Robinson: I think a move away from preaching as lecture to preaching as extended conversation. A move where the preacher is talking with the congregation rather than at the congregation. I think that's healthy. It means that the preacher, though he or she is doing a monologue, it isn't monological because you've thought about these people you're talking to.

I think a second thing that's going on in preaching is that there is more self-revelation. We don't, I hope, preach our experiences, but we have to experience what we preach, or at least see how this truth intersects with our lives. It doesn't necessarily mean at all that I have a catharsis experience with the congregation to talk about my deepest strivings. But there is in the audience today -- especially the younger audiences -- a desire to know who you are personally.

In fact I'd put it the other way: I don't think you can connect with audiences under 50 unless they relate to you. I don't think today you can listen to an effective preacher six weeks and not know quite a bit about him. I think in the past -- in my growing up years -- you could listen to somebody for six years and not necessarily know anything about him. I think it's healthy, provided the preacher does not use himself as the best example or even the worst example. I want to sense that he or she has struggled with life. I also want to believe that they have won some victories.

I'm not very impressed with a preacher that stands up and basically says, "I am a loser in this area, I can't tell you anymore than I know myself." I don't want to listen to a loser. I want to listen to somebody that has struggled but has found a way through this struggle to find some equilibrium in life.

I think a third positive trend is preachers are more conscious of the need for story in their sermon. I don't mean anecdotes but this sense that a good sermon can be like a story. In the past I would go to my study, and I would come out, and I would deliver to the people what the results of my study would be. Today, there is a greater tendency to let the congregation in on your study. So it leads to induction rather than deduction, which is another trend. You sort of take the listener along on the journey with you. I think there is more of that being done, and I think it is a good trend because I think we live inductively. We have experiences, and out of the experiences we draw conclusions. Only in lectures in seminary and college or some pulpits do you get some sort of deductive arrangement where you state a proposition and then explain or prove it or apply it. That is a trend.

Certainly I see a greater emphasis of women in ministry today -- in denominations ordaining women. Even in the denominations that don't ordain women, many of them really have come to appreciate the great contribution a woman can make as she studies the scriptures. I am convinced that a woman reads the Bible differently from a man. Women as a group tend to be much more relational and ask relational questions. I think that more and more people recognize the contribution that women make and can make and genuinely appreciate what they do. Twenty years ago that was not the case.