The student answered: "Very unprofessional."
"What?" said the puzzled professor.
"Very unprofessional." repeated the student and added: "A minister should never become so personally involved with the problems of people. See ya', Prof." And with that, he was off to tennis.
Should a shepherd get involved with the problems of the sheep? Only if he cares about them! In this chapter we will consider: What is Problem-Solving Preaching? How does a preacher prepare this kind of pastoral sermon? What are some benefits of this approach? And what hazards must we avoid?
What is Problem-Solving Preaching?
Problem-Solving Preaching is a pastor's pulpit ministry to his own flock offering the Word of God to meet their specific needs. It is a shepherd bringing the encouraging Word to his struggling sheep. I suppose a visiting preacher might also address the needs of another shepherd's flock. But if he does so successfully, he is doing pastoral preaching. Walter Brueggeman's term "preaching to the baptized" led to William Willimon's book by that title. A chaplain may make a good pastoral preacher, though perhaps the term "life-situation preaching" would seem more fitting. An evangelist might master this form, but it is more likely that the shepherd who knows the sheep will be best able to feed them and guide them.
C. H. Dodd in one very small book made quite a large impact on preaching theory. In The Apostolic Preaching and Its Development, Dodd distinguished between two kinds of preaching in the early New Testament church. Using two Greek words, Dodd distinguished between Kerygma and Didache. Kerygma was the gospel preached to the lost to evangelize them. Didache was ethical instruction to the saved to edify them. The two kinds of apostolic preaching had separate target audiences- -the lost and the saved. Each had a distinct aim: to evangelize or to edify. The nature of the proclamation of each was distinct: The kerygma was the gospel proclamation. The Didache was ethical instruction.
Jesus did both evangelistic preaching and pastoral preaching. Matthew records both kinds in one passage. "Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom . . . " (Matt. 9:35). On this evangelizing tour Jesus was moved with compassion for the multitudes. He saw them as "harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." Then follows a message to his disciples. It defines the need. "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few" (vs. 37a). And it calls for prayer as the way to meet that need. "Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest" (vs. 37b). Some would argue that every sermon should focus on a single problem and seek to bring the Word of God to bear on that problem. If that is so, there is still a legitimate need for a specific pastoral focus.
How Does the Pastor Prepare This Kind of Sermon?
The procedure for preparing this message differs from the method for building any sermon only in a few particulars.
1. The sermon preparation starts where the flint of human hurt strikes a spark on the steel of divine revelation. The sermon may begin as a seed thought while the pastor is reading the Bible devotionally. Or it may come in more concentrated Bible study. Because the pastor knows his people, he recognizes that this text speaks to a problem that could help some of his flock.
At other times, the pastor sees the need before a specific text comes to his attention. In this case the sermon cannot begin in earnest until a text comes forth to speak to that need. The pastor may go to the Word in search of God's solution. When the need comes to mind before the text, the preacher must take extra care. The temptation will be to develop the sermon topically, skipping all over the Bible for proof texts to prop up the preacher's own ideas. Such a sermon is less likely to be a true biblical sermon.
2. Study proceeds on both tracks. Faithfully exegete the text and carefully analyze the problem. One track is the problem; the other is the solution. The problem is always some human hurt- -guilt, sorrow, doubt, fear, disappointment and a hundred other struggles of mortals. The solution always comes from the Bible. Otherwise, it is not a real sermon but just the opinion of the speaker. It may be religious opinion, even well-informed opinion, but if it is not drawn from a portion of God's Word, it is not a sermon.
3. State the problem with clarity and candor. This is a crucial step. It is important that the preacher not introduce a straw man that he can easily demolish. If the pastor does not present the problem fairly, no one will see it as his or her problem. Christians do have real problems, and unless they have become too jaded by repeated disappointment from the pulpit, they come to church looking for real solutions. Let the preacher be fair, honest, and as objective as possible in stating the problem. In doing so he should avoid making a judgement about the problem from the first. Suppose he is dealing with fear or worry or indifference. He may be tempted to label the problem a sin from the start. That will not help his listener identify with the problem. Unless they can see it as their problem, they will not find the sermon very helpful.
In the first two minutes of a life-situation sermon, many in the congregation should be saying to themselves "Now the pastor is talking about something I need to hear. This is a problem in my life, and I would welcome a solution." So, the problem-solving sermon starts with a real problem in the lives of real people who sit before the preacher. Then the whole sermon moves toward a biblical solution to that problem. If it is skillfully crafted, such a sermon will have the listener thinking at first, "That is a knotty problem. How will the preacher ever untie it?" And at the end the listener will be delighted that God's Word did indeed have the answer.
