Correctable Preaching Mistakes: Part 2

Dan Hurst:

Welcome to Revitalize and Replant with Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock, where we equip pastors to take their churches from declining to thriving by pointing them to a new future and a new hope. Join us weekly for encouragement and practical advice in your pastoring journey. All right, we’re going to continue where we left off last time. This is Revitalize and Replant with Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock. I’m Dan Hurst. Matt MacNau… Spell your name. I can never spell it. I can never say it right. Mac.

Mark Hallock:

It’s M-A-C.

Matt MacNaughton:

M-A-C.

Dan Hurst:

Yeah.

Matt MacNaughton:

N-A-U.

Dan Hurst:

N-A-U.

Matt MacNaughton:

G-H-T-O-N.

Dan Hurst:

Oh, Macnaughton.

Mark Hallock:

That is tough.

Dan Hurst:

I keep wanting to put like an F sound on Macnot. And you said that that was the way it was originally.

Matt MacNaughton:

Long time ago.

Dan Hurst:

Long time ago. Yeah. All right. So anyway, Mac, I’m glad you’re here and I’m glad Kyle’s not here.

Mark Clifton:

I am too, because his name is Bueerrmann.

Dan Hurst:

Yeah, Bueerrmann. We can’t make fun of that.

Mark Clifton:

No. What’s funny about the name Bueerrmann?

Dan Hurst:

Yeah. All right. So 10 correctable mistakes we make when preaching or teaching. The last time we looked at five. Now we’re going to pick up with number six.

Mark Clifton:

Now here’s one. Because the last time we were here, my microphone was upside down the whole time. So if you listened to the previous and I sound weird, it’s because my microphone was on upside down.

Dan Hurst:

Well, now your beard’s all over it.

Mark Clifton:

So one correctable mistake is to turn your microphone right side.

Mark Hallock:

That’s a bonus one. That’s a bonus one. Make sure your mic’s on right.

Mark Clifton:

Make sure your microphone-

Dan Hurst:

Excuse me, you might want to move it down just a bit because your beard’s going to rub it.

Mark Clifton:

Whenever I go with the preaching, you have those-

Mark Hallock:

Dude, let’s talk about this for a second.

Mark Clifton:

Yeah. You have those… The-

Dan Hurst:

The headpiece?

Mark Hallock:

The mics that go on the side of your face.

Dan Hurst:

Yeah.

Mark Hallock:

And the problem… Sorry, I’m interrupting.

Mark Clifton:

No, go ahead. I’m listening.

Mark Hallock:

My head, I got a fat head.

Mark Clifton:

You got a pretty big head.

Mark Hallock:

The Lord gave me a big fat head. I go to these places and they’re the kind that go around your two ears and it never reaches all the way.

Mark Clifton:

Mm-hmm-

Mark Hallock:

And I just tell them now, I say, “Guys, listen, if this is all you’ve got…” Because what happens is they’ll jam it on there. The moment I start preaching and sweating, one pops up.

Dan Hurst:

What was that? What was that?

Mark Hallock:

It was a pop. It was a pop.

Mark Clifton:

I call it the Garth Brooks thing because he was the first guy to really use that, Garth Brooks was because that was 50 years ago.

Mark Hallock:

Sometimes I just want an old school lapel mic.

Mark Clifton:

They always say, “What do you want?” And I say, “I lapel or just one on the platform.” You don’t want the one on your face? No, I really don’t. Because they don’t fit my… They’re hard to make fit and then they start moving around on you, right?

Mark Hallock:

That’s the problem. You can’t mess with them.

Mark Clifton:

You can’t mess with them. So yeah, they’re very much a-

Mark Hallock:

So a correctable thing is make sure the mic you’re using is somewhat comfortable and not a distraction.

Dan Hurst:

I’ll tell you, these that we’re using here now for the podcast are really, really… Because we’re not using the standard mic with a mic cable. We’re using some Bluetooth… not Bluetooth, but they’re wireless mics.

