A Master Storyteller

The Rev. Dr. Reginald Mallett is presently conducting a series of services at our church. Rev. Mallett is a physician and a British Methodist minister who has made many trips to the US on preaching tours. This is his tenth visit to Trinity in the past twenty-two years. And he has said this is his last tour. Next August he will be back at Lake Junaluska for three weeks, and after that no more.

Listening to him preach in the Sunday services I was quickly reminded of his brilliant mind and his honed method of leading a congregation into the heart of his message. He regularly employs one preaching technique I have rarely seen elsewhere. It has to do with how he uses illustrations.

Like a great storyteller with just the right amount of details, Reg takes you down a path with a story, and then turns onto another path, which actually is the path he intended to take you on. What happens to the listener is that with the first story you think you know where it’s headed, but then with the change, you don’t know what to expect. Will there be another shift? Will you return to the original path/story? The technique hooks the listener into careful listening.

Most preachers just add in a story that they feel helps illustrate the point. Some fail to even make decent transitions or applications of the illustration. Mallett gets you there with a personal connection.

Last night’s sermon was based on Hebrews 1:3 “when Christ had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” The gist of his message was the confidence we have that Christ has finished the work that was necessary for our salvation and what our response to that can be. He used an illustration about William Wilberforce, the British House of Lords member who became a great abolitionist. Wilberforce was dying when the Slave Abolition Act finally passed in 1833. A messenger dashed to his bedside to announce the good news and Wilberforce said, “It is finished, thanks be to God.”

That’s where we ended with that illustration, but it sure isn’t where we started. We began with a minister’s collection of books, various types for different studies, and Mallett’s collection of 23 volumes of Wesley’s letters. Then the path led for a short while on the subject of John Wesley’s prolific letter writing. The last letter Wesley wrote was to William Wilberforce. And there we turned onto the path of Wilberforce’s finished work.

Mallett didn’t include that Welsey died in 1791, only four years after Wilberforce became involved in the abolitionist movement. The actual relationship of Wesley and Wilberforce was not important. One simply took us to the other.

Well, like my father has said many times: when he listens to another preacher it makes him want to preach. He either wants to get up and do justice to the Word, or he’s inspired to want to try and do as well. Mallett, with his homiletic proficiency, inspires.

The Passover in 3D

I am doing a summer sermon series on atonement theories, but, of course, I'm not calling it that. I set it up with the question, "How does the death of Christ bring us salvation?" and am using texts from the Hebrew Bible as motifs relating to various explanations.

Today the text I used was Exodus 12, the story of the 10th plague, the Passover. This was the basis for the "ransom theory," Christ paying the price to set us free from our bondage and slavery to sin. I could easily tell the story of Exodus 12 because it was ingrained in me when I was a child of only five years old.

The details of the occasion are fuzzy, but I know that I was sick for several days, as was my older brother. He had to stay home from school. I think we had the measles, but what we had was not as important as what happened.

My mother kept two sick boys entertained by making us recreate the story of the Exodus. We unfolded the sofa bed and there with plastic army men, we established Pharaoh's army and the Hebrew people. We made our way through the plagues, often using sound effects for the things we didn't have: flies, locusts, thunder and hail, etc.

There on the sofa mattress world, the Hebrew people finally escaped the brown blanket of Egypt, but were hemmed in by the blue blanket of the Red Sea. Amazingly, that blanket parted and the Hebrews crossed over on dry mattress to the wilderness.

I don't remember all that we did to create the story, but cotton balls substituted for the cloud of God's presence leading the Hebrews by day, and I do remember striking matches to represent the fiery presence by night. And for scholars who have wondered for years exactly what manna was, I can tell you - manna is crumbled saltine crackers!

These are pleasant memories from a period of sickness a long time ago. They tell the story of a mom who was loving and caring for her boys while wanting to teach them what she values most, God's Word. I just glad she didn't have a Veggie Tale video to make us watch back then. I probably wouldn't have remembered that at all.

