Book #7- Preaching On Your Feet: Connecting God and the Audience in the Preaching Moment

Lybrand, Fred R. Preaching On Your Feet: Connecting God and the Audience in the Preaching Moment. Nashville: B&H Academic, 2008, 171 pages.

This is a re-read for me. I first read this book when I did an independent study in Evangelistic Preaching in the summer of 2008 at NTS. This quickly became my favorite book on preaching. When I interned at Columbus Shepherd Church of the Nazarene with Dr. Eddie Estep, now the district superintendent in South Carolina, I was always amazed at the way Eddie would always preach without notes, and was becoming quite convinced that this was the best way to go about the task of preaching. Eddie differs from Lybrand, however. Eddie would write a manuscript and then was able to pretty much memorize it and repeat it nearly verbatim; Lybrand challenges the preacher to be completely extemporaneous in their preaching.

By this Lybrand does not mean so much of the extemporaneous preaching that holiness people have had to suffer through in the past: the preacher opens up his Bible and sticks his finger down on it, and whatever verse he happens to be pointing to is where the Spirit wants him to preach from in this particular sermon. Oh, the harm we do to both God and the Church when we blame such a poor attempt at preaching on the Spirit!

In preaching on your feet, Lybrand is speaking of what he calls "the art of practiced thinking." Lybrand says that one of the best ways to learn to preach on your feet is to talk to yourself, getting used to verbal processing. Work things out aloud to yourself. The key, ultimately, is saturation. The preacher must saturate themselves into the text and begin to let it wash over them until they can have a single focus for the sermon, a la Haddon Robinson's big idea. Then, "if you know what you intend to say, then the words will come if you start." (84)

Early in the book, Lybrand gives a definition of preaching that I really like: "Preaching is the moment of the sermon that includes the audience, one's walk with God, one's preparation, and things that come to the forefront in the moment to weave together into a unique tapestry of a sermon for people in a time." (22) In Lybrand's view, the personality of the preacher is of great importance. He describes preaching someone else's sermon or mimicking the style of another preacher as being an echo which loses all the force of the original. He goes so far with this line of thinking to say that even preaching on Sunday a sermon prepared earlier in the week is an echo, because since you finished your manuscript and set it aside, you have changed. You aren't the same now as you were then. You have grown and changed, and preaching on your feet allows the sermon to do the same much more than reading a manuscript.

Lybrand admits that preaching on your feet is not easy, so he argues that if one is going to do it at all, one must do it exclusively. His argument is that if you begin to use notes, you will become accustomed to using notes, and so then you will have to use notes. If you go without notes, you will become accustomed to that and will not need them.

As I was reading this book, I began to preach on my feet. When I came to Drexel, I preached from a manuscript for the first several months, but there was just something about reading a manuscript to the congregation every Sunday that just didn't feel right. I felt as though I wasn't connecting, so I began preaching on my feet, and though I haven't done a survey of the congregation or anything to prove this, I feel as though my preaching is connecting a lot better than it was before. However, my congregation might complain about the fact that my sermons have gotten significantly longer since I began preaching on my feet.

My method is a little different than Lybrand's, however. At one point in the book, he suggests writing your own book on how you prepare sermons. Though it may never get published, it will help you think through how you preach, so let me sketch what I do briefly. Of course, the first thing I do is read the text, and I normally get some ideas of what I want to say or what I think this text might mean. I plan my preaching out in advance, so I don't have to go searching for a text. I'm either preaching in a series that I already have planned out or from the lectionary.

After I've read the text and begun to formulate some things in my mind, I begin to read some commentaries. Anything that sticks out to me in those commentaries as being particularly well-said or important for the passage, I write it down on a sheet of paper with all the bibliographic information. Normally, I'll read two or three commentaries on a passage. This week I'm preaching on the Beatitudes, and I actually read 8 commentaries.

Once this whole process is completed, I take the sheets of paper to my computer and type them out. Yes, it would probably be easier to do this all at once, but my commentaries or at the church and my computer is at the parsonage. After this is typed up, I send it to my Kindle. I normally have all of this done by Wednesday or Thursday, and the rest of the week, I just let it marinade. I normally figure out how I want to begin before hand, or if there are any particular themes I want to pick up on.

