Thursday, December 20, 2012

Andy Stanley On Preaching


One of my great goals of my life is to become a better communicator and teacher of God's Word.  I want to do my very best every Sunday... and the days in between over a coffee shop table, or a Taco Bell burrito, or on the porch of my neighbor's house.  I love the feeling, the high I get when I see the Gospel lights come on for someone.  

I've heard more sermons than I can count.  I've been blessed to have many great preachers influence me and my thoughts on preaching.  
Some were fantastic expositors of the Word, preaching it verse-by-verse. 
Some were storytellers, weaving stories of people and places in and out of biblical truth.
Some were curiosities, taking personal quirks & commnicating truth through that.
Some were mostly manuscript (my dad, one of the best, is about 90%).
Some were mostly extemporaneous. (my uncle, also one of the best, preached his first message from a 3X5 card -- for 45 minutes.)
Some were natural communicators, some learned it.
Some were long, some were shorter. 

But they all had two thing in common: 
   1. They made me want to listen and 
   2. They made me want to put it into practice.

If I ever write a book on preaching (which I will, someday), I think I will call it "Preaching Is Like Jazz."  The inspiration from the title comes from a quote attributed to Louis Armstrong, "Man, if I gotta tell you what jazz is, you just ain't got it."  The human mind wants to categorize and put everything in neat boxes -- "what are the basic principles of jazz/art/preaching/etc?"  

But in sometimes, art or music or preaching simply steps outside the boundaries we draw, refuses to play by the rules we made.  The styles are different, the methods are different, but the result is the same.  Engagement. 
Wonder. 
Mulling it over. 
Hunger for more. 
And in the case of preaching, a gut-level desire to do something about it.

So, I come to the point of this post. 



Ed Stetzer did a fantastic interview with Andy Stanley on preaching.  You might agree or disagree with individual statements or philosophies, but overall, it's one of the most thoughtful and insightful things on preaching I've read. 

The full text of this interview is below, or you can read the interview in its 5 parts at Ed Stetzer's blog here.


Ed: What is your philosophy of communication/preaching?
Andy: Preaching on Sunday mornings is such a simple thing and by complicating it, I think we all do ourselves and the audience a disservice. It is very simple. Here is the model: Make people feel like they need an answer to a question. Then take them to God's Word to answer the question. And tell them why it is important to do what we just talked about. And then you close by saying, "Wouldn't it be great if everybody did that?" And that's it. It is a journey. You take people from somewhere to somewhere.

And that's why preaching by points is a terrible model. Because points are not a journey. Points are points. But communication is: Here we all are. We all have a common need or desire. We all have something in common, and I am going to stay here until I make you feel the need to have it resolved. And then I am going to open God's Word and resolve it. And I am going to take that and tell you what you need to do specifically. And then I am going to take a minute and talk about what the world would be like, how much better off we would all be, if we would all do what the Scriptures say. It is really that simple.

Anytime a person listens to a pastor or to any talk that is compelling, all those elements are there. And you feel like you have gone with somebody on a journey. You just need to learn to outline that way. So when they bring an outline, I say, "You didn't make me want to know what you spent twenty minutes telling me, so you left the station without me. I didn't really care. It really wasn't that compelling." So, give me one idea, not multiple ideas. Most sermons are too long. Most sermons cover way too much information. Most sermons could be series. I say that all the time. "Poor guy, he spent all week preparing. He has three sermons and gave them all in one rushed forty-minute time period. His three points should be three sermons. Just leave me with a thought. We will all come back next week, so there is no rush to get it all in in one week."

So, it is simple. It is a journey. This morning I am going to start by making sure that I am going to leave the station and everybody knows where we are going. And they know why they need to go with me. And once I have built enough tension for someone to give a rip about what we are going to talk about, then I am going to take them to a passage of Scripture where somebody resolves or expresses that tension. And I am going to stay there long enough so hopefully they will go back that afternoon and they will say, "I understand this part of the Bible." Then I am going to talk about what to do and what a wonderful world it would be like if we all just do this. It is really that simple.

We had Jeff Foxworthy come to our Christmas party for our staff several years ago. I sat there on the first row, and I can hardly breathe because I am laughing so hard. It went two hours and I sat there thinking: there were no points; he has no application; he has no outline that I am aware of. I have been sitting here for almost two hours, and he is talking about rednecks. And I am fully engaged. There is no takeaway. There is no value. There is nothing biblical. There are no visual aids. There is no video. And I am fully engaged for an hour and a half.

The reason I bring that up is: there is this myth that people say, "Sermons need to be short because people today have short attention spans." That is totally irrelevant. People's attention spans are as long as their engagement. If I'm engaged, I will sit and stay engaged until I have to go to the bathroom. The issue is: are people engaged, not how long is the sermon? Granted, there are things that determine how long worship services should be. But communicators need to figure out how well do they engage people, and they should not talk one word longer than people are engaged.

