SPEAKER_00

Well, hello, and thank you so much for downloading this brand new episode of the Speak Life Podcast, episode 516. We help you speak life. That's the goal of Speak Life. And today we have a conversation between Glenn Scrivener and Nate Morganlock of Speak Life talking about PowerPoints in preaching. Yes, a very thorny and interesting issue. What is preaching? And do we need powerpoints in our sermons? This podcast is also available as a video in the partner's lounge of our Discord server. If you haven't heard of the Speak Life Discord, it's a place where you can hang out and uh chat about theology and creativity and 321, our evangelistic course. You can ask questions off the back of that and interact with the Speak Life team and other Speak Life supporters. So you can join our Discord server by going to speaklife.org.uk forward slash Discord and filling in the short form there. And if you give more than £4.99 a month to the work of Speak Life, you can join the Partners Lounge, which is a kind of a room within our Speak Life Discord where we have lots of bonus content, including uh the video of the conversation you're about to hear, but also a growing archive of talks, uh, recordings of all the sessions from the Speak Life Intensives, or certainly the vast majority of the sessions. So there's plenty to check out on there. Go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash discord to join our Discord server and let us know you're a regular giver if you'd like to get access to all that bonus content. Well, let's dive in. PowerPoints in preaching over to Glenn and Nate.

SPEAKER_04

Hi Glenn. Hey Nate. It's been a while. How the heck are you? How the heck?

SPEAKER_02

I'm well. How are you? Yeah, pretty good. Pretty good. This is not the first time we've spoken for the last three weeks.

SPEAKER_04

We haven't had a proper recorded conversation since uh I made the failed prediction that by now we'd all be wearing Apple ProVision goggles. Yeah. I was I was expecting by now we'd all be doing it, but apparently not.

SPEAKER_02

No, the future did not come as as predicted.

SPEAKER_01

The future has has delayed, maybe?

SPEAKER_04

Are we still gonna see tech dystopia has been postponed until after the election? That's it. All kinds of dystopias will flood upon us at that point. Um but we're gonna have a conversation about a very large topic, which is preaching. Okay. Uh but the entry point into that is on the question of the use of PowerPoint presentations in preaching. And of course, um this is a live issue, or at least it was a live issue in 2006. But who are we to let sleeping dogs lie? Let's have a conversation about it.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Well, if it was good enough for the Apostle Paul, then PowerPoint, let's do it. Yeah. You know, I don't know. Like it's interesting that probably conversations about PowerPoint take up more space in the minds of modern preachers than is healthy, in that we tend to assume what preaching is, and then we all go down to the questions of should you have a full script or just notes or no notes at all? Yeah. You know, um, was Stephen Fertiks um were his sneakers too expensive or whatever, like when he was preaching? Or like I don't know. People people talk about um people talk about the peripheral things or the people talk about the presentation, yeah. Um without having a conversation about what preaching is, and I think that impoverishes the conversation about the thing. So I I think it's a it's a good conversation to have about it's an entry point.

SPEAKER_04

It's an entry point to say why would you use a PowerPoint? Yeah. Partly is because what you think you're trying to achieve when you stand up to preach.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah, which raises the questions of in what other context do you have a PowerPoint presentation? And maybe maybe it's more than just TED Talks. Um and it's more than just school assemblies. I think um I think in the business world you have your slide deck prepared as you want to introduce, you know, whatever your marketing plan is for the business for the next six months. I've provided a deck, can I share screen on that? So there there are there are a multitude of different kind of scenarios in which people prepare a deck. Yeah. But yeah, does d do any of those scenarios match what preaching is? What that's a that's an unfair question, really.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, and it's really so people will say it's helpful for people to have um PowerPoint and to have slides and to have something to look at. And so it's actually a concession to the congregation that you very rarely will find a preacher. I mean, we know of one who who who uses PowerPoint because it's kind of how he operates, like very much the way that he is approaching the the very practice of preaching, is to be using that PowerPoint in a particular way. And almost I kind of want to discount that type of use of PowerPoint completely in a way because it feels so different from what most people are doing when they're using it.

SPEAKER_01

Because that person might use a slide deck of like 80 slides or something. Yeah, yeah, 25 minutes.

