The Death of the Sermon
I came across this timely and thought-provoking article about the effects of “the video sermon”. Here is a couple excerpts:
“We’re talking about the death of preaching in evangelicalism by all but a small handful of Celebrity Communicators who have little knowledge about those they teach from such far distances.”
“Now, the preaching gift of one person has the ability not simply to reach the back row, but the next town, state, continent. And we’re not just talking about Spurgeon publishing his sermons or Schuller putting his on TV or Driscoll putting his on iTunes…
NOW we’re talking about not just influencing local preachers by making the “best” communicators’ sermons available… we’re talking about replacing those local teaching elders.
Talk about pushing something to an extreme.”
Read the full article here at Next-Wave Ezine.
Other posts here on preaching and sermons:
The Ineffectivess of Preaching
A Sermon You Might Never Hear in Church
Comments
I went back and read the past posts concerning sermons. Very thought provoking. My father was a pastor…but when he retired 15 years ago he was mourning the loss of the central part that the sermon used to take. When he would go to a conference as the guest speaker he would often say that by the time people had been led in worship and entertained, more than an hour had elapsed and people were weary. It was then that he would be asked to stand and share what he felt God wanted him to say. I always thought this was a valid point.Mind you, I really did feel that he was a pastor who sought out God’s message.
Cynthia, I am still working this through as well. I think generally, though, the monologue type of one way speech is not the most effective way of communicating. On the other hand, I have seen it be effective at times. I like what happens at The Meeting House here in Ontario, because the speaker preaches (or, more like teaches) then opens it up to Q&A. The Q&A is much too short but it is a large community so that is how it has to be. But, what I appreciate is that all the home groups talk about the Sunday message during the week. That way, there is more of dialogue happening. The real stuff happens at the small group and the message at the large group setting only prepares people for that. People could even just listen to the message at home or on an iPod, not attend on Sunday, and attend the home church to dialogue about the message.
I know other churches do that too. So far, it is the best “best of both worlds” solution I have seen.