18 The seven deadly sins of preachers – part 2
Transcript
Hello and welcome back to our preaching masterclass.
In these segments we’re considering the seven deadly sins that preachers can commit
We’re asking ‘What can make a sermon or a talk in church go seriously wrong?’
I find this a little embarrassing to talk about – because I’ve committed them all!
In our last segment we thought about preaching for too long – the number one preaching misdemeanour that was reported in my unscientific straw poll among my friends
The second one that came up frequently was simply being dull.
Deadly sin no 2 – Being dull
If preaching too long is the word-monger, this is the bore.
This deadly sin is less easy to resolve.
So let’s ask ourselves “What makes a sermon (or any talk) uninteresting?
Some factors are obvious.
Monotonous voice.
Speaking on one level.
The human voice is made for variety, and our minds are predisposed to listening the input that has an array of different tones.
That diversity helps keep us to concentrate on what is being said.
So how might I know if I’m speaking monotonously from the platform?
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Well, an honest friend is really helpful here
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so too is listening to yourself on a recording and asking the question “Would my attention I be held by what I’m hearing?”
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Salutary question, but worth it!
Being too quiet
Using a voice that doesn’t have enough welly to reach the back of the room, say.
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I do hear it said to me ‘Ah, well I’m speaking into a microphone so my voice is going to carry’
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But that isn’t necessarily the case.
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An indistinct or monotonous voice is not improved just be being louder.
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It’s much better to give the person on the sound desk more sound (so he or she can turn you down a bit) rather than not enough sound. Because, however talented my sound person, they can’t invent sound I don’t give them!
In my straw poll also revealed some other factors which contribute to dullness.
Too many long words or Christian jargon
This is surprisingly common among preachers – and for very understandable reasons
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Those of us have been trained in theology (and that’s wonderful – I include myself in that number) have had our vocabulary extended by our theological study.
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However in this process we’ve accreted to ourselves a collection of words that we know and love, and understand well .
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And because we understand them we can slip into assuming that everyone does.
I heard a sermon on one of Jesus’ parables and the preacher said “Let’s think about this verse eschatologically”
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and he was correct to say that. We should think about the verse in the light of the end times (i.e. eschatologically)
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But I’m pretty sure he left 95% of his audience were left baffled by what he was actually saying. (My family didn’t follow it!)
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We can’t assume that the average person in the average congregation grasps theological buzz-words, even though we may use them correctly and they be inspiring to us.
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Even words like ‘salvation’, repentance and atonement now need unpacking
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… and always have done! This is not a new thing!
Good communication is always receiver-focused
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So we need to use the word-set of the people we’re speaking to as far as possible.
My straw poll also told me that we become dull when there is
Insufficient relevance
If what a preacher says doesn’t connect with some aspect of life, then he or she is showing they live in a mental world detached from the reality of their audience.
OK, I am well aware that some preachers sacrifice the power of the gospel for contemporary relevance – and that’s another topic entirely.
But if we’re going to avoid being dull, we have to carry our listeners with us
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and find connections in their lives for that word from God we’re imparting on that day.
I find it helpful to ask “Is there a ‘so-what clause’ here?”
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and if there is, say it! Make it clear!
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and if there isn’t; ask whether I should be using that sentence or paragraph anyway.
We can be dull by
being note-bound
Back in 1967 Albert Mehrabian and Susan Ferris studied interpersonal communication and attempted to apportion weightings to the impacts of body language, tone of voice and words when we talk to each other.
Their conclusions were that
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55% of the impact of a message comes from body language,
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38% from tone of voice
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and a paltry 7% from the semantic value of the words used.
This is an often-quoted statistic and we need to be very careful how we apply it.
Their study was done under laboratory conditions that were completely different from the average church!
However, although the precise numbers almost certainly don’t apply in a church context, the overall principle does.
Body language and tone of voice matter – much more than we realise
and paying personal attention to them will help us to grasp and retain the interest of our hearers.
If I speak truth in a disinterested tone of voice, the people listening will instinctively conclude I’m not that interested in it myself – and begin to page out.
We can be dull by
Lacking personal passion
So to be interesting and worthy of people listening to us we need to show we’re personally committed to the message ourselves.
When I preach I’m asking people to believe me (in the first instance)
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so if I communicate in a way that casts doubt on whether I believe it,
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those seeds of doubt will, subtly, be sown in the minds of the people listening to me.
David Hume was a well known Scottish philosopher and historian in the 18th Century,
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He was also a Deist, who didn’t believe in any inspiration or revelation or the Son of God or in the Bible,
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But it’s reported that on one occasion he thought it worthwhile to travel 20 miles (a long way in those days) to hear George Whitefield preach.
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About five o’clock one morning, he was going down the street in London.
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He came around the corner and went straight into the hands of another man who said,
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“Why aren’t you David Hume?”
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“Yes.”
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“Where are you going at this early hour ?”
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“I’m going to hear George Whitefield preach,” replied Hume.
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“You don’t believe a word Whitefield preaches,” said the man.
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“No,” Hume answered, “but he does!”
There was something about Whitfield’s passion that attracted him.
Why did Jesus need to perform a miracle of feeding 5,000 people from a small boy’s lunch?
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Because such a large crowd had remained riveted by his preaching he felt he needed to provide for them
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Jesus must have been inspiring and compelling to listen to!
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He was a passionate communicator
Great preachers are always people who are passionate about their message
There was a catch phrase from the Welsh revival that ran –
it’s also my rule of thumb for avoiding being dull:
Get on fire for God and the world will turn out to see what’s burning.
That’s enough for this segment
join me on the next one to think about more deadly sins of preachers.