SPEAKER_04

And it's almost like that's a almost like a different thing. That's you know, if you've got that many slides that are being used, then people's eyes are almost never leaving the screen because it's changing so rapidly.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

So it's almost like a screen presentation, like a video, rather than it's like a stop motion animation. Rather than this is something that every time there's a new point or an illustration that that you know there'll be a click on the slide. Yes. So I mean he's it's like he's playing Chopin or something on the keyboard as he's going through his slides, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I've heard somebody else who does that, like so. Mark Green at LICC. He has a background in marketing. He's been on this channel last year. He came and and and spoke to us, uh, works with LICC, London Institute of Contemporary Christianity. But yeah, he he might have a slide deck of like a hundred slides. None of them have any words on them, but he's very interested in just the image and sort of talking you through and so your your gazes on the slide deck. But that that's not necessarily in preaching. Yeah. That is more in presentations about the work of L I C C or And there's other stuff.

SPEAKER_04

So like a graph or a diagram or a map, right? There are certain visual kind of images of certain images that you're gonna want to because it to try to explain it in words is gonna be so hard to do. Yeah. Whereas you can put up a diagram, a bar chart or something like that, and instantly people can see, oh, that's how the stats look, and that has a powerful impact on on how you feel about it. But most of the time we're not preaching about maps or about statistics or about a particular image that people want to see. They're used as a kind of you know, bullet points the kind of sermon outline kind of thing. Um and I really do question the value of that. Like to the point where I think actually it can detract from both the preacher's uh like freedom to preach and the congregation's capacity to kind of engage with the spoken word of preacher.

SPEAKER_01

And is the problem a little bit upstream of the PowerPoint presentation at that point? Because in one sense, the PowerPoint presentation is revealing that basically the preacher is a lecturer and they've got four points and three subpoints for each of the four points, and what they're actually doing is projecting onto a screen exactly how very kind of left brain didactic they are, and they're made they're f and and even if they have some funny stories and some great illustrations along the way, what you're being shown is louder than what you're hearing, and what you're hearing is actually just an information download. So is the is the problem upstream of the power.

SPEAKER_04

And it's partly that what it's teaching. It's so it's using and you've used to find this all the time in in youth ministry and children's ministry, is that people are thinking in terms of educational models and theories. Yeah. And one of the dominant ones, although it's apparently been properly debunked, is to do with learning styles. Right. And so there are some people who are visual learners, some people are audio learners, some people are kinesthetic learners, they need to be. Now I that is that what we're trying to do in preaching? Is that what preaching is? It's just a case of what is the best uh learning style for you and will have the most kind of profound impact. And you'll be able to remember it for longest. As though somehow recollection of a sermon is the value of the sermon. Um or that you'll stop drifting off during the sermon, that this is just a way to get your attention back again. Yeah. Because somehow the preaching and the the speaking is not sufficiently interesting enough to hold you. Yeah. Because I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, because you need the story to open up the windows and let the light in, or something like that. You know, like as as a a method of of keeping you awake. And like there was a book, um, it came out a few years ago called Saving Eutychus about preaching. And it's sort of stopping off point was well, the Apostle Paul, when he preached, preached for so long that poor Eutychus fell asleep, fell out the second story window, died, Paul raises him from the dead. And and so the book, the the jumping off point of the book is like keep Eutychus awake. Yeah. Here are some ways that you know can keep Eutychus awake. Now, what's fascinating to cocaine that could be because that would help. I mean, just okay to keep it someone. Stimulants fresh. Yeah, all we need is stimulants so that you can keep on preaching through the night. And um I was reminded as I was preparing a talk on Soul Winner by Spurgeon, which is the greatest book on preaching ever. And he's got a chapter uh in that on raising Eutychus. And that's what preaching is. Preaching is not keeping Uticus awake, preaching is raising him from the dead. Now let him die. He is already dead by the law, yeah. See him, you know, killed under the under the judgment of God. But your job as a preacher is actually to raise the dead, not to stimulate the sleepy. Yeah, you know, yeah. And yeah, I I think a lot of the conversations around PowerPoint reveal that we've got a kind of uh keep Eutychus awake idea about what preaching is. And so any kind of stimulants, like you tell a story, you tell a joke. Yeah, not because we're story-wired creatures, but because it'll wake you up after you've just done the real business of downloading.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, because basically, yeah, the preaching is pr is actually quite boring. It's it's a little bit soporific, it's explanatory, it's like exposition is dull. Yes, the the concession. Yes. It's dull, and you therefore need a few things, a few tricks up your sleeve, yeah. Uh, and a and a few clip art images or stock photos. Yep. To Oh, okay, I'm back in because you just changed the slide. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But having said that, I've just emailed you uh uh a picture that somebody talked me through. Okay. Is that your laptop? This is my laptop. So go in there and have a look, and and I'll I'll set it up for you. Um Saturday, I'm talking to an artist called Paul Hobbs, and um he is going to be presenting a lot of his visual arts, and he's gonna talk me through a lot of it. And one of the things is a piece of art which is a dartboard, right? Okay. And behind the dartboard, so down a little bit, that one. Right. So there's a dartboard. Now it's a lot bigger than that in real life, but behind the dartboard, there are all sorts of newspaper clippings of the darkness of the world, tragedy of the world. Right. Everything going really, really wrong. In front of it, there is a dartboard, and it looks like it's just really battered and there are cracks in it. If you get closer to it, zoom in and you'll start to see a figure in the middle of the dartboard. Do you see it yet?

