Twenty years ago a retired pastor offered me some advice following my seminary graduation ceremony. "When you get on a plane, never tell the person sitting next to you that you're clergy unless you want to spend your entire flight listening to their personal dilemmas or 'stump the pastor' questions." He chuckled in his delivery, but I knew by the look in his eyes he was offering me wise counsel.
Most clergy could probably write a book about their exchanges with strangers on planes, buses and trains. Personal. Probing. Often touching. Sometimes awkward.
A year ago, when my fellow passenger in row eight inquired about my occupation, I casually shared I was a pastor who had been called to serve as associate director of a seminary's center for biblical preaching. He nearly dropped his newspaper. "Finally, I have found someone who can answer my question. I like my pastor a lot, but can you tell me why his sermons are so boring?" This question was a first. As he and I began to chat, I immediately sensed his sincerity. His was a question I needed to think about and answer.
A Lilly-endowed study of more than 10,000 Christian laypeople revealed that while 78 percent of them have never discussed a sermon with their preacher, church members do have strong opinions and deep hopes for their pastor's preaching. The study found that:
And yet, the truth is I have never met a pastor who wanted to preach a bad sermon. Most preachers are genuinely devoted to their craft, striving to compose meaningful and life changing messages week after week. But this desire must be paired with the reality of congregational life. Clergy stand on the frontline of life in its harshest form. In any given week, a death, an unexpected illness, a parishioner crisis or community disaster can simultaneously fall upon one or several members of a congregation. The critical time a pastor has carved out for sermon preparation is quickly filled with their important calling to be present and offer much-needed pastoral ministry. Caregivers often put themselves last. Clergy are no exception.
When Saturday night rolls around, a pastor can be exhausted from the week's unanticipated emergencies and still have hours of preparation to complete for Sunday morning's message. It's no wonder the sermon isn't what s/he had hoped to preach, even with a myriad of good intentions.
For pastors to fulfill their calling to preach transformative sermons, it's important that this task is shared by the congregation. While preachers may be deprived of the preparation time they need week in and week out, there are days and weeks when preachers can steal away, sit with the biblical text, pray and ponder. Clergy need the freedom to take this holy time without questioning or judgment from the congregation. A wise congregational president or church council will schedule regular preaching retreats on the pastor's calendar, arranging for a supply preacher and an on-call pastoral care provider, so their minister has a long weekend to work ahead with the biblical interpretation and study that build great sermons.
When preachers have this sacred opportunity to live with the biblical text, it frees them to make lively and engaging connections with the world that we all live in on an ongoing basis. Some seminary homiletics departments teach their students to live this engagement with the text while they are still in seminary. A biblical text is read in class and then students are sent out for some reality therapy - to the waiting area of a hospital emergency room, a bus ride through an urban and impoverished community, the local café, the lobby of a bustling commercial center, a busy children's soccer field or a hotel bar. This "dislocated exegesis" serves as another classroom for preaching students to study the text within the realities parishioners face everyday.
Recently I led an adult forum at a Manhattan congregation known for its great preaching. This was a safe place for me to ask active church members about the elements of a good sermon without fearing it would become a discussion of disappointments regarding their Sunday pulpit. Participants were unanimous in their responses.
"We want a sermon that brings together the world of the Bible and our world today."
"We need a new and relevant interpretation of the old, old story."
"I love it when my pastor studies the Bible and finds kernels of truth I would never see for myself."
"We do not want a sermon that skirts current issues. Jesus didn't do that. At our church, we sit on the edge of our seats every week because our preachers connect the Word of God with the important news of the day and the real world we live in."
