*** Sermons. I got a crate full of 'em -- mostly my own. Some are on tapes (remember them?) and in digital file. I'll give you as many as you want -- free!! Just take your pick. Not that excited? Me either -- as in I don't even want to listen to me! Makes me wonder about the value of all these sermons after all. Do we really know why we sermonize or trust so much in sermons to produce growing Christians? Some thoughts follow...
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If he is like I once was, your pastor probably spends a large amount of time preparing a sermon for delivery each week. It's likely to be high up in the job description: "must be able to 'preach' (that is, to sermonize). Each week he or she must design sermons that are engaging, biblically sound, stimulating, well-illustrated and, hopefully, applicable to the real lives of their audience. To borrow a phrase from a friend, they must somehow pump out a continous stream of "new" (if not necessarily fresh) material.
Maybe this is one reason why good sermon-givers can be well paid. Those who sermonize well may have a lot to do with attracting a bigger audience to the church -- a phenomenon known, in some circles, as "church growth".
For reasons like these, sermons tend to be delivered by pros -- or at least people who are supposed to be pros. Our job is to listen to the pros and then critique them over a ham sandwich after church is over. While listening to the 1/2 hour to hour of "preaching", we aren't supposed to think about ham sandwichs or other lunch meats, or whether the Dodgers will go all the way in the post-season, or a host of other mind-occupying distractions. We are supposed to be listening to "the word" and "the word" is supposed to have impact. This impact is measured differently in various church cultures. A "good" sermon can get people to lift their hand while "every eye is closed and every head bowed". A really good sermon will actually get people to leave their seats and come to the "altar" (i.e. front of the church where the sermonizer is standing) or to go on their knees or to otherwise become available to the "ministry time" that follows the message.
Most of you will never really understand what the sermon-deliverer (usually the pastor) goes through every week once they have left the building. They know that a room full of people just surrendered a whole bunch of their precious weekend time and attention to them. They know that either they were "on" or not-so-on that particular day and that getting people to return and keep returning requires lots of "on" days. I mean, think of what the sermonizer is up against. It is, after all, exceedingly uncommon these days for people to sit still and listen to anyone speak -- especially when the sermon or teaching may require a half hour or more to deliver. Now multiply this week after week over a number of years. Now add in the fact that your intention is to ellicit deep and enduring spiritual and practical responses in your audience. Yikes! It's easy to see why "special music", videos, dramas and other sermon-boosters are put into the mix. It's also easy to see why excellent sermonizers are like rock stars with a rare and dazzling talent.
Excellent or not, the fact is that in most of our evangelical church services the sermon is the centerpiece of the worship service as in: "come for the sermon - stay for the worship". Sermons are centered on the Bible but, even so, a lot of believers don't even bother to bring their Bibles to church. They have often been trained not to do so by the "preachers". In many cases, the pastor or speaker has presumably gone through serious effort to prepare a fine feast for their audience so that their main duty is to sit back, relax, and enjoy the fruits of the sermonizer's labor! This is why many church services are not so much "worship" services as much as they are "sermon delivery systems". The musical worship before the message is often keyed to the sermon and the follow up worship music is meant to extend the emotional and spiritual impact of the spoken message, too. Man, we put a lot of stock in sermonizing! Man, we expect a lot from these messages! So why is their "shelf life" so seemingly short?
* * * *
If he is like I once was, your pastor probably spends a large amount of time preparing a sermon for delivery each week. It's likely to be high up in the job description: "must be able to 'preach' (that is, to sermonize). Each week he or she must design sermons that are engaging, biblically sound, stimulating, well-illustrated and, hopefully, applicable to the real lives of their audience. To borrow a phrase from a friend, they must somehow pump out a continous stream of "new" (if not necessarily fresh) material.
Maybe this is one reason why good sermon-givers can be well paid. Those who sermonize well may have a lot to do with attracting a bigger audience to the church -- a phenomenon known, in some circles, as "church growth".
For reasons like these, sermons tend to be delivered by pros -- or at least people who are supposed to be pros. Our job is to listen to the pros and then critique them over a ham sandwich after church is over. While listening to the 1/2 hour to hour of "preaching", we aren't supposed to think about ham sandwichs or other lunch meats, or whether the Dodgers will go all the way in the post-season, or a host of other mind-occupying distractions. We are supposed to be listening to "the word" and "the word" is supposed to have impact. This impact is measured differently in various church cultures. A "good" sermon can get people to lift their hand while "every eye is closed and every head bowed". A really good sermon will actually get people to leave their seats and come to the "altar" (i.e. front of the church where the sermonizer is standing) or to go on their knees or to otherwise become available to the "ministry time" that follows the message.
Most of you will never really understand what the sermon-deliverer (usually the pastor) goes through every week once they have left the building. They know that a room full of people just surrendered a whole bunch of their precious weekend time and attention to them. They know that either they were "on" or not-so-on that particular day and that getting people to return and keep returning requires lots of "on" days. I mean, think of what the sermonizer is up against. It is, after all, exceedingly uncommon these days for people to sit still and listen to anyone speak -- especially when the sermon or teaching may require a half hour or more to deliver. Now multiply this week after week over a number of years. Now add in the fact that your intention is to ellicit deep and enduring spiritual and practical responses in your audience. Yikes! It's easy to see why "special music", videos, dramas and other sermon-boosters are put into the mix. It's also easy to see why excellent sermonizers are like rock stars with a rare and dazzling talent.
Excellent or not, the fact is that in most of our evangelical church services the sermon is the centerpiece of the worship service as in: "come for the sermon - stay for the worship". Sermons are centered on the Bible but, even so, a lot of believers don't even bother to bring their Bibles to church. They have often been trained not to do so by the "preachers". In many cases, the pastor or speaker has presumably gone through serious effort to prepare a fine feast for their audience so that their main duty is to sit back, relax, and enjoy the fruits of the sermonizer's labor! This is why many church services are not so much "worship" services as much as they are "sermon delivery systems". The musical worship before the message is often keyed to the sermon and the follow up worship music is meant to extend the emotional and spiritual impact of the spoken message, too. Man, we put a lot of stock in sermonizing! Man, we expect a lot from these messages! So why is their "shelf life" so seemingly short?