Mark Clifton:

They’re pretty nice.

Dan Hurst:

And they’re-

Mark Hallock:

Easier to use, for sure.

Dan Hurst:

They’re called CJI.

Mark Clifton:

But you got to turn them right side up.

Dan Hurst:

Yeah, you do have to have them right side up.

Mark Clifton:

Mine was upside down.

Dan Hurst:

But they’re noise-canceling, so it helps get rid of some of the room ambience.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan Hurst:

And so it works great for us.

Mark Clifton:

Yeah.

Dan Hurst:

I don’t know how it would work in an auditorium.

Mark Clifton:

We ought to do a whole podcast on audio issues. That would be really important.

Dan Hurst:

We are doing that right now as a matter of fact.

Mark Hallock:

All right. We got to go number six, guys. We’re number six.

Mark Clifton:

These are correctable mistakes.

Mark Hallock:

Correctable.

Mark Clifton:

In your preaching.

Mark Hallock:

Okay. Yep. Here’s number six. Using unnecessary filler words. What do we mean by filler words?

Dan Hurst:

Or consonants like um.

Mark Hallock:

Um.

Mark Clifton:

Are you tracking with me?

Mark Hallock:

Are you tracking with me?

Mark Clifton:

Does that make sense?

Dan Hurst:

Stay with me.

Mark Clifton:

You got it? Stay with me.

Dan Hurst:

Oh, you did the stay with me.

Mark Clifton:

I said stay with me, but that was pleading for help.

Dan Hurst:

No, I was, I think I’m losing you, that’s what it was.

Mark Clifton:

I think I’m losing you.

Dan Hurst:

I think I’m losing you.

Mark Clifton:

I think I’m losing, stay with me. Like a patient in code blue. Hey, I think I’m losing you. Stay with me.

Mark Hallock:

I do think um though, there’s a reason that’s a classic. I think a lot of people’s default, men and women in speaking, but we’re talking preaching here is um, um, um. You’ve got to learn how to be okay with silence in your preaching.

Dan Hurst:

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mark Hallock:

And that’s very uncomfortable. That’s why a lot of times we want to fill it.

Mark Clifton:

And whenever you say something like, “Okay, does that make sense? Are you tracking with me? You see what I mean?” In a way you’re sort of asking for approval and affirmation. You’re not really asking them if they track with you because they don’t have time to say yes or no, right?

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, that’s true.

Mark Clifton:

The other is it’s just your way of transitioning to the next statement and you don’t need to do that.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

So I think you can be very cautious about that. And that’s one of the things when you listen to yourself preach, that’s one of the things you can listen to and go, “Man, how many times…” Mark, how many times you use those same phrases?

Mark Hallock:

It’s a good call.

Mark Clifton:

I’m always doing, “Hey, this is important. Hey, take a listen to this. This is important.”

Mark Hallock:

Because the problem, if you say that too much, then everything is-

Mark Clifton:

Everything’s important.

Mark Hallock:

This important. Exactly. It takes power away, actually.

Mark Clifton:

That’s right. It takes the power away. So man, be careful with those filler words like and hey, are you tracking with me? Do you get that?

Mark Hallock:

Yip.

Mark Clifton:

Do you agree? And hey, this is important. Hey, take a listen to this. If you heard me preach, I do that a lot. I say okay man, this is really good. You got to take a listen to this or okay, this really matters. Again, if you do it every four or five times in a sermon, it just doesn’t mean anything after a while.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah. You got to listen to yourself. And this is where it’s painful, but in listening to yourself and honestly kind of evaluating, you’ll catch this stuff.

Mark Clifton:

Yeah.

Mark Hallock:

I would also say this, sometimes I think it’s good for me to not just listen to when I’m actually preaching, but even recordings of say when I’m leading a workshop or something that’s a less formal environment, there will be times in those environments where I hear bad habits begin to form.

Mark Clifton:

Yeah.

