Ditch That Sermon

I'm a little behind in my blog reading and so I almost missed the interesting conversation sparked by The Lutheran Zephyr a week or so ago. He preached his first ever paperless sermon - after an excruciating preparation process - and reported that: 

"...this was an awesome experience, and I will definitely preach without a manuscript (but with some simple notes) for my next few sermons.  The personal connection that I felt - and that others reported feeling - and the more natural delivery style seem to help me in the task of conveying the Gospel.  Conveying the Gospel - isn't that the point of this whole preaching enterprise in the first place?"

Comments ranged from encouraging attaboy!'s to nervous "well i'm not sure that's for me" to one fellow who actually said he doesn't take paperless preachers as seriously as those who read from a neatly prepared manuscript. I have a more radical thought, yet. 

The sermon as we know it - with or without paper - is dead.

And, well, if it isn't quite dead yet, then it oughtta be. It's time to begin the painful process of pulling the plug. It has outlived its usefulness. In fact, it has become a burden and a hindrance to a church - a people called into mission - who struggle to find our voice. 

Think: How can we find our voice, my friends, if the only one who ever practices using his (or hers) is the pastor/preacher? 

Jesus preached a few what might be called "sermons," I guess, although this was not his best work. Mostly Jesus DID stuff. When he did have something to say it was most often in the form of a question. And not the kind of question meant to shut down conversation, either. The kind of question meant to begin one. 

Paul is found scolding his friends in Corinth about the way they were acting when they came together for worship. When you get together, he said, you are an embarrassment! Everyone is talking at the same time. Stop that! Instead, take turns. Somebody read something. Somebody offer a prayer. Somebody give a prophecy. Somebody else, explain what it meant if you can! Be sure everyone has a chance to talk, he said, in good order. 

In the story of that earliest church, as we find it told in the Book of Acts, you hardly ever see Jesus' followers gathered for "worship" at all. They're being met by God out on the road, in the streets of Athens, by the lakeshore, in the homes of strangers, in jail. They can't wait to get back together, of course, to tell everyone what they have seen God doing. They can't wait to tell each other the good news. They can't wait, in other words, to share the Gospel with one another.

Where in the world did we ever get the idea that conveying the Gospel ought to be the job of one highly trained, intensely prepared, over-burdened, nervous as hell pastor/preacher? When did we get the bright idea that OUR job is to just show up and LISTEN to him/her...only to spend our Sunday brunch time sitting on our lazy butts critiquing what was said and how it was said and whining about how great it was when Pastor So-And-So before him/her was in the pulpit, remember how amazing HIS sermons were? 

There is something fundamentally WRONG about all this.

When the Christian community gathers, it oughtta be for the sake of sharing the good news with each other: You will never BELIEVE what I saw God do THIS week!!! Jesus is alive, you know. I've seen him with my own eyes! And, boy, does he have some work for us to do.

I believe our seminaries need to start helping our leaders learn how to get us to do THAT. Stop teaching them to "preach." Our leaders need to learn 1) how to teach people to be on the lookout for God - in the Biblical story and on the loose in the world, 2) how to tell their stories with purpose and passion, 3) how to create safe space, when we gather, to share our stories with each other so that we learn how to share them with our neighbors.

I'm not saying there aren't "good" preachers out there. I'm not saying that once in awhile we don't hear something that moves us and even changes us in a traditional "sermon." But this simply isn't enough. Not today. Maybe it never was. But definitely not today.

The church - people called into God's loving mission to bless and save and reconcile and heal and set free the whole creation - needs to find its voice.

The "sermon" as we know it is in the way.

Ditch it.

Comments

[Tom in Ontario]

Nuh-uh.

"how to teach people to be on the lookout for God - in the Biblical story and on the loose in the world." That happens in the sermon.

The Book of Acts?
Acts 2 - Peter preaches in the street
Acts 3 - Peter preaches in the temple
Acts 4 - Peter preaches to the council
Acts 7 - Stephen preaches to the council
Acts 8 - Philip preaches in Samaria and to the Ethiopian Eunuch
Acts 9 - Saul preaches in Damascus
Acts 10 - Peter preaches to preaches to Cornelius and other Gentiles
Acts 13 - Barnabas and Saul preach in Cyprus and Antioch in Pisidia

Do I have to go on?

The sermon is not dead. Maybe it has to be revived in some (a lot?) of places because the way a lot of us preach there's not much life in our sermons. God speaks to us in scripture AND preaching. The word of God is proclaimed within and by the gathered assembly. Preaching brings God's word of law and gospel into our time and place to awaken and nourish faith.

We come together in worship to hear God speak to us and to be fed with the presence of Jesus Christ so that we're equipped to go out and be a part of what God is doing in the whole world.

