Inductive Preaching E-Book

Ralph L. Lewis

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 1983

Beschreibung

"I spend hours in my study and on my knees preparing sermons, but when I preach them no one listens. What's wrong? Why aren't I getting through? Why do I see blank stares, daydream reveries, nodding heads as soon as I open my mouth to preach? I know my messages are biblically sound. I'm sure I'm preaching what God has laid on my heart. But it's not being received. What's wrong? What can I do?" Sound familiar? If you're a preacher, you probably know the feeling. But it doesn't have to be that way. You can learn to preach in a way that will be readily, even eagerly, received by your congregation. It's all here: what inductive preaching is, how it works, why it's effective, who's used it—including Jesus, Peter, Paul, Augustine, St. Francis, Wesley, Edwards, and Moody, to name only a few. Also included are: * Step-by-step guidelines for constructing an inductive sermon * Two sample inductive sermons * A list of 96 inductive preachers from 20 centuries * A strategy for making traditional sermon structures inductive * A checklist of inductive characteristics. The principles in this book can dramatically increase your sermon effectiveness—turn apathy into involvement, make listeners out of the listless. Inductive preaching is preaching that works!

Leseprobe

INDUCTIVEPREACHING

Helping People Listen

Ralph L. Lewis withGregg Lewis

Inductive Preaching

Copyright © 1983 by Ralph L. Lewis and Gregg Lewis.

Published by Crossway Books

a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers

1300 Crescent Street

Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided by USA copyright law.

First printing 1983

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 83-70321

ISBN 13: 978-0-89107-287-4

ISBN 10: 0-89107-287-X

Printed in the United States of America

PG             18     17     16     15     14     13     12     11     10     09

27     26     25     24     23     22     21     20     19     18     17     16

To

A finefarm familynow older, grown,or gone: Mother,Dad, andBrothersThree

Contents

Introduction

One: Need

Two: A Promising Solution

Three: Old Parts and New Hope

Four: The Story of Induction

Five: God’s Way?

Six: Master Model

Seven: Web and Flow

Eight: More Web and Flow

Nine: Unbeatable Combination

Ten: In the Study

Eleven: Behind the Pulpit

Twelve: End to Our Means

Conclusion

Appendix One: Inductive Preaching—Two Examples

Appendix Two: Checklist of Inductive Characteristics

Appendix Three: 96 Inductive Preachers from 20 Centuries

Appendix Four: A Strategy for Making Traditional Sermon Structures Inductive

Index

Introduction

How can we help?

Why don’t more people listen when we preach?

What implications does our electronic age hold for preaching? Can the new discipline of cognitive science with its most recent discoveries on brain function help us better communicate God’s Word?

Modern students of the brain have discovered a clear distinction in function and capabilities between the right and left hemispheres of the human brain. Critical thought, reading and linear logic all seem to center on the left side of the brain. Creativity, visual memory, feelings and imagination are functions of the right half of our brains.

But what does this have to do with a Sunday morning sermon?

Nearly 500 years ago the printing press revolutionized the world. It altered the basis of human communication and thus affected the pattern of popular human thought. Gutenberg hooked humanity on the printed word and corraled much of our cerebral life into a left-brained pattern of linear logic. And for five centuries the bulk of our teaching and preaching has been built on this foundation.

Today the reverberations of a new revolution are shaking the old foundation. The printing press is no longer the primary means of collecting or communicating human thought. Most knowledge is now stored on microfilm or in computer memory banks and communicated by blips on a screen or photoelectronic printouts. And if the communications thinkers are right when they say a culture’s means of communicating and storing its basic pool of information and knowledge may be the single most crucial determinant of that civilization’s character, then the world of telecommunications promises changes at least as dramatic as Gutenberg’s movable type.

We’ve already crossed the threshold into a new era—the age of visual literacy. If we can’t see it, we must have our eyes closed. This year’s high school graduates have spent more time in front of their television sets than they have in a classroom for twelve years of schooling. The parishioner who spends fifty hours a year in our pews (perhaps 100 hours if coming on Sunday evening) has the tube turned on in his home more than 2,000 hours each year. Our world isn’t just changing; it’s already changed.

How does all this impact on our preaching?

Cognitive science’s split-brain analysis would categorize traditional sermons, both the preaching of them and the listening to them, as left-brain activities. Homiletics leans hard on analysis, logic and language. Sermons often stress intellectual concepts more than imaginative or inventive ingredients, a sequential instead of a holistic view, facts over feelings, rational rather than relational orientations.