Mark Hallock:

So I may not say um in my preaching, this is true, but I’ve had workshops where I’m like you’re saying um a lot there. Maybe it’s because you don’t have your manuscript, you’re not using a manuscript, you need to be aware of that.

Mark Clifton:

Well, and you’re kind of thinking on your feet.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

And so when you say um or are you tracking with me, it gives you a moment to think about the next thing you’re going to say.

Mark Hallock:

That’s very true.

Mark Clifton:

Or to say uh, and so we’re going to do… And so… You don’t need to say that either.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, that’s good.

Mark Clifton:

An economy of words is really important. So just get rid of the unnecessary pillar.

Mark Hallock:

Unnecessary words.

Mark Clifton:

And when you listen to yourself, make a note of how many times you said that in your sermon.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, that’s right.

Mark Clifton:

I think you’ll be pretty surprised, for sure.

Mark Hallock:

Okay number seven, you ready for this?

Mark Clifton:

I’m ready. Go for it.

Mark Hallock:

Sharing too much personal, even risque or embarrassing information.

Mark Clifton:

Number one.

Mark Hallock:

Oh boy.

Mark Clifton:

Never… Okay listen to this. This is really important. All right. Take a listen. This is good. Are you tracking with me on this?

Mark Hallock:

Are you tracking? Are you tracking?

Mark Clifton:

Okay. And so never share a story about your wife or your children without asking them beforehand if it’s okay to share it.

Mark Hallock:

Absolutely.

Mark Clifton:

Never.

Mark Hallock:

Yep.

Mark Clifton:

Even if you know it’s going to be okay, it is a wonderfully polite thing to say, “Do you mind again if I share that story I’ve told before? Or could I share this?” Even that is a little difficult because you’re putting her in a position of telling you that you can’t use a story.

Mark Hallock:

Exactly.

Mark Clifton:

I think you would want to say it in such a way that you’d say, “Hey, Jill…” and believe me, I have not done this like I should. So this is confessional. I’ve learned the hard way more than once. “Jill, I was thinking that maybe if I told the story of how we did this, that and the other, it might impact. Do you think I’m wrong or do you think maybe it wouldn’t impact?”

Mark Hallock:

Hmm.

Mark Clifton:

And give her a chance to say, “No, Mark, I don’t think it would.” That’s good. Rather than to say, “I don’t want you telling that story about me.” You don’t put her in that position. “Jill, do you mind if I tell the story about how we went to there? “No, I don’t want you telling that. But say,” Jill, I was thinking of telling this story as part of illustration. I don’t know. I could be wrong. What would you think? Do you think that would be helpful or hurtful or would you be comfortable with that?”

Mark Hallock:

I really like that. That’s really good.

Mark Clifton:

And let her say, “No, I don’t think that would really make it.” That’d be great. And I know we’re all going to do it. We’re going to get up there and something’s going to come to our head and we’re going to just tell something briefly about our wife or our kids or what they did. Listen, err on the side of being too cautious because the one time you’re not, you’re going to step into it and you’re going to make your kids, especially your teenagers, you’re just going to drive them up a tree. Your wife, you’re going to say something that really no one else should know about. Be very cautious about your family.

Mark Hallock:

Okay. Two things. I would say to this. Two things. One, this is the danger of humor in preaching.

Mark Clifton:

Isn’t it though?

Mark Hallock:

Okay. So some of you guys are just naturally funny. You just are. You’re funny. You can tell funny stories. And in your flesh, if you’re being honest, you like to make people laugh.

Mark Clifton:

Sure.

Mark Hallock:

And it feels good. It feels good. People are like, man, they’re just with you. They want you to hear more and more. They’re just feeding this. Who doesn’t enjoy listening to a standup comic? We all do. The problem is humor can quickly get off the rails and you can begin saying things or go places you weren’t even thinking about going and before you know, dude, you are off the rails and it’s hard to pull that thing back.

Mark Clifton:

Yeah.