Is the pastor the only one who can or should preach? No. Are lay people willing to participate in that too? Not many and not often in my experience. Can that, and should that change? I hope so. Is the sermon dead? No way!

KELLY'S RESPONSE:

Not a single "preaching" story you list from Acts is about a sermon as we know it - these followers of Jesus are testifying to those who haven't heard the story and/or for whatever reason haven't been able to let the story embrace them yet. They're not on the "inside" talking "at" other Christians. You've actually helped me make my point!

The way I read the Biblical witness, the way we "do" preaching today would be totally foreign - and probably repugnant - to those earliest Christians. For starters, it's a total cop out. The one person in the room who is allowed to "preach" gets to talk to a bunch of people who have already heard the story - and the rest of us get let off the hook. No wonder our pastors are burning out and our laity is mute. No wonder.

And no thanks.

[Alex]

Wow! Now those are some GREAT things to think about! Thank you!

[Mark]

Ok, you got my attention. What does "an hour on Sunday" look like when the sermon as we know it is ditched. Paint the picture ... help me to see it.

KELLY'S RESPONSE:

:)

Well, I really like the picture Paul paints in 1 Corinthians. Everybody's all in. How about, just for starters, if instead of talking "at" people we pastor-types got better, simply, at asking good questions...and then created time and space and a tone that got people actually talking with each other about stuff.

This past Sunday in my little faith community, for example, somebody read four of the most annoying things Jesus ever said (out of Matthew 5) - after each one we just sat there in silence for a few minutes and tried to listen for what God was saying to us. After all four passages were read, I got up and said, "So, what are you hearing? What are you thinking or wondering? If Jesus was standing here, what would you want to say to him? What would you want to ask him?" An amazing conversation got started.

People confessed how hard it is to do what Jesus asks. They taught each other about the context Jesus was living in - somebody new in the group happens to have a Jewish son-in-law and he gave us a little insight into Mosaic law. At least one of us admitted thinking Jesus was unreasonable and maybe even a little too contextually bound to be very helpful today. I added some stuff that I had prepared ahead of time about how Jesus was answering the big question of his day (what do i have to do to be righteous before God) with this: "You're asking the wrong question." And about how the BIG thing Jesus cares about isn't whether or not we're morally upright (Jesus wasn't a particularly "moral" person, according to the standards of his age); rather, Jesus' big concern is are loving & serving our neighbor, are we putting the needs of "the other" - even our enemies - ahead of our own. I shared this not because I thought it was the one and only way to interpret these annoying passages but because it's what I was hearing from God. And I tried to share it in a way that didn't end the conversation but only deepened it.

I don't remember whether anybody said anything that wouldn't pass muster on a seminary approval essay - probably. But the "truth" we heard didn't just come from one of us. We didn't expect it to. By the grace of God and through the power of the Holy Spirit, it emerged from within the community in conversation.

Most mainliners would probably be able to at least recognize the rest of the worship service this past Sunday. We sang and prayed and shared the Lord's Supper and took up an offering and sang some more. But, more and more, we're trying to figure out how to allow even these bits to emerge from within the hearts and imaginations and passions of the people God is gathering.

This is the little experiment I'm a part of. It isn't by any means meant to be a model for anybody else.

What do YOU think that one hour might look like??

[Steve]

You've given us all some tasty meat to chew on. While on vacation I heard two sermons where the pastor invited us to finish the sermon for her. In one case, we shared conversation with the three people seated around us. In the other case we actually had to get up and move around the sanctuary. I believe both were effective in that they strengthened my faith and witness in the world.

Is the sermon dead? In some cases the pastor is dead because he/she has not listened for God or looked for where God is at work in the world. The result is a word (from God or ???) that is not a living word and does not bring either life or transformation or witness to the people of God.

Each week we end worship with the words, "Go in peace, serve the Lord" and then go and drink coffee with one another. The challenge, as Kelly makes, is getting us off our duffs and out into the world where God is at work, and where we also can be involved doing God's work with our hands.

[Pastor Janee]

I've never personally worshiped in a Friends Church, but maybe there's something to learn from the Quakers about this way of worship you're suggesting Kelly. In that tradition, everyone, not just a pastor/preacher, sits down with the texts during the week and gets to know them. It would mean our people would have to reclaim a great deal of that which had previously been placed on the shoulders of the "professionals." I think I could live with that.

[Chris]

Thanks for this post! I'm in the midst of VBS and sermon prep, and perhaps I'll have more intelligible thoughts to share later, but . . .

In general, I'm less a fan of ditching the way we do church and more a fan of doing it better and more faithfully. Cliche? Perhaps. But a good sermon, a good selection of hymns, a well-led liturgy, a good balance of social, service, and study opportunities . . . these things will go a long way toward doing and being church in faithful and meaningful ways. I've seen it done. There are churches out there who do "traditional" ministry well, who are authentic about who they are and whose they are and what they are about, and they are growing.