There are people like Jeff who can engage you for an hour and a half in your chair, and they should go an hour and a half. And there are other communicators who can't keep you engaged for more than 15 or 20 minutes, and they shouldn't talk longer than that. Because once I am disengaged, then I begin to process the information as: this is irrelevant; church is irrelevant; God is irrelevant; the Bible is irrelevant. And all of a sudden I am learning the opposite lesson. I am drawing conclusions that are opposite of what the communicator is trying to make me draw because I am disengaged. So, the issue is: how do you engage the audience? And one of the things I talk to our communicators about is: The outline is great; the stories are great. But how do you engage them? How do you make it feel like we are on a journey, not you are just up there giving me information.

Question: So, how do you engage people?
Andy: One of the things that we talk a lot about around here is what makes for a relevant environment?
There are three things:
1) an appealing setting,
2) engaging communication, and
3) helpful information.

So the two parts that relate to the sermon are:
1) Was the presentation engaging? and
2) Was the information helpful?

As a pastor we tend to err on: Is the information true? Not even helpful, but is it true? That is, if I present true information that is true to God's Word, then I get an A. No, we are teaching the Bible, so we are assuming it is true. You don't get any points for that. Good grief, we are teaching the Bible--it better be true! The more relevant questions should be: Was the presentation engaging? And was the information helpful? If you have an engaging presentation with helpful information, people will come back next week for more of that. If you are engaging but not helpful, after awhile they will grow weary. It is interesting but I did not learn anything. If it is helpful but not engaging, then I am bored. And it may be stuff that I really need, but if you didn't engage me, I can't stay with you. You need to be helpful and engaging.
People who are trying to figure out communication in preaching need to figure out where do I need propping up? I may have all this great insight and truth, but if I am not engaging, then somebody needs to help me be more engaging. That may be visual aids. That may be speaking shorter. There are ways to make almost anybody be more engaging. It may be good to start off by saying, "I am not a very good communicator." That helps. I want you to know what you are about to discover--"I am not really that good but I have some helpful information." Now I am engaged. And as guys evaluate their preaching, those are two huge things. Is it helpful? Am I engaging?

Question: What do you think about preaching verse-by-verse messages through books of the Bible?
Andy: Guys that preach verse-by-verse through books of the Bible-- that is just cheating. It's cheating because that would be easy, first of all. That isn't how you grow people. No one in the Scripture modeled that. There's not one example of that.

All Scripture is equally inspired, but not all Scripture is equally applicable or relevant to every stage of life. My challenge is to read culture and to read an audience and ask: What is the felt need? Or perhaps what is more important, what is an unfelt need they need to feel that I can address? Because if they don't feel it, then they won't address it.
So how can I make them feel an unfelt need and then make them feel like they need to do something about it? But when you do that, people are like, "Man, that is amazing. You're brilliant." No, all you have done is unearthed a need and you talked about it. "I have never heard anyone talk about that before." Probably, no one has ever made you feel that before. So they talked about it, but it didn't register because they didn't make you feel like you needed to hear about it to start with.
I believe the true defining moment of my life as a communicator took place when I was in seminary. I was asked to do a chapel for the high school academy at First Baptist Church, Dallas. So I got the message all ready to go, and I was going to preach on the story of Naaman. And God told him to dip in the water seven times and he would be healed. I had all this great stuff. And I was sitting in my one-room efficiency apartment and I was thinking, "These kids have heard everything. They go to church all the time. They are not going to remember this. This is just another chapel. What can I do so that they can remember this? I am just going to come up with one phrase and I am going to say it so many times that they can't possibility forget it."
So I came up with this phrase: "To understand why, submit and apply." That was over 30 years ago and I still remember it. So I told the whole story. And I said the bottom line was: "To understand why, submit and apply. " And I said that God is going to ask you to do some things that you might not understand why, but you must submit and apply. I had them say it over and over.
Three years go by, and I am working in the college department in the same church and a freshman walks in and says, "I remember you. To understand why, submit and apply." He didn't remember my name. He wasn't even sure where he had seen me before. But it stuck in his head. And I'll never forget thinking, "That is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to take all this stuff in the Bible, and I want to say it so simply that it gets so lodged in people's hearts that in the moment of transition or temptation or whatever it might be, they think: What is that statement? What is that phrase?"
It is hard to take things down to that level...to help people see things from God's perspective. That was huge for me. I think it defined what effective preaching or effective communication is for me. It isn't three points or four points. It's really one point that is somehow connected to a passage and it is connected to a life. And then you should stop talking because you are done.