Yet the cultural communications revolution is aiming people in another direction. Today’s visual communications are retraining our minds. For the first time in half a millennium the right side of the brain is clamoring for prominence and insisting on involvement in life and learning.

Our listeners are no longer hooked on printed words and linear logic. They are addicted instead to the right-brain sense of action and involvement. And TV is the primary pusher, their main connection if we want to stretch the metaphor.

TV offers cheap involvement. Observers descend from the bleachers and into the action. The microphone puts the ear in the center of the sounds. The camera takes the viewers’ eyes into the thick of the fray, the football, the fun. What was once remote, imaginary and unreal becomes instantly vital, vivid and believable through the alchemy of television.

Just as the space age extends the leg by flight, our electronic age extends the brain by computer and word processor, the ear by microphone and the eye by camera. Involvement becomes a way of life, and sensory discovery becomes a primary way of learning.

If we cling too tightly to five hundred years of homiletic tradition, we may soon find an unbridgeable gulf between the daily involvement, discovery and creativity our listeners experience during the week and the comparatively dull, ho-hum routine of Sunday’s sermonic decrees. If we don’t take drastic steps to turn things around with our preaching, we may soon find that for our listeners the inner dimension of life will seem more and more remote, spiritual reality will appear imaginary and what should be the vivid truth of God’s Word may become merely subjective haze. Many of the young, the spiritually uninitiated and the sharp secular go-getters of our empirical society already feel bypassed or patronized by institutional tradition when our sermons depend more on deductive decree than on discovery, when our emphasis is exhortation without concern for exploration or experience.

Why don’t the people listen? How can we preach to involve them?

What does the Bible have to say? How did Jesus and other great preachers of the Bible involve their listeners? Could their experience in the pre-Gutenberg past hold a key for our preaching in the post-print present and future?

Jesus, the prophets and apostles preached with an inductive accent. But who ever notices? Who pays any attention to Jesus as a preacher? Why do the homiletics texts ignore his example? Who remembers that the common people heard Jesus gladly when he preached inductively, beginning where they were?

Who follows Jesus’ example, refusing to speak without a parable, a story, a comparison? Who analyzes the Sermon on the Mount as an eighteen-minute sermon with dozens of examples, visual images, scores of comparisons, and interest-catching devices as diverse as riddles, sex appeal and everyday experience?

Can Jesus teach us anything about preaching? Could other effective preachers from the intervening centuries reveal some simple pattern to help our preaching? Are the hearers only incidental to preaching? Or can the people get involved in our sermons? Can our preaching win their attention and gain their involvement? Can our sermons cross over to use both halves of the brain?

The questions are many, but exciting answers surround us.

Let’s look at preaching through a new lens. Jesus and successful preachers since his time show us a simple approach. We can easily see their secrets if we search their sermons. They promise remedy for the feeble, futile sermons so common today. They also demonstrate various methods of achieving lay response to our preaching.

This book is not a study of philosophy, metaphysics or epistemology. Here we study life. We study experience. We study God’s Word. And we study common sense and research.

The goal? Keep it simple—simple, but not stupid. Here we strive to seem profoundly simple—as simple as common sense. As common as experience. So common the people hear. They even listen. And they get involved.

1     Need

When Sam Smith drives into the church parking lot with his three-year-old Ford he sees all the new Chevies, Buicks and Toyotas. He remembers his thirty-sixth payment is due tomorrow and the car will be his—just in time to buy another one—a smaller one.

On the way to church, Susan, his wife, has said she needs more money for four-year-old Suzette’s day care, for rising grocery costs and the new spring wardrobe she needs for the New York convention her boss wants her to attend. She must have new clothes so she can earn more money to buy clothes so she can work in order to have money to get some dresses so she can… Sam bites his tongue and swallows his kidding comment about women’s lib.

He watches wistfully as Susan joins a small group entering the side door where the Young Business Women’s Class meets. He remembers the Reader’s Digest daffynition of compatibility as “the couple who both have headaches at the same time.”

Proudly he watches sixteen-year-old Steve join the teenage gang rehashing Friday night’s game. He wants his oldest son to go to college so he can have a better chance in life. Maybe cashing in on insurance policies will cover some of the rising costs at the university, but Steve seems to be more interested in a used car than college at the moment.

Sally, his fourteen-year-old, walks self-consciously past the knot of high school boys to mix with the girls a minute before Sunday school begins. She must have her teeth straightened and some dental surgery during Christmas break.

Sam wonders whether he should talk with somebody about the pressures—he would if anyone seemed to understand or care. His manager has threatened to let him go if the company doesn’t come up with “another million-dollar year.” Sales have fallen off and the moguls are head-hunting. Sam’s five-year success plan doesn’t seem too realistic to him now.

