SermonStudio

As the dominant medium of social expression, television is
pervasive in a profound way that we seldom recognize fully.
Because most of us get most of our information about the society
most of the time from television, it becomes the primary social
fact of our lives.2
-- James Monaco

Preaching Today
While visiting many congregations I am constantly astonished
to hear how much complaining there is about preaching. Faithful
churchgoers find themselves wondering, "What's happened to good
preaching?" "Where have all the good preachers gone?"
Preaching has fallen on hard times.
There are several reasons for this malaise. Some pastors don't
work very hard on their sermons. Some are out of touch with their
congregations. Others are ineffective public speakers. Much
preaching is theological fluff. Another part of the problem is
that people in the pews have such a wide range of expectations
from the sermon that it is impossible to satisfy everybody.
Yet the truth is that many pastors work hard at their
preaching, but sense it is not effective, and they cannot put
their finger on the reasons why.
A fundamental reason for this situation is that we live in the
midst of a massive communications revolution, which we have only
begun to understand. This revolution inevitably affects the way
people listen to sermons, and if we fail to take this into
account in preaching we will not reach our audience.

The Communications Upheaval
John Killinger, professor of preaching at Vanderbilt Divinity
School in Nashville, Tennessee, set out to identify "some of the
primary characteristics of our cultural epoch which ... might
make important differences in the way we worship." His primary
observation was:

"For one thing, the world has become Mediaville." We live with
television, stereo, videotape, recording machines, computers,
cameras, projectors, synthesizers, printing machines, duplicating
machines -- every imaginable mechanical extension of the self.
More than anything ... they have changed the time in which we
live.3

We live in a radically new age of communication, which has a deep
and permanent impact on how people listen. Richard A. Jensen,
long-time preacher on the "Lutheran Vespers" national radio
program, calls it the "post-literate age," in which electronic
communication has replaced a reading culture and requires a
radical shift in how we preach.4 Failure to realize this huge
change dooms us to ineffective preaching.
The predominant feature of this revolution is television,
which in the last 40 years has become the primary medium of
public communication. It is a vastly different medium of
communication from reading, and it is even quite different from
person-to-person speaking.
We are preaching to a different audience than what existed a
few decades ago. I call it the "TV audience," people whose
primary medium of information and entertainment is television.
This audience receives information and processes what they've
seen and heard far differently than their grandparents.5 If we
preach to them the same way we preached to previous generations,
we shall fail to communicate. If we preachers do not understand
the TV audience, we will be as effective as a movie theater which
tries to draw crowds with jerky old black-and-white silent movies
in this age of wide-screen, brilliant colors, Dolby sound and
computer-produced graphics.

The concern of this book is: How has television affected the
way people listen to and apprehend the spoken word, and how
should we preachers respond?

From Orality To Print
Ancient societies were oral. Without alphabets the only means
of communicating words was to speak person to person. History and
culture were transmitted by storytellers and poets speaking to
their listeners.
In oral societies language was highly poetic, because rhythm
and rhyme enabled people to remember. Stories were rich with
figures of speech, color and repetition. Speaking often took on a
ritual aura, with villagers gathered ceremoniously around the
speaker. In the schools of the ancient world the art of speaking
and persuasion -- rhetoric -- was at the heart of the academic
curriculum.
The printing of the Gutenberg Bible on movable type over 500
years ago launched the age of mass-produced printing, and the
shift from oral communication to printed communication was
enormously accelerated. No longer were books limited to
monasteries, churches and wealthy homes. Families could have the
wisdom and learning of centuries at their fingertips on living
room shelves. Communication through reading changed the oral
world to a predominantly print world.
The printed page changed the style of communication
drastically from that of the oral storyteller. The language of
poetry and color gave way to prose and logic, because the printed
page was suited to detailed, sequential, logical development of
thought. Figures of speech designed to aid memory gave way to
economical, precise prose, where one did not have to repeat words
or ideas already stated.
The work and influence of great scholars spread across Europe.
The work of Augustine, Aquinas, Newton, Kant and other such
thinkers would have been inconceivable in an oral culture.
Massive amounts of information could be packed into a small
space. The sheer amount of information exploded, because one
could keep track of it on paper and didn't have

