Many pastors, Rev. Dr. Derek Weber says, were not equipped to preach a sermon in the 2020s.
“Most of us were trained in seminary or course of study to write an essay, in a sense, that people would contemplate and consider,” says Weber, director of preaching ministries for Discipleship Ministries. “We weren’t trained for the communication environment in which we live, which is looking for the dialogue, for the involvement, for the investment and all that. People are listening differently and are listening for different things.”
Weber is bringing his perspective to Hey Preacher: Rethinking Preaching for a Greater Impact for four sessions in the Great Plains Conference, Sept. 27 and 29 at Hastings Grace UMC, and Nov. 1 and 3 at Salina Trinity UMC. There are separate sessions for clergy preachers (Mondays) and laity preachers (Saturdays), but each are invited to the other sessions.
Hey Preacher is a project funded by the Lilly Endowment in its compelling preaching initiative.
Likewise, he said, preachers are not equipped to deliver their sermons in the information age.
“One of the realities is that a preacher can make a statement and a person in the pew can Google it to ask if it’s true or not. You can’t just make up stuff and expect it to pass by. People have a lot more agency in the communication or want more agency than they’re having,” he said.
But from Jesus’ time until now, Weber said, a good narrative can capture a congregation.
“The other reality is that people still like to listen to stories, to someone who can capture their attention and follow it along,” he said. “The preacher needs to think in terms of narratives, not only in terms of telling stories but having a plot. Where are we going with this? What’s happening in the sermon? Are we taking somebody somewhere? Is the language visual enough so people can see what we’re saying as well as hear what we’re saying?”
Weber has taught course of study in his home conference of Indiana for more than 20 years.
“One of the biggest observations in my experience in watching preachers is that there’s a disconnect between the preacher and what he or she has done in preparation for the preaching moment and the congregation in the pew,” he said. “One of the things we emphasize in the Hey Preacher project is presence, being aligned to the moment when you’re preaching. That impacts a lot of things both in what we do and how we do it. To give the congregation the sense that you’re with them when you preach to them, not bringing a word from somewhere on the outside but being a part of the process that’s right there in front of you.”
The message, Weber says, shouldn’t be confined to the 10, 20 or 30 minutes of a sermon.
“We talk about preaching as being a dialogue, and sometimes that dialogue takes place during the preaching moment, but for a lot of preachers it takes place beyond the preaching moment,” he said. “It’s asking questions ahead of time and then responding to those questions in the preaching moment, so the hearers hear themselves, the things they have said or the questions they have asked in the preaching moment, and then provides an opportunity for a response.”
Congregations are living in the age of interaction with communications, Weber said.
“We don’t just want to receive something, we want to respond, we want to comment,” he said. “So how can we create space for response, either in the preaching moment or in a preaching-talkback session or continue conversation through social media or something like that to carry on the conversation?”
The pandemic changed the methods for preaching, he said.
“As we were coming out of COVID, we had a lot of conversations with preachers and discovered they were wrestling with people who were saying, ‘We kind of liked this sitting at home, watching church,’” he said. “Something was missed, I think, in terms of the presence and the connection and the community that was there. But I understand that.
“Discerning what congregations were telling preachers, they wanted a little more control over how much they listened and how connected they were,” Weber continued. “Again it comes back to the response – how do we listen to the congregation and give them voice in the midst of that. COVID kind of exasperated that by giving people the control button. They had the off button, and they could be doing six things at one time, so they weren’t as focused.”
Preachers need to learn to be more presentational, he said.
“We’re not performers per se, but the performance aspect is vitally important for preachers to pay attention to,” Weber said. “People go for an experience more than they go for an education. What am I experiencing in the preaching moment? Is it going to my head and my heart and my guts all the way through this?”
The Hey Preacher workshops include a session on the future of preaching, he said.
“Preachers have to understand preaching to be the church’s job and not just the preacher’s job. It’s back to this idea we’re all engaged in this,” he said. “Particularly in this day and age, truth-telling is vitally important, even when that’s challenging, even if it’s hard to hear. Telling the truth and understanding the Gospel, it’s reminding the radical message of Jesus Christ, which is to live differently and stand apart. And to have certain values in that.”
Rev. Richard Fitzgerald, circuit pastor for the Great Plains Conference, heard Weber both preach — given a last-minute notice — and give a variation of his Hey Preacher workshop at the School of Congregational Discipleship last year.
“He’s one of the best preachers I’ve ever heard,” Fitzgerald said, saying Weber had an “undefinable quality” and was “witty with a punch,” as well as being engaging and relevant.
“The way he preached made you feel like you’d known him for years, almost like he knew you personally,” Fitzgerald said. “There was a connection there that I had never experienced with a preacher — and I’m pretty cynical about most preachers.”
Weber said one of the top duties of a good preacher is challenging a church that doesn’t want to change the status quo rather than Jesus, who would always change the status quo.
“They’re losing trust and faith in the institution as a whole, regardless of how good the individual preacher may or may not be. But they’re beginning to say, ‘Why do I spend my time here when I’m not challenged to live differently and not being called to stand up for what is right and what is good and what is transformative in our society?’” he said. “We’ve gotten away from saying faith is what happens in your head. It’s a whole-life thing.”
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