A few minutes later Sam sits in the corner of the Men’s Sunday School Class, his mind tuning in and out of the discussion. Mostly out. He reviews the options for the added money his family needs. He could borrow on the insurance, but then he couldn’t use that to help pay for Steve’s college. He could sell the travel trailer, but he couldn’t hope to get anywhere near its value. The idea of a second mortgage brings his thoughts reeling back into the Sunday school room.

He feels a pang of guilt for not paying more attention to the teacher. But he reminds himself that he doesn’t really want to be at church anyway. Susan pressures him into it. And she ought to be happy that I even come, he tells himself. The guilt passes, and his thoughts again begin to drift.

The final bell eventually signals the end of class. Sam files out of the room, through the educational wing and into the narthex to wait for Susan. When she finds him, they enter the sanctuary together and take their usual place, halfway up, on the right side of the aisle.

The singing of familiar hymns occupies Sam’s mind. And for a time at least the raucous sounds of Sam’s marketplace fade away in mindless memory. The soft sanctuary music seems more soothing, yet oddly different from the bold beat of the blaring radio speakers he’s heard throughout the week. Sam slowly absorbs a subtle sacred spirit; osmosis moistens memories into a mood of solitude, meditation and worship. Limbo seeps up the stalk as the ushers pass the hypnotic offering plates back and forth, back and forth, back and…

However, Secular Sam brings all his cultural baggage with him on his trip from his weekday continent called Life to the Sunday island called Church. And his mind refuses to be marooned. His questions, his conflicts, his consternation climb gradually back into his consciousness. Sam is soon back battling his inner wars of family finance and career survival.

When the pastor stands to read the morning Scripture, Sam checks the bulletin for the sermon topic, “The Total Truth for Today’s Total World”—a special missions emphasis, according to the order of worship.

While the pastor reads, Sam shifts to his own agenda. He’s heard so many sermons in the past decade, he makes it a weekly challenge to construct his own outline. Today he decides to go for seven points—alliterative, of course.

He titles it, “Roaming the Seven C’s.” Sam suppresses a smile. Cash has to be his point number one. Then Car. Clothes. Compatibility. Career. College. And Current Crisis. Sam is tracing his route through the seven C’s a second time when the children’s sermon interrupts his journey.

“When I was a boy,” the pastor begins and Sam leans forward to watch those children on the front pews and to hear the pastor as he speaks briefly to them.

When the “regular sermon” starts, Sam watches as the restless people squirm in their seats. They shift their weight to find the least painful posture and settle down to think about something or nothing.

After a feeble effort to remarshall his thoughts around his own outline, Sam slowly releases them to wander at random. Memory, imagination and reverie touch base only occasionally with the happenings in the sanctuary. He completely abandons the minister, and his thoughts sail away to mainland Life. He ponders his return to the mad world of Monday morning. What will I say to the boss? What are my options? Is it worth the hassle?

Susan leans toward him a little and snuggles under his protecting arm. He remembers: It’s been a good life. We’ve had our ups and downs. But we get along pretty well—usually. We’ve had some great times, and then there are the kids. Some things have slowed down a little, but life’s pretty good. Sure need more money. Let’s see—that’s cash—number one in my outline.

Sam begins to plan his exit about fifteen minutes before the sermon ends. What’s for Sunday dinner? he asks himself. Did Susan say chicken? Or was it Spanish rice? Something quick I hope! The game comes on the tube at 12:30!

Sam eyes the exit and plots his escape during the final hymn. At the last note of the “Amen” chord he makes his move. The direct route takes him uncomfortably close to the pastor at the rear door. Sometimes he can slip out without interruption, but today Pastor Jones eyes him and winks.

Sam is caught. What can he say? “I enjoyed your talk,” he blurts out as his mind gropes for a more honest word. He awkwardly shakes the hand the pastor holds out to him. Then Sam hurries through the crowd and out to the parking lot where he slouches down in his car and turns on the radio to hear the noon news—a voice from the real world.

Susan and the kids soon filter out to the car. “The chicken should be done,” Susan says as they all head for home.

Secular Sam and his fellow pewmates aren’t the only dissatisfied players in the Sunday morning drama. But they’d probably never guess Pastor Jones’ squelched feelings of frustration. Here’s how the morning went for him:

Pastor Jones’ discouragement builds as he guides his congregation like sheep through the passageways of the printed order of worship. Nearly everyone joins in the hymns. They attend to the announcements. But when he stands to read the Scripture aloud, he senses a change. It’s as if an invisible wall rises between us. Why don’t they listen? Am I too loud? Too slow? Too fast? He concludes the reading and sits down again.