SPEAKER_02

I yeah, I quit sort of can. It's not a good I need to do it. It's probably it's probably not a good download.

SPEAKER_01

Not a good resolution of image, but it it's Christ, right? And it's Christ crucified, and the bullseye is right over his heart. And actually the the artwork is there are a set of darts however many feet away from the dartboard it is, twelve feet or whatever. Um and do you want to, having seen the tragedy of the world, throw a dart at God? Well, look closer. What is the kind of God who's descended like a victim? And then the the chalkboard that usually like keeps score just says 70 times seven.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

So that's about forgiveness and all that kind of stuff. And then do you notice the trim around the dartboard is green and it's kind of it's this sort of portent of hope and resurrection. And so it's the last thing you see as you sort of come away from it. And in a sense, like if you haven't seen that picture and you've just heard me describe it, I haven't done justice to it. Yeah. If you see it, it's kind of like, whoa. In a way that, you know, just telling a story, just painting the picture with words, wouldn't quite do it. The picture and the words together, does this prove some kind of use for visual media in preaching? I don't believe in any visual media at all in any form.

SPEAKER_04

Uh only in preaching. Only words. No. Um so I think I mean it it is a fascinating artwork, right? So the idea of a dartboard and uh it's interactive, presumably, at some level. Yeah. Um you go to the Ocki, bring out your inner Luke Littler or Phil the Power Taylor, and and Yeah, there's a lot to sort of engage with on a kind of scriptural level there with the 70 times seven and then the idea that you're gonna throw the dart. I suppose if someone was going to use a single image and talk us through it. Right. Okay, fine. If you can use a map to talk us through it, fine. If you can use a uh uh, as I say, a a diagram or a chart, then that can be helpful. And so I'm not and and I think there are biblical examples of visual aids. Right? So Jesus pulls a child in amongst them and says, unless you become like this little child, you kind of enter the kingdom of heaven. Ezekiel is almost like a performance artist in terms of um his kind of use of dung and and um pots and pans and things. Um so clearly there are ways in which there is visual we are to engage with the gospel in all of our senses. Um I think what I'm uh concerned about is the idea that you just go to the PowerPoint as well, that's what people find helpful, and we ought to have one, and that's the default, and it should include this many points. Like use it when it's going to be best used, deploy it well. So there's a phrase um speak when it's better than silence, right? So if you need to sermons would be much shorter if we followed that advice. But that's the thing. So so when when it's gonna be like deploy it at the right time, and actually you'll find it has even more impact. Yes. Um but interestingly, I think people will will have understood what you were describing if they're just listening. Yes, but there is a way of describing it, yeah, which would make it even more storied, right, to tell the story of someone who comes, you know, up to the Ockey and has got their arrows and they're gonna throw them, and then they approach the dartboard and they realize that the bullseye is over Christ's heart. The heart of Christ.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Um That's true. You could do it as a story, couldn't you? And in your imagination, it could always be much more cosmic than what you were ever able to do with a canvas, you know.