Mark Hallock:

So what I would say is be careful with humor and it’s like a drug, man. When people… And I know it, man. If you’re speaking to a certain group and they just think whatever you say is hilarious, man, you can just go with that. You know what I mean?

Mark Clifton:

Oh man, we got so much to go here. Let’s go to humor in a minute.

Mark Hallock:

Okay.

Mark Clifton:

Let’s stick with personal-

Mark Hallock:

Okay. Let me say one more thing then about this.

Mark Clifton:

I want to talk about humor.

Mark Hallock:

Okay. We’ll come back to humor. The only other thing I want to say about-

Mark Clifton:

I want to know about personal stories.

Mark Hallock:

About sharing personal stories is this is why I would say manuscript it and practice saying it because for the same reason, you want to be, as Mark said, you want to be so careful with personal stuff, especially with your family. You don’t want to say things the wrong way. The other thing I’ll say is this, don’t talk about yourself too much.

Mark Clifton:

Exactly.

Mark Hallock:

Some guys it’s all personal stories.

Mark Clifton:

I know. I know.

Mark Hallock:

And I’m like, dude, you’re like the center of every sermon.

Mark Clifton:

That’s right. It can’t be about you.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

And so be cautious about how much you talk about yourself and about what you’ve done that week. You don’t want it to be exactly about yourself.

Mark Hallock:

Just you. Yep.

Mark Clifton:

Now, so certainly when it comes to your family, make sure that they’re good with you sharing those stories, even sharing a story about yourself. Do it as limited as… Less is better than more.

Mark Hallock:

That’s right. Always. Yep.

Mark Clifton:

Now when it comes to humor, I was in a meeting one time with John Piper and someone asked him that. We were talking earlier today about people who you model your sermons after. And one of our guys, I think Matt said you never heard Piper tell a joke in a message. And I frankly haven’t either, but I haven’t heard every message he’s preached. So he may have said something humorous sometime or another. But I remember somebody asked him that, “Is it okay to use humor in a message?” I really wanted to hear what he had to say.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

He said, “If it is appropriate, if it fits the message, absolutely. But it needs to be appropriate, needs to fit the message. It doesn’t need to be forced. You’re not in there… There might be times when that would be okay.” He didn’t say never, right?

Mark Hallock:

Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

Well, what you just said about humor, I used to do that a lot more than I do it now. And again, going back to the 15 or 16 months I was at the interim preacher at Istrouma, they were in a very difficult situation when I went and they told me that. They said, “We’re sort of in a hard time right now and there’s some discouragement.” And they wanted me to be positive and uplifting. I even told Jill, I said, “I’m a little more humorous in the pulpit than I normally would be.” You’ve heard me preach many times.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Clifton:

And if I do use humor, it is appropriate at certain points.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, totally.

Mark Clifton:

But what I did notice was that not long after I was preaching there, people began to say, “Oh, we love your messages. We love your humor.” They’d all say, “We love the gospel. We love your humor.” So now I was feeling like, okay, every week I got to be humorous.

Mark Hallock:

Exactly. The pressure’s on a little bit, yeah.

Mark Clifton:

For a preacher, you do not want to get in the pulpit and think, “I’ve got to be humorous.”

Mark Hallock:

I know. No, no.

Mark Clifton:

But if people label you and say, “One of the things we like about you, pastor, is you’re humorous.”

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, you’re so funny. Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

Exactly. Well, there’s nothing particularly wrong with that if it’s appropriate.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

Some people can come across in a very positive sort of… And humor is very natural and normal for them.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

And a lot of my humor is self… What’s the word I’m looking for where you make fun of yourself?

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, yeah, self-deprecating.

Mark Clifton:

Yeah, self-deprecating.

Mark Hallock:

Which is funny.

Mark Clifton:

I think I said-

Mark Hallock:

And you’re a natural, you are a funny guy, honestly.