Then Sunday morning during Sunday School, I read through my notes several times on my Kindle. When I actually stand up to preach, most things are pretty extemporaneous. Most of the illustrations I use are personal stories, lately mostly focusing on my marriage; I'm not sure yet if this is a good thing or a bad thing. And yes, sometimes, I kind of pause as I think of what I want to say next or how exactly I want to word something. I don't think this is a bad thing though. I think it allows people the opportunity to process what I've just said.

I'd encourage you to try preaching on your feet. I've noticed in recent years that it seems that the best preachers in the Church of the Nazarene preach without notes. I'll end with two practical tips on what to do with particular phrases you know you want to include in your sermon or maybe a particularly good quote you want to get exactly right. First, you could always just write it out on a 3x5 card and tuck that away in your Bible. Second, you could print those quotes as notes in your bulletin. Scott Daniels does that Pasadena First Church of the Nazarene, and it seems to work very well for him.

May God Himself, the God of Peace, bless your preparation this week as you prepare to proclaim His Word.

Book #6- Confessions of a Pastor: Adventures in Dropping the Pose and Getting Real with God

Groeschel, Craig. Confessions of a Pastor: Adventures in Dropping the Pose and Getting Real with God. Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 2006.

Craig Groeschel is the founding pastor of LifeChurch.tv in Oklahoma. It was one of the first churches to go multi-site. Now, I have to admit, I decided to read this book now because I thought it was going to be about being a pastor. In a sense, it is, but it is also much more about being a Christian. It is Craig telling the story of who he went from being a full-time minister and part-time Christian to being a fully devoted follower of Christ who happens to be a pastor.

In doing so, Craig got honest with himself, his family, and his congregation, and began to talk about some of the struggles he has instead of putting on the "pastor's face" that it is so easy to hide behind. Here are Craig's confessions:

• 
  
  I Can't Stand a Lot of Christians.


• 
  
  I Have to Work Hard to Stay Sexually Pure


• 
  
  Most of the Time I Feel Incredibly Lonely


• 
  
  I Hate Prayer Meetings


• 
  
  I Worry Almost All the Time


• 
  
  Sometimes I Doubt God


• 
  
  I Feel Completely Inadequate


• 
  
  I Stink at Handling Criticism


• 
  
  I'm Afraid of Failure

Other than "I Worry Almost All the Time," every one of Craig's confessions resonates with me. My favorite thing about the book is that Craig doesn't just state in his confession and then just act like it's perfectly okay to stay where He was. He tells the story of how God is working in His heart and life so that he can overcome them and be able to live into God's vision for his life more and more. I found tremendous help in Craig's suggestions for how to overcome some of these areas where I have struggle with for so long; so if any of Craig's confessions resonate with you, I would recommend this book very highly.

Book #5- What's A Pastor To Do?: The Good and Difficult Work of Ministry

Rowell, Jeren. What's A Pastor To Do?: The Good and Difficult Work of Ministry. Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 2004.

I first read this book during my first year of seminary. We read the book and Jeren actually came to our class and lead it one week. I remember thinking, "I'd love to serve on his district." Well, it's fours year later, and I'm serving on the district where Jeren is the district superintendent. I'm re-reading the book, and it's interesting reading a book written from someone that you know. Jeren has been a mentor to me without even knowing it. He is a great encouragement to the pastors of the Kansas City District, and he's one of those pastors that I'd like to model myself after. I'd recommend this book to anyone going into ministry. It's a short book, at only 94 pages, but it is one you can read devotionally, using a chapter a day for reflection. Here are the quotes I found the most helpful:

the foundation of pastoral health is a thoroughly biblical pastoral theology. We get into trouble when we take our cues from the world. (12)

The only way to take that you are as a person, throw it into the mix of a congregation, and expect a pastoral ministry to emerge is if you have a strong pastoral theology. What is it that God is asking me to be and to do in this place, in this time, and for the sake of these people? Every decision we make about our work must be placed against that call. (16)

So what we do must come from somewhere other than the expectations of folks. It must come from somewhere other than our own expectations. Often the demands we make of ourselves are unrealistic...These themes are repeated so often that there is simply no mistaking their import:

• Pastors are to study and preach the Word.