SPEAKER_04

And like, would the Bible would the Bible have been improved with pictures? Right? Or would, you know, are are there great works of literature which are improved with pictures? Are they great you know, would this artwork itself be improved with a handout? You know, a a description of what's on there. Yeah, it really I just think it's about emphasizing the nature of the medium, yeah and uh which requires, as you were saying at the beginning, an understanding of what is this thing called preaching, right? And therefore how do you do it in the most you know divinely kind of empowered and appointed and directed way. And this is huge because it it particularly when you think about children, is that you are training them in particular ways of giving their attention, ways of engaging with the world around them, and we grow in those things. And one of the biggest challenges that you find within children's youth ministry is that children who've never been in for the sermon, so they always get sort of taken out. At what point do you bring them in? And it's like so with when I was growing up, there was a local swim bath that we we probably went to every single Saturday for my entire childhood, and there were two pools. There was one which was like a 25 meter long, you know, this is for your kind of proper swimming, and then there was a children's pool. And the temperature in these two pools was about 15 degrees Celsius difference, right? Right, yeah. And if you were in the kids' pool, you're like, this was just a warm bath, yeah, it was just pleasant. And then if you had to get up all right, well, for a kid, you were just like but as soon as you had to get up and walk over and get into the the adult's pool, it was freezing. Yeah, and so the question is how do you prepare people for that shift and that change? And so we end up having to have all of these extra steps to prepare someone from a child's experience of church to the adult experience of church, and that differential at whatever point it happens feels like it's really hard going, hard work. Um so I do I think as you say, it's a formative thing that you grow in the appreciation for what it is we're supposed to be doing here as a church.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. And this relates to what Alistair Roberts said on the channel last year, and he came on because some Twitter storm grew up over like sermon lengths. Yeah, yeah, it should be 10 minutes. Like yeah, something like that. It was like it was like twelve or fifteen or or you know. And there was massive furor, but but he he was like, Well, okay, you can have Sunday school groups outside of church for adults as well as children, and yep, go deep, but is that what the sermon is really for? And if you if you have a a very good 13-minute sermon, but it's surrounded by oh, you're up on your feet to recite the creed, and you get back down, you get on your knees to pray, and you go forward and you kneel to take communion, and you're back up on your feet to sing the final hymn, and it's only a 13-minute sermon, isn't it? At that at that point, you know, one of one of the problems with a cold pool is um you can't stay still. It requires you to move. And and maybe church should be a bit more dynamic like that, and we've gotten used to you know, sit down for in some cases a 40-minute lecture. Um, and and maybe actually that's that's not the way we should be formed through preaching, even though I believe in preaching, Alistair Roberts really believes in preaching. Um and I think I think if you can't deliver what you want to say in 13 minutes, you know, maybe maybe the problem's not the length, maybe the problem's the preacher at that point.

SPEAKER_00

Hi, me again. I've just realized I didn't actually introduce myself at the start of the episode. My name's Thomas Larrigood, media producer at Speak Life, and uh I'll keep this brief. We're halfway through the conversation. Can you believe it? And I just thought I'd draw your attention to our 321 course. Uh if you've been listening to the Speak Life podcast for even a short amount of time, you probably will have heard of 321. It's our evangelistic course, and it's a really accessible introduction to the Christian faith that gets very deep, and it's great for Christians to do it, and it's great for Christians to share with their non Christian friends. It assumes no prior knowledge. And through a series of talks by Glenn Scrivener, accompanied with some beautiful animations, you can get an introduction to the Christian faith, and you can share it with your friends. And it is now available as an app. Yes, very exciting. Exciting. So go to three two onecourse.com. That's three two onecourse.com. And you'll find there you can sign up or online and do it in browser on your computer or tablet or phone, but you can also download the app on your app store or Google Play Store. So perhaps even now, uh pause the episode and uh just go and download the 321 app. If you've already created a 321 account, you can log into the app with that account. Well, enjoy 321 and we pray that it will be a blessing to you and anyone you share it with. We've heard some really exciting stories of non-Christians doing the course uh in Asda car parks and all sorts of places and coming to see who Jesus is, which is really exciting. We're so thankful. And also for the the large number of churches, dozens of churches currently running the course in person. So we're praying for you guys, and we're really excited about how God is using the course. Over to Glenn and Nate, and I will catch you at the end of the episode.

