I grew up in the desert, so I know nothing about boats. I always wondered how sailors could go in any direction other than that of the prevailing wind. Then someone explained “tacking,” by which sailors actually sail into the wind
Throughout history, great preachers have done the same thing. Rather than let winds of culture determine the course of their preaching, they utilize that power to move in a kingdom direction
As editor of Leadership’s monthly tape series, Preaching Today, I hear dozens of sermons from pulpits all across North America. I speak with professors and practitioners of homiletics on a regular basis. From this vantage point, I see four strong winds blowing on contemporary preachers. At least one has the capacity to cause shipwreck; yet properly harnessed, each can propel preaching to new effectiveness
Force 1: Narrative and story
Last year’s Olympic coverage took on a new form. Many tuned in to see athletic competition; what we saw instead were enough sugary personal stories to give us diabetes. David Remnick, a writer for The New Yorker, described it this way: “The network has done away with the existing reality (straight coverage of athletic competition) and provided a new one. What it has come up with is a sentimental, highly elastic narrative style designed to bring a tear to the eye and bullion to the coffers.
Nicholas Schiavone, director of research for nbc Sports, explains the motive: “Everything has to be the two R’s-real and relatable.
Many preachers today are striving for those same qualities. A lot of books on preaching published in the past few years have been about narrative form. In one essay, Calvin Miller wrote, “Typical congregations nourished on years of television dramas and popular video releases have been groomed to relate to the narrative sermon.
Receptivity to story telling goes back farther than that, of course. Jesus must have had a pretty good reason for choosing the parable as his primary teaching tool
Methodist pastor Marianne Chalstrom, who studied homiletics with Fred Craddock, reminded me with a grin, “Story is how women communicate at every level. So you men can quit pretending you’ve invented something new!
Even if narrative is not new, today it is receiving renewed emphasis
Tom Long, professor of preaching at Yale Divinity School, points out that story telling and narration have been favorites in three periods of American history: preceding the First Great Awakening, immediately following the Civil War, and the present. “Story telling and narration become favorite forms of preaching during times in which religious experience is imperiled and dampened.” Stories enable the preacher to bypass the rampant cynicism and relativism of the day
Force 2: Multimedia
While some preachers strive to create images with words, many opt for projection of literal images. While preachers have made use of advances in technology for years, someone has definitely upped the ante. A church planter told me that before his church’s first public service, they invested $35,000 in sound and video equipment. “We weren’t about to start a church until we could do it right,” he said
When I was a church planter a decade ago, my peers thought having a worship band was the ultimate. Now technology rules
It also vexes and confuses. Do we need multimedia shoring up the pulpit
“This generation is going to have a screen in front of their face,” says Vernon Armitage, pastor of Pleasant Valley Church in Liberty, Missouri. “The only question is, ‘What will be on that screen?'” Like thousands today, Armitage uses Microsoft Powerpoint software thrown onto the big screen by a video projector. Prior to the service, announcements and a special greeting to guests flash upon the screen. Next come the words of worship music. During the sermon, technicians project Scripture, quotations, and major points of the sermon outline
“Having a passage of Scripture or quote on the screen allows the congregation to read aloud with me,” says Armitage. “Anything that increases interactivity increases retention.
Occasionally, a clip from a movie or an illustration acted out by the drama ministry will be inserted into the message. “But you can’t make it very long,” Armitage advises. “If it lasts more than 30 seconds, people forget the context. “Our goal is not to entertain,” he says, “but to communicate the gospel in the most culturally relevant method possible in order to change lives.
Pennsylvania pastor Lee Eclov muses, “Those of us who can’t pull it off well tend to downplay multimedia’s effectiveness, while those who, by creative bent or generational focus, love technology, tend to prescribe it in overly spiritual terms. Its effectiveness is probably somewhere in between
“It’s the heart of the preacher that makes the impact. If I’m not passionate about God’s Word, no amount of technology can correct that deficiency.
Force 3: Secondary research
Leadership recently received a call from a member of a pastoral search committee. “A prospective candidate preached a sermon virtually verbatim from your Preaching Today series, without giving credit. Is this accepted practice?
We assured him it was not. Such resources are designed to be soul food, idea starters. Increasingly, it seems preachers don’t feel the burden to be original
In the past month, I’ve received at least a dozen pieces of mail offering to save me from the anxiety of sermon preparation. Several offer products on computer disk, so I can pop it in, make a few adjustments, then pop out a freshly printed manuscript-homiletical Pop-Tarts
The idea of sitting down with the text and ruminating over it till an epiphany comes seems quaint. Why cook from scratch when you can microwave something hot and (mostly) nutritious in mere minutes
One reason is the effect it has on preaching. Recently Kent Hughes, senior pastor of College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, stated, “The sufficiency of preaching rests upon the sufficiency of study. I take my English Bible (Greek text if I’m in the New Testament) and a legal pad. I clear my desk of everything else. I read the text, again and again, aloud and to myself, until I discover what it says. The reason I don’t open any other tools to begin with is that if I do, I don’t have that raw exposure to the Word that is so bracing.
A second reason not to overuse secondary material is what it can do to trust. Bob Russell, pulpit minister of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, says, “Those who hear you will assume the sermon was born out of your own soul. Don’t violate that trust by plagiarizing.
Where is the line between research and plagiarism? Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, comments, “When you borrow a significant idea, it deserves attribution. It’s a no-lose situation. When you say, ‘Significant portions of what I’m going to talk about came from a message given by —,’ this shows preparation. People know you didn’t just think up some stuff on Saturday night
“Second, it underscores integrity. If your outline is a whole lot better than what they know you’re capable of, people start to wonder, ‘Who’d he get this from? I think he ripped somebody off and he’s not coming clean.’
Today, easy access to the sermons of others is both bane and blessing
Force 4: Theology and doctrine
For most of a decade, the “how-to” message has been touted as the way to reclaim congregational interest. Messages like “How to Rekindle Romance” and “Winning over Worry” are standard weekly fare in many churches
“If you listen to much of our preaching,” quips Duke University’s Will Willimon, “you get the impression that Jesus was some sort of itinerant therapist, who, for free, traveled about helping people feel better.
Yet, by focusing exclusively on the practical side of the continuum, some preachers now feel their congregations have lost touch with the eternal issues of Scripture. Tom Long believes, “We have congregations who do not have the conceptual framework to be competent to be Christians. The crisis these days is not boredom, it’s competence.
John Piper, pastor of Bethelehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, asks this: “While worship songs focus our attention again and again on the character of God, the great works of God, the glory of God, preaching focuses again and again on contemporary issues, personal problems, and relationships. My question is, why?
Response to these concerns has caused a strong trend back to theological and doctrinal sermons
In a recent column in Net Results, consultant Lyle Schaller wrote, “Many of today’s adult churchgoers regret how little content they learned while in Sunday school. … a growing number of preachers prepare what in generic terms can be called a ‘teaching sermon.’ The length varies from twenty-five to fifty minutes. … As the worshipers leave, many comment, ‘I’m glad I came today! I learned something new about the faith.’ Others reflect, ‘What I learned today will help me get through next week.’
Long predicts, “Teaching and persuasion may be coming back to the fore-but not in the heavy, pedantic, didactic form of the past. Instead we must learn to teach using the narrative and inductive insights we have learned in this age of narrative preemminence.
Theology is in danger of being rediscovered by the masses
Ed Rowell is assistant editor of Leadership and editor of Preaching Today.
1997 by Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.
