Responding to tragedy

When a tragedy occurs, either locally or globally, the preacher has a choice to make:

1. Stick with what I've prepared - Sometimes what you've got will work for the present situation. Sometimes you stick with your prepared sermon and address the tragedy through another aspect of the service, for instance, a special time of prayer.
2. Alter what you've prepared - Maybe all your sermon needs is some alteration to be appropriate to the moment.
3. Ditch what you've got and go with something totally new - This has its challenges, especially if the tragedy occurs close to Sunday.

How do you decide what to do? I think the decision process involves listening to the Spirit and gauging how close to home this tragedy has hit. Will the people in the congregation be able to think about another topic on this Sunday or will their attention be limited to their own questions concerning this recent event? The closer the tragedy is to home, or the more prominent the tragedy is in the news, helps me determine whether or not I need to alter my sermon for the upcoming Sunday.

I have altered sermons on three occasions that I can remember: The Fort Hood shootings; The Newtown shootings; and the recent tornadoes in Moore. Three sermons out of a decade of preaching is not a lot. So this is not something I do easily. For one thing, I am not an off the cuff kind of preacher. I like to be prepared. But on occasion, I have felt the need to make a change.

In the case of the Newtown shootings I actually re-preached a sermon from the year before acknowledging that that was what I was doing. That took care of the issue of preparation. On the other two occasions, I ditched prepared sermons and preached an entirely new one. In each case, the sermons have been well-received. People are filled with questions during such times and want their pastors to say something. While we may not have any answers to their questions, we can point people towards the God who cares for them in times of great trial.

I'd love to hear from you. When have you made a last minute sermon change? What led you to make that decision? How was that change received? Is there a time you chose to stick with what you had? How did you come to that decision? What are other ways we can acknowledge a tragedy has occurred without altering our sermon?

Eugene Peterson: What pastors have that Madison Ave. doesn't

The good folks over at www.workingpreacher.org have posted several new videos.  They're worth checking out.  Here's a wonderful one from Eugene Peterson on the advantages pastors have over all the other voices that compete for our people's attention.

Lights, Camera, Action: Helping your sermons come to life

In his book, The Four Pages of the Sermon: A Guide to Biblical Preaching, (Abingdon, 1999), Paul Scott Wilson argues that preachers should envision their sermons as movie scenes in order to help bring their sermons to life.  Wilson's thesis reminded me of an interview I did with Richard Kannwischer, pastor of St. Andrews Presbyterian in Newport Beach, California.  Dr. Kannwischer said that one of the books that had most influenced his sermon preparation was The Screenwriter's Bible.  Wilson doesn't directly reference any such work, but he does provide some basic suggestions for how to transform your sentences in ways that help the congregation to visualize what you are saying.

1. Avoid adjectives and and adverbs. Wilson argues that these descriptive words actually diminish description.   Notice the difference in the examples he provides.  The sentences without adjectives or adverbs are easier to visualize.

• "The beautiful road" vs. "The road ran alongside the beach"
• "She ran quickly" vs. "She scrambled" or "Her feet pounded down the trail"

2. Avoid cliches.

3. Concentrate on a few small details to set the scene.  Think about what details you would need to shoot the scripture text or the modern illustration as a movie.  What decisions would you need to make about gestures, clothing, the age of the character, etc.?  By just adding one or two of these details, the preacher can help a scene leap off the pages of the Bible and into a listener's imagination.  

• Clothing - By briefly mentioning a small detail about a person's clothing we can not only help the congregation visualize the scene, but we also are providing information about that person's economic situation, interest, age, profession, etc.  
• Gestures/Facial Expressions - Emotions are difficult to visualize.  Gestures or facial expressions are not.  Instead of saying, "the boy was bored," one could say, "The boy slumped in his chair with boredom."
• Age - A few quick words about the color of one's hair or the state of one's skin can give a wealth of information about a person's age.

4. Stay out of characters' heads - Wilson argues that if we want people to visualize a scene, we must "stay out of the minds of the characters."  The best movies don't narrate a character's thoughts, they show you a character's actions and let you eavesdrop on their conversations.  This leaves many thoughts hidden, but that is what creates interest in the story. The listener or viewer is drawn into into the movie (or sermon) because they want to figure out what a character is thinking.  He notes that the Bible also rarely gives us a person's thoughts, but instead focuses upon their actions and a few brief quotations of dialogue.  To this day we can read, say, the story of Adam and Eve and wonder at motive as we ponder their actions.  The Bible doesn't give us thoughts, but action and dialogue.

5. Keep the camera on people and actions - Wilson doesn't want a sermon devoid of doctrine.  In fact, his  book is an attempt to get preachers to preach more doctrine in their sermons.  But, he argues, this is done best by focusing upon God as the primary actor in the story.  Instead of preaching on the caring nature of God, we ought to preach on God reaching out to those in trouble.  The action keeps us interested and informs us about doctrine.  Just saying "God is caring" is not as interesting, even if it is as accurate.

Episodic, narrative, or something else? Thomas Long explores the current state of preaching in America.

If you follow homiletic discussions, you know that over the last fifty years, narrative preaching has been the main form of preaching taught in mainline seminaries. This is primarily the result of the New Homiletic pioneered by Fred Craddock, David Buttrick, Eugene Lowry, and Henri Mitchell. The reach of their influence has extended even into evangelical circles. Haddon Robinson, by his own admission, has moved towards more narrative preaching in his sermons. In fact, I think at this point, Robinson ranks as one of the premier narrative preachers.

Within the last few years, there has been a growing consensus that narrative preaching is on the wane. There is, however, no consensus on what comes next. Here, Tom Long offers his thoughts. He touches on the advantages and disadvantages of both narrative preaching and another popular form of preaching, what he calls episodic, and what comes next. I find his critique of narrative preaching insightful. The problem is not so much with narrative preaching but with the fact that we live in a society that may no longer think in narratives. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts as well on where preaching is headed.