SPEAKER_04

Thinking then about you know, great examples of preaching, right? So who I well no, let me this question is who's influenced your preaching most, do you think? If you had to think of the people who you were sitting under their work their preaching, and they've probably had the biggest impact on you in both like the theology and and the and the what is preaching, but also in terms of how you approach you know the the very practice of having to preach.

SPEAKER_01

I named three preachers ten years ago, and I'm trying to think whether um I would still name the same three. Ten years ago I named Paul Blackham, who was at All Sales Langer Place in the 90s and Nauties. Mike Reeves was also at All Sales Langham Place in the in the 2000s, and Steve Levy, who is at Mount Pleasant Baptist in Swansea. Um never heard of it. Never heard of him. No idea. People should check him out. Um he so he's a shouty Martin Lloyd Jones and preaches a raw gospel. Um and I remember listening to R A W R A W Raw. Like, because I I remember once saying to him, like, you seem to do a law gospel thing. And he said, No, I do do a raw gospel. And he didn't mishear me. He was playing on that. Like, and he does preach law and gospel. He does he he does preach um our inability outside of Christ, and we're desperate for help, and we call on Jesus. And and I remember listening to his sermons online and thinking, Um, gosh, the congregation just must be full of Skid Row jump drunks because he's just you know constantly preaching a raw gospel that would really preach to somebody lost in addiction. And I go there and it's full of consultant surgeons and accountants, and you know, the homeless are at the back of the like it's all everybody's in there, but everybody's lapping up a very vertical sense of we're hearing from God. This is an encounter with God.

SPEAKER_04

And he's that's one of the things with the whole didactic, it's about learning styles things, it's so horizontal that you lose this idea that something you know is happening in the vertical sense.

SPEAKER_01

So I'd I'd say those three, and and then maybe um maybe Sinclair Ferguson would be there as well. Sort of that rich, deep Scottish kind of it's doctrinal, it's devotional, it's I need another.

SPEAKER_04

There's a real range of accents. These four preachers you've picked.

SPEAKER_02

Lancashire Lancashire, Wales, Scotland, Posh, English. Where's Mark? Welsh. Uh he's from Poshland. Poshland. Yeah. Yeah, he's just speaks.

SPEAKER_04

What about you? Who's who's formed you? Uh so it would be my uh my dad um preached in our church, a lay reader. Um, so probably the times when he was preaching, I was probably the youngest age that I would have been in for the sermon. Would have stayed in for those occasionally. Um but then the biggest influence on me would be Mark Prentice, who is uh Anglican minister in Ipswich. Uh so he was doing the um leading the All Souls Clubhouse during the early 2000s. Um and yeah, so I was uh sort of formed on the him and yeah, Northern Irish voice, so we got got loads of accents in but yeah, just a that sense of the vertical and that sense that you were gonna be able to go really deep into exposition and that and that the scriptures were sufficient to hold the attention of the congregation. Right. Because they were the scriptures, right? So you didn't need to go out into other things. Right. Um but the the weird thing is I reckon my my tone of preaching has has has developed from a number of different people, but stand-up comedians have probably had way more influence on the way that I kind of the manner I adopt when I'm I'm preaching. Who are you thinking of? Um Eddie Isard. Yeah. Uh that often if I was doing like an extended illustration, right? And I would sort of act out different characters within it. And partly because I had spent so long doing youth and children's ministry, so you know that was largely where I was doing a lot of that stuff. But um yeah, so Eddie Izzard would have been one, Peter K, um, just as a kind of like the the incredulity at at certain things within the world, just to help really get people to rethink what they're thinking. But then I noticed on so last Sunday I was preaching Worthing Tab um with uh Rich Owen, and um I found myself using a Stuart Lee approach. Sure. So now he's not everyone's cup of tea, he uses something called Brechtion alienation, he's doing his stand-up comedy, yeah, yeah. Um but it's this idea of repetition to the point of like comedy, and then it gets into awkwardness and then it comes back into comedy again. Hopefully, that's the idea. But I found that trying to hit the same point several times within the sermon, I could just go back to a set of words, yeah, and knowing that I'd already used these before, and knowing that everyone knew that I'd already used these before, but in a way that hopefully really drove home home the point.

SPEAKER_01

And isn't it interesting that there's who who's the stand-up comedian that does have the the the Google guy?

