“What do you think of sermons?” the Institute for Advanced Pastoral Studies asked churchgoers-and got an earful. Sample responses:
“Too much analysis and too little answer.”
“Too impersonal, too prepositional-they relate nothing to life.”
“Most sermons resemble hovercrafts skimming over the water on blasts of hot air, never landing anyplace!”
No wonder sermons are occasionally mocked as “the fine art of talking in someone else’s sleep.” Communication experts dismiss them as “religious monologues.” Communication flows best on two-way streets, they argue, while preaching moves in only one direction. And because congregations can’t talk back to register doubts, disagreements, or opinions, many sermons hit dead ends.
A second rap is that most ministers overcommunicate. They load new concepts and duties on their congregations before previous ideas can be digested and absorbed. Content keeps coming, but when frustrated listeners can’t stop the conveyor belt, they stop listening.
Yet monologues afflict the clergy like a genetic disease. Experiments with dialogue sermons, in vogue a few years ago, have gone the way of the CB radio. What is more, those trained in theological seminaries, where content is king, succumb to the empty-jug fallacy. Getting ideas into someone else’s head is akin to filling a jug with water. Preachers invest large segments of time gathering water from books, commentaries, and old class notes but seldom consider time spent with people a valuable resource. While they often possess the gift, knowledge, and fiery enthusiasm, their sermons sound like “manualese”-textbook exegesis. The empty-jug fallacy is summed up in a bit of doggerel:
Cram it in, jam it in;
People’s heads are hollow.
Take it in, pour it in;
There is more to follow.
Heads are neither open nor hollow. Heads have lids, screwed on tightly, and no amount of pouring can force ideas inside. Minds open only when their owners sense a need to open them. Even then, ideas must still filter through layers of experience, habit, prejudice, fear, and suspicion. If ideas make it through at all, it’s because feedback operates between speaker and listener.
In recent years, automakers have begun outfitting some models with fuel efficiency gauges to let drivers know how their habits affect consumption. Whenever you stomp on the accelerator, the needle plummets; whenever you drive gently, the indicator rises. Very quickly this feedback helps pinpoint wasteful actions.
Preaching seems to be a zero-feedback situation, a monologue with no return. It does not have to be so. The pull toward monologue can be broken. In fact, significant preaching has always involved dialogue. The most astute preachers allow their eyes and ears to program their mouths. As they stand in the pulpit, they respond to cues from the audience telling them how they are doing. As they prepare, they study not only content but also people, hearing the spoken and unspoken questions. After speaking, they listen intently to find out how they have done.
Most people do not realize that important feed-back takes place during the act of preaching. Listening seems passive-a typical Sunday spectator sport. Yet able communicators listen with their eyes. They know that audiences show by their expressions and posture when they understand, approve, question, or are confused. People nod agreement, smile, check their watches, or slump in their seats. Great preachers do not build strong churches nearly as often as great churches through their feedback make strong preachers. These congregations give their preachers the home court advantage by actively listening to what they have to say.
Feedback, however, begins as the sermon is still brewing. Here pastors hold an advantage over other speakers, since they interact daily with members of the audience. Yet this advantage is not automatic. To benefit, preachers must listen: to questions people ask, and for answers they seek. They must observe: needs (expressed or unexpressed, admitted or denied), relationships (personal, family, community), experiences, attitudes, and interests. Jotting down what they observe each day will help take note of the passing parade. This in turn colors and shapes the handling of biblical material and the approach to the message. Let a preacher take a truth from Scripture and force himself to find twenty-five illustrations of that truth in daily life, and he will discover how much the world and its citizens have to tell him.
This dialogue with the congregation and the wider community can be more focused. In order to develop a sensitivity to current questions, John Stott, the internationally known English minister, joined a reading group that met monthly. They explored the ideas and implications of significant books, usually secular, from a Christian perspective. At times they attended films or plays together and then returned to the church to discuss what they had seen.