• Pastors are to pray and take time to listen to God.


• Pastors are to give wise counsel and spiritual direction.


• Pastors are to set an example for the people. (17)

Our challenge, then, is to take our job description not from the expectations of people or even from a denominational polity alone. We take our cues from the Bible. We give ourselves most of all to the core work that the Scriptures outline for us. This will require discipline and strength. We must be disciplined enough to resist being distracted by the myriad of urgent things coming at us every day. We must be strong enough to keep our ordination vows, even when our people want us to do other things. (18)

It is not possible to identify a leadership style, gift set, or personality that enables long pastoral tenure. Individuals with wide diversity of attributes have enjoyed this kind of ministry. It seems that it boils down to one basic factor that is expressed in many different ways. It comes down to a covenant that is embraced by pastor and people to live and work together no matter what may come. Outside this kind of covenant, there is no such thing as a healthy long-term pastorate. (25)

There is a "Liturgy of Pastoral Covenant" on pages 26-28 that mirrors the installation service we use on the Kansas City District, and I may use it yearly on the anniversary of my installation at Drexel to renew the covenant we have made as pastor and people.

It is not a question of whether or not you can get things done. It is a question of whether or not you can get the right things done. (30)

A leader will have genuine compassion and love the people he or she leads--a desire to see them experience God's very best...A leader doesn't act before he or she has spent time alone with God in prayer...A leader is willing and able to overcome fear and take risks for the sake of the vision...A leader knows and accepts the fact that when one attempts to do anything significant, there will be opposition and negative people to contend with...A leader does his or her homework, studies the situation, evaluates possible solutions, and is careful and timely about communication...

• A leader constantly names God's activity in the midst of the people.


• A leader confronts sin and disobedience strongly.


• A leader exercises great caution and integrity with regard to remuneration and privilege.


• A leader is mindful of the personal identities and stories of his or her people.


• A leader keeps the worship of God central in the life of the community. (31-32)

Becoming a "real" pastor involves living faithfully in the midst of a people as prophet, priest, and shepherd. (36)

There are a lot of good choices in life--a lot of noble things to which you can give yourself--but the call of Jesus is for reckless abandonment to the way of the cross. That's the standard of discipleship that Jesus has clearly set. Yet we so often try to soft-pedal the demands of the gospel. We serve a people who regularly tempt us to make the gospel nonintrusive to their materialistic lives. (37)

The cost of total obedience is high. It'll take your life. (44)

The only way that I have discovered to help me deal with the things that lead to anger is to live daily in full surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ. When I do, then when I hear criticism, my response is not self-justification but the realization that often a critical spirit comes from that person's pain and has nothing to do with me. When I live in surrender to Christ, I can release my need to be right, trusting God, who knows my heart, to validate my ministry. When I am fully surrendered to Christ, my value and esteem are found in Him and not in whether my board thinks I am doing a good job. So the next time you deal with what H. B. London calls a "joy-sucker," maybe your focus should not be on why you are angry but rather why you are fearful. What fear is standing in the way of loving those who hurt and frustrate us with God's perfect love? (48)

Am I honestly evaluating the congruity between who I know I am and who I seem to be in the eyes of others? (54)

The way we respond to failure says a lot about us. (59)

1. If it's time to move on, there is probably another opportunity for service awaiting me...


2. The potential move needs to seem "good to the Holy Spirit and to us" (Acts 15:28)...


3. There needs to be time and dialogue between pastor and people before a change like this takes place...


4. I concluded that my default answer to congregations that try to call me to another assignment needs to be "No, thank you. I already have an assignment." (61-62)

Sometimes, when people don't like our preaching it's because we're not doing a very good job of it. There are other times, however, when people don't like our preaching because the truth of God's word cuts across their compromised lives. (63)

We can become so consumed with chronos time that we totally miss the kairos of what God would like to do for us. (67).

