Audience Analysis

When Listeners Aren’t Satisfied – 2

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Taking some prompts from Boyd-MacMillan and blending them with my own thoughts, here are a few comments to prompt our thoughts on what to do when listeners aren’t satisfied:

3. Remember that you answer to God. This is not to excuse bad preaching or oblivious ignorance of helpful critique.  This is to protect us from the unhelpful attacks that may or may not have anything to do with our preaching.  Obviously every sermon could have been better, but can you stand straight before God and give an account for the way you prepared in the time that you had?  Did you walk through the preparation by faith and do your best as a steward of the opportunity?  Our primary goal is to serve Him faithfully, not to please every nitpicker in the pew.

4. Prayerfully process feedback. This is true for praise as well as critique.  Process it prayerfully.  Ask what you can learn from it, and perhaps how you should pray for the source of it too (i.e. instead of getting all huffy about a personal attack, why not pray for the person who obviously has some deep hurt and tension within).

5. Remember that happy listeners may mean sermon failure. Our goal is not to make listeners happy with us.  Our goal is to faithfully present, explain and apply the Bible text to their lives.  What if the text convicts, or prods, or pokes, or makes downright uncomfortable? What if it shines a light in a dark place in their life and they don’t like what they see?  What if their dissatisfaction toward you and your preaching is a very positive sign of the word getting through?  Be careful not to misapply this, but sometimes knowing that listeners were offended by your preaching may be the best feedback that you are doing your job well.  Preaching is not about presenting yourself for a popularity contest (even if some churches make it feel like that!)

I don’t want to overwhelm with words, so I’ll cut it off for now . . .

When Listeners Aren’t Satisfied

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Preaching is complex. Take, for example, the matter of listener satisfaction. If they aren’t satisfied, it could be a good sign, or a bad sign. Likewise having everyone happy may mean something is wrong. So how do we navigate the issue of listener satisfaction, after all, dissatisfaction expressed is seldom water off a ducks back (for most of us). Taking some prompts from Boyd-MacMillan and blending them with my own thoughts, here are a few comments to prompt our thoughts. This is by no means a definitive list of thoughts, but it is a start:

1. Expressed dissatisfaction is often overstated. Many people find it hard to express dissatisfaction fairly. It’s as if something wells up within and then bursts forth, often with excessive force. Boyd-MacMillan says that Christians “often express criticism in apocalyptic terms.” Instead of simply stating, “I don’t like his style,” they will instead assert that “he betrayed the gospel of Jesus Christ!” It is a good skill to learn to tone down excessive criticism as well as excessive praise (“that was the best sermon I ever heard!!!” probably wasn’t).

2. Recognize that tension fired your way is often nothing to do with you or your preaching. People react to the innocent provocation of pet peeves, or the poking of raw nerves of various kinds. You may become the focus of the critique, but don’t take all critique at face value.

That’s enough for now, more to follow tomorrow. Feel free to comment from your experience and perspective.

Don’t Blame the Wrong Thing

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In his book, Explosive Preaching, Ron Boyd-MacMillan delineates two factions in a debate over the place of preaching.  On the one hand, there are those he calls the pro-sermon faction who need to wake up to the fact that their logic is often overdone.  That is to say, in their mind “preaching = sermonizing” and this does not ultimately help their side of the debate.  He marshals the evidence from Scripture to suggest that preaching in the Bible was not the common “sermonizing” of recent history.  (I would add the comment that in his survey of preaching in the Bible he fails to note the book, or perhaps better, sermon to the Hebrews.)

On the other side there is the faction he calls the anti-monolog brigade.  To this crowd he points out that “monolog = boring” is also flawed logic.  Let me quote him (p161):

Don’t go blaming monolog.  Blame boring monolog instead!  Returning home from this conference [where the avoidance of any “talking head” monolog had resulted in meaningless activity without understanding] I wrote in my journal, “I think the greatest problem facing preaching today is the fear of the monolog.”  There’s a lunatic fringe in the anti-monolog brigade that want to banish the sermon completely.  Fat chance.  The monolog will always be with us.  In large groups and even small, it is a communicational necessity.  But the effect of this scaremongering is a bunch of preachers who keep their monolog to an embarrassed minimum and fill up the minutes with film clips, skits, and roving mike questions.  The problem is this – if they are poor at the monolog, they are probably poor at other forms of communication too!  In this conference I mentinoed, one preacher introduced a series of completely banal and boring skits, but you don’t hear anyone calling for an end to drama!  He also used PowerPoint images that were completely off the point, and he had a person wandering around the audience with a roving mike s that anyone who felt led could interrupt the speaker if something wasn’t clear, but it was so staged we were squirming.  One question was, “Would you say more about the theology of the book in relation to the historical period?”  Well, amazingly, it so happened that this was his next segment of material, with PowerPoints ready to go.  A miracle?  Come on.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but I do know that monologs are not the problem.  Boring monologs are to blame!

