Why do some sermons with solid biblical content fail to connect with the listener?
According to Calvin Miller, the problem boils down to a language barrier: Although Scripture is communicated in friendly street language, the church through the centuries has picked up a distinct “worship language.” Even sermons that ooze with Scripture lose vitality when preached in a worship language unfamiliar to today’s listeners.
I recently visited with Calvin Miller, professor of communication and ministry studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, about his “Marketplace Preaching” (Baker; 188 pages, $12.99).
HOW CAN PREACHERS MOVE FROM “WORSHIP LANGUAGE” TO “STREET LANGUAGE”? Miller: Spend time with people in their marketplace. Join them for lunch. Watch how they greet people and relate to them. Preachers who don’t do this fall into a church lingo unlike the friendly street language the gospel of Christ was written in.
HOW CAN WE SPEAK ABOUT OUR INTERESTS, HOBBIES, AND EXPERIENCES WITHOUT ALIENATING THOSE FROM A DIFFERENT GENERATION OR THE OPPOSITE SEX? Even people with a different habitat will respect you if you’re authentic. Some women may not relate to a story about fly fishing, but they will listen if it’s authentic. When a woman in our church uses an illustration from motherhood, I can still relate because of the reality of the experience.
Don’t try to bend your habitat to fit your listeners; they’ll appreciate yours. Nor should you say, “I know many of you won’t relate to this.”
HOW DOES THE PHYSICAL SETTING–THE PULPIT, FOR EXAMPLE–AFFECT HOW PEOPLE HEAR THE SERMON? I encourage preachers to minimize the furniture of authority. This is a nice way of saying you may want to throw out the pulpit.
As a pastor, I made it a habit to walk out from behind my office desk to counsel people. I never felt comfortable with a desk between me and crying need. I grew to feel the same way about the pulpit. The sermon should be conversation without furniture.
IN YOUR BOOK YOU SAY WE PREACH “BIGGER TO BIGGER CROWDS.” HOW CAN WE PREACH BIGGER TO SMALLER CROWDS? Where being dramatic would seem oversized or embarrassing, try to build warmth. Tell the truth gently, warmly, and relation ally. A forced bigness will be inauthentic.
Whatever the size of our audience, we need to speak as much as we can in pictures. As expositors we need to “expose” the truth with narrative just as Jesus did in the parables.
IN THE END, IS MARKETPLACE PREACHING JUST “DUMBING DOWN” THE GOSPEL? No. I’m not advocating that we water down the sermon. The sermon must come strictly out of the Bible. When people leave the church, they ought to know what God said about something and where it’s found in the Bible. Most of what I’m suggesting deals with adapting the delivery and style–not the content–to fit our generation. The problem is not with what we say but how we say it.
I’m trying to move preachers away from the three-point-alliterated-outline approach. While it may work among some listeners, it is not a biblical model; it is a nineteenth-century convention. The Bible provides the best paradigm for how to preach sermons. Jeremiah once stumbled through the city under an ox yoke. This image was video ahead of its time.
–STEVEN D. MATHEWSON, pastor Dry Creek Bible Church Belgrade, Montana
EMPOWERING PASTORS Audiotapes that push leaders to be all they can be.
Sometimes pastors feel they could randomly open the Yellow Pages and find themselves listed under any letter of the alphabet–administrator, Bible teacher, counselor, diplomat, educator, financier …
Pastoring requires wide-ranging skills, and at any given moment we feel behind the curve in some area of required competence. John Maxwell can help with that feeling. He’s an encourager at heart, and he boosts leaders with his “Injoy Life Club” tape series (12 tapes, $120).
John’s talks on Injoy Life Club have come from monthly lectures to the staff at San Diego’s Skyline Wesleyan Church (John recently resigned from Skyline Wesleyan). Each tape is packaged in an attractive album that includes a printed outline and Post-it notes with a quote of the month. The staff-meeting forum gives an informal feel to the tapes. Maxwell’s advice is motivational–many presentations sound like pep rallies for a sales convention.
Maxwell motivated me. In the tape Searching for Eagles, he offers the “Principle of the Slight Edge”: “History’s greatest accomplishments,” he says, “have been made by people who excelled only slightly over the masses of others in their field.”
Or take his analysis of tough-minded workers: “Whiners produce when they feel like it. Winners produce when they don’t feel like it.” That made me want to press on right through the mid-afternoon lull.
I grew a little weary, though, of the numerous quotes and endless lists. The Searching for Eagles lecture, for example, had ten marks of eagles, three reasons we get turkeys, seven ways to identify achievers, three reasons we miss opportunities, five levels of influence, eight ways eagles complement leaders, five ways leaders complement eagles, three options for relating with eagles, four essentials for equipping eagles, five truths about thinking creatively–etc. I started longing for three points and a poem.