to remember it all. Modern science was born, because scholars
could build upon the massive amount of information readily
available on book shelves. They could write down their own
discoveries on paper for thousands to read.
We became accustomed to learning through our eyes rather than
through our ears. What student hasn't asked, "Why should I go
hear the lecture, when I can sit here and read books a lot easier
and faster?"
Naturally the world of print shaped preaching. Sermons were
carefully prepared manuscripts, presenting a logical line of
thinking. An idea could be expanded upon and considered from
different view points. Preachers worked diligently on their
manuscripts and read them from the pulpit. People became
accustomed to lengthy expository sermons.

And Now Television, The Electronic Medium
Oral and print cultures were both verbal. For centuries,
whether spoken or written, words were the primary medium of
communication in the western world. But today's new technology
has vastly expanded the possibilities of communication. Roy P.
Madsen, who teaches film production, notes that:

film and television, ... now offer forms of communication
emancipated from the culture bound concepts of the printed word
or immobile art. Visual meanings, expressed in movement, may now
be sent from mind to mind through the eyes.6

This has vastly expanded the possibilities of communication. From
the old oral stage of communication, followed by the print stage,
we have now entered the electronic age of communication.
The shift from orality to print took centuries, but television
has bullied its way past all other forms of communication in a
very short time. It has become the predominant means not only of
information but also of entertainment for almost everyone in the
western world. It has caused a massive change in how we listen,
learn and, yes, even think.

People today receive information about the world around them
primarily not by speaking to each other, not even by reading a
printed page, but by seeing images and listening to words
transmitted electronically on a screen. Unlike a stage drama,
where real people appear in front of us, the images of television
and film are electronically conveyed. The television image darts
about the world, or blitzes me with 50 images in one 30-second
advertisement.
It is a more profound change than previous verbal stages of
communication. Television combines seeing and hearing, but with a
whole new set of dynamics which make it different from speaking
or reading.

A Visual Medium
Radio is a medium of hearing, with no visual component at all.
Print is a medium of seeing letters on the page, with no hearing.
At first glance television appears to be a return to the oral
stage of communication, because we both see and hear people
speak. It is, however, profoundly different, a new medium with
its own distinctive dynamic.
Television is primarily a visual medium. The picture and the
graphics are the heart of communication, not the words spoken. We
speak of talk shows on television, but after watching them
British writer Peter Conrad concluded:

On television, conversation has become a spectator sport ...
Television talk is not conversation but a celebration of
visibility ... Talk on television isn't meant to be listened to.
The words merely gain for us the time to look at the talker.7

Television does not lend itself to speaking more than a minute
or two. Viewers quickly tire of the sight of one speaker from one
angle. Television preachers have learned that to maintain viewer
interest as they preach, several cameras with different angles
are used, zooming in and out, and occasionally showing the
audience, the stained glass, fountains, flowers, or whatever --
in order to keep the image moving as

they speak. Politicians use 30-second spots, knowing that few
people would sit through a lengthy speech on television.
Presidential debates are broken up into tiny segments of back-
and-forth conversation, despite the foolishness of presenting a
national economic policy in three minutes!
The visual nature of television has influenced other media as
well. Magazines and newspapers carry many more pictures than they
did in the past. Compare a newspaper or magazine from 50 years
ago to those of today. They include many more pictures today than
in the past. Teachers in schools, pastors in churches, leaders in
business, campaigners in politics -- everybody pays more
attention to such things as image, logos and interest-catching
devices to keep their audiences.