What Is Love? Part Trois

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No reason for the French numbering of this series, just a sprinkling of creativity!  So far we’ve considered the GS, the SE, and the FC people in a congregation.  There’s one category left, according to the pastor cited in Boyd-MacMillan’s book, Explosive Preaching:

AH = Apathetic Horde. This is usually the majority of the congregation.  They know God, but they are struggling to get close to Him.  They are struggling to swim against the tide.  What is love from us?  Well, it is tempting to harangue them, to guilt-trip them, to pile on the pressure.  According to the book, it is also tempting to offer ourselves as their guide who thereby takes away their freedom and responsibility.  The advice on how to love them? “Stay winsome, and resist the impulse to be coercive.”

Okay, in my opinion the majority category deserves the best advice.  I feel this is a bit weak, although accurate as far as it goes.  The book goes on to talk about developing compassion and overcoming compassion fatigue.  How do we love the apathetic horde in the church?  Surely the aim of resisting coercion is critical, but so is the concept of winsomeness.  We need to be winsome, gracious, attractively compelling in our spirituality.  We need to preach to the heart and not just to the mind and will.  We need to preach so that people are given many opportunities to “taste and see that the Lord is good.”  We need to be faithful to the heart-message of the Bible, and not twist every text into a guilt-pressure-cooker to vent your own angst in your half-hour where people at least pretend to listen.

Loving the AH is so important, but not easy.  It costs us to love.  When we love we risk getting hurt, being rejected, seeing failure, etc.  But love we must.  We are compelled by the love of One who gave everything for us, “when we were still sinners.”  That love has spread to us and now yearns to spread through us to others . . . others who may not respond in the right way, or respond at all, for that matter.  Ministry is not about performing certain duties.  It is about serving God by loving people, it is about life-on-life investment – whether we are preaching, counselling, listening, or whatever.

(GS) + SE + FC + AH = the church where we serve … what is love to each?

What Is Love? Part Deux

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Ok, so thankfully not everyone in a church is a government spy or a sworn enemy (although it may feel like that in some churches!)  There are two other categories, according to an Eastern European Pastor quoted in Explosive Preaching, p141:

FC = Fan Club. It can be just as dangerous to accept the ego-stroking adulation of this small but vocal group.  What is love to FC members?  Love is “having the courage to challenge them on what they may not want to hear, and to jeopardize your fan-club status.”  According to the Eastern European Pastor cited in the book, the gospel will offend everyone in the church at some point, but many pastors are too concerned with maintaining the worship coming their way.  Strong stuff.  In reality this may mean querying a “darling distinctive” of your denomination, all the while seeking to maintain fidelity to the gospel message (and not just the popular bits).

I was going to give the other category too, but this is worth pondering.  Who is in your “FC?”  Have you compromised your fidelity to the message at all in order to keep them in the FC?  What situation may be brewing right now that will give you the choice of self-seeking, or gospel-serving in light of these people?  Pray for yourself in this, pray for a pastor/leader you know as well.

What Is Love?

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In Explosive Preaching, the author refers to a system he learned from an Eastern European pastor.  It is a simple categorization system used with a list of church members that helps him know how to love different people in his congregation.  Here it is in simple form, for more, see p140ff:

GS = Government Spy. Not a category most of us have to deal with, but if you do, ask yourself carefully, “what is love for a GS?”

SE = Sworn Enemy. A self-confessed leader of the “oust the pastor brigade.”  What is love for this category?  According to the pastor, “You have to love them enough to remember the reasons why they have such an excess of negativity, and reach out to them with winsomeness, not vindictiveness.”  Oh, and he added that if they win, your goal is to bring more glory to God in your going than in our staying.

The reality of such “well-intentioned dragons” is very real for many reading this post.  So I’ll leave it there for now.  If you have SE’s in your church, take some time to ponder your love for them and pray for the grace you need to reflect God’s character in such difficulties.  If you have no SE’s in your church, or you’re not a leader (i.e. target), then take a moment to pray for a pastor you know (he probably has some SE’s)!

Proxemic Considerations

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Just a little thing, but prompted by a recent experience in a church.  It was a small church, perhaps 30 people packed in to what is essentially just a room.  At the front there is the preaching platform, raised probably six to eight inches off the floor.  Then there’s me – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  Well, not quite, but I felt more than a bit Gulliver when I stood on the platform in that small room.

I felt more than a little silly on the platform.  But it’s what they are used to, I am just a visitor, what difference does it make how I feel?  Actually, that’s not the main issue, although it is a factor.  How does it make the listeners feel to have someone towering over them to preach in a tiny room?  I asked permission to stand on the floor, made a gentle joke at my own expense (to avoid any perceived rudeness toward their church furniture), and proceeded to preach from the floor.

Inasmuch as you can ever evaluate a single element within the complexity of a communication situation – it worked.  There was a relaxed, interactive and open atmosphere.  The sermon was received very well and it seemed to be one of those times when the Word of God is moving freely into the hearts of the listeners.

All that to say, consider the proxemics of preaching now and then (and probably always when in a new environment).  Is the preacher standing above the listeners, below them, or on the same level – each has an effect.  Is the preacher distant or close – each has an effect.  Are there objects between the speaker and the listeners, such as church furniture?  It has an effect.  There is a helpful introduction to this subject in Duane Litfin’s textbook on communication, if you have it sitting on your shelf.

