SermonStudio

Our sermon consumers are used to VCRs and Super Nintendo -- strong
visual images -- they watch and then rewind. For our preaching,
that certainly means it is a different generation of people out
there listening. It has definite implications for what we say and
how we say it.11
-- Jerry L. Schmalenberger

I talk with many laypeople about sermons, and the comment I
hear most often is: "Sermons are bo-o-o-oring!" This comment is
of course not new in church history. Perhaps Eutychus thought the
same thing about Paul's sermon, before he dozed off and fell out
of the window. (Acts 20) Sermons in colonial America which droned
on for two to three hours must have caused plenty of people to
yawn and wonder when they could go home.
Today, however, television has lowered our boredom threshold
way down. People are bored more easily and quickly today than
ever before. Perceptions of sermons as boring are probably in
direct ratio to the amount of time the listener watches
television, videos or films.
Another comment one hears regularly is, "I thought the things
the pastor said were interesting, but I can't remember now what
the sermon was about." Preachers would be astonished to discover
how many people cannot recall anything about the sermon by Sunday
afternoon.

A New Audience
Preachers might be dismayed by these reactions, but they
should not be surprised or baffled. It is clear that effective

communication is extremely complex, influenced by many factors:
*Good communication reaches the listener's emotions and will,
not just the intellect.
*Much communication happens on a non-verbal level.
*The type of personality we are influences what and how we
hear.
*Psychological factors and past experiences affect how we hear
things.
*The left and right hemispheres of the brain hear and process
information differently.
*The meanings of words change. Religious terms particularly
may carry quite different messages to people in the same
audience. Noting that "our perceptions and understandings of the
world are formed in far more complicated ways than merely by
rational observation and judgment," Patricia Wilson-Kastner urges
preachers to take into account these new insights.

We have become increasingly receptive to the enormous importance
of our more intuitive side, to the centrality of the emotions,
and to the way we express our awareness in images, pictures, and
stories, which are all laden with feelings as well as
intellectual assessments ... If we wish to be responsible
preachers, then we need to appreciate and understand this brave
new world we are entering, with its expanding consciousness of
our very selves. Otherwise we run the risk of miscommunicating
the Gospel instead of proclaiming it, or at least of missing some
valuable media for sharing the good news of which we are
stewards.12

There are many factors producing this new audience, but the
predominant influence is television. The television audience can
be described with five characteristics, each one carrying clear
implications for preaching.

1 -- Television conveys pictures, not concepts.
Television transmits images; it is not suited to transmit a
line of abstract thought or a logically developed argument.

That is done best in print. Television is basically a visual
medium, and its dominance has made us a visual generation.
Concepts and ideas might be talked about on television, but the
primary impact is visual. People who prefer television over
reading say, "In reading I don't see anything. On television I
can both see and hear it." Television has the appeal of
furnishing the whole picture ready-made for the audience.
People accustomed to television understand an idea or concept
best if it is conveyed with an image or story -- a visual picture
in their mind illustrating the idea being conveyed. This is
nothing new, since good speakers have always illustrated their
message with concrete examples, but it is particularly true in
the age of television.
Ideas are transmitted most effectively when they are
communicated through and with visual imagery. The idea or
doctrine of justification by grace cannot be easily transmitted
on television. Watching someone explain it on the screen would
send most viewers to the refrigerator. The suitable way to convey
it on television would be to portray visually a person whose life
and experience conveys what justification is and does. It does
not work well to explain the doctrine of original sin on camera,
even though various television dramas portray it very clearly!
Most of us preachers, however, are accustomed to preach by
exposition, that is, we explain concepts and ideas. The
television audience, however, understands ideas when they are not
only explained but presented with language rich in visual
imagery. That's why examples and illustrations are so important.
They make the abstract concrete. From the words the mind pictures
what's going on. When you listen to a radio drama or read a book,
by the end of it you have created in your mind a vision of what
the characters look like and how the scenery appears. The reason
films of books are often unsatisfactory is that the people on
screen don't look like we imagined them to be. We created a
picture in our minds from the printed page.
As we shall see below, television as a visual medium has
brought us back to the communication world of the Bible,

where the message is so often presented in a richly visual
fashion. The prophets, the psalmists, the Old Testament authors
and Jesus himself communicated with images.