Mark Clifton:

I did say one time about taking care of yourself physically. And I said, “I know you look at me and think, does he really do that?” I said, “In the last year, I’ve lost 40 pounds,” and they all start to clap. I said, “Don’t clap. I’m still as big as a Buick.” And of course they all laugh and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Clifton:

But you keep doing that and then they’re just listening for the jokes.

Mark Hallock:

Uh-huh. For the humor.

Mark Clifton:

And it’s a fine line because on the other hand, the humor makes them feel comfortable.

Mark Hallock:

I know.

Mark Clifton:

It makes them feel more… Maybe they connect with you more and listen to you more. I don’t know, guys.

Mark Hallock:

It takes discernment. No, you’re right.

Mark Clifton:

It takes discernment. I guess Piper was saying be discerning in that. But boy, again, it’s kind of like telling personal stories. If you’re going to error, err on the side of less humor instead of more humor.

Mark Hallock:

I agree.

Mark Clifton:

And by all means, know when to use it.

Mark Hallock:

Yes.

Mark Clifton:

And don’t use it near the end of the sermon, for goodness sake.

Mark Hallock:

Well, and if you find yourself. I remember a guy not long ago confessed this to me. He said, he goes, “I’m finding myself in my study every week trying to put in humor.”

Mark Clifton:

Oh gosh, no-

Mark Hallock:

In other words, where is this sermon going to be funny this week? And I need to put in a funny story or illustration. I said, “Bud, you got to stop that, man. That’s going to be painful over time. I promise you.”

Mark Clifton:

I’ve never done that. I’ll say that without-

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, it’s off the cuff.

Mark Clifton:

Yeah, it’s off the cuff.

Mark Hallock:

Even Piper, if you listen to Piper, actually there are many times people crack up, but he’s not trying to be funny.

Mark Clifton:

He’s just off the cuff.

Mark Hallock:

That’s the point. Yeah, it’s just kind of who he is.

Mark Clifton:

I would say that’s true with me. In the times that there’s been humor, it has been-

Mark Hallock:

It’s just off the cuff, yeah.

Mark Clifton:

Off the cuff. I don’t ever put it in my notes. I don’t ever plan to use it.

Mark Hallock:

No, exactly. That’s right.

Mark Clifton:

And usually it’s self-deprecating. It’s something that I talk about myself.

Mark Hallock:

No, that’s good, man. That’s good.

Mark Clifton:

Okay. All right.

Mark Hallock:

Okay. Number eight, overdoing or underutilizing physical mannerisms.

Mark Clifton:

Yeah. We all have ways of self-soothing when we get a little nervous. And I don’t care who you are. If you’re standing up in front of people for 30 minutes talking, that’s not a normal, comfortable way to be. And so, one of the things I used to do to self-soothe was I paced back and forth when I preached.

Mark Hallock:

Yep. That’s very common, I think.

Mark Clifton:

It was back and forth and back and forth across that platform. No particular reason while I was doing it just helped me soothe. So then I tried to stay away from doing that, and then I found out my wife said, “You’re rubbing your stomach.” I said, “I’m not patting my stomach. No, you’re patting your… No, I’m not.” So I watched myself and I kept patting my stomach.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, yeah. Yip.

Mark Clifton:

Drawing attention to it like I needed to draw attention to that part of my body. Well, then I quit doing that. And then she said, “You’re running your hand through your hair. I am not.” And sure enough, four or five times in the sermon, I’d run my hand through my hair. Well, then your hair is all messed up.

Mark Hallock:

Yip.

Mark Clifton:

Why am I doing that? These are all unnecessary emotions that you’re doing as a self-soothing kind of thing.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

Again, keep talking about, because I’ve preached for 15 months there, I did get to where I moved around a lot more, but for the most part, up until that point, I had changed my whole preaching style to staying behind the pulpit and pretty much keeping my hands on the pulpit unless I’m raising to make some sort of a gesture. So I’m not touching my hair, touching my stomach, walking around, because those mannerisms get really distracting.

