Category Archives: Preaching

Raising my profile

4 Replies

Businessman silhouetteRaising my profile. An old friend expressed his surprise at finding me on Twitter, and I responded that I was trying to raise my profile. I accidentally responded in such a way that everyone could see it. That was good, because it made me think.

To be honest, a number of things that I do on the Internet are intended to do just that: raise my profile. I don’t think I’m unusual in that; I’ve noticed that people that write a blog put their blog address when they leave a comment on my blog. We want people to see us, to be aware of us.

Having recently finished writing a book with Steve Ridgell, who also works with me at Herald of Truth, I’ve been aware of what they call “your platform.” Writers need a platform, that is, a group of people that would be interested in reading what you’ve written. Publishers want writers that have platforms. Writers do certain things to create an awareness of them and their writings so that their books can be sold.

This puts me between two things that pull me in opposite directions. One is the need to create an awareness of our ministry, which personally means trying to find a way to promote myself. I’m not good at self-promotion. The other thing, however, is the “monster within” that I wrote about the other day. I want to be noticed and admired, lauded and applauded.

For now, I’ll press on, in some ways: trying to attract more readers for this blog, for example. But I won’t actively seek more friends on Facebook nor get into one of those schemes to get 1000 followers on Twitter.

What do you think? Is it too crass to think in terms of “raising your profile,” of making people aware of who you are? Do you find yourself doing that in any way on the Internet? What are appropriate ways and inappropriate ways?

{Photo by Barun Patro, www.sxc.hu}

The monster within

9 Replies

monsterI should comment one other thing about this past Sunday’s bilingual service, something more personal. This combined service led me to wrestle with one of the monsters  in my life: my ego, my desire for recognition. As we prepared for having a bilingual service in the main auditorium, I was very anxious to see things go well. Besides my usual desire to see the Sunday assembly be a time of edification, I also wanted the service to be something that people would be willing to do again soon. I wanted the service to go smoothly so that the congregation would be interested in holding more combined services. Those are desires that I feel good about.

But there was something else at work, there is something at work in me. I want people to notice me. I want them to applaud and praise me. I want them to say, “Wow, Tim’s a good preacher. My, Tim really does a good job with bilingual preaching. Goodness, isn’t he talented.” Pat me on the back, throw flowers at my feet, break out the ticker tape parade. Even at church tonight (Wednesday), I had an ear out for people that wanted to compliment me on what had been done on Sunday. [I even dreamed of some people saying, “Tim should preach for us every Sunday.”]

That’s the monster I wrestle with, the human pride that wants to run my life. I’m reminded of a story I heard of a church where one member said to the preacher, “That was a fine sermon,” and the preacher responded, “I know.” The member didn’t know what to say, until the preacher added, “The devil has been whispering that in my ear all morning.” When someone does something well in ministry, Satan is there to inflate his pride, feed his ego, and turn something good into something harmful.

If that desire, the need to feed my ego, ever controls my ministry, I pray that God will hinder what I do and deny me the success my ego craves. I don’t want the praise of men; I want God’s praise. My constant prayer is that God will speak to his people through me and that all the glory will be his not mine. The monster is always there, hoping to consume me, but God is able to deliver me from my own ego. “Not to us, O LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.” (Psalms 115:1)

Presentations: An example

6 Replies

Let me give you an example of a time when I felt that a presentation added a lot to a sermon. Several years ago, I was preaching through Luke. When dealing with the first part of chapter 15, I used some visuals at the end of the sermon to try and communicate the main point.