Question: What is your process?
Andy: At a recent "Grow Up Conference," I diagrammed my communication process as: Me--We--God--You--Us. The communication starts with Me-- let me tell you something about me. Then We, this is something we all have in common. Then God, this is what God says about it. You, this is what you need to do about it. And We, wouldn't it be great if we all did it. So it is a relational outline. Start with you. Connect to them. What does God have to say about this issue? What should you do about it? And what should we do about it?
So I talked structurally about what you hang on each of those pieces. You outline your communication relationally, and not just in terms of information. And it is so much easier. When guys bring their sermon outlines to me I say, "Alright, now where do you talk about you? They need to know who you are. And if you jump to the Bible, they've got to go with you. To me, that is the journey. It is me taking you into a conversation. And we start together and then we end together. We have a common problem and we find a solution. And we are all still on the same page."
It is so simple. You can do announcements that way. You can structure an entire worship service that way.

Question: How far in advance do you prepare your sermons?
Andy: I prepare at least three weeks ahead so I don't really pick up the sermon until late Saturday afternoon. I haven't really looked at my sermons for three weeks. That is how I like to do it. I like to be way ahead. On Saturday night I pick it up, and I usually take out and take out. And simplify, simplify, simplify to where hopefully everything just says the one thing and then I am done. So I make it look easy but making it simple is hard work. I study all day on Wednesdays, and as much as I need to on Thursdays. I spend at least a day and a half on the message, plus Saturday night picking it up and changing it. Or sometimes I start over or cut it in half. Saturday nights are dreadful for me, but I have learned picking it up cold makes me look at it with fresh eyes and it is going to be better. I don't recommend that for the faint of heart because it ruins your Saturday nights. But being way ahead is wonderful. When I go home this week, the next three weeks will be in folders. So if I get sick or we have an emergency and I miss my study day, then I am only two weeks ahead.


Ed: Andy, you make preaching look so easy. How hard do you work at being an effective communicator?
Andy: I listen to my own CD's all the time. In fact, on some Sundays I listen to all three services. And I want to get better and better, and I work on getting better. I listen for dumb habits that I have. I sometimes watch my own videos, which is horrible. That will either make you better or want to get out of ministry completely. I think I make it look easy, but it's not. I work very, very hard.
And every sermon I think, "What if this is it? What if this is the last time I preach?" And I psych myself up with that thought every single week. I want it to be the best sermon that has ever been preached by anyone anywhere. That is an unattainable goal and nobody cares. No one is giving out awards for that. But I just feel that all these people that got up and fought traffic and they got their kids here and they found a seat...I need to give them something that makes it worth all that. Why anyone would want to come to our 10:30 a.m. service? You must be starving. People are going to go through all that, and they are going to bring unchurched friends. They need to go home with something, just one simple thing. And I don't think I am successful every single time, but it is the goal every single time.
I ask our communicators all the time, "What is the one thing they've got to know? They may have three pages of notes, but what is the one sentence, idea, or phrase they have got to know? That's the thing. That's the take-away." So preaching with that kind of burden, bringing that kind of burden to the communication process is huge.

Ed: If you had to give one word to young pastors about communication, what would you tell them?
Andy: Show up every Sunday morning with a burden that is so heavy that you feel like you will die if you don't deliver it. And pray for that. Because if you don't have that, then you just have information. The people will put up with all kinds of a lack of excellence if there is an intensity and a burden that has to be delivered. And many times I have looked at my notes and thought, "Yeah, this might be helpful, but God, what's the thing I can't wait until Sunday morning to deliver? And I honestly can't wait for Sunday morning.
The other thing I always tell pastors, "If you preach from your weaknesses, you will never run out of sermon material."

In an interview with Preaching Magazine, Andy was asked a similar question: "Are there some things you've learned about preaching that you wished you'd known years ago?"
Two parts of his reply really struck a chord. The first part had to do with how he structured his messages; the second dealt with how he planned his message series. As for how Andy structures his messages, this is what he said:
"In terms of how I structure messages and memorize them, what I finally figured out is that there's basically three or four, maybe five parts to every message. What it took me years to learn is this: if I'll just get those in my mind and understand my transitions, I can forget the details. And I am far more free to communicate rather than try to remember something... And so in terms of memorizing sermons, I figured out there are only three or four big chunks and when I can mentally go through the big pieces, then I am ready. It took me awhile to figure that out. This helped my memorization and my communication style tremendously. I became far more conversational. I also discovered it's about a journey and it's about one thing, not four things."

As for how he plans his messages, Andy described it this way:
"All of our series planning begins with a team of people and me just throwing things up on the board and at every level of preparation bringing people into the process and saying, "What do you think about this? Does this make sense?" The average person gives me all the credit for that wonderfully delivered message, but it had a lot of hands in it...I think the whole team approach to series planning is helpful. My best visual aids weren't my ideas but when you get a group of people thinking, they all have a gift. So I wish I'd done that earlier. It takes the creative pressure off sometimes. I'll have other people out there thinking about it while I'm in here working on the details."
  
Ed:I had the privilege a few months ago to be visiting there at the church which kind of prompted me to begin this blog series... When you're preaching and when you're communicating, what is the goal that you have for the listener? What do you want them do, be, act, or change as you communicate with them?