Mark Hallock:

Can be very distracting. That’s why I think the pulpit, it’s kind of-

Mark Clifton:

It’s helpful.

Mark Hallock:

If you know the history of the pulpit-

Mark Clifton:

No.

Mark Hallock:

It’s actually to hide the preacher. In other words, it’s not all about us. It’s like this is where Lloyd Jones, I heard him talking about this, between the pulpit and they used to wear robes.

Mark Clifton:

That’s robes, yeah.

Mark Hallock:

The robe. Why? So that you can’t see my cool sneakers. That’s why. I’m here, I’m a messenger of the word of God. That’s all that I am.

Mark Clifton:

Right.

Mark Hallock:

The problem is you remove the robe, you remove the pulpit. Now I’m kind of front and center.

Mark Clifton:

And my hand motions, how I sit, how I walk, how I do all that stuff.

Mark Hallock:

That’s right. All that stuff. And so we got to just be aware of it. I’m like you, man. I’m quirky, so I come up with stuff. One of my things is my glasses.

Mark Clifton:

You’re touching a lot of things.

Mark Hallock:

I’ll be touching my glasses and all people come up and say, “I’ve got this nerd wax.” Am I touching? Yeah, you’re touching your glasses a lot. So anyway, all that to say, we can correct that, but overdoing physical manners.

Mark Clifton:

Sticking your hands in your pockets.

Mark Hallock:

Yep. Yep. Touching your nose, even picking your nose. Honestly, you don’t even know you’re doing it. Dude, your fingers in your nose is way too much.

Mark Clifton:

Yeah.

Mark Hallock:

Okay. Two more. Here we go. Number nine, communicating with the wrong tone.

Mark Clifton:

Hmm.

Mark Hallock:

That’s interesting. So here’s what he says. “Some guys are very boring communicators because they speak with a monotonous tone. That kind of person may have the best content, but he seems unenthused.” Again, reflecting back to my homiletics classes in college and seminary preaching classes, most of us start this way. It’s sad though when a guy who has been teaching and preaching for years is still so dull. I often wonder, didn’t anyone ever talk to him about this? Didn’t he listen to his wife? Didn’t he recognize the excessiveness of the yawns from his listeners?

Mark Clifton:

Right.

Mark Hallock:

So anyway, you can use the wrong tone. And he’s obviously using here, you’re referring to a boring tone, but I think there’s other tones that we need to be aware of in our preaching.

Mark Clifton:

Well, an unloving tone.

Mark Hallock:

An unloving tone.

Mark Clifton:

Where you can come off as harsh.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

And not warm and loving and caring. I’ve seen that on a lot of guys. It’s like you’re just mad about stuff.

Mark Hallock:

You just seem ticked.

Mark Clifton:

You seem ticked all the time. And every sentence has an exclamation point at the end of it.

Mark Hallock:

Last Sunday, just as an… And again, I could give plenty of examples of ways I have failed at this, but last week I preached… We’re going through the 10 commandments, and so I preached on honor your father and mother, which on the surface you might think, man, what an easy sermon. It was one of the most difficult sermons I’ve ever preached because of the room. You’ve got folks who had great parents, you have folks who had terrible parents.

Mark Clifton:

Right.

Mark Hallock:

You’ve got folks whose parents were alive-

Mark Clifton:

Who don’t even know their parents.

Mark Hallock:

Don’t even know their parents. You’ve got adoptive parents. You’ve got parents who aren’t alive anymore. You’ve got little kids… It was crazy prepping for this. But I got to the end and it hit me the night before, and I though I’d hit every angle. And the Lord hit me, said, Mark, you need to speak into the lives of those who are mourning and grieving the loss of a parent that is no longer there. And so as I prayed about that, got there on the Sunday morning, I get to the end of my sermon, and this is the strength of pastoral preaching. When I can pause and say, “Church, you know I love you, and there’s some of you I want to speak to just very intimately for a minute, for my love for you. And that’s those of you who have lost a father and mother in the last year or two.”