First I ask myself, "Who is this criticizer?" Is this a person who habitually finds something to complain about? Or is this a person who speaks criticism judiciously? That doesn't mean I can always dismiss the words of the habitual criticizer, but it does begin to help me hear the criticism more objectively. Second, I ask myself, "What about this criticism is true?" Even in the most outrageous of allegations there can be an element of truth that I need to hear. Third, I often ask someone else for his or her opinion. Obviously the issue of confidentiality needs consideration, but I generally run the criticism by my spouse, a staff member, a pastor-friend, or even a trusted layperson. Very often just repeating it aloud brings the resolution of my feelings and a new perspective on the issue. Sometimes criticism comes from ornery people. Sometimes it comes from people who love us and want the best for us. What we do not have in pastoral ministry is the luxury of dismissing the ranting of ornery people. God uses ornery people to get my attention. He uses their criticism to remind me that I must do this job with humility and with absolute dependence on Him. He also reminds me that I do not have an option when it comes to loving those who are hard to love. And nothing teaches love faster than the challenge of loving a cantankerous saint. (70)

We must be very specific with our people about the response the Bible is calling for. It's not enough to lay out a flawless explication of God's answer for the human dilemma without taking the next step and intentionally calling our people to some kind of specific response...Our people should leave every sermon with a clear understanding of how they could respond to the truth proclaimed. If we only preach the truth and do not find ways to hold our people accountable for response, we are doing less than our full pastoral work. Only the Holy Spirit can fully accomplish this task, but we are to be His instruments in helping our people to overcome their low information/action ratio. (72)

We must be diligent to keep the focus that in worship God is both the object and the subject. We usually get one of those but not the other...Pastor, one of the most important things you can ever do in your congregation is to remind them week after week that worship is about God, not us. Say it, model it, plane the service to be faithful to it--this is all for God. (74)

Over time, the identity and health of a congregation can be shaped through the act of pastoral blessing...As pastors, we have a great privilege and responsibility to remind them of who they really are in Christ. We can speak words to them that call them to reckon their lives according to the values of the kingdom of God rather than the kingdoms of this world. Of course, benediction is not the only way to give pastoral blessing to people. We also do it in conversation with a person who is hurting. We do it when we kneel down to listen to the question of a child. It happens as we press the oil of anointing on the foreheads of those who have come for the prayer of healing. There are many ways to offer the blessing, but none is better than speaking words of grace and peace to our people who have gather for worship. It may not seem on the surface like a very important act. I would suggest, however, that your people long for this kind of blessing from their pastor even if they wouldn't know how to name it. (79-80)

At our best, we should affirm these commitments with regard to the place of children in the Church of Jesus Christ:

• We believe that the Church is an intergenerational community of believers gathered for worship, witness, nurture, service, and fellowship.


• We are committed to organize the life of the Church in ways that facilitate intergenerational participation and especially the nurturing of children toward becoming committed disciples of Jesus Christ.


• We are also committed to provide age-specific and age-appropriate experiences that help the larger purposes of the kingdom of God to be taught, understood, and embraced. (83)

Being a pastor is about presence. I am Christ's representative, a sign of the presence of Jesus in the lives of people I have been called to care for. I don't want to be late for the appointment! I want to show up and be present to listen to, love, and guide these precious folks God has entrusted to me. (88)

Location, parking, appearance of the facility--they are important matters to think about. But our primary concern must always be with what the people receive when they get in. If we are taking care to prepare solid, healthy, satisfying worship services, if people are being adequately fed, they will be back. Why? Because people are hungry. They are hungry for what is true and pure. They are hungry to experience the presence of God. If people regularly experience the power of the Spirit of God in your church, they'll put up with a lot of poor signs and cramped parking lots in order to be there. (90)

10 Traits of Effective Leaders: Self-knowledge...Open to feedback...Eager to learn and improve...Curious, risk-takers...Concentrate at work...Learn from adversity...Balance tradition and change...Open style...Work well with systems...Serve as model and mentors (91-92)

People cannot deal effectively with their sexual struggles alone. Yet people will not deal honestly and openly with their sexual struggles unless and until there is created in the Church an atmosphere of grace, understanding, forgiveness, nonjudgmentalism, and healing. (93)

Book #4- Administration in the Small Membership Church

Tyson, John H. Administration in the Small Membership Church. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007.