We probably don’t need to worry ourselves too much with the technical terminology of proxemics, kinesthetic factors or even the sociofugal-sociopetal axis!  But we should be more than a little concerned with whether we are communicating in the way we intend.

Five Major Failings – Part 2

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Carrying on from yesterday’s two failings, here are the rest:

“3. Vague Phrasing – Preachers seem hardwired to eschew all vivid verbs and concrete nouns, with the result that they sound vague and uninteresting.”

A lack of energy in delivery, a lack of facial engagement, a lack of passion, a lack of effective sensory description and so on are all factors adding to the vague and uninteresting nature of much preaching.

“4. Sub-Christian Resolutions – There is not enough gospel-insight.”

This is a good observation.  If our application and resolution of the message is that we should try harder, do better, be “good-er” or whatever, then we are falling short of Christian preaching.  In my opinion we need not always force a jump to Calvary and Christ, there are times when a theocentric message need not move to the first Easter, but every message should be theocentric.  A try harder message is really anthropocentric (it’s all about us, our needs and our response).

“5. Trivial Applications – The gospel is shrunk down to an individualistic technique that we can use on a Monday, all in the name of relevance, but the grand scope of the gospel as a message that speaks for all time, to nations and tribes as well as individuals, gets lost.  I actually heard someone starting a sermon: ‘The toothpaste squirted out all over my jacket, my alarm failed to go off, and in the shower I used rubbing alcohol as shampoo.  I was having a bad day.’  This was to introduce a biblical twosome who were having a similar bad day – the Emmaus pair.  Come on!”

We do need to differentiate between trivial Monday morning applications and genuine Monday morning applications.  Too much preaching resists the trivial and replaces it with the spiritual-sounding vague applications that all affirm, but none grasp for their own lives.  I agree, let’s cut out the trivial applications, but let’s do so in a way that retains genuine relevance.

Monday Musings on Manipulation

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Thought I’d follow up on Saturday’s post by sharing a quote I appreciated in the book I will name this week:

You must not fear to have affective goals for the sermon as well as cognitive goals.  There is nothing wrong with trying to move the listener.  It is not manipulative to seek to engage their entire being with the truth.  Manipulation is when the preacher overwhelms the emotions (or the mind for that matter), and creates a disorientation that actually takes the power of will away from the listener. (p.106)

I like that definition in some ways.  I like the recognition that manipulation occurs when disorientation is prompted by overwhelming.  I like the recognition that such overwhelming can be of the emotions and also of the mind.  When this occurs, something is taken away from the listener – somehow their decision making is controlled by an outside force, rather than by the appropriately shaped motives of their own heart.

Is the will ever truly free?  Perhaps not, but the heart must be free to supply the values that the mind and will rely on to make decisions.  Supplanting the heart with emotional hype, or with overwhelming intellectual astonishment, or even excessive pressure on the will itself (guilt-trip preaching) . . . are all a problem, all can be manipulation.

As a preacher convinced that my role is to speak to the heart, and not just the head, I must regularly wrestle with the issue of manipulation.  I must ponder the interaction of the soul’s faculties.  I must spurn any rhetorical technique designed to manipulate the listener.  I must consider what is biblically, ethically, theologically appropriate as one who has the privilege of speaking the Word of God into the lives of others.

Disadvantage Us?

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Here’s a quote worth pondering, wherever you sit theologically.  It is quoted in a book that is more mainstream and liturgical in orientation than the more evangelical books I tend to quote from.  It is a quote by P.T.Forsyth in reference to the Roman Catholic church.  I’m sure this post could stir response on numerous levels, but the quote is worth considering in reference to our preaching:

The Catholic form of worship will always have a vast advantage over ours so long as people come away from its central act with the sense of something done in the spirit-world, while they leave ours with the sense only of something said to this present world.

In many churches we might beg to differ that something is really said to “this present world” either.  But the point is intriguing.  Are we so connected and “relevant” that there is nothing heavenly, spiritual, special, involved in church? For those of us committed to the centrality of the spoken word in worship, perhaps we need to prayerfully ponder what this might mean for us.

The book, more liturgical in its orientation, points to another conclusion that could be drawn – some seek to separate words and action.  They say, in effect, that the “Eucharist” can do the talking, so don’t bother preaching.  “Some clergy are scared to preach.  They  play up the liturgy as a way of hiding from the people.  A sermon is the best barometer of the spiritual life of the minister.  Some fear that it is too accurate an instrument.”  (Book title and author coming in the next few days…oh the intrigue!)

Words and actions do not fight each other.  They go together in worship.  Whatever label you use, Jesus did give a symbolic act and request that it be done in remembrance of Him.  He also explained it.  With words.  I think it is David Wenham who refers to communion and baptism as enacted parables.  We must follow the instructions of Jesus, and the example too.  He came to preach.  He sent His followers out to preach.  Let’s not hide from preaching behind an excuse of some viable and even biblical “alternative.”  But let us also consider how our preaching might be more than a mere “this world” presentation.  It needs to be that, and so much more besides.