Brain Scan of America

The view from the pulpit today is radically different than it was just a few years ago. What does it take to speak effectively to our shifting audience?

To answer that question, LEADERSHIP contributing editor Craig Brian Larson talked with Michael Sack, president and CEO of Quali-Quant Research, Inc., a marketing firm that serves a host of Fortune 500 companies as well as various Christian organizations.

LEADERSHIP: How has communicating to the American mind changed since 1950?

Today’s young people see almost 1,000 percent more images than 55-year-olds saw in their youth. Surprisingly, though, they don’t have a corresponding understanding of the images they see. The ability to find meaning in print or video is much greater in people over 50.

In my research I show people pictures and ask them to select one that reminds them of some important aspect of their childhood.

Those over 35 will show me a picture and explain that it represents a theme, such as loss of intimacy: “I used to have a closeness with my parents, before their divorce, that I ache for.” The picture they select will show a warmer, simpler, more positive time.

For X-ers, those ages 16 to 25, the images have no symbolism, no moral value. They choose images for color or movement or entertainment. Inanimate messages–anything other than person-to-person speech–lose value as you get younger in this culture.

LEADERSHIP: Many would assume it’s the other way around. Isn’t it the MTV generation that deals in images?

For X-ers, the media are flashing two thousand images a day. They can’t deal with that, so they ignore the images. As a result, young people are a hundred times more sophisticated in handling images, but not in attributing significance to them. The young eat images like popcorn; older adults eat them like a meal.

LEADERSHIP: What does this mean for preaching and teaching?

When pastors hand out study material or ask people to watch a video, they need to know it will be less effective for those who are young. The impact of anything that hasn’t been personally delivered is going to go down by about 25 percent for each ten years an audience is below 50.

Also, the younger the audience, the more important it is to tell people in concrete terms what to do. They need examples.

For example, when a Christian walks down an urban street and sees a homeless person panhandling, often he’s frightened. He’s afraid of being used by someone who will buy drugs or alcohol with his gift.

Pastors can give concrete behavioral help. “If you work in a city where this confronts you regularly,” a pastor might say, “buy McDonald’s coupons. When somebody asks you for money, give something that can be redeemed only for food.” That would have great meaning, especially to younger listeners, because the message–“help the poor”–is conveyed in specific, understandable behaviors.

LEADERSHIP: So today’s preacher should try to change behavior rather than understanding?

No, both. But the marketing world has learned that behavior precedes attitudes. The most effective way to sell product is to affect the behavior at the point of sale, when the buyer is making decisions.

When I sit in church hearing a great sermon, I sometimes wonder when the sermon will address actual behavior. What specific call to action has the sermon made to each individual? What church structures have been put in place to support those decisions? Unless there’s a behavioral component to the message, the odds of its having a long-term effect are pretty low.

This isn’t a new idea. Three of my favorite Christian authors– C. S.Lewis, George MacDonald, and Oswald Chambers–have written that if faith doesn’t exhibit itself in behavior, if you are not called to do something that is an act of faith, then faith won’t grow.

LEADERSHIP: How do people today view sin?

I’ve been researching Americans’ sense of what is evil and found that in large part we have lost a concrete definition for it.

Generation X, for example, has almost no concept of evil. Political correctness requires that people consider all ideas equally. In doing so, we lose our sense of right and wrong. The group under 25 has refined this process to an art.

LEADERSHIP: What do Americans believe in?

I give people thousands of pictures and ask them to create a collage that shows the god they do believe in and the god they don’t. For the boomers, the god they don’t believe in revolves around discomfort rather than truth and evil. Their idea of evil is irritation.

Last year I took a man who worked for me to Manila. A common sight in Manila is for a diseased child to crawl up to the side window of the car and start begging. When that happened, the employee with me–middle-class, suburban–went rigid. He couldn’t look at the child. The inability to look into the eyes of suffering, into the negative side of things, limits boomers’ ability to appreciate the positive side of things. In that regard, research indicates Christians are no different than the rest of the culture.

LEADERSHIP: What aspects of today’s culture should give a preacher hope?

The American mindset isn’t healthy, yet because of our problems this is an incredibly opportune time for the body of Christ to expand and move forward. There is a vacuum that will be filled. Christians should step up and fill it before something else does.

When you look across the congregation, there are at least four adult audiences. Each has a different way of seeing the world.

People who are 55-plus are looking to be redefined and for a sense of importance that Christ can give. In our culture being older means being worthless, so the over-50 group needs to hear they have great worth. They may live to 80 or 90, so they’ve got almost half their lives in front of them. Pastors can challenge the cultural notion that those over 55 are half-dead. They don’t feel they’re half-dead; they feel they have much to offer, but nobody wants it.

Boomers greatly desire a stabilizing influence, which can come only through faith in Christ.

Busters, those 25 to 35, are stable and work well together. They have a firm foundation and could be a strong leadership pool for the body of Christ in the future.

Finally, Generation X. I’ve never seen a group of people anywhere in the world, including people in absolute poverty in the Philippines, who have a greater urgency to hear good news than the under-25 generation in this country. They long to hear that there is hope.

lecurrmrj5L40295A2g