Church Matters: The 9Marks Blog

January 09, 2009

Interview With Steve Timmis, Part 1 -- Preaching

by Michael Mckinley

As promised, here is part 1 of my conversation with Steve Timmis. My questions/thoughts are in bold, Steve's responses are in normal font.

MM: Thanks again for agreeing to be grilled for the dozens of people who read this blog. Total Church presents an intriguing and radical way of "doing church" and I am grateful for the opportunity to explore some topics that are of particular interest to folks in the 9Marks camp.

First, Total Church argues that the church should have the gospel as one of its two foci. But you all don't advocate preaching as it is commonly understood in most churches. What does it look like for a church to be gospel centered without preaching? In your opinion, should pastors stop preaching and start doing something else on Sunday mornings?

ST: It's my pleasure Mike. I love engaging with brothers and sisters who believe the same gospel, worship the same Saviour and share the same passion to see God glorified through the exercise of his grace.

Let me answer the second question first if I may, because that's an easy one. Should pastors stop preaching and do something else on Sunday mornings? No. We've never argued for that, nor even talked about it as a secret ambition! If your readers were to go to the Crowded House website, they would find plenty of recordings of me and others preaching. When the congregations I'm involved in gather together on a Sunday morning, preaching as you know it is our Bible teaching method of choice.

What we are doing is challenging the privileged status of the extended monologue. At one level, it's a pragmatic argument: different contexts call for different approaches. But it's a principled pragmatism. The principle is the centrality of God's Word in the corporate life of God's people. How that is secured and sustained depends on the context. If you're in someone's front room, then you have opportunity to invite questions, respond to comments and explore issues 'on the hoof'. But all the time, the Bible is your reference point. You're bringing people under the gospel and showing them Christ. Here's the thing Mike: being Word-centred is not the same as being preaching-centered, and I want our churches to be the former. Now that will always involve formal teaching, and by someone gifted as a teacher, and it may involve preaching as extended monologue, but not necessarily. It might be worth your readers knowing that even if someone is teaching dialogically in a household context, the preparation required is equal to, and probably greater than that for a 30-40 minute monologue. Why? Because you have absolutely no idea what questions you're going to be asked as you are teaching! Someone can ask a doozy of a left-field question and you've got to make sure that your answer takes them right back into the passage your teaching. Dialogical teaching is not the same as a 'pooling of ignorance' where everyone has an equal say. Sometimes, you just have to tell people they are wrong, plain wrong.

Now is there a danger in this approach? Of course there is. You can be shoddy in your preparation; rely too much on being able to speak 'off the cuff'; downgrade the capturing of the affections and 'in the moment' change. Those are dangers that need to be avoided. But preaching as extended monologue has inherent dangers too. David Fairchild of Acts 29 put it well in an email to me: "Extended monologue can cause me to think about the sermon more than I think about the gospel and the people the gospel is for. If I think of the people, I think about how I'm going to communicate the gospel to them. If I think of the gospel, I think about how I am going to communicate the gospel to a particular people. If I think about a sermon, I don't much think about either of them at worst; at best I think about them as a sort of homiletical box to check".

Perhaps it is more helpful if we differentiate between monologue preaching and dialogue preaching? At least that way, we don't get embroiled in unhelpful debates about form. You see, we're not arguing for being gospel-centered without preaching; we are arguing for being gospel-centered which may mean that preaching as extended monologue is not the most appropriate teaching method used. But what the taught Word should do is set the agenda for the church, and then be massaged by one another into one another's hearts moment by moment as each new moment is faced. We want to see a people marinaded in the good news of Christ.

So pastors, keep doing extended monologue if that is most helpful and appropriate for your context. But whatever your context make sure the Word of God is not only central, but permeates every aspect of your corporate life as the church of Christ. In other words, don't be satisfied with preaching a 'good' sermon on a Sunday morning: preach it, speak it, teach it, sing it, gossip it, chat about it, live it and model it right in the middle of the messy lives of the people of God, "as long as it is called 'Today'".

Hope this answers your questions and helps clarify a few things?

MM: Thanks Steve. I greatly appreciate Total Church's emphasis on the centrality of God's Word, and I have enjoyed meditating on what it means to "gossip" the gospel.

I agree that dialogue surely has a valuable place in the life of the church. In fact, I often encourage church members to tell me how great the sermon was as they leave (ha!). And you have addressed some of the major concerns that arise when I hear people advocate dialogue in the church (e.g., that it's often an excuse to reject authority). But allow me to argue for the privileged status of the extended monologue.

