preaching ... is it effective?

I caught this guys blog today (not the guy in the pic) ... Tim Schmoyer ... which is entitled "rethinking church service effectiveness." He makes some excellent points and draws this quote from Seth Godwin, a marketing expert and big dog author. Godwin states:

What’s the point of talking to a group?…

I’m serious. We spend a lot of time in presentations, or at the United Nations, or sending our kids to school. We have orientation sessions and keynote speeches and long-winded oratory on the floor the Senate. Why?…

Here’s my point: In our scan and skip world, in a world where technology makes it obvious that we can treat different people differently, how can we possibly justify teaching via a speech?

Speech is both linear and unpaceable. You can’t skip around and you can’t speed it up. When the speaker covers something you know, you are bored. When he quickly covers something you don’t understand, you are lost.

If you teach – teach anything – I think you need to start by acknowledging that there’s a need to sell your ideas emotionally. So you need to use whatever tools are available to you–an evocative powerpoint image, say, or a truly impassioned speech.

If it’s worth teaching, it’s worth teaching well. If it’s worth investing the time of 30 or 230 or 3330 people, then it’s worth investing the effort to actually figure out how to get the message across. School is broken. Legislative politics are broken. Linear is broken. YouTube and Bloglines, on the other hand, are new platforms, platforms that enable the education of millions of people every day, quickly and for free.

Now, for my biker buddies, I digress today from salivating over bikes and riding to talk about another passion of mine. My faith. After pastoring for over 30 years one of the reasons that I am printing tshirts for a living and not hanging out on a church staff is this cold hard fact. The church and it's primacy with the Sunday service has grown ineffective to touch the lives of today's society. When speaking, you can lose people so quickly and never get them back. You constantly have to stay above the curve in holding their attention. Later on in Tim's article he talks about the stats of how many words that a person can process at a time while listening. We can process about 200-300 words a minute and the average speaker can only speak about 100-200 words per minute ... this leaves lots of time to do other things in your mind.

What's the answer? Church services have got to change. Worship is effective because we are connecting of our own volition to God. Then we stop and go linear with preaching. My buddy "reallylivin" states that the reason that preacherly types continue to preach is because that is what is expected and is the norm ... people would stop giving and preachers would not get a pay check. Maybe so. But I would pay to see a church that crossed the lines and started truly interacting with people and teaching them to connect with God in a practical way. Tim stated in his article that it was a possibility that the Sunday service is ineffective because people are not worshiping on their own at home. How can they .... if we continue to model the ... "preacher has all the answers" ... style of service.

I think the scripture does say .... "when you gather, everyone has a song, everyone has a word" ... we fear that because we would lose control. What if .... some weirdo got up and started spouting off something heretical? It might show us how really shallow most of our congregations may be if we began to let them speak up and share ... then we could guide them through the Word and let them discover truth. And let me say this also ... small groups usually mimic the large group ... so if it's happening on Sunday AM ... it will usually be the same in a small group.

Preachers! Get out of the box! Stop beating a dead horse. Change. We all know that you are passionate about what you have to say ... but, we are dying inside with our problems and needs ... we need to have someone minister to us ... we need to know how to connect with a God who loves us and can care for us ... we need you to train us in knowing how to interact with people of the congregation to let our spiritual gifts be unleashed to build the body. I need more than the last word on Sunday morning being ... "see you next week". Come on ... take a chance ... be transparent ... and let the church breathe.

my sermon is over ... the end

HG

motorcycle ministry biker blog preaching church southern baptist convention

Comments

[SreWolfe]

I find it amusing that you are just now learning the things that I learned from you years ago.

1) "Faith is what you do. Everything else is just theory"

2) "Church is not where we go. It's what we are."

3) (Mine) One person living what they believe is worth a thousand preachers.

I look forward to this Sateurday. Early? 6:00 maybe 7:00?

Sre

[Doug Moore]

I came across your blog this a.m. Interesting points of view. The "preachers" job is to equip the saints to minister. Preaching is teaching that is the point of Sunday. To worship together and to train for the coming week. I would be interested to hear you get specific on what you would do different. How exactly would your service go and have you actually tried it in todays society or is it theory? I would also ask "What have you done to connect to your church?" Or are you waiting on a phone call? Have you stepped up and said "Hey, can I do that?" Often the same studies that say people want to connect are the same studies that say people do not want to be bothered...with a call from the pastor. So maybe they don't want to bother you...if they have not called? But I wonder if you have invited anyone to lunch or dinner from the "see you next week" church.

[harleyghost]

Doug -- I tried to respond to your email account ... but it was bounced back ... no such email. Give me your email and I will give you a lengthy responce to your comment.
thanks -- HG