SPEAKER_02

There's there's one guy who uses a presentation like Dave Gorman. Dave Gorman. Dave Gorman. There are other PowerPoint comed stand-up comedians, but not many. Okay. Dimitri Martin sometimes might use a presentation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. But in the i in the same way that you'd use a guitar as a as a bit, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, it's it it's fascinating that there's there's literally a whole profession whose job is to hold the attention of a room of people for twenty minutes, thirty minutes, more. Yeah. And they don't resort to PowerPoint. Rarely. Rarely.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

So But and in terms of that level of live event, right? So I think that's again one of the things that you know we could talk about. Maybe we should do a whole series of stuff on on preaching, but um the idea that this is a this is an event. This is a thing that happens at a particular point at a particular time. Right. Um and therefore is special because you were there for the preaching.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Whereas I kind of feel like if you've practiced your sermon, and then it's almost like you bring your music standout to do a recital of the sermon that you've been practicing for a week, and now they're just listening. And what's different now? Yeah. There's not there's nothing really different except they're going to applaud. But no, they're not gonna they're not even gonna applaud. There's nothing different about you doing it in front of a music stand in your study and you doing it in front of people. Whereas I I would like to think that whatever the sermon is, it is what has happened because you have communicated to these people in that moment. And if you want to call that a sermon, and if you even want to transcribe it and publish it, fine. And that could be what the sermon is, but the sermon is not the thing in between me and the congregation that I do to the congregation. Yeah. I herald the voice of Christ to the congregation, and I I hear myself the voice of Christ, and I happen to have the privilege of being, you know, the the one who's who's speaking as well. But yeah, that that verticality is just is just lost. And as while ever it's a horizontal thing, you're always going to reach for helps. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

You're always going to reach for and you will be led by the particular individual, you know, learning styles and personalities of of the people in front of you. Yeah. And that you know, one of the things I think was so attractive about this whole learning styles and education thing was everyone got to have their own thing. It was like a Myers Briggs type thing. Yeah, yeah. Where it all it's all about how I'm gonna learn best, and so therefore it's gonna and you know, we really do have a bit of an issue with how kind of concerned with our own precious individuality we are in the culture, yeah, that means that we can't possibly believe that we're part of a body, a corporate people, who all receive the word at the same time in the same way.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And so many of the conversations about, oh, you know, did you know that sermon actually means dialogue in in Latin and and you know, and why should there only be one voice? Those conversations happen largely when you think of preaching as a horizontal thing. And then it it might seem a particularly contingent historical kind of quirk that we happen there happens to be a person who sweeps up into a pulpit that is that far off the ground and happens to have an eagle over the top of it, and there happens to be one man who's speaking to a whole all of that stuff sounds to starts to sound very contingent and could have been otherwise. Yeah. Um when it's on the horizontal level, and and then you're very open to people saying, But some people learn better when it's you know, have buzz groups. Why don't we break up into buzz groups and have you know have people share their own feel? And you don't really have a defense against why a sermon should be a monologue if you've got a horizontal view. Whereas, if it's from if there is one word coming down from on high, then it better be a monologue or you haven't really understood what it is. And I'm often thinking about Psalm 29 when it comes to preaching at so that was always preaching on Sunday. Seriously.

SPEAKER_04

I was at Worthing Tab and I. At Worthing Tab. And of course, because as Spurgeon says, it is the Thunder Psalm. Oh wow. The thunder psalm. Okay. So I referenced, of course, the great storm of eighty-seven. That was like my big hope. These people lived through the storm of eighty-seven and Michael Fish and all this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And then yeah, we we thundered forth with the voice of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01

Well let me Okay, let me read it and then you can then give it give us some glory. But like, I'll go from verse three. The voice of the Lord is over the waters, the God of glory thunders, the Lord thunders over the mighty waters, the voice of the Lord is powerful, the voice of the Lord is majestic, the voice of the Lord breaks the cedars, the the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon leap like a calf, Syrian like a young wild ox, the voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning, the voice of the Lord shakes the desert, the Lord shakes the desert of Kadesh, the voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forest bare, and in his temple all cry glory, whereas some people prefer a more dialogical form of picture.

SPEAKER_04

Yes. And and people do cry glory, you know. In small groups to one another.

SPEAKER_02

Later in another when they're a painting or you know. So you you thundered forth the the glory from Psalm 29?