It seems that when we see corporate teaching in the Bible, it's a monologue. In the OT, you've got the examples Moses in Deuteronomy, Ezra in Nehemiah, all the prophets, the priests around Israel. In the NT, you've got Jesus sending out the apostles two by two to proclaim the kingdom of God (Luke 9), the uniform example of the apostles and Stephen in Acts (Paul even preached so long that a guy fell asleep and fell out of a window. Perhaps we're not so different from the ancients!). In addition, it seems like the book of Hebrews was one really long sermon.

On top of that, you've have to take into consideration that fact that Christians throughout history have understood monologue as God's communication method of choice when His people are gathered. Everybody from Augustine to Calvin to Edwards to Lloyd-Jones rocked the monologue. Shouldn't that give us pause before we decide that it's optional?

Here's my conclusion: the method is part of the message. Preaching should be monologue because God's people need to be quiet and listen to him speak. When God's people gather once a week (in a Hebrews 10:25 kind of way), they need to listen. They can talk the rest of the week.

Thoughts?

ST: Let me begin by stating my 3 principles concerning the place of preaching/teaching:

(1) Teach the Word of God in a manner that facilities the intellectual, volitional and affectional engagement of God's people with his Word

(2) Teach the Word of God in a manner that is most helpful situationally

(3) Teach the Word of God so that it is massaged deep into the hearts of his people in the daily routines of life.

I hope that allays some fears and demonstrates clearly where our commitment lies.

But now allow me to pick up your question at the point of your conclusion: "Preaching should be monologue because God's people need to be quiet and listen to him speak". At one level, the argument is irrefutable. If it's a choice between God speaking and God's people speaking, who's going to waste time listening to the latter? But you've set up a false polarity. Dialogical preaching isn't about people speaking so that God cannot be heard; it's about people actively and humbly engaging with the Bible so that it is precisely God's voice that they do hear.

However, I am not arguing that preaching as extended monologue has no place in the church, history or the Bible. As I said earlier, I do it every Sunday morning. What I am arguing against is the assumption that it is the only acceptable format, and is virtually a badge of orthodoxy: I do extended monologue therefore I am (an evangelical). An evangelical is someone who recognises the Bible as the Word of God and submits to its authority. In my experience of dialogical preaching I have found people to be committed to understanding what a passage means for life and godliness. That is certainly the culture we try and nurture within our household congregations.

As for your arguments from both the Bible and history, let me engage with just a couple of your examples.

You cited Paul's extended teaching time in Acts 20 as an example of preaching as extended monologue. As it happens, I want to cite that very same passage as an example of dialogical preaching, for the simple reason that is what the text actually says, and on two occasions, vv.7, 9. Let me cite someone who's preaching credentials are above reproach: Not that we are to envisage Paul's preaching as purely monologue, since Luke uses the verb dialegomai twice which implies discussion, perhaps in the form of questions and answers... it was clearly more free and open than a formal sermon.. But the apostle took his teaching responsibility seriously (John Stott).

You also cite Augustine. There is evidence from the transcript of his homilies that he interacted with questions and comments from the congregation, which sounds suspiciously like dialogical preaching to me!

MM: So, there you have it. What do you guys think? Are you convinced?

January 09, 2009 in Preaching | Permalink

Comments

I couldn't agree more with Steve's commitment to being word-centered rather than preaching-centered, while still respecting the place preaching has had and continues to have in the Church, with respect to the context of the teacher. The priority ought to be the Word, not the methodology.

Posted by: Tom | Jan 10, 2009 10:10:31 AM

Great discussion! So glad this is being fleshed out with love and respect.

Mike, thanks for being willing to lay this out for all to critically think through.

In a dialogical model, there is plenty of proclamation and monologue when the text is being exposited. I think the difference is that there is an allowance for hands to raise, comments and questions to be made, and real time rebukes and corrections to be given on the spot. As Steve said, it requires you really know the text well to field those questions and get back on track with the text. I have enjoyed watching our people interact with the questions and even give answers to the questions raised by another. It's actually drawing the people in to pay more attention and be ready to think through their position and respond. When we first started doing dialogical (which we don't do every week, btw) you could hear crickets after a question. People were fearful of responding. Now, I have to plan for extended discussion around a gospel thought because more and more people are willing to engage and work it out right there.

I have to admit, I was very fearful of moving against my heroes of monological preaching when we started. But to be honest, I have found that I'm becoming a better communicator of the Gospel by extending myself in this way. Also, we're fearful of questions, interaction and dialogue on Sunday mornings, but that is what we do when we're exegeting the text. A good preacher is asking the text questions and working through the objections his heart has to a particular truth when he prepares his message. Why not open that up to the congregation? We have questions and objections and must reconcile them before we preach, but we're only one perspective. When we open this up to the congregation, questions come from places I would have never imagined. And it should be this way, only God is omniperspectival. Our people are a gift to challenge us and the body so that the word is better understood by as many as have ears.