Infotainment
It is easy for preachers to become cynical about the realities
of television. As a medium it is best suited for entertainment,
and the television audience tends to expect sports, education and
information to be presented in an entertaining way.8 No doubt
that same conditioning shapes their expectations of worship
services. There is also a premium on glamour, and plain people
have little chance of becoming television stars. Would Abraham
Lincoln or Charles Taft have a chance in today's presidential
election?
Information, education and entertainment are all rolled into
one medium on screen. Was Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK a
presentation of history, a documentary, an argument for one view,
an art form, or entertainment? For the most people in the
audience it was all of the above, because films blur the
distinctions. Books are suited to careful analysis and historical
examination, but screen images are not. Columnist Ellen Goodman
described the controversy about JFK as "a fuss made by a
generation that reads and writes for the minds of a generation
that watches and rewinds." Her concern was not the actual
historical argument about the assassination, but the way
electronic communication has changed all the rules of

public rhetoric. She coins a new word to describe the new
reality: "infotainment."

Those of us who are print people -- writers and readers -- are
losing ground to the visual people -- producers and viewers. The
younger generation gets its information and infotainment from
television and movies. Less information. More infotainment. The
franchise over reality is passing hands.9

It's no wonder we have become television junkies. The
statistics of television watching are staggering. The average
American today spends vastly more time in front of the television
screen than in conversation with others, or reading newspapers,
books or magazines. The average adult in America watches
television four to five hours a day, more on weekends. We spend
more total hours in front of television than on the job. In a
lifetime the average American spends the equivalent of 13 years
and four months watching television, far more time than in
working, conversing with friends and family, physical activity,
education, or reading. The only activity that outranks time spent
in front of the tube is sleeping!
The statistics among young people are even higher. By the age
of 18 the average youth has spent more time watching television
than attending school. Among children, watching television far
outranks playing or conversing with other people.
Some days our conversation shrinks to daily business items and
idle small talk. If you are living with a family, figure out how
much time you conversed with a spouse or a child yesterday and
compare it with how much time you watched television. I know only
one family and one individual who live without a television set!

A Wholistic Medium
Electronic communication is more wholistic than speech or
print alone, because it bombards our whole person. Not

only are both eyes and ears captured, but the passage penetrates
deep into our subconscious in ways we are not even aware of. It
engages not only the left (verbal, linear, reasoning) side of our
brain, but also the right side as well (spacial, impressionable,
feeling).
Television and film overwhelm our senses with an emotional
impact more immediate and powerful than speech or print alone.
The public opposition to the war in Vietnam was undoubtedly
accelerated when people saw the gruesome nature of war in their
living rooms every night. We get a feel for political candidates
by seeing them close-up on the screen. The destruction of the
rainforests becomes more graphic when we watch the giant trees
thunder to the ground. We can see and hear Luciano Pavarotti or
the King's College choirboys from our living room chairs.
Because electronic communication engages the whole person, we
have learned how integral non-verbal factors are in
communication. This is a harsh reality, especially to a political
candidate who may be homely and dull from the podium, but it is a
reality. It also means that if a pastor speaks in a stern and
angry fashion, no one in the audience will hear the message of
God's love. Communication is more complex than we have previously
thought, but understanding the wholistic nature of communication
and the importance of non-verbal factors can help us a great deal
in preaching.

An Impersonal Medium
The nature of television carries with it a huge irony: It is
an immensely powerful medium, saturating us with constant
entertainment. Yet as an electronic medium it is wholly
impersonal. Very seldom do I see anybody on television I know
personally, and the people on the screen are a long way away from
me. Even if my closest friend would appear on television in my
living room, I am only a spectator and can't talk to him. I can
peel potatoes, read a magazine or even talk to

somebody else without offending the person on the screen. I can
turn them off without irritating them. I don't have to listen at
all. Many people keep the television on just to have company in
the house, paying hardly any attention to it. Furthermore,
frequent commercial breaks condition us to shift our attention
frequently from what we're watching.
Television is the predominant means of communication in our
age, using our whole sensory range as no other medium, and yet
because we can turn it on and off at will, we are trained to
become passive listeners! Instead of producing better listeners,
television has produced an audience which doesn't listen very
well at all -- a truth pastors face every Sunday!

