theory

James’s Blog: Look Before You Leap.

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James’s Blog: Look Before You Leap.

Travis was looking down at the piece of paper on the clipboard when he heard the polite cough. He looked up. It was Nigel.

“Hi Nigel,” Travis said. “Good job today. You’re demonstrating some excellent technique.”

Nigel looked pleased, but only briefly. He then returned to looking like a man with something on his mind.

“Thanks Travis,” he replied. “Errr, did I hear right at the end of the lesson? Something about going up in a plane next week?”

“That’s right,” said Travis. “We’ve done about as much as we can on the ground for the moment. Time to get up there, and get a taste of what it’s like in the sky.”

Nigel looked as though Travis had just confirmed his worst fears.

“Going up? In a plane? Why do we need to do that?”

“Like I said. Just to give you some experience,” explained Travis.

“But why do we need to do that at all?” said Nigel.

“Sorry, mate. I’m not following.”

“I’m just asking, is the plane thing compulsory?”

Travis looked confused. “Well, it is eventually, mate. You can’t do skydiving without going up in a plane. The clue’s in the name – sky diving. But don’t worry. It’s just a taster. No-one’ll be jumping out of any planes next week.”

“What?” said Nigel. “Who said anything about jumping from a plane?”

“Sorry, mate, I must be confused. You do know you’ve been doing skydiving lessons for the past four weeks, don’t you?” said Travis.

“Yes, absolutely. That’s what I signed up for.”

“And that a big part of parachute jumping is the actual, you know, jumping.”

“I signed up for skydiving lessons. I wasn’t really aware that you were going to make us do an actual parachute jump at the end,” said Nigel.

“Let me get this straight,” said Travis carefully. “You wanted to take skydiving lessons without doing any actual skydiving?”

“That’s right. You really should have made it clearer in the literature.”

“Mate, I thought it was pretty clear, in the whole concept, you know? What would be the point of doing the lessons without the end product?” said Travis.

Nigel tutted, as though he’d just been told that his taxi would be five minutes late. “It’s just that I don’t see why I can’t just have the lessons so I know what I’m doing, and leave it at that.”

“Mate, it’s your money, but didn’t you think it a bit odd that we charged you for things like the plane and actual parachute if you weren’t going to do any jumping?”

“I saw that more as a donation. To support the general concept of skydiving and subsidise those who really wanted to do the actual jumping,” explained Nigel.

“And what about all the waivers we made you sign? Didn’t they give you a small clue?” asked Travis.

“I signed those because I agreed with the principles behind them. The safety instructions and stuff. And, as I said, I’m a big supporter of the general concept of skydiving. I wouldn’t have signed them if I’d known you were actually going to make me do it,” said Nigel.

Travis shook his head. “So what’s the point then? Why bother doing the lessons?”

“Well,” said Nigel, beginning to get excited, “I was thinking that I could take the stuff you taught me, go home and teach my friends how to skydive. Run my own courses, as it were.”

“Mate, you can’t do that! It took me years to become a qualified instructor! Skydiving is dangerous!”

“Oh don’t worry,” said Nigel reassuringly. “None of us would actually do any skydiving. You wouldn’t catch any of us going anywhere near an actual plane. No fear!”

“So you’re telling me that you want to take the lessons, but not actually do the skydiving?” said Travis suspiciously.

“That’s right,” agreed Nigel.

“And then you want to go and teach your friends what you’ve learnt, and then none of you will actually do any skydiving?”

“Right again,” said Nigel.

“And no-one is going to jump out of any planes?” said Travis.

“Too right,” said Nigel. “Why would we want to do something like that?”

“Yeah,” said Travis dryly, “what a crazy idea. Imagine learning how to do something and then actually going and doing it? Madness.”

“Good, I knew you’d understand.” Nigel clapped his hands together. “See you next week then…oh wait, no I won’t. The week after that. No planes the week after, are there?”

“No, mate. No planes,” said Travis.

“Thanks Travis,” said Nigel, turning away and heading towards the exit. He called over his shoulder as he left. “Keep up the good work! You’re a great teacher!”

“And you’re a great pupil,” Travis muttered under his breath, “but you’ll never be a great skydiver.”

James’s Blog: Talking About Yourself.

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James’s Blog: Talking About Yourself.

I’m probably the only person in the world who thinks that preachers need to tell more stories about themselves. Not only do preachers not tell enough stories about themselves, I also think that when they do, they tell the wrong stories.

Let me make up an example. Let’s say that I’m listening to a sermon on evangelism. Let’s also say that the preacher tells a story about a time that he had a leaking pipe in his home. He kept meaning to get round to doing something about it, but he never had the time. When he finally got to it, the persistent leaking of a single drop of water had caused some big wooden boards to rot. Imagine that the preacher then suggests that sometimes evangelism is like that – a consistent, little effort that can, over time, have a huge impact.

It’s a nice image and an illustration that might be quite helpful to someone, plus it’s exactly the sort of metaphor that I enjoy. Nothing wrong with that – I would happily include such a story in one of my own sermons – but maybe the congregation also needs a different story from the preacher’s life? Perhaps a story in which the preacher himself tells of a situation where his own consistent, little effort made a huge difference. In other words, a story of how he put his preaching into practice?

I know very well the internal debate that comes from deciding whether or not to include a story that makes me look good, but sometimes my hesitation is just another refusal to get over myself. Refusing to share something that might be helpful to your congregation because it reveals something positive about you? Well, that’s just a different way of making the sermon revolve around your ego.

When I was in Cornerstone I learnt from many men and women who shared stories of how they actually went out and did the things they were talking about. Sometimes it was a story of how things went wrong, but more often it was a story of how this God stuff actually does work. As someone who finds the theoretical easier than the practical, it was informative and inspiring. Those earthy stories that backed up the theory actually changed me, for the better. That’s what a congregation needs – not just to be taught the truth, but to be inspired to live it. Stories from our lives of how we put things into practice may be the little push that encourages someone to sweep away the years of fear and act.

So preacher, tell more stories about yourself. Tell the congregation about worship that drew you closer to God, or prayers that didn’t. Don’t just share the disastrous attempts to explain your faith, talk about the times when you got it right. Share the tools you use to survive the moments when God seems distant, and shout from the rooftops the tales of how God showed up in your hour of need.

Of course, I do have the nagging fear that the reason we preachers don’t tell many of those kind of stories is because we don’t have many of those kind of stories to tell. In that case, perhaps we should step down from the pulpit for a while, until our actions have caught up with our words and we actually have a life to preach.

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