Fred Craddock tells of preaching a Lenten sermon on ways in which we deny Jesus. Late in the sermon he recounts an incident that took place late one night in Nashville in the early 1960s. Craddock, a student at the time, was seated in the corner of a diner. He watched many white people be seated. They were quickly served fresh food. Then a tired African-American came in, but was not given a seat. Instead, he stood in a back corner and waited a long time to be recognized.

The cook reached to the back of the grill, took an old, shriveled hamburger patty that had been sitting in the grease, and put it on a plain bun. He handed it to the man without any condiments. The black man limped outside, and sat on the curb, where the road grit thrown up by the passing ten-wheeler became the salt and pepper for the sandwich. Craddock reflected on his own silence during this incident and concluded, "I heard the cock crow."

After the service, a lawyer who appeared to be about thirty-five years old said to Professor Craddock, "What is his about a rooster crowing in Nashville in the middle of the night. I didn't know they allowed chickens inside the city limits of Nashville anymore." The lawyer was not familiar with the role of the cock in the story of Peter's denial of Jesus. Consequently, the force of the ending of Craddock's story was lost on the attorney.

This incident illustrates a revolution that is taking place with respect to the assumptions that preachers can make about the listening community. A generation ago, a preacher in a congregation in a long-established denomination could assume the listener would be familiar with the basic stories in the Bible, with fundamental Christian doctrines, and perhaps even with leading themes from the history of the denomination. Preachers could assume their congregations would understand an allusion to the crowing of the cock, or to the long journey of Abraham and Sarah, the murmuring in the wilderness, Esther's courage, the temptation of Jesus, Lydia's role in the emerging church, or the new Jerusalem. But with the spread of biblical and theological illiteracy in the late twentieth century, the preacher can no longer assume the congregation is familiar with even basic Christian information or perspectives.

In this article, we explore several arenas in which preachers need regularly to identify and assess our assumptions. Do our assumptions accurately reflect the condition of the listening community today? If not, what changes do we need to make in homiletical practice as we look toward preaching in a new millennium? We begin with assumptions concerning the congregation's familiarity with the Bible and with Christian beliefs, followed by an examination of the context and dynamics of the community. We then consider practical matters about how people receive and process the sermon. We conclude with the congregation's view of the church and the sermon.

What Do People Know about the Bible and about Christian Beliefs?