SPEAKER_04

So yeah, just thinking about the the way in which the voice, the one who is enthroned above the flood, and there's so much about like he starts off he's hit the voice of Lords over the waters, and you know, again, worthing by the sea, right? So you've got all that sort of um, you know, the sense that you know you get to see the the the way that the waves are kind of thrashing and crashing around, and that you stand in awe of them, right? And there are you know w however good a sailor or a or a surfer you are, there is the the sense that this is way bigger than you are and you don't know how to deal with this. And all the allusions back from you know Genesis 1 to the vo the Spirit of God hovers over the waters, and of course the Exodus is the the the ancient spirit the you know sends forth the waters into the walls, and so they they've got that sense around them. And then Christ, you know, as he calms the sea. Um as the thunder and and lightning are going, the waves are thrashing around, he just says his word, the voice of the Lord goes out over the waters and brings the calm. So yeah, just that sense, and then he moves on to the um the psalmist moves on to the the mountains and the and the the trees which are shaken, and that's you know Spurgeon in Treasure of David's got some incredible stuff on that um and the ways that those structures are themselves destroyed because there are no structures that uh could possibly withstand the voice of the Lord, even though seeds of Lebanon is going to be used throughout the scriptures as a kind of picture of Israel. Um and then into the wilderness, you know. So, you know, wherever you are, um the voice of the Lord comes and and dominates and makes you stop and go, wow. It's the glory, it's the it's the glory moment. And that so much of our preaching fails to get into any of those registers, you know, not that you're trying to whoop it up in your own strength with a bunch of homiletic skills and and tips and tricks, but so much of our preaching fails to get to that level because of our you know, our theory of preaching and and what it is that we're trying to achieve. Yeah. And a PowerPoint presentation at that time.

SPEAKER_01

Ain't gonna do it. Ain't gonna do it. So what is preaching then?

SPEAKER_04

Preaching is the well, I think it's it's the spoken word of God, isn't it? It's the you know, you've got the the incarnate word of God, the the the Christ, you've got the the the inscripturated word of God, which is um the the Bible, and then you've got the the preached word of God. Um and all three are gonna do the same thing. One is you know you're preaching uh the incarnate Christ from the inscripturated word. Um so you've got that dynamic is definitely gonna be at play. Um and I should probably say, you know, when I'm talking about the the registers of the preacher, and is he capable of stepping into a kind of uh thunderous kind of mode, as it were? I don't think all preaching has to be in this kind of uh thunderous mode. Yeah. There are preachers who do that in the most s gentle and and quiet of tones. Yes. But they do so with authority because uh they have a an understanding of preaching Christ to his people from the word by the spirit, which is undeniable when they stand up to speak.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So I've just I've got uh Mike Reeves' preaching book, Hot Off the Press, uh from Union.

SPEAKER_04

He was advertising that when he was on chatting about Martin Luther the other day, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01

That's right, that's right. It is out with a foreword by Sinclair B. Ferguson.

SPEAKER_02

So two of my favourite preachers are involved with this. You get it signed by Paul Blackham and Steve Levy. It's your greatest book of all time. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01

And he quotes from John Calvin, uh another friend of the show, uh John Calvin, bit of a fan. Uh he said, When a man has climbed up into the pulpit, it is so that God may speak to us by the mouth of a man, and he does us that favour of presenting himself there and wishes a mortal man to be his messenger. So there's something there's something about yes, there's the verticality and the reality, the divine presence, but he also wants it to come through a frail mortal as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Which is interesting. Isn't that because the incarnate word, the inscripturated word, and the priest word are all fully divine and fully human? They all have a humanity, yeah. So there's always that sense in which and when and partly the question is which one is being kind of downplayed at this particular point in time in this particular conversation. Yeah. Um and I think so often, even in conservative circles, we find that the vertical element is being consumed by the the practical kind of concerns of because one very um relevant and very valid concern is that you don't want a pulpit pope who says, Thus saith the Lord, and they've just shut their mouth off on their own hobby horse.

