17 The seven deadly sins of preachers

Transcript

Hello and welcome back to our preaching masterclass.

In these next few segments we’re going to consider the seven deadly sins that preachers commit

We’ll ask ‘What can make a sermon or a talk in church go seriously wrong

I conducted a straw poll among some of my friends and asked “If I asked you to make a list of the seven deadly sins of preachers, what would be top of your list?’

It was a tad embarrassing – because I’ve committed them all!

So let’s dive in.

Interestingly, in the conversations I had with non-preachers (i.e. church attenders), this first sin came up almost every time!

Deadly sin no 1 – Overstaying our welcome

This is the word-monger, the preacher who just doesn’t know when to stop

  • in fact this is the easiest of the seven to fix.

I heard a story (?true) of a man who brought his unchurched friend to worship one Sunday morning.

  • During the service there was a whispered conversation between them with the friend asking what different parts of the service meant.

  • Then as he was preparing to speak the preacher took off his wrist-watch and laid it out on the lectern

  • The friend leant over and whispered “What does that mean”

  • The Christian replied “That means absolutely nothing”!.

If you’re asked to speak for 20 minutes – please don’t preach for 30!

Staying within your expected time is a common courtesy for any public speaker, and especially preachers

I remember preaching at an Anglican church in my home town and the vicar, who was a friend of mine, had given 12 minutes to speak.

  • So I stood up, preached for 12 minutes (roughly) and came to a conclusion.

  • My friend came to the front of the church, which was comfortably full, and was obviously a bit flustered.

  • “Well.” he said “I don’t quite know what to do now. I gave Ian 12 minutes to preach, thinking that, because he’s a baptist, he’d take 30”

What intrigued me about that was he’d clearly been fed an idea that baptist preachers had a reputation for stealing time from the rest of the event.

  • Thankfully he saw the funny side of it and we’re still friends

Let’s look a bit deeper at this

What’s going on here?

You may say to me “I just felt compelled to go on – the HS was anointing me to keep going and I felt God say things I didn’t have in my notes – I felt like a conduit of His word. – so I just kept going and lost all track of time

Great! – I’ve been there – I know what it feels like

Let’s look at that moment from three perspectives: psychologically, theologically and sociologically

psychologically

A psychologist might describe that experience as being in ‘flow’

  • we are doing something (preaching) that is so enthralling for us that time stands still

  • we sometimes have our most creative ideas when we’re in flow – that’s good

But let’s be aware, however, that the congregation won’t be in this happy state! (or only a tiny fraction of them)

  • what’s going on in my mind is likely to be very different from what’s going on in theirs.

  • I’m in flow, they (mostly) aren’t.

theologically

We feel that ‘The Holy Spirit was on me / inspiring me’ – and sometimes He does

I want to ask the question – why now?, was there something God forgot to impress on you while you were preparing your talk?

It is a fallacy that God only works on the spur of the moment.

(We’ll return to this in a minute)

Sociologically

What’s going on in that room? –

You are at the helm in a situation where it is very difficult for people to stand out and be different.

By preaching for too long we can create genuine discomfort in the people who are now compelled to listen to us.

People who have spoken to me about this include

  • people who need to be out of the building on time (to catch a train or bus or who have ordered a taxi to arrive at 12.15, say)

  • Children’s workers in the hall next door who are now having to invent yet more activities for weary children to engage in. If the service runs over time because you overstay your welcome, you will not be their friend (and I put my hand up to having done this!)

  • Older people – especially me – who need to get to the loo

as the preacher you’re locking them in their seats until you finish.

And while you might say ‘It’s OK to get up if you need to while I’m speaking’ most people won’t because, sociologically, we have a strong bias towards conforming to what the rest of the audience are doing.

  • Sitting tight.

  • We are biased against standing out as different.

Why might we do this?

If it’s so easy to fix, why do we slip into preaching for too long? (I have!)

Allow me to suggest a few reasons.

We might do it (and I’ve done it) because

Prepared too much material

Some of us, in order to be thorough, pack way too much stuff into our notes on the platform

  • and we find ourselves in a position where, once we’ve started speaking, we either have to run over our time, or edit on the fly.

And when that happens (to me) there’s a voice inside whispering ‘Hey God’s given me all this, and I’m really excited by it, so I’m just going to pour it out.’

Personally I find that editing-on-the-fly gives me an additional factor to think about while I’m actually preaching –

  • and that’s a distraction I could do without!

We might do it because

We think it’s the Holy Spirit?

Indeed, some preachers think that going over time is a sign that the Holy Spirit is more likely to be working.

Before I go any further I want to say that this does occasionally happen.

  • The Holy Spirit lays a message or an idea on your heart at the time of preaching that you just need to run with and let God speak through it.

  • (Usually at the expense of some of the stuff you’ve prepared.)

But moments like that should be uncommon.

If you want to be trusted as a preacher one of the key qualities to develop is keeping to your side of the time bargain.

Also, I want to question the assumption that long preaching is the Holy Spirit working because it carries no Biblical evidence!

In fact, rather the opposite!

On one occasion Paul was preaching at Ephesus and he went on too long.

  • As a result, Eutichus fell asleep and fell out of a first floor window.

  • Paul then had to go and revive him. (Acts 20)

It doesn’t sound to me as if that story sets up overstaying our welcome as a helpful model!

Jesus, talking about the exhibitionists of his day said,

‘Beware the hypocrites because they think they will be heard because of their many words‘ (Matthew 6:7)

There is not a proportional relationship between spiritual impact and word count!

I also what to question the assumption that long preaching more Spirit-filled because it’s an attitude which limits God.

Was He incapable of speaking to me in the office, in the park, or in the coffee shop, or wherever I prepared my preaching?

  • If I’d spent that extra half hour preparing, God would have got his message through?

What can we do about it?

spot the signs

While you’re preaching, learn to spot the tell-tale signs that people are not concentrating on your talk any more

  • I know it’s an uncomfortable reality, but let’s try to be honest with ourselves about this

  • you might see people vaguely looking around (especially looking down) or doing something else, checking their phones,

  • There’s sometimes a low level rustle of people fidgeting that’s a sign it’s time to call it a day

Know who quickly you speak

… on average

My rule of thumb – measure (in real time) how long it takes to preach one page of your notes and do some arithmetic!

Most of us preach at about 100 words a minute and that enables me to estimate my time within a minute or two.

At this point I think I need to be careful about saying too much about … saying too much!

So deadly sin no 1 – going on for too long

 

Where to go next

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preaching workshops alert 1

The seven deadly sins of preachers - How not to be a bore.