4. Structure the message. As in preparation of any sermon, the preacher needs to gather illustrations and other supporting materials. True-to-life examples are especially essential to these problem-solving sermons. They help conceptualize the problem and visualize the solution. And as in all sermon preparation, an incubation period helps the planning process. These steps may move in tandem with the process of structuring the sermon.
The structure may be as simple as two divisions: The first division is a statement of the problem, and the second is the Scriptural solution. Another plan for problem-solving is sometimes called "the chase technique." It also begins by defining the problem. The sermon then progresses by exploring several inadequate solutions in order. Finally it offers the biblical text as the right solution. Suppose the problem is doubt. In the space of one week, three or four people approached me with their own uncertainty about spiritual reality. A young man in jail asked me "How do you know if there really is a God or if the Bible is true?" Another sincerely asked "How can I be sure which religion is right?" Then a lady decorating for our church banquet said: "I want to know something. Do preachers really believe everything they preach? Sometimes I wonder." These were not agnostics looking for a debate. Each was a sincere searcher struggling to displace doubt with assurance.
The sermon that grew out of those conversations briefly described those case studies in the introduction. Then the text was presented. I chose John 7:17 where Jesus dealt with doubters. He said: "Whoever is willing to do what God wants will know whether what I teach comes from God or whether I speak on my own authority" (TEV). The development drew on scriptural case studies. The first division was: Don't despair of doubt. Face it and admit it. Abraham, Elijah, John the Baptist, and Peter all showed that doubt is a common human problem. I gave testimony, also, of a time in my own experience when doubt greatly disrupted my Christian pilgrimage.
The second sermon division balanced that by stressing that doubt is not to be encouraged or celebrated. Doubt may be the friend of scientific investigation, but we do not enter into spiritual reality through that door. There is no premium on doubt in the Word of God. Then the third division came to the thesis of the sermon: we conquer doubt by willing obedience to the Word of God. Here the text was developed. Sometimes it works better to save the text until the solution stage in the sermon. Those who listen through traditional ears might think the preacher has a very long introduction and a very brief body of the sermon.
A Problem-Solving Sermon Structure
I. A serious problem needs fixing.
II. What shall we do?
"Solution A" will not work.
"Solution B" is inadequate.
"Solution C" is also no solution at all.III. "Solution X" is God's answer to the problem.
It is practical.
It is desirable.
That's what we need to fix the problem.
A master of this approach to pastoral preaching was Harry Emerson Fosdick. When I was a college student and young seminarian, I was troubled by my teachers using Fosdick as a model. I knew he called himself a "Modernist" and held a view of Scripture that I found offensive. But as I made homiletics the major focus of my studies, I developed an appreciation for his method. His sermons were models of rhetorical structure. And I discovered one thing that seemed ironic to me; this pastor with a liberal's view of Scripture was more faithful to anchor his sermon in a text than many who criticized him. In addition, his mastery of sermon style made him worth studying. Fosdick preached one sermon on the radio, and a desperately bereaved young pastor said to himself: "That man could help me." He went to New York City where Fosdick was serving Riverside Church. He got an appointment with the pastor. When he left the pastor's study he said softly to the secretary: "He put all the stars back into my sky."
What Are Some Hazards to this Approach?
It will be wise for the pastor to see not only the value of problem-solving preaching but also some traps along the way.
1. It is tempting for the preacher to substitute psychology for true biblical exposition. Especially should the pastor who has a little academic training in psychology beware this trap. The way to avoid substituting pop-psychology for the Truth of God is to make sure that everything you say from the pulpit has "Thus saith the Lord" stamped on it. I do not mean that you should decide what you want to say and then search for a proof text. Remember the McDill Rule: "Let the text shape the sermon."
2. If a pastor does attack a real problem, he better have a real solution. If the pastor does not have an answer from God's Word, he had best not air the problem. It is possible to do a better job of defining the problem than showing the solution. This is one reason it works better to discover the biblical truth and then match it to the life situation. The preacher must be a constant student of the Bible. Reading it through over and over will pay great reward. It will bless and enrich the reader, and it will be an unfailing fountain of refreshment for the hungry sheep who look up to be fed. Whatever the human problem — depression, failure, fear, or whatever — the Bible has the answer.
3. There is a danger that one might focus on problems that no one had before the preacher suggested it. Once in a pastorate, I reached a point close to what some have called "burnout". It is a problem among those in the helping professions. While looking for help for myself, I preached a sermon on burnout. Never again! In the next few weeks, I had any number of church workers saying: "That's my problem; I'm just burned out. I need to resign my class, my committee, my church duties."