Well, that’s a tender tone that I can look at them and say, “It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to miss your mom. It’s okay to miss your dad. You should. And you need to grieve and grieving is on your own timeline. This isn’t forced, and we want to be a community that helps you grieve.” Well, that’s a tone. You’re not going to say those words with a loud, thundering-

Mark Clifton:

Right.

Mark Hallock:

You know what I mean? Grieve as you need to grieve.

Mark Clifton:

Right.

Mark Hallock:

It’s now with a tear in my eye, literally. I love you. I can only imagine the pain when I think about losing my mom and dad. All that to say, your tone for guys who… And I’ve heard guys say, dude, tone doesn’t matter. Tone does matter.

Mark Clifton:

It does. And volume does too.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

And we talk initially here about guys who preach in a monotone, and I agree. I’d rather have a root canal than listen to 30 minutes of a guy preaching in a monotone.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

But on the other hand, my problem is I get loud and then I get louder and then I get even louder, right? And there’s nowhere to go.

Mark Hallock:

I know.

Mark Clifton:

And then I’ll listen to myself preach, and then I’ll realize at one point I just kind of was quiet for a moment and I came back in softly.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

It was really powerful.

Mark Hallock:

Oh yeah.

Mark Clifton:

When you listen to yourself preach and you watch yourself preach, there needs to be a rhythm there. You need to build sometimes to something loud and powerful, but then take a break, go back, be quiet once again. Have you ever heard like Martyn Lloyd-Jones, sometimes you wonder if he’s ever going to get started preaching?

Mark Hallock:

Oh, I know. I know.

Mark Clifton:

He starts talking, but it’s like this guy’s really great.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, I know. Exactly.

Mark Clifton:

It’s like, “What?” And then somewhere in the middle of that, takes off, man.

Mark Hallock:

Like a rocket ship. Yeah, exactly.

Mark Clifton:

And then again, it kind of brings it back down and there’s this great variety of tone and variety.

Mark Hallock:

Yes.

Mark Clifton:

So you catch it and you listen and each tone means something. He’s getting you ready for something important. If you start out really loud… In fact, Kumar Venugupal, one of my elders at Wornall from India, he always criticized my sermon. I asked him to dissect my sermons and autopsy them. And Kumar used to say, “Pastor, when you start loud, there’s nowhere else to go.” Start slow. Build up. You start loud, you have nowhere else to go. All right.

Mark Hallock:

Here’s number 10. Last one, guys, and then we’ll land the plane, is speaking too academically or at a level that fails to teach newer or immature believers.” And that’s really true, especially if you’re coming out of seminary, you’ve learned all the big words, and that’s great. And I’m not saying dumb them down. I will say this. If you’re going to use sanctification, you’re going to talk about… pick your word.

Mark Clifton:

I don’t think I ever… I probably have, people will probably say I’ve heard you do it. I don’t think I’ve ever used the word sanctification and justification that I didn’t explain it.

Mark Hallock:

Exactly.

Mark Clifton:

And explain the difference between the two.

Mark Hallock:

Yep. And in a way that a sixth grader can understand.

Mark Clifton:

Right.

Mark Hallock:

That’s right. And that’s the point. Use big words, but define them. Don’t assume everybody knows. This is not an academic lecture.

Mark Clifton:

No.

Mark Hallock:

You’re not preaching to a seminary class. In fact, one of the best things you can do in your preparation is… And I still do this. I write the name of five faces at the top of my sermon, and I try to think of five very different types of people, from kids to the single mom, to the academic. And so the whole time when I’m preparing my sermons every week, I’m thinking, “I’ve got to hit all five of these.” And that really affects how I word certain things or if I take the time. You know what? These four would understand this, this one wouldn’t. And there’s others like that one, so I need to be sure I can communicate.