The best preaching conversations I have observed are between a pastor and his/her own people. For a sermon to be a public discourse, it takes a pastor and a congregation. The shape and form of these conversations cannot be prescribed. In a community of faith where there is trust and openness, they will develop organically between the pastor and the people. Some pastors distribute comment cards to a few or everyone in the congregation, inviting their feedback immediately after a message is delivered. Other preachers choose to study the weekly text with a group of laypeople, in addition to or instead of a clergy study group, in preparation for Sunday's sermon. Whatever the method, the goal of these preachers is to dig deep into the Biblical text and then make even deeper connections with the hearers of its proclamation. Pastors need to know their preaching matters. When a pastor and a congregation share the ministry of preaching, God will do a new thing through the proclamation of the Word. Lives will be changed, but, more importantly, our perspective the world and our place in it will change too.
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But I can help with the plane thing - - wear a T-shirt with this inscription, "Let Me Tell You About Jesus."
I remember the minister I grew up with. Every Christmas he gave the same sermon because the congregation wanted it. It was called "a partridge in a pear tree" and used the well known song with it's phantasmagorical list of Chistmas presents to opine on the nature of giving. It was all very good-naturedly intellectual.
And then there were the churches where the name of the game was audience participation, the content was about an emotional connection with God. In one case it sticks in my mind because the minister combined that with some really amazing insights for life in the here and now.
I remember some of the awful ones too. The Catholic priest who seized the Christmas moment to educate his audience in the dogma of his Mary cult.
As a perennial guest at church I can say that the things about sermons that move me and engage me vary all over the lot. I think the boring ones are the ones where the minister hasn't the heart for it, or isn't really relating to the audience as fellow travelers. You know, the self-absorbed, the know-it-all, the insecure spouting what others say. It's really who the minister is being, and not how great an orator he or she might be. If the mission is right, the technique will gradually follow.
I actually sat down next to these two 1/2 way through the flight, after agreeing to give my friend a reprieve after she told me she was going nuts A screaming baby would have been better. I couldn't imagine spending the entire flight there.
The religious conversation started after about 5 minutes of my sitting there. I'm agnostic, but a Jew by blood, and it shows, so she started asking me about that right away. Told her I tried a humanistic temple a couple of times. Of course she knows the place and the Rabbi who formed it... who had died long before I went. After insisting this Rabbi was an atheist (which he was not) and full of it, she announced "I can't wait to get to heaven so I can laugh in his face and tell him how wrong he was". Interesting, her beliefs would mean he wasn't going to heaven. This was just the first of many insulting things she said. Later, she was announcing how wrong Islam was, and she didn't understand how anyone wouldn't want to be a Christian... all you could do was shake your head at this point.
- While on the cross, Jesus is made to say, “Forgive them Father they know not what they do.” To whom was he speaking? Biblicists naturally say “God.” But I thought he was god.
- Judas Dies Twice
And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. -- Matt. xxvii, 5.
Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity: and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. -- Acts i, 18.
- Why believe the Bible over other stories of gods, like the Greek gods, Roman gods, or Celtic gods? There are thousands of gods.
- You must kill those who worship another god. Exodus 22:20
Anyone who blasphemes against god must be put to death, whether alien or native-born. Leviticus 24:16
Kill any friends or family that worship a god that is different than your own. Deuteronomy 13:6-10
** Lots more examples to post. Read the bible. Its one of the most violent, contradictory, and flawed book.
Quarterback says, " There's the pass I meant to throw, the pass I actually threw, and the interception."
"We need a new and relevant interpretation of the old, old story."
"I love it when my pastor studies the Bible and finds kernels of truth I would never see for myself."
These seem to be a call for expository preaching rather than the topical/psychological/feel good trash that fills most Pulpits in America. Check out www.gty.org or www.desiringgod.org to hear two of the finest expositors of this or any other generation.
John 6:67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?
68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.
DELIVERY:
1) Don't read the sermon.
2) Do spend time crafting it, maybe even writing it, but be sure it is spoken English, not written English.
3) Work on delivery so you don't have a sing-song style. If need be work with a vocal coach, even an acting coach. Here's a simple vocal acting tip: don't stress verbs, stress nouns.