4. The risk of betraying a confidence is a genuine hazard. It might be an example the preacher uses. Someone thinks they recognize himself or herself in that case study. Then they think every one in the congregation will also recognize them. Even to raise the fear that you might reveal a secret will hurt your chances of privately helping some other wounded soul.
5. A preacher must guard against pandering to felt needs at the cost of neglecting unrecognized needs. Some ministers, said Fosdick, may be so anxious to deal with felt needs in the congregation that they forget to arouse the consciousness of need unfelt but real. The minister, says he, must not let his preaching be "narrowed to the conscious needs of mediocre people." There are some needs they prefer not to face. Most of us would not choose to hear sermons on troubling ethical and social issues like world hunger and race relations and forgiving those who have hurt us.
6. It is tempting for some preachers to become wholly preoccupied with the issues of the hour. They think because their sermon is stuffed with their reading in daily newspapers and magazines, from their viewing of this and that television documentary, that they are being relevant. Their sermons come out sounding more like an editorial with slight religious seasoning. In problem-solving preaching, the point of departure should be a vital issue to the listener. Then it is the preacher's business to bring the light of God's Word into those deep shadows. It is not for us to darken God's counsel with words without knowledge. (Job 38:2) Jesus started with people where they were, but he made it his business to get to the core of the problem and move them on to where they ought to be. That is "life-situation" preaching or what we are calling "problem-solving preaching."
7. The pastor must not think this is the only way to do pastoral preaching. The church needs to hear the great doctrines of the faith such as the sovereignty of God, the atonement, grace, mercy, and holiness. They need sermons that lift them to God in praise and adoration and sermons that lead them to pray and teach them how. They need sermons that guide them to Christian positions on great ethical issues of our culture like abortion and gambling and race. A pastor will need to preach on matters of Christian stewardship of time and money and all of life. And even those who long ago anchored their soul in the Savior need to hear the gospel story again and again. This too may be considered pastoral preaching.
What Are Some Benefits of this Approach?
In spite of these hazards for the pastoral preacher, the blessings of learning to do it well are significant.
1. It helps people. This approach is called "problem-solving preaching" for good reason. Done well, it does guide a pilgrim people through personal problems, family problems and problems of society. What pastor does not long to see his people overcome weakness and rise to victorious living? When Jesus saw the crowds he had compassion on them because he saw them harassed and helpless as sheep without a shepherd. (See Matt. 9:36) When we weep over our church members as Christ wept over Jerusalem, we are on the way to helping them.
2. It is good for people to see that their pastor understands their struggles and cares. Sometimes a listener will be moved to come for a private conference with a pastor who seems to be in touch with struggling laymen. Your sermon may not have dealt with that soul's burden at all, but it was a true problem-solving sermon. He will think: "My pastor has an understanding heart; I believe he would understand my problem."
3. In some larger churches, this may be the only way a pastor will ever counsel some of his people. There are just not enough hours in the day for all the demands and duties placed on any pastor. As the flock increases, it seems time for one-on-one counseling decreases. Some pastors decide that they will not do certain kinds of counseling — marital counseling for example. Others try to expand the staff with a specialist in counseling. Surely the man with the shepherd heart will want to keep the personal touch. Pastoral preaching is one way to do so. Fosdick believed the measure of a sermon was how many people asked for a private interview afterward.
Some Models of "Problem Solving" Preaching.
F. W. Robertson grew up in a military family on a military post and wanted a military career. His father urged him toward the ministry. Shortly after he entered Oxford at age twenty-nine, an offer of an officer's commission came to him. He had made his choice and did not turn back.
He was thirty-two when he was ordained into the Anglican ministry and began what was to be an all-too-brief career. He spent his health in unrelenting toil. He would rise early, skip breakfast and spend all morning in Bible study. Afternoons found him rushing from hovel to hovel in the slums with an intense schedule of ministry to London's misery. Evenings were for discussions with his rector. No exercise, no social life, no leisure did he allow himself until his health broke.
His doctor sent him to Switzerland for rest in 1846. When he came back the next year, he felt he was ready for his own pastorate and began at Trinity Chapel, Brighton. He was thoroughly evangelical in his theology and made his primary concern "the saving of souls." Nevertheless, other "low church" Anglicans were suspicious of his concern for social reform. It was a time of great change in England with social upheaval and theological tension. While Robertson was ministering in the slums of London, Karl Marx was in that city's library writing his Communist Manifesto.