Mark Clifton:

Listen to what the author says here. This is so good. Man, so powerful when he says this. “People need a man who loves the biblical text he’s preaching so much, it has affected him in such a way and burdened him to prayerfully communicate with fervor and accuracy, simplicity in a way that his listeners hear from the Lord what the text means and how it applies to their life and to the church. Not what you know about it or how much you’ve studied it or the great deep theological insight that you’ve come up with doctrinely, but how does it affect them and how much you love the text and how much you love them and how you can best communicate that to them in this Sunday morning in these 30 minutes.”

And if you start bringing in a lot of other details, by the time you explain those details, you’ve lost sometimes the real heart of what you’re trying to communicate to them. And you and I were talking earlier, Mark, about this is an oversimplification. I get that. But Mark was saying that basically preachers who are boomers and us older guys, we tend to be a little more on fire with our preaching and maybe less logic. Be frank about that. Whereas the younger guys seem to sometimes have a lot more logic, but a little less fire.

And I’m not saying… You got to have both. You got to have logic on fire. We don’t want one or the other.

Mark Hallock:

Yip.

Mark Clifton:

We got to have both. But I think sometimes because we have so many resources to look at. My generation did not have the resources at their fingertips for study that you guys have. When I studied for a sermon in my 20s and 30s and even 40s, I had a handful of books and that was it.

Mark Hallock:

That’s all you had. Yep.

Mark Clifton:

And I’d have to go to some library someplace. I didn’t have money to buy a whole series of commentaries or something, so I didn’t have a lot.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

Well, today, a kid in seminary, he’s got access to everything online you could ever have. And so this overwhelming information feels like I got to share that in my sermon. No, you really don’t.

Mark Hallock:

You really don’t. Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

You got to share the passion, the love for the text, the passion and love for your people. What is it Jesus wants these people to hear? How’s he want them to hear it? And don’t get lost in too many details and too much academic language.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, that’s really good. That’s really good.

Dan Hurst:

One of the problems with speaking academically is you come across with arrogance or condescending and that’s an immediate turnoff.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

It is.

Dan Hurst:

All right. So there you have it. The end of session 2, talking about those correctable mannerisms and things that we sometimes get into and it really becomes a detriment to our teaching and to our preaching.

Mark Clifton:

Never stop trying to be a better preacher.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

Never stop.

Mark Hallock:

Always be growing.

Dan Hurst:

And you never can be a worse preacher unless you just stop trying.

Mark Hallock:

You got to keep growing, man.

Dan Hurst:

Does that make sense? I’m trying to remember it. I’m trying to think that through. I don’t know.

Mark Hallock:

That’s all right. We don’t-

Mark Clifton:

[inaudible 00:26:50] Spurgeon said, “We one day will preach in perfection.”

Mark Hallock:

Ooh.

Mark Clifton:

I love this. I could get carried away with this.

Mark Hallock:

Oh, boy.

Mark Clifton:

He said, “Right now, man, every sermon I preach, there’s a problem. There’s a hindrance from my sinfulness is in it and all that kind of stuff. But one day,” he says, “one day we’re going to preach in perfection in heaven.” You’ll say, “Who do you preach to in heaven?” He said, “We will preach to the heavenly host who will gather around us and never grow weary of hearing the story of redemption that only those who’ve been truly redeemed can tell, and you’ll preach in perfection.” So one day, guys, you’ll preach in perfection.

Mark Hallock:

Amen. Come on.

Dan Hurst:

Wow.

Mark Clifton:

I know.

Mark Hallock:

That’s good. That’s the ending we needed.

Dan Hurst:

Thanks for joining us today on Revitalize and Replant with Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock. This podcast is brought to you by the North American Mission Board, where we help dying or struggling churches regain health for the glory of God and the good of their communities. If you found this podcast helpful, don’t forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. To learn more about becoming a Replant pastor or to explore revitalization resources for your church, subscribe to our monthly newsletter at churchreplanters.com.

Speaker 5:

Amen.