BONUS | Matthew LaMaster on Books, Preaching, and Sermon Prep

A short bonus conversation with CPT fellow Matthew LaMaster on a book that has influenced his preaching ministry and his aspiration to write his sermons six months before they are preached.

Transcript

Zach Wagner 0:01

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the CPT Podcast. I'm Zach Wagner, and I'm joined by CPT President Joel Lawrence. Hello, Joel. Hello, Zach. And we continue to be joined, as has become our tradition over the past few episodes, by our guest uh from our most previous, uh most recent, most previous isn't quite the word, uh, or our previous episode, uh Matt Lamaster, who's a CPT fellow. Matt, great to have you back with us for a little bonus segment here.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Glad to be here. Yeah.

Zach Wagner 0:34

So uh Joel, over to you. What are what are we doing? Just to refresh folks who maybe haven't heard one of these bonus episodes before. What are we up to?

Joel Lawrence 0:43

Yeah, we're just taking the time as we have these uh pastor theologians, these leaders to to reflect them a little bit more about preaching. Um, we've been in a a preaching cycle the last three years at the CPT. That's that the grant that has funded this is coming to a conclusion this summer, but we've been adding these little bonus conversations. Really, the opportunity here is just to hear about literature resources that people have used uh that has shaped the way that they think about preaching. So, Matt, why don't you tell us a little bit about you have a book that has been important to you that has helped you think about preaching? And so tell us a bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Yeah, I happy to and happy to be back. I uh well, as a misnomer, uh as a disclaimer, this is not the most important book on preaching that somebody should read. Um Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. I I cut my teeth preaching with um Brian Chappell's Chrysana Preaching and Hatton Robinson's Biblical Preaching. And those books are more important uh just for learning the the tech the um you know the mechanics of preaching. But this is a good great book for preaching when you've been preaching for a couple of years and you are starting to get as bored by your sermons as the people who are listening to you are. And uh it's the homiletical plot by Eugene Lowry, um, subtitled The Sermon as Narrative Art Form. I was a few years into my ministry, I was feeling very tied to a very template, deductive, didactic model of preaching. And it was I I was feeling a little bit like it was predictable and like it wasn't having the eff, you know, my pre- I just felt like rhetorically it was very constraining. And so this little book by Eugene Lowry um really pushes the idea that you should understand how your sermon is a kind of narrative. And so when you're preaching your sermon, you should try to structure it in such a way that you're even with even when you're um preaching through material like one of Paul's epistles, um, that you're telling, you're using it to tell a kind of narrative story so that your your um the high point of your sermon ought to match kind of the narrative climax of the text, if you will. And so that model of truth trying to understand, like every sermon should have an emotional effect. If we believe we're preaching God's word, should penetrate to the heart, it should affect our affections. And understanding that there's a way that you can preach which is conducive to getting at the heart rhetorically that is that is a that can match the text itself, that was freeing for me. And that changed how I preach, and I preach much more inductively now, and it was really, really helpful. So yeah.

Joel Lawrence 3:47

I was gonna ask, like uh on the that's kind of on the delivery side. How's it shaped the preparation side? Like like in the during the week, how has that how has that shaped the way you think about the the preparation of the sermon?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Uh that's um it's a great question. I so I I mean part of it, I think they are kind of almost the same thing because when you are prep, you know, I feel like I'm ne I never know a text as well as when I'm about to preach it. But yeah, I think it has attuned me and trained me to think what is the most important truth about this particular passage? Yeah, and what is it that um what's the effect that it's supposed to have on the on the person in the pew? So like just this afternoon I was working on a a sermon I'll preach in the fall on Isaiah 37 about the destruction of the Assyrian army, and I was thinking, like, okay, what's the most important truth? It's not it's surely not that the angel of the Lord comes down and kills, you know, 185,000, you know, people. It's that God wants to do this for his own glory. The why question is more important in that story than the what question, I think. And then when you're when you're preparing it and you're paying attention for those things, then you it shapes how, okay, so where am I gonna put that in the sermon where it can have the best rhetorical effect? I I hear some guys say like the first 30 seconds of your sermon is the most important sermon, you know, because that's really where you're gonna hook them or grab them. I just wonder how many good sermons those people have listened to. Because like in almost any rhetorical form, the most engaging part is about three-quarters of the way through. You know, it's like most of the time it's right where you're building kind of that emotional climax.