Also, missionally, dialogical preaching is ridiculously helpful when communicating to a response-oriented, postmodern, story-driven people. If you have an older congregation that is used to a particular form of communication, it might be more difficult to understand how dialogical preaching would or could work. But, if you're reaching younger, urban, critically minded pomo's, then your demonstration of humility by allowing discussions to be worked out on the fly goes a loooong way. This doesn't bend a knee to anti-authortarian sentiments, it actually makes your leadership more effective because they learn to trust you.

Personally, it would be much easier and more comfortable to just go back to monologue. However, to be faithful the mission of God in His world, I feel I should always be asking the question, "God, how can I best communicate your word to these people, in this moment in time, for your glory?"

Posted by: David | Jan 12, 2009 1:51:50 PM

So, how do you do dialogical preaching once your congregation gets over 50 people? Sounds great in theory, but maybe practically would be hard to pull off.

Posted by: Morris Brooks | Jan 15, 2009 1:48:07 AM

Very interesting discussion. If I undertand dialogical preaching right, it is the Sunday School or Bible Study methodology being brought into the Sunday morning service, right?

From what I've read here, there is nothing wrong with the method, but in the course of the body life, there should be plenty of opportunities for "dialogical preaching" or interactive study outside the Sunday morning. Is there a problem with sticking to the historical practice of extended monologue for the Sunday morning sermon and allow for other methodologies at other times?

Posted by: Gabriel | Jan 15, 2009 1:51:35 PM

Morris: they don't let their churches get that big - see the next part of the interview.

Gabriel: they do just as you say. See above: "When the congregations I'm involved in gather together on a Sunday morning, preaching as you know it is our Bible teaching method of choice."

Posted by: John Percival | Jan 16, 2009 10:45:18 AM

Gabriel says "Is there a problem with sticking to the historical practice of extended monologue for the Sunday morning sermon and allow for other methodologies at other times?"

Extended monologues are useful and helpful. We have used and will continue to use them in our church I’m sure.

But, to put some flesh onto Steve's point "(2) Teach the Word of God in a manner that is most helpful situationally" - we have a couple of homeless non-Christian guys at our house church at the moment who simply cannot and would not sit and listen to an extended monologue. Making our teaching dialogical has enabled them to join us (and I have to say that, perhaps surprisingly, we have seen equal if not greater growth amongst the rest of our (university educated) church family while teaching dialogically)...

Posted by: Nick Pollock | Jan 16, 2009 5:09:32 PM

Very interesting. I would say I am convinced. I think that 1 Corinthians 14 may also add weight to the argument for dialogical preaching. There certainly seems to be a great deal of interaction going on there.

Posted by: Barry Wallace | Jan 16, 2009 11:08:43 PM

Good stuff, I understand that Soma in Tacoma are very good at this in a larger context anyone who's interested go to http://tacoma.somacommunities.org/.

I think Steve is touching on the issue of what is preaching for, both in large church gatherings and in household congregations, and how we best communicate to a congregation. My experience is a large group of academically focussed people can sit listen and engage with a monologue for up to an hour. But such groupings are rare and much of what is preached on a Sunday is lost after the first 10 mins or first interesting distraction. However when you introduce more engagement even with a large audience much more goes in. What preaching is trying to do is reach the heart with the Gospel, so as leaders we must understand the context and try adjust our style to bring the truth to bear at the core of the believers and unbelievers being.
We are a small gospel community that meets in our front room at the moment. However my preparation for 50 mins in the Word is no less than my peers in larger churches. Although how we unpack the truth can be quite different through reading together from different versions, masses of questions and pausing for though.

Posted by: Jason Reid | Jan 17, 2009 7:20:52 AM

It is intriguing isn't it, how quickly the cultural assumption that preaching is monologue allows many of us to pour meaning into the Acts text when Paul is preaching and the young man falls asleep. We simply assume it must be monologue that does it, because that's what it would do to us, right?

Steve says a number of times in this interview that monologue has a place - but perhaps not THE place among the people of God that it has assumed. Having sat under more than a few of Steve's sermons I can say that they would pass muster in any evangelical church - and more!
I believe that monologue has been given its privileged status because to some degree it offers the path of least resistance in a time-poor increasingly theologically-thin Christian culture. If we privilege it and then allow it to become the only method we employ we can feel justified that God's people have been "taught well". You'll notice one of the values of The Crowded House involves good Bible "learning" - not just teaching. The only way you know if you have learned something is when you have put it into practice. The down to earth gritty life-on-life dialogue you experience in a TCH household meeting ensures that a sermon can never become something simply to admire for its brilliance.