When Stott preached on contemporary issues, he formed an ad hoc group of specialists to help him learn the personal dimensions of the problem. At some of these gatherings, Stott actively participated, while at others he merely sat and eavesdropped on discussions between different points of thought. As an outgrowth of the challenging dialogue, Stott’s sermons, while solidly biblical, were as up-to-date as next week’s newsmagazine.
Pastors in smaller churches legitimately object that such groups develop more easily in large urban or suburban congregations. Yet even in rural and inner-city communities, men and women wrestle with substantive issues, and many would welcome the opportunity to discuss contemporary life and thought with a minister.
Churches, large or small, can organize systems of feedback. A church in Iowa turns monologue to dialogue by basing its midweek Bible study on the passage for the following Sunday’s sermon. The pastor provides notes explaining the text, and then the people divide into small groups to explore further meanings and implications for themselves. Out of this encounter, the pastor zeroes in on terms, ideas, and issues he must address and, as an added benefit, often finds illustrations and applications for his sermon. Surprisingly, everyone agrees studying the passage beforehand heightens rather than diminishes interest in the sermon. They are made aware of the biblical material, and they become curious about how the preacher will handle it.
A pastor of a small church in Oregon goes over his sermon with members of his board every Thursday at breakfast. Everyone reads the passage before-hand, and the minister takes a few moments to sketch the broad outline of his message. During the discussion that follows, each shares what the passage says and what it might mean to the congregation. While the minister prepares the sermon, he does not do so in solitary confinement; instead he benefits from the insights and experiences of others in the body of Christ.
Rehearsing the sermon aloud also offers opportunity for feedback. John Wesley read some of his sermons to an uneducated servant girl with the instruction, “If I use a word or phrase you do not understand, you are to stop me.” By this exercise, the learned Methodist developed the language of the mines and marketplace. Many preachers have taken a lead from Wesley. Some have risked their marriages by practicing on their wives. Since preachers’ wives marry “for better or for worse,” they can cut their down side risks by offering constructive criticism. At Denver Seminary we offer courses to equip wives in making their husbands’ sermons better. Less courageous ministers-or those with weaker marriages-might run through their sermons with a shut-in or a friend willing to contribute an ear.
As people file out of the sanctuary on Sunday, they mumble appropriate clichs: “You preached a good sermon today” or “I enjoyed what you had to say.” While these responses are nice, they are often little more than code words to get past the minister as he guards the door. Preachers need an organized program of feedback following the sermon to determine whether they have hit their target.
Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, devotes the last fifteen minutes of the service to questions and answers. Some sermons raise more questions than others, of course. When questions are few, members tell what the sermon could mean in their lives. Both questions and testimony not only benefit the people but provide immediate information to the pastor.
According to Reuel Howe, feedback sessions are more productive if the minister is not present. In his book Partners in Preaching, Howe suggests inviting six or more lay people, including a couple of teenagers, to take part in a reaction group following the church service. The pastor does not attend, but the conversation is recorded. When the tape runs out, the session ends. The pastor listens to the recorded comments later in the week. Several questions structure interaction.
1. What did the sermon say to you?
2. What difference, if any, do you think the sermon will make in your life?
3. How did the preacher’s method, language, illustrations, and delivery help or hinder your hearing of the message?
4. Do you disagree with any of it? What would you have said about the subject?
Laypeople find these opportunities stimulating. In fact, through them, many learn to listen to sermons more perceptively and develop a keener appreciation for good preaching. If the minister listens carefully, he will discover how his congregation responded, what they heard and did not hear, what they understood and did not understand.
However it comes about, feedback is the lifeblood of communication. Without it, preaching seldom touches life.
When the church was young, Christians gathered at a common meal for Communion and communication. As a teacher explained the Scriptures, listeners broke in with questions and comments. So lively was the feedback that New Testament writers like Paul wrote ground rules to keep this interchange under control. Later, as Christianity fell under the influence of Greek and Roman rhetoric, oratory replaced conversation, and dialogues became monologues.
The infant church possessed what the modern church must rediscover. Only as we talk with people-not at them-will preaching remain a vital and effective carrier of God’s truth.
Haddon Robinson is president of Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary.
Leadership Spring 1983 p. 68-71
Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