Dancing with God

A visitor at one of our worship services this morning blew me away with her comments about the sermon. I had just I preached about dancing with God. The sermon used the metaphor of dance to describe the relationship God desires with us. Part of my emphasis was to provide a balance to the popular “purpose-driven” attitude toward life. I said, “God doesn’t need us to achieve anything with all our purposeful behavior, but God did create us for relationship. One way to look at it is to say, God wants to dance the divine dance of creation, life, love, and joy with us.”

My closing illustration was one borrowed from Max Lucado, who tells of a man who bought a book about dancing so he could impress his wife. He worked on the steps and then invited her into the room to see what he’d learned. She watched as he held the book, reading aloud each instruction, and mimicking them with his movements. When he finished, she just looked at him. Instead of affirming him she said, “You’re missing something critical.”

She took the book from him, put some music on, took his hands in hers, and encouraged him to sway to the music with her. Soon they began to move about the room together, not counting steps, but dancing. I encouraged the congregation to begin to sway to the rhythm of God’s Spirit, who transforms our own labored lives into a movement of love.

The visitor spoke to me with a beautiful British accent and told me she loved the sermon. “My husband was a professional dancer,” she said. “I didn’t dance, but he insisted on teaching me. But, I would only dance with him. When he was sick, he would still look at me and say, ‘Dance with me.’ So I would help him into his wheelchair and I’d take his hands and we would dance around the room.” She paused, and finished, “Thank you, that was a most wonderful sermon.”

As strange as it may seem, there is a time to learn your sermon was meant for the stranger passing through, and a time to find healing in remembrance - there is a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

The Brain Shuts Down

Have been fighting the cold crud this week, and I think it has clearly amassed more delegates than I have. So, while attending to basics of work, the rest of the time there was no mental energy for writing a post - kinda like a perpetual Sunday afternoon gray zone. And here on Friday, the pressure is on.

This coming Sunday is a BIG Sunday for our church. A new children's event has been in the works and promoted, called the D.O.C.K. We already have in place a pretty good rotation Sunday School program that has a different theme, or lesson, every five weeks. What's being added is a high-energy, song and character, stage event set to introduce the kids to the rotation theme.

So, there is a "dock," a lighthouse, a boat, and a puppet character called "Beacon" occupying the Sanctuary this week. D.O.C.K. will take place during the Sunday School time, but I told them to leave the props in place so I could preach from the dock, and let the rest of the church understand what's going on and why. Now the "why" question is, "Why did I set myself up for this?"

I've got several pages of notes, and a couple of good illustrations, but I still fluctuate over the direction of the sermon. Part of me wants to "sell" the new ministry to the older age congregation, and part of me resists using the sermon time in such a blatant way. I left the lectionary and am using Psalm 78:

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from their children; we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.

He established a decree in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach to their children; that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and rise up and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; and that they should not be like their ancestors, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.

I know I want to emphasize that teaching our children is as important or arguably, more important, today as is was when the psalm was written. I want to emphasize the crucial need for ministries that engage children and lead them to discipleship. And yet I don't want to pretend to be the "authority" on the dangers children face today or on the exact methods we need to use.

Well, maybe I'm making a mountain out of a mole-hill. But still, it feels like a mountain here on a late Friday afternoon, and I just want a clear head and a few clear thoughts. What was it Jesus said about moving mountains? A little bit of faith? Hummm.....

Measuring Success

We all have to find our own definition of success. Otherwise, we’ll just compare ourselves to others. I remember the words of Desiderata, "If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself." Measuring success depends on how we define it, and for some of us, the definition keeps changing as we keep learning what’s really important.

What makes for successful preaching? I’ll leave you to go through the great books on preaching and come up with a checklist on originality, substance, form, flow, impact, inspiration, etc. All I can do is report something pretty good that happened after a recent sermon.