FWIW I find it much harder to prepare dialogue-oriented sermons for our household congregation - harder than I ever found it to prepare a monologue. The monologue takes a lot of time to craft, but perhaps that is the issue - it is something "crafted" and therefore less likely to invite questions etc because to those who are listening it looks so finished.

Posted by: Steve McAlpine | Jan 17, 2009 6:35:50 PM

Just this past Sunday a guy in our church who is a young Christian said "this way of teaching is way better ... I get way more out of it than I ever did from a sermon type thing".

We're doing the Story of God, which is the bible story in oral, interactive format. There are questions to get us thinking, and applying them to our lives.

A homeless guy who has been coming along sometimes said just the other week that over Christmas he went into another church in our town and the sermon was on Abraham, and he was thinking "I know this, I know the story of Abraham".
Dialogue preaching is as valid, and in some situations more valid because its far more accessible for most people in our world.

We need to aim our teaching at the least of these, not the person with the PhD.

Posted by: Catriona | Jan 22, 2009 9:49:12 AM

Catriona,

Simply because a young Christian in a church says that he "gets more" out of a certain type of teaching than out of "sermon type things," should the elders then allow that young Christian's opinion to shape and drive the teaching and preaching in that church? This way of thinking seems pragmatic at best and bandwagon-esque at worst.

For the Christian who wants to carefully hold to God's word in planning church services, the pertinent question is, what are the predominant forms of preaching and teaching that are shown to us *in God's word*? In this interview with Steve Timmis, Mike McKinley gives several examples of monologue-style preaching and teaching from the Bible, and Timmis answers him with one arguable example of dialogue. The Biblical emphasis on monologue is clear.

Not that monologue is *all* that there should be in the local church-- not at all! Small groups, church Bible studies, Sunday School classes, to an extent, and talking with the preacher after the sermon each provide important opportunities for dialogue. However, it seems to me that whenever churches move primarily toward dialogical preaching and teaching and away from monologue, the reasons are not primarily Biblical but rather pragmatic.

A question about the homeless man's comment-- simply because he had heard the story of Abraham before, does that mean the man should "tune out" of a sermon on Abraham, as if it wouldn't do him any good? I'm having difficulty seeing how your comment at "reaching the least of these, not the person with the PhD," has any *inherent* relevance to the question of monologue or dialogue. The Reformers preached in a monologue style to many different classes and educational levels of people-- as preachers did before the Reformation, during it, and have continued to do, fruitfully, right up to our present day.

I'm genuinely surprised that more people haven't commented on this blog, supporting the primary form of preaching that is advocated and explained on this site! I find it troubling, even as I know that God is still sovereign over His church...

Posted by: Christopher Lake, Desert Springs Church, Albuquerque, New Mexico | Jan 24, 2009 11:17:56 PM

It appears that proponents of "dialogical preaching" (an oxymoron) have effectively turned the debate into whether "monological preaching" (a redundancy) has any place in the church. Sure we see lip service to it, but if you remove it from the Sunday morning pulpit (or only use it occasionally), where else is it used? Since we all agree there is a need for dialogue in disciple-making, what's really being discussed is whether preaching, as we've understood it for thousands of years, has a priority in the gathering of God's people.

We need to ask ourselves:
* What does "preach" mean?
* Does God Almighty rate some "shut up and listen" time?

If "preach" means to proclaim or to herald, this is "shut up and listen" time.

Imagine for a moment a herald of an earthly king: "Hear ye hear ye ... thus sayeth his royal majesty ... [exactly what the king told him to say]. What sayeth thee on the third row?" No. This is top down shut up and listen communication.

Could it be that our pride is prompting us to think that what we have to say is as important as what God has to say (through the herald he has placed in the pulpit)?

Posted by: Tim Ragsdale | Jan 25, 2009 6:57:25 PM

aside from the practical\logistical problems of this form of 'proclamation' in a larger church, I would be concerned that it would give the impression that everyones opinion is valid- it would provide wriggle-room for those looking for an excuse not to be confronted (or convicted) by God's Word. most churches already have housegroups\bible studies for discussion- but not at the expense of the 'extended monologue' I do believe this to be an essential for a healthy church.

Posted by: Ross Murphy | Feb 9, 2009 10:41:51 AM

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January 09, 2009

Interview With Steve Timmis, Part 1 -- Preaching

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