“I would say this more than any other thing. The more you can connect and expose yourself personally, the more the congregation listens. That doesn’t mean to stand up and say, “I’m sleeping with half the congregation,” but, “Here is my personal struggle and here is how I’m working through it.” Those messages connect much more personally and much more frequently than the authoritarian messages.
Indeed, another listener says, “I really love the sermons that are about things that we’re uncomfortable about, and the times when the ministers say, ‘You know, I just don’t get this. I just really don’t understand this, but here’s what I’ve been thinking about.’ I love it when people get up and say, ‘I’m struggling with you on this.’”
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I am surprised that when asked to tell one or two things that would energize their attentiveness, few of these listeners indicated a desire for sermons to touch them emotionally. However, calling for preachers to share their own stories is the context in which most of the listeners who speak about emotion or feeling as something they would like to receive from a sermon. In this vein one congregant says, “Our preacher draws so heavily on that person’s personal experience . . . the preacher frequently makes me cry. I think that’s because of the things the preacher is talking about.”
One would suppose that people coming to worship assume they are going to hear about God in a sermon. However, when asked to identify one or two things that would energize quite a few of the listeners in the study say they long to hear what God offers and what God wants. The following line sums up a concern from a variety of people in the 28 congregations. “I think it’s important that people know that God is there to help them and be with them and see them through these bad times.”
Another hearer addresses the preacher. “First, be real with God. You’re not here to impress me. You’re here — and this is what your job is and it’s what I look for from you — to hear God so that you can give me what God has for me, for your congregation.” Without interpreting a perspective on God, a sermon is not truly a sermon.
Another listener recommends, “Teach us about God and about how things work.” This listener wants to know how God is at work in things that happen in the world. Another listener succinctly hopes that the sermon will help the congregation to “Find God. Find yourself. Figure out where you’re at in God’s way because when you find God, you’ll find the love that it’s going to take to project everything out [the way things are supposed to be].”