New Wine -- Old Skins
If television has so changed the style of communication for
our people, how then do we preach to this audience? It doesn't
work to serve the new wine of the gospel in the old skins of
yesterday's communication style.
One of the problems is that the traditional education of
pastors does not equip us to preach to a television audience.
Quite the opposite. Education aims to make us good readers and
writers, not oral communicators. Television is an oral, visual
means of communication, but college, university and theological
education is based on reading and writing. Lectures are basically
written presentations read aloud, and we write down notes while
listening. In our homework, we study our notes, read books, write
papers and then take written tests. Except for occasional class
discussions, communication in higher education is done through
print. In today's schools the successful teachers are those with
a long list of publications to their credit, not those who are
skillful and imaginative as lecturers and teachers.
How different that is from ancient Greece, where rhetoric --
public speaking, debate and discussion -- was at the center of
academic training! Rhetoric survived in the core curriculum

of European universities well into the Renaissance years. Today
however, classes in rhetoric can be held around a table in small
seminar rooms, if indeed they are offered at all.
Particularly since the Gutenberg revolution of mass-produced
books, orality has virtually died out of education. The advance
of educational technology has pushed oral communication even
further into the background -- with plentiful paper, modern
typewriters, computers which even correct your spelling and the
ubiquitous copy machine. The picture of a typical student today
is not the debating forum of ancient Greek academies, or even a
student speaking with a teacher, but students sitting by
themselves in front of a glowing screen typing more words a
minute than Aristophanes and Sophocles, or even Charles Dickens
and Mark Twain a century ago, could ever have imagined possible.
For centuries sermons have been carefully written essays of
sound theology and logic which were read before the congregation.
Good preachers spent a lot of time writing their sermons. Even
when preachers don't write them out in full, they are prepared
mentally as essays.
In this new age of communication skill in reading and writing
is as indispensable as ever. Good preachers still write their
sermons out. But as a form of oral communication, simply reading
a well-crafted essay doesn't work in the pulpit anymore. Maybe it
never did work as well as we would like to think!
The problem is that the standards of good writing are quite
different from the norms of oral communication or television
communication. A sermon might look splendid on paper, and it may
be a superb sermon when one reads it silently, but it may not
work at all from the pulpit. Too many fine sermons from a
theological or pastoral viewpoint fall flat from the pulpit.
It has been said that wars are lost by the army which is still
using the weapons of the previous war and won by the army which
has figured out the next stage of new weapons. In the 1990s we
are preaching to this television audience, but

our sermons are crafted more for the reading audience of the
1890s. Richard Jensen speaks of the failure of "literate"
churches to adapt to the new "post-literate" media age:

I believe the root of the crisis in the church is its failure to
recognize and adapt to the quickly dawning world of electronic
communication ... As the media changes, and as people are changed
by the media, preaching must undergo significant change in order
to communicate effectively.10

We preachers may be working hard, but with the wrong medium.

The Rhetorical Challenge
On Sunday morning we find ourselves standing in front of
people whose main form of communication is to watch electronic
images on a screen. They are hungry for the good news of the
gospel, but often it is not getting through to them. The heart of
our ministry is communication, but we have ignored this massive
change in communication media and continue to preach much the
same way preachers have for centuries. It isn't working anymore.
No wonder we're frustrated!
We have assumed that the basic task of preaching is sound
theology. This is of course true, but today the rhetorical
challenge is as important as the theological.
Must we capitulate to television and make our worship services
as zippy as Sesame Street and our sermons as entertaining as a
Jay Leno monologue? Can preaching be saved only by gimmickry? Is
the age of preaching gone for good?
Not at all! There is now, and never will be, no substitute for
the spoken word of preaching. To sell out to this new medium age
and deliver sermons as frothy after-breakfast entertainment would
be a shabby response to the magnificent calling of gospel
preaching.

In spite of all the electronic wizardry of television, words
are still what makes us human. The Christian Gospel cannot be
communicated without them. Jesus is the Word of God made
incarnate, and the good news of salvation needs words to be told.
The true treasure of the church is still "the most holy gospel of
the glory and grace of God," and it must still be spoken and
heard to be conveyed.