First, I showed an image of the inside of a discotheque:

Discotheque

I talked about how that wasn’t my world, that I wouldn’t feel at all comfortable there. I then inserted “my island” over the image of the disco, my island being the church:

church over disco

I then talked about some of the people that I kind of didn’t want at church. If they came, I certainly wouldn’t want them sitting next to me and my kids:

Worldly people

I talked about how I saw those people: drunks, hookers, addicts, hoboes. I looked on them like the Pharisees looked on the tax collectors and prostitutes that flocked to Jesus. But how does God see them? I said, “When God looks at these people, He sees…”

lamb

Sure, I could have easily said, “God sees a lamb.” But it wouldn’t have had the same impact. There were “ohs” from some of the young girls. This picture showed something to be taken care of and protected (fortunately, no coyotes were present that day). The photo of the lamb had a much stronger impact, just as some of the people commented on the impact the picture of the disco had on them. All of this could have been done with words alone. But more people “heard” the message because they saw it.

[No, I don’t know how to do this in PowerPoint, so don’t ask. It probably can do it. Keynote does it easily, but you have to own a Mac.]

UPDATE: If you read the comments below, you can see that Robert Smelser had a different idea as to how he would use images at the end of this sermon. He sent me the images, so I’m posting them below:

lambs1lambs2lambs3lambs4lambs5

Presentation suggestion #4: Varying learning styles

8 Replies

560469_oldschool_2One of the justifications for using visual presentations in church is the fact that people learn in different ways. Traditionally, three principle principal learning styles have been identified: visual learners, experiential learners, and aural learners. Some learn by seeing, some learn by experiencing something, some learn by hearing.

Eddie Sharp, who now preaches down in Austin, did an interesting experiment a few years ago. He intentionally varied his language from sermon to sermon. In one, he used lots of “visual words”—what we see in this passage, the image presented, etc. In another, he focused on feeling words, emphasizing emotions and empathy with the characters in the Bible story. In a third, he focused on “hearing” the word of God. After each sermon, a different group of people came up to say how much the sermon had impacted them.

Eddie’s experiment shows that you don’t have to have a projector and a screen to appeal to different learning styles. It also reminds me that just using a presentation won’t necessarily appeal to different styles either. When putting together a sermon with a presentation, appeals to different learning styles should be kept in mind. Our services have traditionally rewarded those who liked to learn by hearing (hence the term auditorium and the arrangement of our seating), as well as those who preferred highly rational, non-emotional worship.

[As a side note, back in the 1980s, Flavil Yeakley wrote an excellent study of the discipling movement in our brotherhood. The best chapter in the book was “What We Can Learn From the Discipling Movement.” There he spoke of how our traditional evangelistic style appeals to introverts more than extroverts. That may have changed in twenty years, but it was interesting then.]

I favor the use of presentations largely for this reason, the need to reach out to other learning styles. It’s not the only way to reach out to them, but it can be an effective way.

Presentation Suggestion #3: Worth Ten Thousand Bullet Points

5 Replies

 

Photo by Ove Tøpfer; from Stock Xchange

Photo by Ove Tøpfer; from Stock Xchange

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. If so, it’s worth ten thousand bullet points. One of the best uses of PowerPoint is using lots of photos, drawings and maps to illustrate your sermon.

But doesn’t it take forever to find such stuff? Not if you know where to look. Here are some suggestions for finding royalty free resources:

  • Wikimedia Commons—It’s fast becoming a favorite of mine. All of the pictures are supposed to be in the public domain.
  • Stock Xchange—Great site for amateur photos. Be sure and read the fine print on usage restrictions.
  • Flickr: Creative Commons and Government Sources collections are wonderful.
  • You can find religious photos here, Bible land photos here, Christian clip art  here, and general Bible resources here.
  • Several of the above sites have backgrounds for use in presentations. Heartlight is another good source for those.
  • If you need more ideas, you can find a list of sites for free photos here and another list for high resolution photos here.

As you use these resources, you’ll learn where to look for what kind of resource, and you usually won’t have to spend much time finding what you need. (I was going to provide some links to Bible maps, but a Google search turned up so many sites that it didn’t seem necessary. If someone knows a particularly good site, feel free to comment)

Pictures can sometimes impact in a way that words can’t. How many times did God show someone a vision rather than just telling them the information directly? Don’t build your sermon around pictures, but do use pictures to bring your lessons to life.