I'm less convinced that we need to radically change the way we do church and more convinced we need to do it much better than we currently are.

OK, back to VBS planning . . . and then sermon writing ;-)

KELLY'S RESPONSE:

Chris, I wish I could agree. And in some parts of the country what you say is maybe true. Because in some parts of the country we're only feeling the TREMORS of the enormous cultural shift that has happened. But where I live there is no missing the all out shift that has taken place around and underneath us. Tweaking the way we do church just won't cut it. Not in my neighborhood.

[paul lutz]

Kelly,
As you are well aware suggesting that good church folks "ditch" anything that is presently an aspect of their traditional Christian worship experience is bound to generate resistance regardless of what the item is. So, one must read your post as an exaggeration to make a point. I like that approach. But it does demand a lot of filling in if the point is to have any life outside the post. I want it to. So let me jump in here with a few clarify comments.
You seem to attack the sermon because it doesn’t help the entire assembly “find its voice”, that it makes worshippers lazy and passive. I agree that we could do more to nurture “members” in learning, developing, and speaking the Gospel in their daily lives. But is that the (sole, primary) purpose of worship? You seem to be attacking the consequences of (some) worship without examining the intention of worship. And could one not argue that the liturgy is our voice, at least some of our language and some of our evangelism?
I have come to appreciate small group ministry, congregational ministry teams and act of services as the primary place today’s disciples can find their voice. I have found it helpful to “point to” those responses in preaching. I have also found small group lectionary conversations extremely beneficial for both the preacher and the “listener” to help form the language of the sermon and the faith language of the small group participant. (Sometimes we bring those conversations into worship as "the sermon".) That is, other than sermons simply being a deterrent to worshipper finding a voice it has been an example, a model of one voice that has encouraged other to “try out” their voice in conveying the gospel. In addition, we regularly invited “others” into the pulpit to preach. In fact, I “gave up” preaching for Lent last year.
So, while I agree that some preaching may have unintended consequences – suggesting that only one person can speak the gospel, etc.,, I not certain getting rid of it would bring about the changes you seek. Rather, I’d like to see us “use” worship and preaching to accomplish those changes. That is, worship and preaching can be (is) one place we “1) teach people to be on the lookout for God - in the Biblical story and on the loose in the world, 2) teach them how to tell their stories with purpose and passion, 3) be a safe space, when we gather, to share our stories with each other so that we learn how to share them with our neighbors.” There are other places and time necessary as well to make this happen. Preaching can be a positive contributor to the cause, however.
Thanks for the conversation. Keep up the good and challenging work.
Peace,
pl

KELLY'S RESPONSE:

Hi Paul - thanks for your good effort to make my provocation both palatable and practical! (Try saying that 5 times really fast.) As my friend, I suspect you are motivated at least a little bit by the urge to save me from myself. Thank-you! Unfortunately, I'm probably going to undo your good work.

Am I exaggerating to make a point? Maybe a little. But I do mean a LITTLE. I really do think we've got a problem and I think some of it, anyway, is tied to our understanding of worship and the way we "do" church together and the Christendom era clericalism that undergirds it all (cf. http://reclaimingthefword.typepad.com/reclaiming_the_f_word/getting_worship_right.html and http://reclaimingthefword.typepad.com/reclaiming_the_f_word/2007/12/heres-my-new-ru.html).

Just for fun, try asking the standard postmodern, deconstructing question about any and all of the things that characterize the way we do church today: Who is benefiting from doing things the way we're doing them?

We have built a whole system of paychecks and pension plans and constitutional authority and academic credentialing and endowment funds and even scriptural interpretation, etc. on the way we have been "doing" church. That, in and of itself, ought to make us at least a little suspicious about the way things are being done. But even more importantly, if we're really serious about faithfully participating in God's mission and following wherever Jesus is leading, we need to be ready, at a moment's notice, to drop everything and let the Spirit take us - out onto the wilderness road, into the home of a Gentile soldier, or even (gasp) into a brand new/old way of gathering for "worship."

Partly I poke as hard as I do to help pry our hands off the steering wheel; God oughtta be driving this boat.

Here's what I'm calling for: Let's make God's mission to bless, save, reconcile, set free the world the most important thing in our every conversation, every decision, every plan, every everything. For all kinds of reasons, it too rarely is.

[vesparev]

Our faith community is also small but a mix of people wanting traditional and "contemporary" worship. The problem I have is that contemporary is defined differently by each person.

I do agree church needs to be done different to be relevant to our culture today. What I have found is that quick change doesn't happen - it only causes people to leave, which greatly effects this financially struggling congregation.