2 -- Information is conveyed in bytes or impressions, rather than
sequentially.
On the printed page ideas and thoughts are developed in
logical sequence. Information is best conveyed by a step-by-step,
coherent line of thought. A vast amount of information can be
conveyed, more than the memory will retain, because one can
always turn back and review what was written.
With television, however, people receive information not by
sequence, but by impact and impression. Television messages are
received by the brain as bytes, sight/sound images.
Automobile ads do not list pertinent specifications such as
horsepower, consumer report tests, engine specifications, the
grade of steel used and so forth. That is information which will
be given in a printed description of the car. Within a fast 30
seconds a television ad bombards you not with relevant
information but with glamorous images, flashing at you with
split-second speed. The goal is not to educate you, but to leave
your brain with an impression that you want this product.
Television advertisers use celebrities and gorgeous people,
because they know such people make an impact on you even though
your brain knows that the celebrity is just paid to make the ad
and probably has never used the product. Nonetheless, the
impression has been made in your subconscious.
We can become discouraged or cynical about the nature of
television, but this new form of communication spills over into
how people listen to sermons.
Perhaps in the past congregations expected and were able to
follow a lengthy, logical development of thought in a sermon.
Many of the great sermons in the past presented a well-reasoned,
logically developed line of thought. They were splendid essays,
written down in full and read from the pulpit. Preachers with
good theological education tend to be good at analyzing and
explaining, but a sermon needs more than that to put the message
across.

People are no less logical or intelligent than in the past,
but a lengthy, logically developed string of thoughts puts them
to sleep. The message of salvation in Jesus Christ can be as
powerfully conveyed with sound theology today as in the past, but
it must be done by bytes, the key paragraphs or elements which
will grab the listener's mind and stick in the memory. Without
them, people will think back on the sermon and reflect, "The
pastor said a lot of interesting things, but I really don't know
what the sermon was about." That person is really saying, "During
the sermon I thought good things were being said, but nothing in
particular grabbed me." There were no central bytes which the
listener remembered, around which the content of the sermon stuck
in the brain.
Of course a sermon must be logically and cohesively developed,
and it must include information about the text and interpretation
of the text. But the sermon must include bytes that grab people's
attention and stick in their memory. Recalling these highlights,
listeners will remember the ideas, thoughts and information in
the sermon.
This is not new. Throughout church history good preachers have
done this by instinct, including in their sermon key phrases,
imagery or illustrations which have served as such bytes. Read
the great preachers of the past. They may have lived in a print
age, but their sermons always included powerful and colorful
images, which made a deep impact on their listeners. Television
forces us to do what good preachers have always done.

3 -- Our concentration span is shorter.
Commercial television has accustomed us to brief intermissions
every 10-12 minutes, if not sooner. We expect frequent snack or
bathroom breaks. Movie producers become nervous if their film
directors go beyond two hours, and they know that it will take
dramatic action on screen to hold audience attention beyond that
limit.
From historical accounts of public speaking in the past, we
can assume that people paid attention longer than they do

now. The format for the 1858 debates between Abraham Lincoln and
Stephen Douglas, for instance, was three hours in length. The
first speaker spoke for an hour; the second speaker had an hour
and a half, leaving the first speaker 30 minutes for rebuttal.
Compare that with the television format for presidental debates
today, where a speaker is given two minutes to explain a Middle
East policy or a plan for economic recovery! In the television
age candidates know that a catchy 30-second television spot on
the evening news is worth more than a carefully worked out
speech.
Kate Moody examined the effect of television on young children
and observed:

Experienced teachers, those who have taught long enough to know
several generations of children, are coming to alarming
conclusions about current learning styles and abilities: Kids
can't listen for any length of time ...
they can't pay attention ("When I read them stories out loud,
they squirm and say, 'I can't hear it without pictures.' ") ...13

How long should today's sermons be? That depends on the
preacher and the expectations of the congregation. With the
television generation the age of the one-hour sermon is past.
Even the traditional 20-minute length is longer than today's
average sermon. Many sermons I hear are too long and would
improve with pruning. Very seldom do I leave church wishing the
preacher would have said more about the topic. The answer to
sermon length is: Deliver your message as well as possible, then
sit down!
Sermon length isn't the real issue. The crucial question is:
Are there elements in the sermon which will arrest and hold the
audience's attention? If they're not there, people will drift off
mentally to study the stained-glass windows, count rows of
bricks, or fill in the os and es in the bulletins. Good preachers
constantly ask themselves, "What is there in this sermon that
will keep, or recapture, the people's attention?"