I had just preached on “seeking the welfare of the city in which you live” using as my text Jeremiah 29:7. It was not a great sermon - no original insights, or pithy points. I simply went with the text and tried to apply it. Jeremiah told the exiled Hebrews to seek the welfare of the city where they were, the welfare of their Babylonian captors. And I asked, “Whose welfare do we seek?”

Usually such concern is basically for our selves, or maybe our loved ones and close friends. But should we not seek the welfare of those we do not even know, those who annoy us, and even those who stand against us? I could have used one of several texts for this, Matthew 25, James 2, the Good Samaritan, the Golden Rule, etc.

During the coffee hour, a physician came up to me and said, "I really appreciated the sermon today." I said, "Thank you." But the doc continued, “It made me think. I saw a woman this past week who needs a fibrous tumor removed. She’s indigent, a drug addict, and no insurance, of course. I rarely have time to do free surgeries, but I decided during the sermon that I’m going to do hers next week.”

I thanked the doctor for sharing that decision with me, and we parted to speak to other people. And then I thought about how the Spirit takes our offerings and uses them to bring forth fruit for the kingdom. Monday morning my sermon went into the files as just another sermon, but for the woman whose tumor was removed, it could have been marked an outstanding success. Soli deo Gloria.

Sermon Evolution

This Sunday I preached a sermon written by my wife. People ask us sometimes if we share sermons. We rarely do. We preach in different settings and we usually see different things in the lectionary that we want to address. We have been known to fight over good illustrations, however.

The sermon in question began last week when Cynthia said she wanted something different for their outdoor service. I suddenly remembered something lodged in my brain from about ten years ago. A church member back then told me of a sermon preached by a pastor in Texas that had an unusual beginning. It was the pastor's first sermon in the church and he began with a re-telling of the story of the three pigs. These pigs, however, went out to build churches, one using memories, one using dreams, and I forgot what the third one was.

Cynthia liked the idea and we came up with a) people's desires, b) right belief, and c) people who love. Off she went to write, and wow, I think she nailed it. After reading it, I knew I was going to use it myself, for our Tailgate Sunday. You can read it here.

I guess the story idea really belongs to that preacher in Texas, but ideas and sermons evolve. Since it is story form it would kill the effect to say, this idea is not original. But some might say you have to give proper credit. Guess I feel differently about it. I fully understand the guidelines of attribution and plagiarism in the academic world. You should be evaluated on your own work.

But I've got a question about the way it all shakes out in the practice of preaching. In a real sense, we all need to do our own work. But our own work is usually an amalgamation of things we've heard and read throughout our lives. Seems to me that as long as we're all trying to proclaim the good news as best we can, there's not much of an issue over the common usage. There are a lot of "borrowed" stories and ideas that circulate. It's the whole issue of personal credit or profit from the material that generates the problem. If I want to reap personal benefits from my material, I've got to put a fence around it to keep others from tracking across it. And when I've done that, am I still "preaching?"

Eureka!

I sometimes struggle with the "familiar" texts. When the lextionary presents a passage that is so well known, you read it, and read it, and wonder what can you say about it in a sermon that isn't so blatantly obvious. Sometimes it feels as though it's all been said before, and there is nothing new under the sun.

That's the way I felt last night trying to work on a sermon for this coming Sunday. I felt drawn to the gospel lesson, Luke 15:1-10, which has the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. But I was coming up with nothing.

I tried the "explosion on paper" method, where you take a notepad and write down any and every thought that comes to you while ruminating on the passage. One thought will lead to another and then as you go back over it, often a theme emerges. Nope, nothing, even after three pages of word pictures. I was tired and went on to bed.

Then I woke up at 4:30, laid there in the bed, and my sermon - along with a title (The Seeker) - was simply there in my head. Eureka! Got up, made a pot of coffee and started typing it out. Amazing how the brain can keep working while you sleep. Come to think of it, that's how I got through my college classes!