Constant Change: Where Preaching Has Been In The Last 20 Years and Where It Is Going
Another change in preaching has been in the area of preparation. Bryan Chapell
observes, “The impact of technology and mass communication has also made preachers
question traditional approaches to preparing sermons.” Preachers have always
used materials from others in their research and preparation, but the abundance
of resources available in recent years has become both a blessing and a curse
to some.
“Recently,” says Craig Webb, who edits on-line pastoral materials for LifeWay
Christian Resources, “there has been a development where preachers have become
sermon editors rather than sermon writers. Preachers feel inadequate with so
many good resources available. In fact, the abundance and the use of those resources
becomes like an addiction replacing good preparation.”
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Access to great preaching from across America — through radio, television, and
now the Internet — has raised the expectation of the person in the pew, who
increasingly expects his own local pastor to hit a homiletical home run each
week. The people in the pew are more demanding today than ever before. Ray Pritchard
who preaches weekly at Calvary Memorial Church in Oak Park, IL attributes this
expectation to the “influence of the larger culture.” He says, “Technology brings
accessibility to tons of preachers so we all get compared to the best of the
best every week.”
At one time a faithful church member attended his or her home church fifty Sundays
a year and perhaps would hear an occasional visiting preacher or another preacher
while on vacation. Today the average church member attends that home church
about 35-40 Sundays a year. When not in their own church they can hear many
well-known preachers via television or on-line. Now, the local preacher is compared
with the slickest and the best.
Does Technology Play a Role?
Can the preacher “hit a home run” week in and week out? Sunday comes every seven
days whether the preacher is prepared or not. Can the preacher be at peak performance
each Sunday (or weekend)?
Don Sunukjian of Talbot Theological Seminary thinks so. He says, “Preaching
will always be effective if it does four things: One, it must have a biblical
substance. Two, people must track with the preacher. Three, it must be interesting.
Four, it must be relevant. Do all four and you will have good preaching. None
of the four depend on ‘whiz-bang stuff.’”
The “whiz-bang stuff” that Sunukjian is referring to is the use of technology.
If anything has changed dramatically in preaching in the last twenty years it
has been the onslaught of PowerPoint, video clips from movies punctuating sermons,
preprinted note-taking outlines — anything to hold the listener’s attention.
Pastors lament about the increasingly short attention spans of listeners who
have been shaped by a sound-bite media culture.