During the offertory he thinks ahead. Maybe I can ring the bell in the children’s sermon. Sometimes that seems to rouse them. I wonder why that is? Maybe my sermons are a bit too strong for them. But they should learn to listen.

After the ushers present the offering to the strains of the Doxology, Pastor Jones calls the children and relates a tale from his childhood, a simple incident when he learned the danger of lying and the value of truth. He wraps it up with a summary of God’s attitude toward truth and sends the little ones toward the sanctuary side door and the waiting leaders of the junior church program.

Now the sermon time arrives. As he steps back up to the pulpit, he straightens his tie, clears his throat and waits for silence.

Then he reads the text: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true… whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things” (Philippians 4:8).

Why do the people seem to be staring beyond me? I’m the pastor; they should pay attention to me. Why don’t they listen?

He breathes deeply and projects his rehearsed tones: “Truth is lovely, dear friends. Truth has a good report. Truth is worthy of our meditation—think on these things.”

He defines the truth. He declares the truth. He defends the truth.

His orthodox, well-rounded words ascend to the ceiling, extend to the foyer, and bounce softly off the back wall. He wonders if anyone is really listening.

Some members of the congregation nod in full agreement. But he knows that’s a poor gauge because some of those smiling heads slow their metronome nods and let chins rest a moment before they rise again. His discouragement deepens.

Then all eyes open, all heads rise at the midpoint of the sermon when a bit of narration brightens an example. But the encouragement is only momentary as attention lags again and an epidemic of fidgeting spreads through the sanctuary.

By the time he approaches the end of his sermon, he has little enthusiasm left for the emphatic conclusion he’d hoped would inspire his people to respond to the overwhelming needs of the church’s mission program. What’s the use? he asks himself. Half a dozen people steal quick glances at their wrists as he launches into his final example. What do they care about third-world hunger and medical needs? Any concern for the problems of planet earth fades at five minutes till noon.

He finally directs the congregation to stand for the benediction. He’s halfway tempted to pray an honest prayer from a despairing or perhaps even an imprecatory Psalm. But he resists the temptation to vent his feelings and intones the standard formula of dismissal. Then he retreats down the aisle as the choir offers the choral benediction.

As the last strains of the Amen die away, the sanctuary buzzes with renewed energy. The instantaneous transformation prompts a silent, cynical thought in the pastor’s mind. I wonder if I’ll ever awaken the kind of response from a sermon that I always get from the benediction.

He tries to shake off the feelings of frustration and doubt as the aisles fill and the people crowd toward him. He screws on a smile, shakes as many hands as he can reach, and tries to endure the comments.

“Glad to see you again.” “Enjoyed the sermon, pastor.” “Have a good week.” “Nice talk today.” “I always enjoy your little time with the children at the start of the service.” The innocuous comments always seem to skirt reality and straightforward sincerity. But at least on this Sunday Pastor Jones hears no bragging about “that good sermon I heard on TV.”

By the time Secular Sam and the rest of the congregation finish their chicken dinners and plant themselves in front of the afternoon football telecast, the pastor has concluded his meal and sought out the silence of the manse study. There he replays his frustrations and the morning performance.

What are the people looking for anyway? I preach God’s Word—I quote Scripture on almost every point. Why don’t they respond? I don’t understand, Lord, he says, directing his questions heavenward. You say your Word won’t return unto you void. But every Sunday it seems to. Where’s the response?

It’s not as if I don’t care or don’t try, he tells himself. And he recalls how he has spent his vacations for the past five years visiting some of the country’s most dynamic churches, hoping to learn some secrets from successful preachers. He attends all the minister’s conferences he can fit into his schedule and has collected enough books and articles on preaching to fill a small library.

Pastor Jones has turned the energies of his youth and the fires of his imagination on the task of melding and molding messages to change the world or at least some part of it. Dedication to the task of ministry has never been his problem. But his high resolve melts into mediocrity every Sunday morning. The people never seem to change. His sermons don’t count for much. He wonders if his ministry really matters.

Maybe all the successful preachers are just born speakers, born charismatic leaders, he concludes. But what about God’s promises to multiply human efforts?

The needs of his congregation are so obvious—personal needs, family needs, human needs. Faith holds the answers. Pastor Jones knows that. He’s learned from personal experience. He’s read history. He believes the Bible accounts. The needs tower to the skies above him, but sometimes the theological ladders seem too short.

