When was the last time you thought of how your sermons were received at the neurological level? Richard Cox, a pastor and psychologist, thinks about it all the time. He’s the author of Rewiring Your Preaching: How the Brain Processes Sermons (IVP, 2012).
Why write a book about preaching and neurology?
As a preacher, you have to ask, “How will my teaching methods influence what someone will or won’t believe? How will they deal with what I’m trying to teach them?” In order to answer those questions, you can’t just look at one piece of the puzzle. Saying that our sermon prep should only focus on a person’s soul is like training an athlete and only focusing on his motivation. That obviously won’t work. You’ve got to say, “Yes, I need to develop his motivation, but I also have to pay attention to his posture, breathing, timing, musculature, nutrition, and mental state.” The brain is an important aspect of sermon reception. Why not learn more about it?
What’s happening at the neurological level when people “tune out” during a sermon?
When people take in information, their brains quickly determine whether it is (a) something they should pay immediate attention to, (b) something they should delay and pay attention to later, or (c) something they should ignore. A car horn, or somebody screaming “Fire!” usually attract immediate attention. The brain has to enter a receptive mode to really absorb a sermon.
The psychological and neurological literature is reporting that it takes more and more to get people’s attention. We’re so distracted—by speed, technology, electronics, busyness—that it’s getting harder to focus a person’s mind.
On top of this challenge, the vast majority of people waiting to hear your sermon did not come prepared to hear it. They came with yelling kids, an upset spouse, a car that didn’t want to start, a blaring radio, pouring rain, and they couldn’t find a parking space when they arrived. They’re not ready to hear a sermon. That’s why I appreciate the lost art of a prelude. Instead of loud talking and chaos right before the service starts, people hear soft music, hopefully preparing their minds and souls for worship. That preparation makes them more likely to remember the content of the service.
What can pastors do to make a sermon memorable?
It helps to engage as many senses as possible. With the dawn of Protestantism came the destruction of icons and other symbolism. And the Protestant church has continued down that same road. We no longer have stained glass windows. We don’t have as many rituals and intentional liturgies. I’m not saying we should have all these things. But when you enter a cathedral in Europe, you’re struck by the fact that you are in a place that’s different from all other places. You have smells that you’ve not smelled, sights you’ve not seen, velvet cushions on the pews. These things engage the five senses. And the more we appeal to all the senses, the more apt the brain is to remember the experience.
If you take a child to a farm, they smell the sheep and they touch the wool and they hear the bleating—maybe they even eat some lamb! They’re likely to remember that sheep. On the other hand, if you merely show them a picture in a book and say, “This is a sheep,” they’ll go home and say, “Our teacher showed us an animal today.” “What kind of an animal was it?” “I don’t remember. It looked a little bit like our French poodle.”
The same thing happens with sermons: “What did you hear at church today?” “I don’t remember. I think it was something about love.”
What can help preachers improve sermon delivery?
The first part of delivery is asking, “Can I deliver this to myself?” If the sermon means nothing to you, you can’t expect it to mean something to anybody else. The Holy Spirit must speak to us first. Then delivery is not so much paying attention to the oratory as it is trying to deliver your soul to the people that need to hear the message. Dwight Moody said that the sermon should be given in a language that any small child could understand.
Sometimes we try to impress people with how theologically astute we are rather than preaching the Word in common language that anyone can understand. Preachers need to look at their audience and ask, “Am I asking them to come to my level of understanding or am I going to their level of understanding? Am I asking them to be servants of my sermon or am I a servant to their souls?”
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