Andy: Well, actually I think the list that you just gave me is the goal and I think it depends on the kind of sermon. And so, I think every communicator needs to step up to wherever he or she's communicating with a specific goal, and sometimes it is "I want them to know something," sometimes it is "I want them to do something," sometimes it is "I want them to change something." So, in 35 or 40 minutes of a lot of words coming out of my mouth, in my mind, there's always a specific goal. This past Sunday for us was Easter and I wanted our congregation to understand something. It wasn't an application sermon. It wasn't even a "here's something you've never thought of before" sermon. It was a "I want you to understand something" But I think that's going to shift with the topic and shift with whatever series a communicator's in. That's a good question.

Ed: You and Layne Jones coauthored the book, Communicating for a Change, and many people have found it very helpful. What do you think are some elements that pastors and communicators who are doing messages, what do they need to bring to the message so that people can experience or be motivated to experience that change?
Andy: I think a big part of it is passion. And I coach our communicators. Every week I'm in some sort of coaching environment with our communicators on staff, and one of the things I say to them frequently is I say, "Look, you've gotta imagine there's a 21-year-old guy that's sittin' two/thirds of the way back and he's givin' church one more shot. What, where in your message is the passion to reach out and grab that guy by the throat and say, 'You can't leave here without hearing or doing or understanding.'" And so, when it comes to change, I think it's one thing to look at our outlines and our, whatever script we have in front of us.
That's one thing, but I think we have to step up there with somebody in mind or a type of person in mind because, for me, that's what I think fuels me to communicate for change or to communicate for a life change or to communicate to understand something that's never been understood before. And in my world - and you've been around me enough to know - every once in a while, I pull my stool out to the front of the stage and just it on it as close to the edge of the stage I can and lean as far as I can into the audience, and that's sorta my visual way of saying, "Okay, look, if you forget everything else you've heard today, you got to know this one thing, you gotta hear this one thing." And I think from the stage, that's the compelling change part. Here's what's gotta change.

Ed:When you communicate, you're known and have really promoted and encouraged people to consider that one-point approach to really make it simple, make it clear, make it compelling. Why is that? Why one-point? Because many of us were taught to have these three points, four points. Why have you narrowed the focus down to one thing?
Andy: You know it's interesting, and I'll answer the question directly, but actually at Dallas Seminary, we studied Haddon Robinson's book on preaching which all of us have been exposed to or was a textbook, and the thing is, Haddon taught us to preach one-point messages. I mean, if you look at biblical preaching or you look at his text, he teaches "What's the one thing?" The problem is: nobody did it. Even when I was in seminary and we were using that book as a textbook, even in class, nobody drove us to, "Hey, what's your one thing?" So, I feel like I'm doing what I was taught to do in seminary because I felt like that was the model. But the thing I think - and I shared this in book - the thing that really turned a page for me was, when I was in seminary, I was invited to teach a chapel for a Christian high school and I had this really amazing message I thought, and that morning when I got, or actually it was the night before, as I was lookin' over my notes, I thought, "You know what? They don't care about any of this." I've got all this stuff and all this content. They're seniors and juniors and sophomores in high school. They have chapel every week. They don't care. And they're not gonna remember any of this. And I just felt compelled to say, "Okay, if they're only gonna remember one thing, which they probably won't remember anything, but if they're gonna remember one thing, what do I want it to be?" And I rewrote my whole message towards that one thing. And that was a defining moment for me in terms of preparation and communication and I've just sorta stuck with it since then.

Ed: How do you keep from just making up statements or points, finding scriptural footnotes to kinda make a predetermined point?
Andy: Well, for me, I really, really, really want the text to speak for itself. And there have been so many times I've gone into my preparation with an idea in mind, come out on the other end with a completely different idea, and I really to the best of my ability, I want the text to speak. And I think once we've done our due diligence in terms of really, really, really doin' our textual work, using the languages, usin' the helps, whatever a man or woman or uses to prepare, I think from that, that' where we ask the question, "Okay, what's the thing the author is tryin' to communicate? What's the thing God was tryin' to illustrate through this story? What's the idea that comes out of this narrative?" So, I really think it's all in the text, but it just takes a long time sometimes to get there. And as I've told our staff and I tell my wife frequently, sometimes it's really not until Saturday night or even sometimes Sunday morning when it finally dawns on me, this is the thing that I've gotta carry with me to the platform today. So, it's hard work, for me anyway.