But wanting to be a winner rather than a whiner, I’ll end on a positive note. Yesterday I received a letter from a friend I hadn’t heard from in years. “I was listening to a leadership tape by John Maxwell,” he wrote. “He spent some time expounding on how we should be grateful to those who have influenced us. … I felt an undeniable urge to write a letter thanking you.”
With that letter providentially landing on my desk, what can I do but give you the phone number to sign on. It’s 1-800-333-6506, and an operator is standing by now–with seven reasons to subscribe.
— ROBERT J. MORGAN, pastor Donelson Free Will Baptist Fellowship Nashville, Tennessee
RISING TO THE CHALLENGE Willow Creek’s leaders on taking the Great Commission seriously.
Archbishop William Temple said the church is the only organization in the world that exists for people who aren’t in it. That’s one of the core tenets of “Defining Moments” (Willow Creek Resources/Zondervan; 12 tapes, $119), a monthly tape series produced by Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois. The tapes challenge pastors to take seriously the charge from our Lord to make disciples.
This is not the Bill Hybels Show. Rather, various staff members take center stage to describe what they’ve learned at Willow Creek. Series host Lee Strobel interviews them in a way that probes the subtleties of ministry. I particularly enjoyed the insights on small groups by Nancy Beach, on spiritual gifts discernment by Bruce Bugbee, and on targeting the unchurched by Lee Strobel.
When Bill Hybels does get time on tape, he has a way of challenging you–even when talking about familiar concepts. As he travels, Hybels says, lay people report their pastor always wants “more”–more commitment, more time, more money, more prayer, more input. “The insightful ones say it wouldn’t be a problem,” says Hybels, “if they knew why he was asking for more or what the church is trying to achieve with more. They’re saying they wish the pastor would put a target on the wall, any target on any wall. ‘Where are we going, and how will we know when we get there?'”
While Hybels offers general principles, such as the need for a mission statement, he does not suggest churches try to duplicate Willow Creek. The tapes offer no glib answers. The question Defining Moments asks is “Are you willing to pay the price to do something great for God?”
I listened to several of the tapes on a four-hour trip to Houston. While rolling down Interstate 45, I popped in “Spiritual Gifts: Turning Spectators into Players.” Soon I had to pull off the road, sensing something profound coming my way. I was surprised by a defining moment: the tape challenged me to risk unleashing the spiritual gifts of my parish in a more intentional way.
You can subscribe to Defining Moments by calling Willow Creek Resources at 1-800-876-7335. But be forewarned: It aims to change the way you see ministry.
–DAVID A. GALLOWAY, rector Christ Episcopal Church Tyler, Texas
A TOME FOR THE MUCK AND THE MIRE This reference tool on ethics and pastoral theology accents both depth and breadth.
I smile when I remember the interior decorator’s reaction to my study. I asked her to suggest how I might make it more warm and inviting. She gasped, “The first thing you must do is rearrange all those books!”
“What do you mean?”
“None of the colors or sizes match,” she replied. “You should group the green books with the other green books, the browns with the browns. The small should be grouped with the small, and the large with the large.” Since my books were arranged according to author, I postponed plans to redecorate.
The book I’m reviewing–“The New Dictionary of Christian Ethics and Pastoral Theology” (edited by David J. Atkinson and David H. Field; InterVarsity, $39.99)–she would group in the “Huge and Copper- Colored” section. This offering has 918 pages for more than 700 lucidly written articles by a wide range of contributors on the people and themes of Christian ethics and pastoral theology. Whew, I got out of breath just saying all that–as you may, lugging it around your study. I recommend you keep it close to your desk.
But it’s worth the muscle. So often, in the muck and mire of ministry, we must sort ethical and pastoral issues. This fine volume does something I’ve seen no other dictionary of its kind do. Its first section comprises eighteen articles dealing with broad themes, arranged not in alphabetical order but in theological order, beginning with God and proceeding through things like humanity, character, sexuality, and ending with Christian moral reasoning.
The second section is arranged alphabetically, with articles cross-referenced. The pastor seeking help on the ethical and pastoral issues regarding, say, marriage, could read a succinct article on that subject and be directed back to an essay on the broad theme of psychotherapy. He or she would also then be directed to the related topic of pastoral care. The book also provides a fine bibliography on each theme and subject.
The lives of the people we minister to do not lend themselves to being neatly arranged according to color and size. But a book like this can be of great help in making some sense of it all.
–Ben Patterson, dean of the chapel Hope College Holland, Michigan
Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal
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Copyright © 1995 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