I have found that they are willing to change when we talk and teach and grow into the change. While I have a strong desire to be relevant and to reach those unchurched, I also respect those who have been faithful in the only way the know - the way the church has taught them. What that looks like in the way of the sermon - I am gradually introducing interactive parts like giving them a response during the sermon (Lutherans have a hard time being free enough to make up their own). Last Sunday we provided a variety of coffee cups/mugs, potting soil, grass seed and asked each person as they entered to plant the seed and place it on the window sills in the sanctuary to see what grows during the next weeks as we focus on the theme of growth. They loved it! The diversity of the cups and the worry some expressed that their's wouldn't grow made for great sermon and children's sermon material. And their level of participation in the rest of the service is energized.

It's slow going.

[Tom in Ontario]

I'm not convinced yet. Acts doesn't depict the sermon as we know it? Says you. Not everyone in the pews is a cradle Christian. And sometimes those of us who are just need to be reminded from time to time, even from week to week, just what the Good News is.

I'm not clutching onto the sermon in its current form for my own sake. I believe that proclamation in some sermonic form still has a place in the church.

There's a lot in the church that can use reforming but I don't think we have to throw everything out and rebuild something from scratch. Faith comes through hearing the gospel and that doesn't happen once and for all time. And I didn't say that the pastor is the only one qualified to preach. I'll also grant that it can take various forms. Some funky conversations taking place after reading "the four most annoying things Jesus said"? I'm guessing that people would get awful tired of that happening week after week just like you're tired of the talking-expert-as-sermon.

[PS]

The people at the Lutheran Church I attend would say that we have traditional worship. We have a pastor who preaches well, does the liturgy well, prays well, reads the scripture well, etc. But it is a rare Sunday on which she does more than the sermon herself. Lay people do most of the rest on most Sundays. Sometimes the lay people preach. Many of them. This is a church in a tiny (pop 605) rural town. About 125 - 180 attend each week. We also have a pianist who plays the music like she means it. And we use music from many traditions, although not the real pop-stuff, but contemporary hymns from contemporary hymn writers.

I've attended elsewhere where it really didn't matter who was in the pew because the pastor did his thing, liturgy, preach, pray, etc. but there was no ministry. That is when rote liturgy is at its worst.

[k]

Isn't it all about context? Context, context, context?

To proclaim that the "sermon-as-we-know-it" is flat out wrong all the time is just as arrogant as those who say we can do nothing more than the "sermon-as-we-know-it." God's word is a living and vibrant contextual word that is transformative in the lives of those who hear it - where they are. Jesus didn't call people to come out to him but rather went to where they were. Some contexts the "sermon-as-we-know-it" is exactly what is called for, and some contexts are not applicable.

It is about listening and discerning God's will and word for the people and the context.

[Craig Endicott]

I agree with both sides of this. That is, ditching the sermon is a great idea. It works well in small groups... not so well when there are a few hundred people at worship. And, for many of the faithful, ditching the sermon would be too scary. For many of the uninitiated (newbies) it is possible to completely miss the point of texts because American Civil Religion has poisoned the hermeneutic: Easter is all-important, the cross is simply a detail of the lead-up. So, how about if we "preachers" use our colleague groups and demographic analysis to anticipate the questions and comments a text might elicit? And :-) maybe have a blog available to our congregations to have the conversation Kelly suggests "out in the world."

[Kristin]

I had always thought that discussion would be too hard in a full sanctuary. Too many people. Too much noise. Too much chaos." For our 'Women's Day of Prayer' service this year, instead of a sermon, we did a skit and then formed groups to discuss some related questions and thoughts. But, that was a small group.
But, this Sunday, we tried some discussion, as part of the sermon. People loved it. I preached for a little while and then said, "I am going to stop preaching now, and let you preach and share with each other..." 2 simple questions for discussion were included in the bulletin.
I thought everyone would just stare at me blankly, 'what you want us to talk, to share our faith? to move?' But they jumped right in, people were so eager to share. (except for a fearful few) It was amazing! There was so much positive feedback and people were quite energized.
It was a bit scary to "lose control", but when are we ever in control in worship? Worship is not about control or perfect order. Thank you for your encouragement to get over my anxiety and to try something new and stretching.
I'm currently on seminary internship in Norway, homeland of the frozen chosen. If they can do this, its possible for just about anyone!

[Kevin Powell]

Kelly,

I've thought much about this as well. And I'm quite sympathetic to getting back to early church practices.

But I think what Paul what talking about was descriptive rather than prescriptive. Because Paul's churches worshiped in small house churches doesn't necessarily mean that that's the WAY that we, 2000 years later are to be worshiping.

I think the Holy Spirit is active in history, even church history. And the sermon - the word proclaimed - was an important feature of the church's mode of gospel delivery.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the HS is changing the way we're to proclaim the gospel today. I think there's room for a multiplicity of proclamation forms. Small groups AND sermons.

Thanks for an excellent blog!

kgp