The Problem/Mystery of Preaching: Part 1—At a Crossroads

The following excerpts from the introduction of David’s new book, remedy Preaching at the Crossroads: How the World—and Our Preaching—Is Changing (December 2013), seek are used by permission of Augsburg Fortress.

Sometimes when we reach a crossroads, malady it’s obvious. Maybe it’s because we’re at an actual crossing of two paths, each marked clearly. Or maybe the either-or quality of the situation is obvious. In both cases, we know where we are, and the decision we have to make is clear.

Sometimes, however, we realize we reached a crossroads only well after we’ve made the decision and chosen a route—accepting this particular congregational call, for instance, or ending a relationship, or starting a family. Even when the decision in front of us is significant, we may not realize how completely it will alter our future.

And sometimes we suspect we’re at a crossroads but can’t tell for sure. We may feel the pressure that comes with making a momentous decision, yet be unable to identify exactly what juncture we’ve come to or the options we are called to decide between. We sense there’s no going back but can’t quite trace the path that brought us here, so we have a hard time deciphering what “back” and “forward” even mean.

Crossroads in the Pulpit

More and more preachers I talk to fall into this last category. They feel that all kinds of things are changing, but they can’t quite put their finger on precisely what. They feel they are less effective than they once were, but they aren’t sure why. They know they received good training at seminary, and often have being going back for continuing education regularly, yet have lost confidence that they know what they’re doing. And most pernicious of all, even when they preach a “really good sermon” (you know, the kind that gets way more than average “Good sermon, Pastor” comments), they’re not sure it’s what the congregation really needs anymore.

Sometimes, even when a sense of the decision in front of us becomes fairly concrete (use PowerPoint, for instance, or abandon the lectionary in favor of sermon series), we may feel as if the choices themselves are only symptoms of something much larger. As one pastor I spoke with put it, the options she is regularly offered for enlivening her preaching too often feel like gimmicks, rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic while the ship continues to take on water.

Teaching Preachers

I’ve been preaching now for nearly twenty-five years and teaching preaching for a little more than half that time, and the refrain I’ve heard from preachers from across Christian traditions and from every generation is the same: preaching is broken. This is usually followed by an earnest plea: Fix it! 

And for more than a decade, I’ve tried to do so in the classroom and the pulpit, at conferences, lectures, and workshops. Of late, however, the conclusion I’ve reached is that preaching can’t be fixed. Not because I’ve given up on preaching, mind you, but rather because I’ve become deeply suspicious of the analysis and the corresponding request. Let me try to explain.

My suspicion has two sources. The first is my familiarity with the literature on preaching. Since at least the 1960s, you see, homileticians have been responding to the charge that preaching is broken by coming up with a variety of fixes. The catalogue of diagnosed problems and prescribed solutions is almost endless:

• Problem: Preaching is too much like a dull university lecture to engage audiences that have grown up in the entertainment age. Solution: Move from didactic and deductive styles to narrative, inductive forms of preaching.
• Problem: Preaching isn’t trusted as a form of communication in an era that is suspicious of authority. Solution: Move out of the pulpit, involve people in your preparation, and take up an egalitarian style and tone.
• Problem: Preaching offers too much information in an age already swimming in data. Solution: Abandon information, and instead strive to cultivate an experience through the preaching event.
• Problem: Preachers can’t compete with the likes of David Letterman or Jimmy Fallon. Solution: Abandon the manuscript, and adopt a more conversational style of preaching.
• Problem: Preaching itself seems dated in an age where the image is everything. Solution: Put up a screen and incorporate slides and movie clips into your sermon.

And the List Goes On

At this point, I should be clear: It’s not that there haven’t been a number of helpful analyses of the challenges preachers face or a host of creative responses. I’ve incorporated many of these suggestions into my own preaching. Yet the problems with preaching persist.

Perhaps, I’ve begun to wonder, that’s because of the very nature of preaching. If we are called to proclaim good news that is not just old news or the daily news but regularly surprises and even arrests our hearers, then perhaps preachers should not be surprised by the inherent and unending challenge of doing that.

As theologian Joseph Sittler asserted a half century ago, “Of course preaching is in trouble. Whence did we ever manufacture the assumption that it was ever to be in anything but trouble” if it is to be relevant to a changing world and faithful to the troubling gospel of Jesus Christ?¹ Preaching, that is, if it is faithful to the gospel, will always be somewhat broken as it seeks to give fit testimony to the one broken upon the cross.

More than a Fix

I have a hunch, though, that there’s also something more going on. If my only suspicion of requests to fix preaching were that preaching will always be somewhat broken, I would be content with the ongoing stream of homiletical resources currently available. Indeed, I would be eager to add to them, hoping to address the particular concern I’ve identified and provide a helpful angle of vision and recommendation.

But I don’t think that’s what’s needed at this point, which brings me to my second area of concern about the decades-old pattern of identifying and analyzing the broken element of preaching and proposing a fix. This problem-solution analysis, I’ve come to believe, underestimates the scope and depth of the changes we’ve been experiencing and therefore fundamentally refuses to call into question the essential practice of preaching itself. As long as we’re trying to “fix” preaching, that is, we’ve already concluded that the basic practice and patterns of preaching we’ve employed in recent decades—and, truth be told, for centuries—are essentially sound. They don’t need to be redefined, only revised.

I’m just not sure that’s the case anymore.

1. Joseph Sittler, The Anguish of Preaching (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966; Chicago: Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 2008), 14.

Photo Credit: “crossroads“ by Nikos Roussos – CC by 2.0

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