New Times - May 2012 - Uniting Church in Australia

n e w s
What’s it like to listen?
It seems how to put together a good
sermon is still up for much debate.
With recent Letters to the Editor
highlighting some parishioners’
dissatisfaction with their sermon
fare, Rev Tony Eldridge has stepped
in to open the conversation up to
new opportunities over the next few
months in New Times.
Listening to a sermon can have our spirit
soaring, stretching, consoling or sleeping.
A few principles are important when
engaging the listener.
Firstly – and it seems obvious –
preaching is an oral event, mouth to ear.
With this being the case, the preacher
needs to keep firmly in mind the question
of ‘what does the listener need to help
hear this sermon?’
As an oral event the sermon material
needs to be engaging and connect with
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the listener. Sermons that are crafted like
an essay will sound like an essay. The
sermon may have rich, fulsome content
but we run the risk of the listener tuning
out. Having good input is not enough. We
must also take some hints from rhetoric
and storytelling such as: disciplined
use of repetition, alliteration, climax,
metaphor and the like.
Voice plays a huge part in how a
sermon is heard, with changes in pitch,
pace, volume and dramatic pauses
aiding specific points and illustrations
to stand out from surrounding material.
An underlying principle is not only what
the preacher wants to say but what the
person in the pew needs to help them
hear.
Choice is an important feature of
sermon preparation. Sometimes we need
to make tough decisions to leave things
out rather than put in all our thoughts
and research. The decision of whether
certain illustrations, points, verses,
images etc serve the sermon and the
listener better than others is an important
and often difficult choice.
Coming back to a clear and concise
purpose and intent, along with being
aware of the congregation and its context,
can help at this point. The context cannot
be underestimated. The age range,
historical factors of the congregation,
dominant theological disposition, sociodemographic
considerations to name a
few, all shape the choices we make in the
construction of our sermons.
Breaking down theologically dense
words and phrases is critical. We are
helped in our preaching if we remember
that the brain needs five to seven seconds
to hear and register a word and begin to
process it. Therefore, three or four big
words in a sentence runs the risk of being
lost for the listener hears the first and,
while processing that, loses the next. The
same is true for complicated phrases.
There is a balancing act in place as
the preacher wants the listener to feel
something. Being sensitive to God,
the scripture text and the needs of the
congregation can enable a significant
‘God-moment’ for the congregation. The
balance is tipped when emotional input
and illustrations are overused leaving
the listener or congregation feeling
manipulated and potentially tuning out.
Just because the listener is emotional
does not necessarily mean it has been a
helpful ‘God-moment’.
It is a privileged and challenging task
to step into the sermon space. The
preacher puts a lot of work into sermon
preparation and desires the congregation
to experience the Word in engaging ways.
Making a sermon accessible is about how
the listener hears, and there is more to
hearing than just listening.
Rev Tony Eldridge is a member of the
Adjunct Faculty of Uniting College for
Leadership & Theology as the Lecturer in
Worship & Preaching. He is currently the
Minister at Westbourne Park Uniting Church.