Ed: Well, like you said, "I want the text to speak for itself." What do you say to people that say, "Well, Andy, if you want the Text to speak for itself, just work through it verse by verse"? What are the advantages and disadvantages of that, and how do you come down there?
Andy: Well, I think anyone who listens, not to a sermon I've preached, but anyone who listens to a bunch of sermons I preach know that I, my favorite thing is to take a passage and to work through a passage word by word, verse by verse. I love to do that. That's what I was trained to do. So, I think on any given Sunday, I preach exegetically. What I don't do is pick up where I left off last week with the very next verse. Now, I've done that through the book of Jonah, done that to the book of Nehemiah, but typically, we're picking a topic, and then I'm picking passages that I think speak to that topic, and then I'm exegeting those passages.
I think preaching verse-by-verse through books of the Bible is a fun thing to do. I love listening to that kind of teaching. That's actually how I do my quiet times. My quiet time is verse by verse, take as long as I need to to work through a book of the Bible and write down insights and observations, but in terms of what happens on a Sunday morning, as I'm lookin' at my audience and as I look at the Text, even the writers of the Text don't give equal weight to everything, and verses, I mean, and these books of the Bible, especially the epistles, were written to be read holistically.
I think when I get to heaven, Paul is gonna say, "Wow, you found a whole lot more in there than I originally said because I meant for somebody to stand up and read the whole book of Ephesians at one time to the local church, and gosh, you spent six weeks pickin' through there." So, I think sometimes, if we're not careful, we miss what the author's trying to say because we spend so much time on three or four sentences that the author said as they made their entire argument. And honestly, I think that's a little dangerous, and I think both of us would agree and everybody listening to your podcast would agree, we have heard preachers and communicators make more of Text than the author originally intended because they decided, "I'm only gonna cover these five verses or these six verses this particular Sunday." And I think we can actually miss the message of the author doing that sometimes.
But I do wanna say, I don't think it's a wrong way to preach or an inadequate way to preach. And obviously, John McArthur and others have made a career and have built very, very mature believers and very strong churches around working through books of the Bible over and over. So there's, it's just a preference thing I guess.
And there seems to be a bit of resurgence of that.


Ed: I recently interviewed Craig Groeschel and he made a point that younger adults seem to want to go deeper than the boomers did... Have you noticed any shift? You've been at this for a long time at North Point (and before). Have you noticed any shift in the way that believers and the unchurched have responded to preaching?

Andy: I would agree with Craig only because I keep hearing people I respect say that. But I can't draw from any personal experience to say, if you mean by "deeper," that people have a longing for "keep me in the book of Romans for four months." I think that is an expression, but I do think there's a spiritual hunger. I think there is a wonderful hunger for the Scriptures, especially the gospels right now... Generation to generation switches from Paul to Jesus, Paul to Jesus, Paul to Jesus, and if you've been around long enough, you see that it goes back and forth. But, I think there's a huge hunger for Scripture and what does the Bible say, and for people who do what we do, that's a great thing.
Ed: One of the points that you have made is the need to help the audience, the listener, the people to see why this scripture "matters." Why is that so important? How do you do it to help people to see this matters?

Andy: I think the best way to understand that is to think about a father with his or a mother with her children. There are things as a parent that I know are extremely important for my kids to know. The problem is my kids don't know they're extremely important for my kids to know. So, for my kids to take my advice or instruction seriously, I have to do a little pre-work to help them understand the gravity of what I'm about to say. Well, the same is true when we open the Scripture with new believers, nonbelievers, or people who have been a Christian a long time, but you're about to present them with something you think, "this is a must have," a "must-understand" truth. But if we don't help people understand why it's so important before we lay it out, it just becomes more information.
As a parent, I have to do that when I really want my kids to embrace the truth or embrace an idea. The new craze right now among teenagers is texting, and so the other day I have a conversation with my two boys about texting inappropriate pictures and all that sort of stuff. Well, as I began the conversation, I began by talking about what's happening to kids who are caught. It's messing up their lives and being associated with this follows them for the rest of their life. So, I began with that before I talked to them about, have they heard of this or are kids doing this. So, again, I had to create some emotion around the topic. It would have, it's almost a waste of time to say, "Hey kids, don't do that. The end."
Well, I think with preaching, as we approach the platform or as we open God's Word, I want people to be hungry for what I'm about to say. The emotion we create at the beginning of a message causes people to "lean in" and causes people to want to take seriously what we're about to say. So, when I sit through a message or listen to a message where it's, "Hey, last week we ended at Romans 4:8. Today we pick up at verse nine," and they just jump in, I'm like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait. Make me want this."
Now, as a mature believer, I want it because it's in the Bible, but I'm kind of glad I didn't bring my three unchurched friends because you haven't made them want this. Simply saying it's in the Bible isn't enough.
It depends a little bit on the audience, but I think for all of us, we need to look at our audience like we're shepherds or we're parents and they're children, and there's all these biblical metaphors, and so consequently, to be good stewards of their time, to be good stewards of their spiritual life, I think we need to do the difficult task and the difficult work of creating some desire or some appetite for what we're about to say.

Ed: I wrote an article on this topic in Preaching Magazine called "Contextual Preaching."  I basically encouraged people to begin the message in a way that connects with your audience.  Some objected to it.  Some said, "Well, you just need to trust the Holy Spirit." I believe I trust the Holy Spirit. But I think there's a sense that some people think, "Well, we don't need to even worry about those things."

