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Rev. Jacob Armstrong talks about good preaching
September 5, 2014 / By Beth DiCocco / .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Effective preaching is the focus for the 2014 Bishop's Retreat, and United Methodist pastor the Rev. Jacob Armstrong, founder and pastor of Providence Church in Mount Juliet, Tenn., will lead the retreat.
Rev. Armstrong was born and raised in Mount Juliet. Following seminary, he and his wife, Rachel, served for 10 years at First United Methodist Church in Murfreesboro, Tenn. The couple has three daughters: Mary, Lydia, and Phoebe.
The Armstrongs returned to Mount Juliet in 2008 to start Providence Church, which Rev. Armstrong has described as a place "where disconnected people could find hope, healing, and wholeness in Jesus."
We talked to Rev. Armstrong about effective preaching and the retreat. Here's what he had to say:
What do you think makes good preaching?
Authenticity is a big part of it. That's not always talking about yourself, but people need to realize that this (the sermon subject) is real to you.
Passion is important. (Show that) the Holy Spirit is alive in you, and that there's a sense of urgency and meaning.
If you have an evident love for the people, that will cover a multitude of bad preaching techniques. If you are inauthentic, have no passion and don't show love for the people, it wouldn't matter what your said or how said it.
What will you be focusing on during the retreat?
What I will focus the most attention on is – though I will talk some about the actual act of preaching – the most important step takes place well before you begin to write or type: on the work you do learning from and listening to the community.
We have to be intentional about outreach in our community, if we want to reach new people; that's directly tied to what we preach.
My focus is on how we listen to and learn from our context, then preach in a way that's relevant to people who are not already in church ... . That's not to disregard the wonderful, faithful people who come each week ... You have to hold both, because the folks that come for the first time, you want them to come for a second, third, fourth time ... .
We assume we know who we're talking to, but part of preaching is being in and connected with the greater community, not just the faithful ... preaching only to those who are familiar with our language, customs, traditions. There may be someone who has never heard of a narthex or how we view communion; we need to teach around that – intentionally – in our preaching; not everyone is in the same place.
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Describe what you mean by learning from the community.
I will do a session on the ways you can listen to your community. (That means) being in prayer that our hearts break for what breaks God's heart. The needs of our community, the felt needs in our community.
How can our preaching address things on our people's hearts? When we read Scripture for developing a sermon series, what are the ways this connects with felt needs of the community?
Jesus was pretty intuitive about what people were feeling and going through.
Often times as pastors to a new community, we have a vision in our head how it's going to work, but the vision has to fit the mission field. You have to do intentional listening to God and intentional listening to the community.
One way is going to the coffee shop, the softball field; go to places in the community and take notes, listen to people.
Talk to other churches, see what they're doing. Find ways to work in collaboration and/or to realize that you don't need to do that (because another church is already doing it well). Talk to pastors who have been in the community longer.
Connecting with the leader of a local moms group (for moms with young children) taught me a lot about what they were thinking, and literally connected me to people.
If you took a walk through the neighborhood before worship, what are people doing on Sunday morning? Are they asleep? at the coffee shop? getting their boat ready?
What are people into and thinking about it?
The context at Providence Church.
Rev. Armstrong described his community as people who are "not super affluent, but comfortable" and who enjoy the recreational opportunities provided by two nearby lakes.
Some of the key felt needs come back to a search for meaning; what is life all about?
Another of the felt needs are “How can I have meaningful, real relationships with other folks?” and “How does my relationship with God affect my relationship with other people?” Jesus thought that was pretty important.
About a third of Mount Juliet's community members are 18 or younger, so most families are dealing with children or grandchildren, Rev. Armstrong said, which meant they were looking for a way to reach all ages.
As part of a sermon series called "Look Up" – as in look up from your smart phone or tablet – Providence used the computer game Minecraft to have children create worlds with Jesus in them.
How do you approach sermon planning?
I will talk about how you plan a year of preaching at your church.
Our sermon series at Providence goes outside the lectionary. In the last year or so, we have been doing a sermon series on what it means to be a disciple (beyond) just that first-time connection to Christ.
The lectionary is a great tool; over the course of a year, it tells the story of Jesus and God's people with symbols and times to focus on specific things ... in your context, consider what would be the lectionary for your group, shaping the preaching around some of the core things that are part of normal year such as Easter, Lent, Advent.
Think about connecting the whole church; the theme we are preaching on Sunday morning is all throughout the church: kids and youth groups, small groups of adults ... it's the theme for the whole church.
What do you hope clergy take away from this experience?
I hope that they feel inspired to preach in a way that God made them to the people God called them to for purpose of connecting disconnected people to Jesus.
Everybody there probably has as much training in preaching as I do; I can offer a way of thinking about how to connect disconnected people to Christ, to help folks who have never been to church, not been in a long time or have been hurt by the church know that there's still a place for them.
What do you learn by leading retreats such as this one?
I usually learn a lot about preaching from other people. It's a really encouraging thing for me. It's my privilege and pleasure to create materials people use in other places, so when I get to speak to a group, it's invigorating to see the audience for the materials. It gets my brain spinning about trying to help others do what I do.