4) Don't talk AT people, talk TO them. A good tip to do this is find several folk in your audience and talk to them. Pick someone at the back, someone in the front, someone on each side. Switch back and forth from one to the other talking TO them.
5) Vary your speed. Vary your volume. Use silence. Move around. Use your arms. Change it up with voices, you don't have to be an impressionist, in fact avoid that, but change it up. If you're telling a story your hearers should be able to tell who's talking by the sound of your voice. Vary your expression.
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STRUCTURE:
1) Put a dynamic in your sermon; it should be going somewhere. Don't just make a point and then illustrate it. Have your points develop.
2) Put a tension in your sermon; it should have a sense of paradox or of synthesis.
3) Use foreshadowing, hint at where you're going and then pull back and don't go there yet. Bring in a little of the same thing that makes tantric sex work.
4) Build on the giants of the language. Beg, borrow and steal from the greats. Sometimes it is even a good idea to fully quote. But most of the time just an allusion is enough. I'm talking a little Shakespeare, a little Keats or a little Twain.
5) On the other hand use the popular culture of your people. I mean TV, cinema and music.
6) Do NOT tell canned jokes unless you are gifted or the joke is an absolute killer.
7) When you get to your climax, wrap it up quickly. You might want a little wind down, but not much.
8) Sometimes you might want to start in the middle of the thing. Then back up and explain things.
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CONTENT:
1) Be honest. Let me say it again, be honest. Don't hide your doubts and struggles. Don't preach about Jesus casting out demons and not deal with the fact that you don't really believe there are literal demons. Maybe the tension I mentioned in structure will be between what the text says and what you and your listens actually believe. Don't be afraid to talk about it. If you don't think there was a worldwide flood, then be honest. Still preach about Noah, just be honest and share your struggle with everyone else.
2) Don't bore your listeners with a bunch of unnecessary facts about the original languages or the grammar of the verse or what scholar supports what view and what other scholar doesn't. Sure, you might want to do all that work to come to your conclusion about what the passage really means, but don't clutter stuff up with that.
3) When you prepare your sermon if all you do is think about what the Bible means then quit being a preacher and go teach in a seminary or Bible college.
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Your job must always include what is going on in your people's lives. For instance, it's not enough to figure out what Jesus meant by "Take my yoke upon you." Also ask yourself what your listeners need in their actual lives of family, community, school and work.
4) If it doesn't inspire you, it won't inspire anyone else. This is more about being honest. But now I'm not talking about intellectual honesty but existential honesty. Don't preach from your certainty. Preach from your grappling with the spiritual journey.
5) Always ask yourself as you reflect on what you are going to talk about, "So what?" What difference are you looking to achieve? What difference in your life? In the lives of your listeners? In the life of the world? Nothing is more boring than a sermon that doesn't matter.
...So that's some of what I think would make sermons less boring. At least it's what I'm looking for.
They are not long, ten or fifteen minutes. Not 40 minutes to an hour as at my Baptist church.
They are preceded by the reading of several significant passages of Scripture. Baptist sermons are often based on single verses, or a few disconnected verses scattered throughout the Scripture, stripped of their defining context. (Yes, I know. Over-generalization! But still ....)
They are relevant. The message can be put into action immediately. The thrust of the message in most Baptist sermons is lost in wordiness of the delivery. Baptist sermons deal more with doctrine than practice, and are intended to make you more aware of your sins than aware of your opportunities.
They are memorable. Baptist sermons are hard to remember even minutes after delivery. Too much information, all of it considered vitally important by the Pastor. Episcopal sermons tend to stick.
Mind you, my Baptist Pastor is a good man. But he, like countless other Baptist preachers think that if a short sermon is good, a long sermon is better. (Yes, I know. Over-generalization! But still ....)
I know not all Episcopal sermons are good ones (I just haven't heard any bad ones yet). I've heard good Baptist sermons. But most of Jesus' sermons were short and to the point. Episcopalians take that example.