Andy: Well, they just need to read the parables. Why would Jesus bother telling a story? He shoulda' just told 'em the truth. Why spend all the time talking about a son and his father. The son runs off. Why don't you just say, "Look, God's the Father and God will take you back if you run off." Let's move on.
I think this is one of the reasons there was some kind of semi-controversy around our conversation last time, I made the point that verse-by-verse preaching is kind of cheating. And my point was, from my perspective, it's easier to do that than to do what I do and what people who do what I do do in terms of spending lots of time trying to create a context for Biblical truth. And I didn't mean, obviously, cheating like they were doing something wrong. What I really meant to say was I think it's easier. And honestly, as I work through books of the Bible in my private devotional life, there are so many times, Ed, I think, "Gosh, I wish I could just go in next Sunday and say, 'Okay, here's what I read this week and here's what I got out of it.'" It would just be so much easier and so much simpler, but then I think, you know what? For people who are where I am, for people who just can't get enough of God's Word, that would work, but for the audience I'm trying to reach, I'm gonna have to create some sorta creative environment... I'm gonna have to create a hunger. And that's difficult. That just takes a lot of time.
Ed: Now, for those, I mean, there are people out there who are convictional verse-by-verse preachers. I preach that way a majority of the time. Let's say we're gonna work through a text.  As you said earlier, we're going to stop at Romans 4:8 and then go to Romans 4:9. How can we help when we begin that conversation at Romans 4:9 for people to engage and to see this as important? Just go up and say, "The Bible says it. Let's go." Or is there something more we can and should do?

Andy: Well, I think the good news there is there are many who teach who do a great job at what you're suggesting, and that is: the introduction is everything. The introduction is designed to make me want to listen to what you're about to say. So, the question is always: what can I say up front to make my audience interested or more interested in what I'm about to say?
There's a group of people that as soon as you open the Bible, they're interested. But there's a group of people that as soon as you open the Bible, they're going to suspect anything you say. So, I think it's looking within culture; trying to unearth the tension. That's something I talk a lot about in the book. What is the tension that this text addresses? And the more tension I can create up front, the more interested people are going be in what I have to say. That's just true of general conversation. This is why anybody who listens to the news or listens to the radio or television, what are those news readers do right before they sign off for a commercial? They say, "In a minute we're gonna find out why blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," and you go, "Gosh, well, I need to stay on this station 'til they come back." Well, they've just created interest in what they are about to say.
I think good communicators do that intuitively and I think as communicators of God's Word, it's to our advantage to create that kind of interest. I think a person who's preaching chapter-by-chapter through the Bible can do that. I think it's a little more challenging because, obviously, God didn't ordain the chapters and the verses. That was added later, but we find ourselves locked into that.

Ed: Who do you listen, other communicators, preachers, teachers out there, and how do they influence you?

Andy: The group I listen to the most, we have probably 12 communicators at our three campuses here in Atlanta combined with our pastoral staff and our student communicators, and I listen to just about everything they do primarily because I feel like I need to be in a coaching role. So, that takes a lot of my listening time, which I enjoy. I listen to Craig; I listen to Perry Noble; I listen to Ed Young; I listen to Joel Osteen. I think there's so much we can learn as communicators from Joel, and, obviously, he gets criticized a lot for a lot of things, but you don't learn anything if you put on your critique hat. You have to become a student before you're a critic. So, I listen to Joel. I listen to my dad, for various reasons, but those are probably the people that I am more intentional about tuning into the most.

Ed: What advice would you give to communicators, preachers of all different kinds about how they might effectively communicate God's Word to their congregations?
Andy: I think we have to create in our schedules the time we need to study.. The more talented the person is, obviously, the more tendency they're going to have to wing it or to just lean hard on their personality or their ability just to be interesting. I think we just have to study. It's difficult. I mean, for me, the better somebody is, that means the easier they make it look, and so the tendency is to think, "Well, they don't spend a lot of time. That just seemed so easy to them." But, when you watch a professional tennis player, you think, "Gosh, I can get out there and just whack the ball over the net like that." Well, the reason they make it look so easy is because they work so hard at it.

I just think a big part of this is just making sure in our schedules we have carved out our best time to do our best work to prepare for our most important jobs which is to open God's Word and say, "Here's what God has said. Here's what we've gotta do. Here's what we need to know." So, I think a lot of this just goes back to every individual communicator finding their sweet spot in terms of studying, preparation, and being prepared for Sunday or Wednesday or Tuesday or whenever it is that they have the opportunity to stand up in front of their audience.


Saturday, November 10, 2012

One Hanging On A Tree - John Newton

John Newton, former slave ship captain, and author of "Amazing Grace," wrote this poem:

In evil long I took delight, 
Unawed by shame or fear, 
Till a new object struck my sight, 
And stopp’d my wild career: 
I saw One hanging on a Tree 
In agonies and blood, 
Who fix’d His languid eyes on me. 
As near His Cross I stood. 