I actually took eight and a half pages of notes on this book. As a young, first-time pastor, I've struggled with how to manage my time so that I am being effective and efficient in what God has called me to do.

This book is short and extremely practical. It gets into the nitty gritty of a primary calendar, a daily planning time, prioritized to-do lists, project files, suspending files, a correspondence file, and a record of pastoral visitation. All of these are great ideas and they're all contained in chapter two, which is worth the price of the book (most likely, I'm not sure since I got the book from the library).

The daily planning time and prioritized t0-do lists alone have transformed my pastoral ministry because I write down what I do, put it into the order that it needs to be done by importance, and then, I do it. It is a very simple idea, but it has absolutely transformed my ministry.

Here are the notes I took on the chapters outside of chapter two:

Although ministry originates in the heart, it is not merely an inner feeling of holy love for others; ministry is the appropriate expression and delivery of holy love. The emotion of holy love is a profound virtue. But if the emotion of holy love does not administratively follow through to the delivery of care, it isn't ministry. (3)

Good administration is inseparable from good leadership. (7)

Before we can be truly effective in leading our people to live into God's preferred future, we have to help them discern and articulate God's vision for their future as a congregation. When we all understand clearly where we are headed, then we can give leadership to a process of mapping out a long-range plan to lead the congregation toward that destination. Once the destination and the road map are clear, we can give more effective leadership to the paid and volunteer leaders in the congregation who are fulfilling their various roles as we make the journey. The task for us, as pastors, is to give leadership to the process of mapping out our local church's journey. (40)

If there really were a quick and efficient solution to a problem--if it were really that easy to solve--it might have been solved before we arrived...It is a good idea to keep everything going as it was before you arrived, until you are sure that the leaders are sure that you have heard the leaders tell you why things are as they are, and what they view as potential alternatives. (41)

Decisions that the pastor makes unilaterally--or that the pastor imposes upon a committee--almost always create far more difficulties than they solve for the pastor...Try hard to say little and listen much in meetings. Talk with people one on one and let them negotiate the changes in the adminstrative meetings. Realize that when your people shy away from making certain decisions in meetings, it is because they see obstacles that may be invisible to you. Heed them carefully. There are exceptional times when the pastor must take a bold and prophetic stand, but these occasions are probably less frequent than we think; pain and hindsight are good tutors for discerning the difference. (42)

Whether you have been in a parish for five minutes or five years, it is always attractive when the pastor wants to listen. This is one of the few things a pastor can do that might meet with pleasure and approval from everyone. There is seldom any backlash; only positive energy is created. Listening is a guaranteed win. (44)

Inviting, or recruiting, laypersons to exercise leadership should involve four components: vision for ministry, job description, giftedness, and significance. The first and most important factor is our Church's vision for ministry. (51)

Writing one note each day may be the most powerful ten minutes of the pastor's day. (63)

Not only is it helpful to use different leadership styles with different ministry teams, it is helpful to coordinate our leadership style with the individual leader we are dealing with. (65)

It is unwise for the pastor to remark on a person's physical appearance in any way...The wise pastor seldom initiates hugs. (80) I'm not so sure how I feel about this particular statement from Tyson.

The pastor is ultimately responsible for everything that happens in the church. There should be nothing he or she does not know, is not abreast of. (81)

Observing due diligence with church finances is not difficult or complicated, but it is vital. (91)

This really was a great book that has transformed the way that I do ministry. If you would like to know more about a primary calendar, a daily planning time, prioritized to-do lists, project files, suspending files, a corresponding files, and a record of pastoral visitation, leave a comment, and I'd be more than happy to share the info with you.