A year ago he seriously considered giving up the ministry. He could serve as a social worker with his undergraduate training. He could spend more time with his family if he had a limited case load and 9 to 5 working hours.

Some of his former university friends kid him about the pastorate. “How does it seem to spend your life telling people what they already know?” They tell him his sermons are good advice. “But advice is the one commodity in the world where the supply exceeds the demand,” they say.

Despite the doubts, Pastor Jones has resolved in his mind to stay in the ministry. He’s convinced God has called him to the task. And he knows that when Secular Sam and the rest of the congregation head back to their jobs on Monday morning, he will go to his office to begin preparing a sermon for next Sunday. And he will pray that somehow God will bless and use his efforts, his preaching. But the discouragement remains.

The Secular Sam-Pastor Jones scenario is played out every Sunday in thousands of churches across the land. Secular Sam and his counterparts come out of their workaday world burdened and consumed by seemingly insurmountable problems. They come out of a world where they are assaulted by an estimated 600 mass media sales pitches every week—messages they learn to consciously tune out. They come with senses hooked on mass media’s electronic input and minds overloaded with very personal troubles. Self-worth, life’s meaning and purpose, priorities, security, success and survival all clamor for top billing in their thoughts.

Pastor Jones and a legion of fellow pastors preach more than 350,000 sermons every Sunday morning. They watch and agonize over the struggles of contemporary society. They see the wounds of a family suffering divorce. They see the fear of dying cancer patients. They see the anxiety of middle-aged men thrown out of work. They see the overwhelming uncertainty of youth in a fearful age. And they long to share God’s answers—answers they believe in.

But something is wrong. For some reason the answer isn’t reaching the needs. Secular Sam and Pastor Jones both come away frustrated.

Perhaps this frustration explains the disturbing trend cited in a June 1978 Gallup Poll. Pollsters asked Americans, “How important is religion in your life?” In 1978 only 53 percent of the people replied “very important to me.” In 1952, twenty-six years earlier, 75 percent had said religion was “very important to me.” Midway through that time period, in 1965, 70 percent had replied that religion was “very important to me.” The series of polls shows a slide of 5 percent over the first half of the period but an alarmingly accelerating decline of 17 percent in recent years.

What are the implications for preaching today? Can preaching help make religion “very important” again?

Few today would question the need for more effective preaching. Just observe the signs. See the symptoms of indifference, aloofness, apathy. Check the deadwood on church membership rolls. Talk to any Secular Sam or Pastor Jones. Consider your own experience.

What’s the solution? Is there some unattained goal that could alleviate the frustration surrounding preaching today?

Involvement. That common word is the most promising answer. Involvement has been a major goal throughout twentieth-century preaching. It’s what Secular Sam is seeking on Sunday morning. It’s what Pastor Jones would like to get.

But how can a minister involve hearers in his preaching? Is there a simple, surefire way?

In recent decades some have tried to capture attention and encourage involvement by using dialogue and discussion. The church has experimented with drama and dance. Sermon content has changed; style and delivery have become more folksy, conversational and direct. But innovation, change and creativity have released little vitality or impact in today’s sermon. Despite the creative quest, the dream of getting the people involved seems to be a distant mirage.

Crowds have flocked to hear a few preachers who seem to have found a way to attain the involvement of their hearers. Are there secrets to be learned from these crowd-catchers? They vary so greatly that there seems to be no traceable pattern in their preaching. Close scrutiny of the few giants who have accomplished consistent listener involvement shows no shared format. They evidently navigate by instinct and experience more often than by precept or plan.

Success at winning listener involvement seems independent of training. Pastors without seminary degrees serve most of the growing churches, according to a recent survey of 555 expanding congregations. Apparently education can’t promise preaching success.

Where can we look for an answer then? Is contemporary preaching beyond the hope of man and the help of God? Is there any biblical basis for a solution? Does Jesus model any hope for our preaching?

Can Pastor Jones and the multitude of ministers with similar frustrations find hope for effective preaching?

Is there any answer to these questions? Is there any solution for the lack of involvement—our primary crisis in preaching today?

There is.

It’s as contemporary as our modern problems and as old as the Scriptures themselves. We’ll consider that solution in the remainder of this book.

2     A Promising Solution

Randy, a student in one of my preaching courses, waited to talk to me after class. “Why do my people watch the cows outside the church when I preach?” he blurted out with feeling. “I preach the best I know, but some of the people always look out the windows. They can see cows any day of the week. Why do they have to do it while I’m trying to keep their attention on the sermon? What can I do about it?”

I asked, “Why do you think they watch the cows?” We talked about his frustration in the pastorate. I asked him how he started his sermons and whether his major accent was on theology or the people. I inquired about his illustrations with human instances and case studies.