Sure never till my latest breath, 
Can I forget that look: 
It seem’d to charge me with His death, 
Though not a word He spoke: 
My conscience felt and own’d the guilt, 
And plunged me in despair: 
I saw my sins His Blood had spilt, 
And help’d to nail Him there. 

Alas! I knew not what I did! 
But now my tears are vain: 
Where shall my trembling soul be hid? 
For I the Lord have slain! 
A second look He gave, which said, 
"I freely all forgive; 
This blood is for thy ransom paid; 
I die that thou may’st live." 

Thus, while His death my sin displays 
In all its blackest hue, 
Such is the mystery of grace, 
It seals my pardon too. 
With pleasing grief, and mournful joy, 
My spirit now if fill’d, 
That I should such a life destroy, 
Yet live by Him I kill’d! 

John Newton, 1725-1807. 

Friday, November 2, 2012

Reposting Sermon download link

Someone brought it to my attention that the sermons file I had shared was too huge to download from my Livedrive Server.  (I get livedrive from www.boundlesscloud.com -- they're buddies of mine, you should check them out. Cheaper than Carbonite!)

I had made a mistake and included some huge video files in the sermons folder.  So, after removing those, it's down to 130 MB.  Much more manageable.

So here's the new share link: https://okcbiblemethodist.livedrive.com/Item/8505

Enjoy, Brothers in the Gospel!  And don't reference me.  If it's any good, I probably got it from somewhere else.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Trunk or Treat Outreach: Candy Thru the Bible

Last night, our church did a "Trunk or Treat" outreach in our community.  Various families lined up cars in the church parking lot, decorated their trunks, and handed out candy Halloween night.  By all accounts, it was a success.  We had nearly twice the kids we planned for (thankfully, we had some extra candy), tons of good connections, and the guests and their kids all had fun.

Our theme was "Candy Thru the Bible." We served hot dogs while kids came up and got into groups, and when we were done leading one group through, the "tour guides" would come back and get the next group from the hot dog area, and take them through the circle.  Each station would take approximately 60 seconds to tell the story and give the candy.  (Very short version of each story, obviously.)

Below, I've attached my notes from the stations to share with you.  Beware, they are MY notes... they might not be totally complete, but I think they'll be enough for you to take and run with if your church wants to do something similar.

----------------------------------------------------


Notes from 2012 and suggestions for changes:
Ø  We did from 5-7 PM, but business really picked up about 6:30. Next year, suggest we go from 6:30-8:30.
Ø  We had Elizabeth & Darrell do storytelling, which kept them tied up all night and left them exhausted with no voice left -- Get more storytellers; write out script and train them.
Ø  Free up at least one pastor to man the information booth, work the crowd.
Ø  Maybe have one pastor do the Gospel presentation at the end?
Ø  Get some live or canned music on a system during setup, or maybe near the hot dog area.
Ø  We had 210 kids (maybe more), only planned for about 120.
Ø  We did hot dogs ahead of time, for people while they wait.  
Ø  Get 2 parking lot attendants next time, dedicated only managing traffic & counting people, instead of having someone do double duty with a station.
Ø  Get better lighting solutions… some of the displays were quite dark after the sun went down.
Ø   Get someone to specifically take pictures of groups... offer to email or mail them a copy and ask if we can send more info about our church. Post to FB.


Trunk or Treat Stations:

#1: Bit-O-Honey – Big Pulpit Bible set up
Psalm 119:103 “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.”  The Bible is God's Word, which means He wrote it from the beginning to the end.
#2: Milky Way – Creation setup
Genesis 1:1 – In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…” (v.6) he made the stars also)
#3: Caramel Apple Sucker or Gummy fruit snacks – Adam and Eve’s sin
Genesis 3:6 “Eve took the fruit and ate and gave some to her husband and he ate.” Sin entered the world...
#4: Bubble Gum (round if possible) – God’s love goes on and on - promises a Savior would come
John 3:16 or Genesis 3:15
#5: Animal Crackers – Noah’s Ark
Many years passed, and God saw that people had become very evil. One man, Noah, believed in God and did what was right. God told him to build an ark and save himself, and God sent a flood that destroyed everything on earth. Genesis 6
#6: Crunch bar – Joshua and the battle of Jericho -  Joshua 6:6-20
(we changed this at the last minute and went with Samson, who "crunched" a whole building to kill lots of God's enemies.) 
#7: Baby Ruth – Book of Ruth
She made up her mind to serve God, even though she lived far away from God's people... and God was so pleased with how her heart wanted to know Him that she became the great great … grandmother of Jesus.
#8: JawBreaker – Samson 
Samson was a very strong man that God used to defend God’s people from their enemies.  Once he took a jawbone of a donkey and killed 1,000 bad guys with it.  Judges 15:15
#9: Whoppers – David & Goliath
David was just a young man when he killed the WHOPPER of a giant, Goliath. 1 Samuel 17
#10: Smarties – Solomon
Solomon asked God for wisdom to be a good king, to know how to do the right thing.  And God gave it to him.  He was the wisest of all men (1 Kings 4:29-34)
#11: Dum Dum Sucker – Jonah
Jonah was a prophet of God. But when God told Jonah to go preach to Nineveh, he ran from God.  What a dum-dum thing to do!  But the whale swallowed him and took him to the place where God wanted him to preach.
#12 – Kit Kat – Daniel and the Lions Den
Daniel Chapter 6
#13 – Fireballs (3 apiece) – 3 Hebrew Boys
Daniel’s friends (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego thrown in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3).  God protected them and they were not burned.
#14: Lifesaver – The Nativity & Cross
When the time was right, God kept his promise – he sent his Son Jesus into the world.  He was born to a virgin named Mary, who was engaged to a man named Joseph.  An angel told them “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save His people from their sin.” Matthew 1:21
#15: Now & Later’s – Salvation & Heaven
In the Bible in 2 Cor. 6:2, it says, “Now is the day of salvation.”  If we will believe in Jesus as our Savior and follow Him, then LATER we get to live with him in heaven forever!  (We used a big bag of candy and said, being with Jesus was the “biggest prize of all!”)

OPTIONAL ideas we didn't use:  
> M&Ms – Mary & Martha – friends of Jesus who loved him. He raised their brother from the dead!
> Hershey kisses – Isaac and Rebekah Genesis 24:67 – Isaac loved Rebekah

> Skittles (many colors) – Joseph & coat of many colors - Joseph story – Genesis 37-46
Caramels – Elijah and Mt. Carmel - Elijah called all the people to Mt. Carmel for a contest to see who the REAL God was. 1 Kings 18:20-38
Snickers or Laffy Taffy – Abraham and Sarah - God promised they would have a son, whose descendants would bless all the nations of the earth.  Sarah laughed in her heart, but God kept his promise – he sent Isaac, whose descendant was Jesus. Genesis 18:12



Monday, October 15, 2012

Working with likeminded people

The Apostle Paul's mission sending board was Antioch, not Jerusalem. If it had been Jerusalem, they'd have clawed each other's eyes out.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

IMF Resources I promised

This post is for the attendees of IMF in Pell City, AL.  I promised to share some of my work with them, on guest follow up and other matters.  Here are the download links, albeit a couple weeks late.

Darrell's Sermon Folder -
https://okcbiblemethodist.livedrive.com/Item/8344
 Huge ZIP file, about 1.6 GB. Almost all my sermons are here.
<> A beginning caveat: I changed from WordPerfect to Word about 3 years into my ministry, so some of these you might not be able to open, depending on what you have. And, because of the way I prep sermons, you might not always get what I'm saying in my notes... incomplete thoughts, sketchy notes, etc. BUT....
There are tons of folders, including some stand alone "general encouraging messages" etc.
<> A couple documents that might be helpful also are the ones in the root directory folder called "Sermon Calendar 2010/2011/2012."  About 3 years ago, I started planning my preaching more consistently, and the result are those documents.  I don't recommend you copy me, but I think that you can learn about planning your preaching by looking at that document.  I also recommend a short seminar session (about 1 hour) on this by Nelson Searcy called "Planning a 1-Year Preaching Calendar."  Google it, it's worth listening to.
<> Two folders worth noticing are "Special Days" folder, which contains Easter, Christmas, Mother/Father's Day, Patriotic stuff, etc.... and "Funeral Sermons" which contains messages I've prepped that might be helpful to you in those scary moments where you have to preach for a grieving family.
<> The real gold mine here is probably the "Series" folder.  That one contains all the past series that I've ever done here, including several through books of the Bible, most complete with handouts, etc.  Because of the way I preach, there will be an occasional message missing, where I simply didn't prepare notes (or prepared very light notes), because preferred to extemporize that message from the gut without notes. At any rate, hope it's helpful.  Don't quote me or give me credit.  :-)

Bible Methodist Church Follow-Up System -
https://okcbiblemethodist.livedrive.com/Item/8342
A ZIP file containing most of the documents associated with our followup system.  For a description of how to use this stuff, please see this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GFxSBFXmv4  I am also including my notes from the session "Guest Follow-Up" from IMF 2012, so you can see the other resources that I recommend there.

Confessions of A Pastor Message on Lust - From IMF 2009
https://okcbiblemethodist.livedrive.com/files/8343
An audio message that I preached at IMF 09 on my struggle with pornography and overcoming that.  If you struggle with that issue, I humbly submit it to you as a brother who knows where you are, and by the grace of God is overcoming.

It's an honor to speak to you men.  Preach the Word.