Editor's Note: This article is Part 4 of 6 in a series of articles, Using Video in Different Elements of Your Worship Service.
He didn't want to admit it, but Pastor Harding was insulted. Betty's words, though soft spoken, had left a sting. "Pastor," she had said, "you know we love you and want the best for the church. We know that you try really hard. But we get a little tired of hearing the same sermon over and over."
What made these words so difficult for Pastor Harding was that he trusted Betty's opinion. She was an important individual in the church. But she also truly cared about both the congregation and its pastor. He had heard and received other comments like Betty's in the past, but had largely dismissed them as ill-willed or uninformed. He had been trying for over a year to "update" his message delivery style by using drama, stage props, and visuals for support.
He had even formed his own "sermon support" team: Karen, his secretary; Roger, one of the ushers, who was also an avid photographer; and Beverly, a librarian. Between Karen and Beverly, any historical fact that he wanted was at his fingertips. Pastor Harding was especially excited about Roger's large collection of Holy Land pictures—in fact, he used them in some way in nearly every sermon.
"In nearly every sermon," he thought to himself. I guess it's true. I have been leaning fairly hard in one direction lately. Lots of history and lots of background. But I love that stuff, and I don't think I'd be any good if I tried to preach on topics I didn't care about. And besides, people need to be able to put the Bible in context, and … He stopped himself, realizing that he was rationalizing. He sighed deeply. "Well—what am I going to do about it?"
Pastor Harding decided that it would be wise to talk to some of the other staff pastors first, so he set up a lunch meeting with Todd, the 39-year-old pastor of worship, and with Josh, the 25-year-old youth pastor. Pastor Harding figured that between the two of them he would get a picture of how at least two different age groups felt about his messages.
At the meeting, Pastor Harding got down to business. "Todd, Josh: I need your help. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that my sermons aren't as effective as they might be. I'd like to get your opinions on what you think could be better." The two younger pastors glanced at each other uncomfortably; clearly, this topic was not what they had expected.
"Guys," Pastor Harding continued, "I promise you that anything you say today regarding my messages won't be used against you in any way. As a matter of fact, I wrote and signed a note to the elders saying that I've asked you to be blunt with me. I need your honest counsel and guidance!"
The three pastors sat in silence for a moment. Todd was the first to speak. "You're a good speaker, Pastor. The truth in your message is always there; it's just that you tend to focus on the historical side of that truth, rather than what it means to people today."
"The historical side is interesting and important," Josh continued, "But the practical application is just as important if you want God's truth to change lives!"
"We were excited when you started using images in your messages. It matched what we're trying to do with all of the arts in our services, and made it much easier for visual learners to follow you," Todd said. "The shots of Israel are great, and I know that you love archeology. But we need to make sure that God doesn't come across as a dry academic concept to be studied."
"So what would you suggest?" Pastor Harding asked. "How can I change my messages so they're more accessible to everyone in the church? I don't think I would do a good job putting my messages to rap music, and I'm pretty sure that my wife wouldn't want me to get a tattoo!"
"Please don't," Josh laughed, "especially the rap part. But there are images and concepts that you could talk about in your messages that would reflect your everyday life—not as a pastor, but just as a guy."
Todd went on. "You know, Pastor, I've watched TV with you at your house before. You're not as cut off from contemporary culture as you think you are. You have a pretty good grasp on sports. That might be a good place to start."
"One of the best things we do already," Todd continued, "is use drama to set up your message. But we can only prep so many of those, and they would get old if we used them every week. How about a movie clip instead? We already have a license that allows us to show clips from many different movies. Especially comedies—if you can break down the walls that people have built around themselves through laughter, they'll be much more open to hear what you have to say."
"It would be especially cool if you were to use a youth-oriented clip once in awhile," Josh added. "You don't have to pretend it's your favorite movie or anything, but I think it would go a long way towards showing students and young adults that we know they exist!"
"What about some other possibilities, especially for visuals?" Pastor Harding asked.
The ideas came fast and furiously. "We could do man-on-the-street interviews around your topic of the day," Todd said. "Or regular, live interviews of people during your message."
"That would be cool," Josh agreed. "But if we do that, I think we should use live video cameras so that we can show facial expressions. Student ministries has a good camera that worship could borrow sometimes until we can afford to buy more."
"There are different sorts of graphics we could use as well. Graphs, charts, statistics are all pretty easy to make in almost any presentation software. We have a big collection of people shots that could represent whatever you were talking about. As a matter of fact, a few weeks ago you were talking about Paul's travels. We have a cool video editor that can make a little guy or car move on a map; I thought it would have been really funny if we had created a travel guide video clip."
"There is one major thing that would need to change if we're going to do interviews or make custom video," Todd warned. "We're going to need to do much more advance preparation, which means we're going to need sermon topics weeks ahead of time. From my experience, even on a really easy video, it takes at least an hour of creation time for every minute of footage that the congregation sees. Even a short, 'man on the street' segment would take at least a whole day to create."
"Yeah," Josh agreed, "for student ministries, we came up with a whole slew of video ideas during a brainstorming session—I'll give each of you a copy. But one thing we realized is that all of our ideas took time, effort, and resources. You need more than a few people involved if church visuals are going to happen regularly. You should also have a number of different people who can edit video if you don't want everything to start looking the same after a while!"
Todd had a final idea. "You know that we review everything from each week's service. Well, up to this point 'everything' has not included the sermon. I really think no one onstage can accurately self-assess. I think that if we add the messages to our review list, we'll get a fairly consistent reading on what's working and what isn't."
"Most of all, Pastor,"Josh added, "nobody expects you to preach a youth sermon every week, or to try to be cool—just be yourself. Not your churchy, pastor-as-a-symbol or pastor-as-a-professor self: your real self. The guy who loves sports and fishing. The guy who collects model trains. The guy who couldn't fix his car if his life depended on it."
They all laughed, and Pastor Harding motioned for the bill. "I really appreciate your honesty," he said. "I know that it's not easy being in the kind of situation I put you in today. But with your help, I know it'll get better!"
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