After a few minutes of discussion Randy still sounded desperate. “I’ll try anything you say. I really want to get their attention and hold it.”

We talked about a number of things he might try. Randy vowed he would work harder to involve the people in his Sunday sermons. He seemed determined as he left for the weekend at his student pastorate.

The next week Randy bounced into class. “Boy, nobody watched cows this Sunday,” he beamed. I saw he could hardly wait to recount his weekend.

I asked, “How did you do it, Randy?”

“Prof, I started with this sentence: ‘The go-go dancer knocked on the parsonage door on Saturday night at 10:30.’ ” He grinned as he added, “Those cows really got neglected during the entire sermon. Nobody looked outside; no one looked around. Everybody seemed to stop breathing, just waiting for my explanation.

“What a change to have their undivided attention. They’ve always been warm and cordial to me, but this was the first time I’ve ever seen them so engrossed in my preaching.”

Randy’s experience reemphasizes the preaching problem introduced in the preceding chapter. Involvement problems stalk every preacher—excited young seminarians such as Randy and tired old hands like Pastor Jones.

How can our preaching get the people involved?

Obviously not every preacher could start this Sunday’s sermon with Randy’s opening sentence. None should try. If you did, how could you top it next Sunday? You’d have to change more than the reference to the specific Saturday night hour!

But we can find the beginnings to the answer in Randy’s episode. Broken down and analyzed, this incident with my young student reveals three areas of concern that require our attention if we’re serious about our quest for involvement in preaching.

These three areas are not at all new. More than 2,300 years ago Aristotle divided his plan of communication into three parts or proofs: ethical—the speaker’s part; emotional—the listener’s; and logical—the speech’s or message’s role. That’s basic homiletics, and any fresh strategy for winning listener involvement will have to encompass all three aspects of communication. So let’s examine the implications for more effective preaching.

The Speaker or Preacher

Any hope for involvement must start with the attitude of the preacher. He or she has to want involvement. But that desire must grow directly out of the care felt for the people. No one cares how much we know until he knows how much we care.

In my early ministry I knew one rural pastor who became increasingly discouraged by his people’s lack of response. One Sunday he got so frustrated he called his congregation of Dutch-American farmers “a bunch of flat-headed Dutchmen,” stormed out the side door of the church, and stalked to the parsonage to simmer down. He certainly showed them he cared; but the expression of that frustrated caring ended any hope for an effective ministry in that parish.

Pastor Jones and Randy are better examples for us. They felt some of the same frustrations. But Pastor Jones’ compassion and concern for his people kept him from condemning them in a closing prayer. Randy’s concern for his people helped him curb the urge to shoot those cows and sent him searching for any help he could get from his preaching prof. Unlike the minister who blew up at his congregation, they were ready to accept some responsibility for the involvement problem.

That’s the fountainhead of any hope for involvement in our preaching. Ministry begins in the mind and heart of the minister. Paul spelled out part of this requirement when he said, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who … took upon him the form of a servant … and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

Jesus added further guidelines for ministry when he said: “Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground, and die, it abides alone; but if it die, it brings forth much fruit.… For the Son of man came, not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.… Whosoever would save his life shall lose it, but whosoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.”

But how does this impact on preaching for involvement?

It means that if we want involvement we have to be willing to involve ourselves. The true shepherd heart cares enough to identify with the people just as the Good Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.

Ministry demands sacrifice, and sacrifice is risky.

Effective preaching may mean taking the risk of experimentation. Like Randy, we may need to ask, “How can I be more effective? What can I change about my sermons to get my listeners involved?” Such change is risky.

But meaningful ministry requires more than risking our sermons. It means risking ourselves. It means placing ourselves in the pew with our people, admitting our humanness to ourselves and to them, and preaching with the conviction that we all are “workers together with God.”

That personal risk is the price of involvement; the preacher becomes vulnerable. Love and ministry always extract that price.

Comfort, complacency and indifference cannot identify the involved preacher. He has to say, like the Master, “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth” (John 18:37).

Yet, while hope for involvement in our preaching has to start with the attitude in the mind and heart of the preacher, it can’t stop there. Those attitudes of servanthood have to be reflected in his character.

In discussing the effectiveness of preaching, we usually accept the good character of the preacher as a given. But we can’t afford to downplay its importance.

Demosthenes ranks the personal appeal of the speaker above all other proofs; the good speaker is the good man speaking well. Ethos or the appeal of the speaker as a person combines with other discussion in Aristotle’s teaching; he emphasizes the importance of the speaker’s intelligence, character and goodwill.