Joel Lawrence 5:42

Yeah. So it's good.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Lawrence 5:45

All right. Now I got one other question. I'm I'm uh you piqued my interest. It's we're recording this on April 17th, and you're talking about a sermon you're gonna be preaching in the fall. Yeah. Uh is that a normal process for you to be that far out? I'm I'm just now I'm just curious about that.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Okay, so to plug another resource, last year. So Eugene Lowry is a mainline church guy, so this'll, you know, some equilibrium for me. I last year I read, or two years, two or three years ago, a couple years ago, I read a book by Jay Adams, like I think Lectures on Preaching, uh, very influential in the newetic biblical counseling movement. And he recommended um preparing your sermons six months out. Uh that time I was doing it basically week to week. Right. And he was explaining the benefits of it, and I thought, I really want to try that. And so I talked to my elders into it here, and um, I'm you I'm I don't think I'm quite six months out right now, but yeah, I mean that's my normal practice, work five or six months out. And it's life-changing, it's a game changer.

Joel Lawrence 6:52

So, how how did you encourage every pastor to do that? Did you take some time off to to how do you get gap build the gap from I'm doing it weekly to I'm getting six months out? Like you just start doing multiple per week? Did you take some time off?

SPEAKER_00 7:07

This is the benefit of uh I think that summer, no, that wasn't I had an intern this the previous summer, I think, or the former summer. I can't remember. I had an intern somewhere. Yeah. But um, I had because this is my second pastorate, I had, you know, a whole bunch of sermons that this church here had never heard. So I just recycled um a certain series of sermons, and then I just worked like a dog to get ahead um to where I needed to be. So yeah, it's a game changer. Every every pastor uh should do it. It is like I am so much less stressed than I used to be, like and my the quality of my preaching has just gone so much higher because you have so much more time to edit your sermons and you have more time to think about it and to let it get cold and then to go back and edit it. So yeah, it's amazing. I highly recommend it.

Zach Wagner 8:02

So I I just gotta get I also I also am very intrigued by this. So you do you do you write a draft of this six months out, and then when are you kind of like dusting it off to prepare to deliver it? Are you uh do you work from a manuscript?

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Like detailed detailed outline, handwritten detailed outline, and I write it out, try to have it ready to go, you know, ideally six months out, but usually more like four or five.

Zach Wagner 8:34

And um I who who among us four or five, we're all human.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

I put it into the uh I put it into the the file, and sometimes I'll maybe I'll look at it, you know, here or there, or if I see read something that I think is applicable, um, you know, I'll go back and edit it. But most of the time I take it out the first work day of that week. So then I'll take it out and I'll do a dry run of it to kind of heat it back up, and then I will often rework the manuscript the Saturday before. So I'll kind of go back to, and sometimes that will be you know, tweak here, tweak there, but sometimes that will, you know, involve moving, you know, whole sections around or you know, honing in on the big idea or whatever. So yeah.

Zach Wagner 9:27

Well, yeah, that's that was that was the price of of the conversation. Right.

Joel Lawrence 9:33

That was gonna say that's that wasn't the that wasn't the plan to kind of get into that whole that whole thing, but glad that that came about. So Matt, thanks again. Uh great to have you with us. Appreciate your time and uh the work that you're doing serving the Lord up there in Maine. Grateful for you.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Thank you. Really appreciate it. Great honor to be on again.

Zach Wagner 9:53

Okay, thanks, Matt. Thanks for listening to today's episode of the CPT Podcast, a theology podcast for the church. If you enjoyed this episode, would you consider subscribing if you haven't already? You can also help us out by leaving a rating and especially a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. We love hearing from listeners in this way, and it helps others find out about the show. The Pastor Theologians Podcast is a production of the Center for Pastor Theologians. You can learn more about the CPT at our website, Pastor Theologians.com. You can also find us on Facebook, YouTube, and follow us on X. This show is produced by Steph Korch and Sophia Luke. The show is recorded and edited in partnership with Glowfire Creative, and editing is done by Steph Freecore. Hosting duties are shared by Joel Lawrence, Ray Paul, and me, Zach Wagner. Thanks for listening.