SPEAKER_01

You don't want that. And the humanity of Christ is unfallen, the humanity of the scriptures is still inerrant, but my humanity is definitely fallen and can definitely err, and therefore I constantly need to be tested against Christ in Scripture. Um, and there's a there's much more of a provisional, I'm going to hear this is the word of God when it comes from me, as opposed to when when you're reading the scriptures. So people rightly sort of want to back off from the the very sort of heavy sense of like preaching is God speaking to us by the mouth of a mortal, right? We we do want to back off from that, and and part of that I think is very understandable. Um but also I think the right response to that fear that authority could be abused is to take it in the seriousness that you're meant to, and to receive it and to to be ready to hear from God in the sermon. But to do it like the Bereans did it, with your Bible open, you know. They tested the Apostle Paul to see whether the scriptures uh uh you know, whether what he's saying is lining up with the scriptures. So we should definitely we should definitely do it, but we should do that because we're I'm ready to hear from God right now. And maybe what Glenn says from the pulpit or maybe what Nate says from the pulpit is is gonna be false. But my my attitude is I want to hear from God right now. And if it if this is in line with Christ and Scripture, I'm going to I'm gonna hear the voice of my good shepherd right now, and I'm one of his sheep, and I'm I'm listening ready and primed for that. But I I fear that in our church circles, you know, I I get introduced to go and preach, it'd be like Hillary will read from the Word of God and then Glenn will share some thoughts. Oh, okay. And it's like, I thought I was gonna herald the voice of Christ.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. Well the other one's explain the passage. Explain the passage. Which is the other one, which is like Would you rather explain a passage or share some thoughts? What's your I refuse the dilemma? Um Is there anything else in that that you just sort of think is just too good not to be declared right now?

SPEAKER_01

Man, so let me just read to you the chapter headings, okay? God is a preacher. Where else are you gonna start? God is a preacher goes to Genesis 1, and then an encounter with God. Yeah, what is preaching? An encounter with God. Wasn't Martin Lloyd Jones is like God ordained preaching so that you know we can have meetings with God is basically the which again is that that vertical thing that I think is so helpful. The light that proves itself. So you don't you don't need to have a whole bunch of arguments and apologetics to make your word land. Right. Okay. The sun is bright, people will see that it's bright. Yes. Honey is sweet.

SPEAKER_04

Which is an interesting one on the whole issue of apologetics and cultural apologetics and everything else what are we doing in preaching.

SPEAKER_01

It really is. We should do it. We should do an episode on that. So we would see Jesus. That's the absolute heart of it. We would see Jesus as well. So he goes into stuff about um he doesn't pronounce on PowerPoint. I've never seen Mike use a PowerPoint. Um But he does want us to see Jesus.

SPEAKER_04

He does want us he w he wants the preacher to show something of the glory of Christ so that a congregation not only sees Jesus but tastes and sees that he's good and I'm glad you put the s the tastes in there because some people have something called aphantasia that I was reading about, which is where they can't form mental images of things, which baffles me completely. Yeah. But apparently, if you say to them, think of a red apple, they can't picture it in their head. Which which and apparently like four percent of the population have got this. There we go. But the fact that he said taste as well. Taste as well.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, maybe they've had COVID, they've lost their sea.

SPEAKER_01

I don't know. Who knows? Yeah, that's for one. One of the sea Jesus. Yeah, yeah. Light and heat, radical renewal, only the gospel, preaching like Christ. Um I haven't finished it, I've only just opened it, but um It looks good. It looks good, and it looks very manageable. It does, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, and I'm glad the headings are in there because it'll help me. Um that's great. I think we've had a really powerful conversation with some great points. I found it challenging but also encouraging and helpful. That's good. Well, we'll do it again another time. But if people do want to hear it, maybe no one's interested in what Speak Life has to say about preaching. I think we are interested in speaking life, and obviously that's what we're aiming to do. We help you speak life. Exactly. So that's uh the aim of the game. Thanks, Glenn.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you, Nate. Well, there we go. I hope you enjoyed that conversation. PowerPoints in preaching. I found that quite interesting to get into. So it seems maybe a place for them uh when they're used well. Perhaps we should move away from the assumption that every sermon has to be accompanied by a PowerPoint. Where did that come from, that idea? But uh yeah, I hope you enjoyed this episode. This is the Speak Life Podcast. We help you speak life. Why not leave us a rating and review on your podcast catcher of choice? That will really help us get seen and heard by more people. And do subscribe to the Speak Life Podcast if you haven't done so already, and then you will be the first to know when a new episode comes out. Well, that's all from me. Thank you so much for listening. God bless, and we will be back soon.