Both the Bible and Christian tradition amplify the speaker’s role by accenting his integrity, sincerity, and desirable attitudes, along with personal morals and behavior. Practicing what we preach involves much more than merely rehearsing our sermon.

Christian thought through the centuries has explored what it means to be a good man. The minister’s attitudes, relationships, beliefs and behavior ought to buttress his spoken words. No subject is mentioned more often in the Yale Lectures on preaching than the preacher’s personal character.

Today many of our hearers hunger for a listening, caring, growing preacher who relates to the people. Most congregations would rather see a sermon than hear one any day of the week.

If we want involvement in our preaching, we do well to remember Kierkegaard’s fourth principle of communication: “Only one who is transformed by Christianity can teach Christianity.”1

In the September 1980 Review of Religious Research, Lutheran pastor William O. Avery and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania professor A. Roger Gobbel reported on two surveys of listening attitudes among Lutherans in south-central Pennsylvania congregations.

In the article “The Words of God and the Words of the Preacher” they said, “The credibility a sender has … depends upon the relationship between sender and receiver.” Almost 83 percent of the respondents judged warmth, friendliness, and kindness in a minister’s sermon just as important or more so than theological expertise or intellectual soundness.

“Laity do not demand moral perfection of their clergy, but they do seek attempted consistency between words and action.… They are sensitive to, and influenced by, the personal relationships they have with the pastor.

“When the laity perceive kindness and understanding in their minister, and that the minister has concern for them expressing openness, warmth, and empathy, they consider seriously interpretations of the gospel which may be at variance with their own understandings. When that relationship is positive, the laity are most prone to assert … that the Word of God has been spoken.…”

This research backs up Scripture and experience. Involvement has to start with the preacher’s attitude—an attitude rooted in the mind and heart and evidenced in his character, life and preaching.

But the proper attitude isn’t enough to guarantee involvement in our preaching. The preacher is only one part of the communication process.

The Audience

The involvement that begins with the speaker can only progress with an understanding of the audience. The people are the only reason for preaching. Too many preaching books and sermons seem to have lost this focus. Homiletics has often ignored the audience, Aristotle’s second concern, as if one message could and should fit all hearers in all conditions and all situations.

The science of market research has transformed the advertising, sales and communication industries of our day. If we really desire effective preaching, perhaps we should listen a little more to what the researchers say about demographics, psychographics and felt needs.

If we’re going to have to understand people in order to involve them, there are a number of relevant questions we must ask. Who are these Sunday morning warm bodies—these Secular Sams, these cow-watchers? What concerns them? What moves them to respond? How do they learn? We need to ask and answer all these questions.

Who are those people? In our day it isn’t just the philosophers who can’t step into the same river twice. Serving many suburban pastorates can be like preaching to a procession. The faces come and go quickly. Even those that stay belong to people who are shaped and changed each week by their experiences as they are swept along by the powerful current of contemporary society.

Who are they? They are the composite of many interacting factors, but primarily they are creatures of our culture.

Consider that culture for a few moments. It’s a culture where nearly half the marriages end in divorce. It’s a culture where two million Americans live together as couples without the blessing of any marriage rites. Where teenagers earn and spend a couple billion dollars a year. Where more people make more money and have more leisure time to spend it than ever before in the history of the world. Where 60 percent of the women work outside the home. Where transportation has taken us to the moon and beyond. It’s a culture where half a million Americans are sacrificed as ransom to the automobile revolution every decade. Where television invades living rooms to demand forty-eight hours each week from the average American family. Where unemployment slowly devours the savings and self-esteem of millions each year. Where millions depend on welfare. Where top athletes make a million dollars a year. Where we have more police than ever, and yet our homes and lives are increasingly threatened by violent crimes. Where a third of the money spent for food fills the tills of the fast-food chains.

Among the countless characteristics of our culture there are many broad traits that play enormous roles in shaping our Sunday-morning listeners. We’ll consider just four examples.

First, our culture is undeniably secular. Largely because of the mass communication revolution of the past generation, today’s church members grow increasingly secularized. Every night after dinner they sit in front of their TV sets to see, feel, accept and experience the same scenes, emotions, values and experiences as millions of unchurched Americans.

Today’s churchgoers absorb the secular environment and in turn are absorbed by it.

The secularization of our culture and our congregations is further emphasized by a second broad trait of our culture, self-centeredness. How many people devote their lives to amassing power and money. How many tear down their barns (and houses and families) to build greater ones in the mad rush for profit and pleasure.

Hedonism flourishes. Security and success are the vaunted goals of life for millions.

