Pastors face potential change in sermon styles

Maybe the pulpit is a safe-house in the worship wars.
   
In the past half century, evangelical worship has seen a lot of changes. Music styles have morphed, orders of service have flip-flopped, chalk talks have given way to PowerPoint presentations and pew Bibles and fill-in-the-blank sermon outline forms have appeared. In some cases, the lectern has disappeared, and the speaker has “dressed down.”
   
But overwhelmingly, the preacher still delivers a 20- to 30-minute uninterrupted soliloquy, most often with three points. It’s a lecture format, intended to inform and inspire.
   
However, in the postmodern-influenced emergent church — which the New York Times has called the possible “next big wave of evangelical worship” — even sermons could be changing.
   
“I don’t think we will have master orators much longer,” predicted Chris Seay, pastor of Ecclesia in Houston and a frequent commentator on postmodern culture. “Art, dance and music are new forces that will play increasingly larger roles” if the church is to be relevant to the millennials, today’s teens and young adults.
   
The postmodern person “celebrates experiences” and wants to “engage all the senses,” he explained. “They have shorter attention spans and they process information differently from earlier generations. They learn through narrative — stories — and the visual is very important.”
   
Author Brian McLaren, pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church outside Washington, D.C., agreed. “We’re facing a transition from the familiar/normal to something less formal. Songwriters and music publishers play important roles in the theological formation of a congregation — even more than the pastor. I’m pretty sure people don’t catch themselves humming the sermon during the week.”
   
Two other strong emphases in postmodern Christian worship — the desire for community and the desire for contemplation — also are apt to influence the preaching, several session leaders at Baylor University’s “Music and Worship in an Emerging Culture” symposium agreed.
   
“For a long time, church has been a place to go, but you could go and sit in the same seat for years and never know the person who sat in front of you,” said Sally Morgenthaler, author and founder of Sacramentis.com.
   
“But this generation wants to be connected, to each other and to God.”
   
Contemplation and meditation may invade the sermon. “I’m convinced that sermons need intentional silences in them,” said Hulitt Gloer, professor of preaching and Christian Scripture at Baylor’s Truett Seminary. “I need to invite people not just to listen to what I say but to what God is saying. It’s a radical idea to listen more than we speak so [the congregants] will know they are to be actively engaged.”
   
If the emergent-church model is accepted, preaching will shift from the linear style to the storyteller — like Jesus, who spoke in parables.
   
“I pretty much preach one-point sermons,” said Louie Giglio, director of Choice Resources and a popular speaker on college campuses. “My goal is to give them one image to take away that will help them live their life the rest of the week. And it’s all about story, inviting them into God’s story, telling about others who joined God’s story. They aren’t hungry for information — they hunger to know that there is a God who loves them.” (ABP)