullmore, C.J. Mahaney, Ray Ortlund, Jr., Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, and his own. It’s a very interesting look into these men of God both pastorally and personally.

Mark Dever, Senior Pastor at Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, recently posted the evolution of his outline for a message on Revelation 20. Seeing how his thoughts became clearer, and more concise, is helpful as I look toward a day of preaching regularly, Lord willing.

#1

20:1-3 The Binding of Satan
20:4-6 The Thousand Years—Christ Reigning with His Saints
20:7-10 The Final Defeat of Satan
20:11-15 The Final Judgment of the Dead

#2

20:1-3 God is Sovereign over Satan
20:4-6 Christians reign with God & Christ
20:7-10 Satan will appear to flourish but will be judged
20:11-15 The dead (and death!) are judged. Everyone will be judged

#3

Christians need not fear persecution 20:4-6
Christians need not fear Satan, 20:1-3, 7-10
Christians need not fear death, 20:11-15

#4

Christians need not be scared of Satan, 20:1-3, 7-10
Christians need not be scared of death, 20:4-6
Christians need not be scared of God, 20:11-15

#5

Don’t let threats intimidate you 20:4-6
Don’t let lies deceive you 20:1-3, 7-10
Don’t let death fool you 20:11-15

#6

Christians will be blessed 20:4-6
Satan will be defeated 20:1-3, 7-10
Everyone will be judged 20:11-15

#7

Common myths:
1) Christianity isn’t worth it. 20:4-6
2) Who’s to say? 20:1-3, 7-10
3) People get away with stuff 20:11-15

#8

Don’t worry 20:1-3, 7-10
Make sure 20:11-15
Praise God 20:4-10

From Colin Adams via PJ Tibyan.

“Preaching through Bible Books -  This is from a conference in 2003 called, “Katoomba Christian Conference Centenary (Sydney, Australia).”  D.A. Carson lectured on 12 points in preaching through a book of the Bible.  You can listen to the audio by downloading the message here (left-click).  This is taken from The Gospel Coalition website.

1. 1. (1:38 ) – Read and re-read and re-read and re-read and re-read the book. – It’s a mistake to read the book once and then start reading commentaries (Read it in English and the original language).(3:11) – Ideally start the process early. Give time to re-reading, meditation, and saturation.
   2. (4:58 ) – Eschew the division of head and heart.
   3. (6:14) – Early on attain sufficient grasp of the book that you can succinctly state
      1. what the book is about,
      2. what this book contributes to the canon that overlaps with what other books bring to the canon,
      3. what distinctive things this book brings to the canon. (All these things need to be thought about simultaneously. This is what brings clarity and precision). Scan biblical theologies on the book to get a large scale picture of the book.
   4. (11:10) – At roughly the same time determine
      1. the number of sermons you’ll devote to the book
      2. the large scale outline of the book insofar as it impinges on your text boundaries for each sermon (11:10).
   5. (19:27) – Start working on individual sermon preparation (either in advance or week by week). Ideally work on the text first.
      1. (23:26) – Ideally develop note taking techniques. This keeps your tools sharp and keeps your files for resources for future ministry (writing, preaching, evangelism, etc.);
      2. (29:32) – from these detailed exegetical notes (Note for young preachers: you must determine and discipline yourself to leave stuff out). You need to know what to leave out. The sermon is the best of the material and the highlights of what you learned. The aim is to think through what contributes to the burden of that text;
      3. Work on the text’s structure. Work on it so that it is fresh and appealing and helpful.
   6. (32:27) – Each sermon must simultaneously stand alone and constitute a part of the series.
   7. (33:34) – Remember the different contributions of a Paul House (corpus/book) biblical theology and a Charles Scobie (thematic) biblical theology.
   8. (38:11) – Recognize that there may be special study and focus necessary for certain books (historical, cultural, literary genre, etc).
   9. (42:32) – Ideally try to make your sermon material reflect in some way the genre of the book you are treating.
   10. (44:24) – Remember constantly that this is not an exercise in artistic creation. The sermon is not an end in itself, but it is a re-revelation of God to his people. This means that as you prepare you ought to be thinking about the people to whom you are ministering.
   11. (50:28 ) – ideally keep revising, praying, preparing so that it is not so much that you have mastered the material as that it has mastered you. There is a way of preaching that projects an image of being an expert and an image of being captured by the text.

Notes from Mark Driscoll’s talk on Jeremiah

1. What has God revealed to you ? (Nehemiah 1:1-11a)
2. What must you walk away from to pursue God’s calling? (Nehemiah 1:11b)
3. How will you communicate your vision to others? (Nehemiah 2:1-3)
4. Who must you ask for what resources? (Nehemiah 2:4-10)
5. Count the cost (Nehemiah 2:11-16)
6. Recruit strategic leaders first (Nehemiah 2:17 – 20)
7. What do we do first? Do it well (Nehemiah 3:1-32)
8. Where are the gates? Letting in those who want the Gospel, keeping out the wolves (Nehemiah 3:1-32)
   • Theological
   • Physical safety
9. How will you respond to critics? (Nehemiah 4:1-23)
   • Proximity of critic is painful
   • Have selective hearing
   • Turn critics into coaches
   • Don’t meet with critics in group
10. How to them show the gospel with mercy? (Nehemiah 5-1-19)
    • Criticism follows success
11. How to handle escalation opposition & threats (Nehemiah 6:1-14)
    • Sword and Trowel
12. What generational legacy are you building for? (Nehemiah 7:4-73)
13. How will you connect ground war (small groups, congregational care) and your air war (preaching and teaching) (Nehemiah 8:1-18)
14. Will you courageously call your people to repentance? (Nehemiah 9:1-38)
15. What are your terms for covenant membership? (Nehemiah 10:38-11:36)
    • Participation in small groups, tithing, attendance, etc
16. How will you track who God is bringing and assimilate them? (Nehemiah 11:1-36)
17. Who are your trustworthy priests who can work in the mission while you work on the mission? (Nehemiah 12:1-26)
18. How will you celebrate your wins? (Nehemiah 12:27-47)
    • Conversions
    • Babies
    • Baptisms
    • Building campaigns
19. How much will you demand of your men? (Nehemiah 13:1-22)
20. What closed-hand, practical life issues will you go to war for? (Nehemiah 13:23-31)