Preaching: I sometimes get the sense that many preachers think they have one preaching style, and in reality they don't. They really are doing some different things than they think they're doing. Did you find that to be the case in your own research?
Stetzer: It's interesting—in this specific study I was referencing, 37 percent said they prefer to start their sermons with the listener's context. So the rest are going to not have said that. The reality is that as we listen to them, more than half (52 percent) of the preachers actually started their sermon with the context.
Now, I'm one who believes we want to bring people to the text; but I'm not one who believes we need to get up and say, "No donuts. No coffee. Just the Bible. Come and get it." I want to start with the text, but I want to introduce it with the context. So I think many people who start with the text like I do, I'm going to preach the Bible, not my own ideas with the Bible used as spiritual footnotes, but I still start with: "Here's why this matters." I don't have to make the Bible relevant, it already is; but I need to help people understand why this is relevant to them today.
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I think for some, they say they start with the text; but really they're starting with the context and then immediately bringing people to the text of Scripture. So they report that differently.
I think a lot of preachers also probably think they preach shorter than they actually preach!
Preaching: As you've done research on preaching and preachers, is there anything that surprised you—something that was other than what you really expected?
Stetzer: One of the things on this one that surprised me was when we studied the 450 audio sermons. I think there's a perception that everybody is projecting their messages on screens now, so in that study we listened for that. Preachers asked listeners to turn in their Bibles to the primary text they were preaching from in 37 percent of the 450 sermons. For the other verses, they asked them to turn in the Bible about 15 percent of the time.
Actually, only 6 percent refer to biblical passages displayed on the screen for the audience to read. I expected that to be higher, but I think actually more than a third, almost four in 10, actually are asking people to turn in their Bibles to such and such a text. PowerPoint's wonderful, and those projection systems are wonderful to a point; but I still think it's interesting that many of us have projection screens [while many pastors] have people open their Bibles and say, "Let's work through it."
Preaching: Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, said technology never ignites a revolution. Sometimes it contributes and helps move things along, but it's never the igniting factor. I think some churches are putting overly high expectations on technology as a resource.