Materialism abounds. The good life is measured in terms of things. Values, relationships, loyalties and simple joys give way to money and influence. Family, home and community life have been sacrificed on the altar of the goddess Production. Yet our scores on the happiness scale sag despite the rising GNP.

Some of our self-centeredness is probably a natural self-defense mechanism which enables us to cope in an impersonal world. Individuals have to claw for survival in our computerized age. Millions of lonely people retreat into themselves for shelter from a world where they feel alienated, helpless, afraid and alone. Yet the unseeing stares on our streets speak a strange language to the oldsters who remember a time when people weren’t too wrapped up in their own concerns or fears to risk a “hello.”

Perhaps the third and most overwhelming trait of our culture is change. Change sometimes seems to be the only constant in our world. We don’t have to read students of our culture like Toffler and Sagan to realize it. Experience is proof enough.

I saw cultural change with new clarity when I took my eighty-year-old mother into a K-Mart for the first time. She marveled at the incredible selection and the size of the store. Her surprise amazed me. Then I remembered. She had grown up, married and lived out eight decades of life within a mile of the farm where she was born in a log house built by her pioneer father. She read magazines and books, took an occasional drive around the country roads of Michigan with her husband and family, taught the ladies’ Bible class for a third of a century, and reared four sons without ever raising her voice. But her stable, familiar world was largely pre-K-Mart.

I contrast my mother’s life with that of mine or my family’s. Recently my son, his wife and baby flew to Texas for a business convention. The day the convention concluded they ate breakfast in San Antonio, boarded a plane, ate lunch with in-laws in Atlanta on a two-hour layover, and reached their home outside Chicago in time for supper.

The difference between yesterday and today is mind-boggling. The old saying, “Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring” has never been more true or more unsettling. This is more than a complaint—“The future isn’t what it used to be.” The Huntsville Computer Center claims the fund of information making up human knowledge has doubled on the average of once every two years since 1960. It’s now doubling every six months.

No one knows exactly how this breakneck rate of change affects the individual. But it does. Future shock is more than a theory.

The fourth trait of our culture that impacts so greatly on everyone is partly a result of the previous three: confusion. Paradoxes engulf us. Consider this sampling of cultural inconsistencies:

Unparalleled wealth and income, yet mounting insecurity and poverty;

Expanded information about life and sex, yet soaring teenage pregnancies;

Unprecedented liberties and personal freedoms, yet greater clamor for human rights;

More computers and less compassion;

More welfare and less concern for individuals as persons;

Unequaled mobility and potential in transportation, yet lack of distribution blighting the Third World;

Hundreds of new books each day, yet reading skills decline;

A new book on Shakespeare every twelve minutes, yet increasing sex, violence and soap operas on TV;

Members of the congregation may travel internationally every week, yet concern for world needs fails to increase;

Missiles, nuclear warheads and other military hardware proliferate, yet international insecurities increase;

Food production skills and capabilities increase, yet Americans still give little attention and only one-fourth of one percent of our GNP to world hunger;

Comforts and conveniences crown our achievements, yet polls show most people are discontentented and unhappy about their work;

From 1920 to 1980 the number of millionaires in the U.S. increased from twenty-four to thousands, yet unemployment soared from one million to eight to ten million.

Of course the list could go on. But that’s enough to remind us just how troubling and troubled our secular, self-centered, changing, confused (and a lot of other adjectives) our culture really is. Realizing that is part of understanding who our listeners are.

What concerns them? The answer to this question is actually an outgrowth of the first. Without going into much detail (but hopefully not being too simplistic) I think we can say what concerns our listeners is everything that makes them who they are. That means the experiences, the struggles, the cultural influences that directly affect and involve them. Marketing researchers call these concerns felt needs.

For example, the secularization of our culture has increased the need many people feel for spiritual meaning. Self-centered people often feel the need for something bigger to commit themselves to. Stability becomes a felt need in a world of change. Order and reason become needs in a world of chaos and questions.

In more concrete terms, a lonely person needs companionship. A victim of insecurity has a felt need for encouragement.

What concerns our listeners depends on who they are. Some problems are almost universal; others are more individual. But as a rule our contemporaries are very interested in answers to their needs—reasonable, relevant, practical, concrete, common-sense answers.

On the flip side, they are not interested in the abstract, the obtuse, the obscure, the irrelevant or the theoretical.

How do they learn? They—we—all learn the same ways. We learn first by our own experience and the model of others. We compare. We contrast. We catalog in our memory bank. Everything filters through our own individualized sieve. We rack it, stack it and file it.