Robertson took his sermon subject from the text as did Alexander Maclaren and Charles Spurgeon. He is famous for his two-point sermons. He did not follow the inductive model of more recent "life-situation preachers." A sermon on The Loneliness of Christ takes John 16:31-32 as text. "Behold, the hour cometh, yea is now come that ye shall be scattered . . . and shall leave me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me." It is, of course, a sermon about our struggle with loneliness, too. The two sermon divisions were:
I. The loneliness of Christ.
II. The spirit or temper of that solitude.
He preached extemporaneously and only wrote out his manuscript Sunday night after he had preached. After only six years at Brighton, his health broke again. At 37 years of age, the brilliant mind that had memorized the whole New Testament in English and much of it in Greek was extinguished. He died thinking himself a failure. Only later were his sermons published. They are still read and widely praised today.
Harry Emerson Fosdick has already been mentioned. Born near Buffalo, New York and educated at Colgate, Columbia, and Union Seminary, New York, he served there twenty years as pastor of the Riverside Church. His 1928 essay in Harper's Magazine "What is the Matter With Preaching?" set forth his method. The trouble with mediocre sermons is they have no connection with life. Every sermon should have for its main business the solving of some problem. This is a sermon's only justifiable aim. Preaching is creative. It brings about in the lives of the congregation the thing it talks about. "The real sermon must do more than discuss joy — it must produce it."
An example of Fosdick's art is the sermon entitled "Handling Life's Second Best" suggested by Paul's experience in Acts 16 "wanting Bithynia and getting Troas." He set the theme in the first five lines of the sermon:
We are concerned today about a factual personal problem so nearly universal in its application that we need not be bothered by its exceptions: namely, that very few persons have a chance to live their lives on the basis of their first choice. We all live upon the basis of our second and third choices.
Fosdick saw his sermon forms in three types: The box sermon, the tree sermon, and the river sermon. It's not always easy to catagorize them as you read them. The box sermon is traditional rhetorical structure, first , second, third. The divisions of the tree sermon grow out of the "big truth" as branches grow out of the trunk. Fosdick considered his best the river sermon. The message sweeps along between the banks without sharp distinction as to the various parts. This was also the hardest to do and the least often done.
George W. Truett wanted to be a lawyer, but through the insistence of his home church, he determined that God's will for his life was to be a preacher. Before he entered Baylor, he made a name for himself in raising funds to save the school. Soon after he graduated, he was elected president of Baylor. He declined, however, saying God had given him the shepherd heart.
Most of Truett's sermons expounded a brief text of Scripture in it's context. Scores of them are still in print. Scan the titles and you will see the pastor's heart in sermons on "Why Be Discouraged?", "Christ and Human Suffering," " Need for Encouragement," "A Young Man and His Perils,"and "Life's Middle Time." A sermon on "The Conquest of Fear." is based on Rev. 1:17-18 "Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive forevermore; Amen, and have the keys of hell and of death." The outline is simple. Jesus bids us —
I. Do not be afraid of life. "I am he that liveth."
II. Do not be afraid of death. " . . . and was dead"
III. Do not be afraid of eternity. "and behold, I am alive forevermore."
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From A Primer for Pastors: A Handbook for Strengthening Ministry Skills by Austin B. Tucker. Copyright © 2004 by Austin B. Tucker. Published by Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, MI. Used by permission.
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Austin B. Tucker is a retired pastor and seminary professor who resides in Shreveport, LA.
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1. C. H. Dodd, "Lecture I: The Primitive Preaching," in The Apostolic Preaching and Its Development, (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), 7-35.2. Philip Hacking, for one, takes issue with Fosdick's rule, saying "The standard of a sermon is measured not by how many people stay to be counseled but by how few. Very often if the Word has been preached clearly it is a matter between the individual and the Lord." Hacking's judgement was that people stay for counseling because they are bewildered. "Some of the most effective meetings have been followed by a quiet going home to put right what God has clearly said to us." Philip Hacking, "Pastoral Preaching" in A Passion for Preaching, Reflections on the Art of Preaching: Essays in Honor of Stephen F. Olford, compiled by David L. Olford, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1989), 107.
3. Fredrick W. Robertson, "The Loneliness of Christ" in Treasury of the World's Great Sermons. Compiled by Warren W. Wiersbe. (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1993), 495-499.
4. Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Power to See It Through. (New York: Harper & Row, 1935),1.
5. George W. Truett, "The Conquest of Fear" in Follow Thou Me. (Nashville: Broadman, 1932), 103-114. Eight volumes of Truett's sermons are collected and reprinted in four paperback double volumes as the George W. Truett Library. (Nashville: Broadman, 1980). Unfortunately, page numbers in the index to that set have no relationship to the actual pagination as printed.