4 -- We listen more passively.
With the speaker on the screen before us, television might
look more personal than the printed page, but that is not the
case. When people speak to us personally, we pay attention out of
courtesy. If somebody is talking to you, it would be rude to
reach over, pick up a magazine and start reading. In the midst of
a conversation it would be impolite to get up without a word and
head to the refrigerator for a snack.
With television, however, we have become accustomed to doing
that regularly, and the television speaker doesn't mind at all!
Most of us do all sorts of things while people talk to us on
television -- knit, read the paper, cook, wash dishes, write
letters or whatever.
The electronic medium has produced a passive audience. We are
used to listening with half an ear, easily distracted.
Translate this to church, and we have people in the pews who
listen for a few minutes, then think about something else. Their
minds wander about for a few minutes, until they get back on
track with the sermon.
One of the results of passive listening is superficial
listening. Because we do not have to give total attention to the
person on television, we listen with half an ear. Young people
who have grown up in a multi-media culture insist they can do
this very effectively. They work on their homework in front of
the television, perhaps with a phone propped up on one ear
talking to a friend.
One can debate how well we listen with other distractions
going on, but the fact is that people can be looking attentively
at the pastor and their minds are a million miles away.
Preachers have an advantage over television: We are there,
personally, in front of the audience. With the tendency toward
passive and superficial listening so ingrained in the television
audience, they will listen, but only if they sense that they are
being addressed directly and personally. Again and again I hear
the comment from laypersons: "I wish our pastor would talk to us
directly rather than reading the sermon!"

At the first sign that the speaker's main focus is on the
manuscript rather than the people, today's listeners tune out.
Professionals in public speaking know that. Television speakers
instinctively know that their presence in the room is only
electronic, not personal, and they know that it becomes even more
impersonal if they read. So they use teleprompters to give the
illusion of not reading. If a network newscaster kept looking
down at a manuscript, the ratings of that channel would drop out
of sight.
The television audience becomes passive and inattentive very
quickly if the pastor does not speak to them directly. There are
ways of combining careful preparation of a manuscript with
effective delivery, which will be discussed below.
Pastors also need to be intentional in capturing people's
attention -- whether it's using a story or illustration, using
one's voice dramatically, or taking a dramatic turn in the flow
of the sermon. There are ways of jarring an inattentive audience
to attention, and we need to use them.

5 -- Television is a combination of verbal and non-verbal
communication.
There is a profound difference in how communication through
television compares with communication through the printed page.
How an author looks or speaks is not a factor in reading. The
printed page is well-suited for serious discussion precisely
because the personalities of the authors do not distract from the
topics being discussed.
Television is different. We hear and see who is speaking. When
people speak on the screen, the impact of their words is
inseparable from the listener's perception of them as persons.
The politician who appears on TV and pleads, "Let's stick with
the issues in this campaign and leave personalities out of it,"
does not understand the reality of television.
This works two ways. On one hand the audience senses a
credibility as they hear and see something. A speaker who conveys
sincerity and conviction will be believed more than a person who
is nervous and unsure, even though they may be

speaking the very same words. On the other hand, television has
also produced a wide-spread skepticism. We are impressed by a
smooth speaker who oozes charm. Yet our instincts lead us to
think twice. Using gorgeous people to advertise cosmetics and
cars catches our attention, but we know they probably never use
what they advertise.
The fact that through electronic communication we both hear
and see the speakers works to the church's favor in the long run.
The parish pastor preaches not as an impersonal performer from a
distant studio, nor as words on pages of paper, but as a real
person with the audience. Furthermore -- this is the deep dynamic
of pastoral ministry -- the message carries credibility not only
because the speaking is immediate, but because the one preaching
is the same person who calls on us when we are sick, teaches our
children, visits our shut-in grandparents and listens when we
have problems. No television personality can begin to match the
close bond between the preacher and the audience!

The Perspective
When we examine the effect television has on an audience, our
first impulse might be to become discouraged. We are using simple
speech to convey a message to people who are accustomed to more
than speech. How can we communicate by speaking to people who are
used to learning by television?
Simply put, we need to see our preaching from the perspective
of our listeners -- put ourselves in their eyes, their minds,
their ears. Donald Macleod describes our audience this way:

Before the preacher every Sunday morning are several hundred
wandering minds with diverse and fleeting foci ... Remember their
attention response and span are influenced and determined by
watching and hearing six weekdays of television commercials ...
More often than

not they sit back in the pews, fold their spiritual arms, and say
within themselves, "Well, what have you got to say this morning
that will interest me?"14

Once we understand the television audience and keep its
characteristics constantly in mind as we prepare and preach,
people will hear what is being said, and this great and wonderful
Gospel of Life will enter powerfully into people's hearts and
lives.
The challenge of television compels us to be better preachers.
Since the rhetoric of television is in part a restoration of oral
communication, our preaching will become more "oral" in nature.
This also means that we will be drawn increasingly to the Bible
as the chief resource for our preaching, because the Bible was
written to an oral society, and its communication style is
primarily oral.