The End of the Sunday Sermon
Antoine at MMM asks, “How Do Faith-Based Organizations Respond to Increasingly Mobile-Connected Members and Communities?” His question echoes a central dynamic shaping not just religion, but all social organization going forward.
How do faith-based organizations respond to virtuality? The hardest part may be convincing the community that there’s a good reason to sit and stare at a stage, listening to a religious lecture. The virtually-connected church now has on-line access to the finest teaching imaginable, accessible at their convenience, 7 x 24 x 365. Of what value is physically proximate information (e.g., stage-centric pastor) when the average person can now access the best sermons, preaching, teaching, and cross-referenced commentary on-line?
Finding better information elsewhere, the virtually-connected community will restructure their physical gatherings to really connect and be present with each other – like they do on-line all week long. When this happens, pastors can step off the stage and be released to really pastor. Gifted teachers (who may or may not have pastoral gifts) can teach in smaller groups where true interactivity can take place. Intimate, organic F2F gathering becomes the central focus, not a mid-week breakout session.
I listen to great theological discourses (recently Tozer, Yancey, Peterson, Fr. Rohr) via my Blackberry at the gym or on my morning walk or driving in my truck. Why would I spend my time sitting passively in an audience to hear a comparatively mediocre religious talk?
We all have something to contribute, together. A virtuality-connected community (which is everyone in my son’s generation) will increasingly mimic their on-line engagement in F2F gatherings. I believe this signals the end of the monologue church era. “Church” is redefined, in part, from a place of one-way information transfer to a distributed, interactive gathering which fosters authentic collaboration – in many ways mirroring the multi-way virtual experience.
Is it the end of the Sunday Sermon? No. Not in my lifetime, nor in my son’s lifetime, nor perhaps anytime. And certainly there is a place for the stage. But generational changes in social networking assure that a profound shift is underway. And this gives me great hope for a virtual reformation in the way we live and connect as a glocal spiritual community.
ADDED: thanks to Scot McKnight for reprinting this post.
July 13th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
OMGosh where did you find the “French Pulpit” engraving??
cl
July 13th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
john: i find that i hammer out the more difficult issues on my blog, and i leave sunday morning (yes, we still do that) for more face to face kind of interaction. good post.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
“I listen to the world’s finest theological discourses via my Blackberry while I workout at the gym or on my morning walk or driving in my truck. Why would I spend my time sitting in an audience every Sunday to hear a comparatively mediocre religious talk?”
This is a highly individualistic and consumerist attitude. Is it really our job to consume information in the most efficient manner possible, where we maximize the quality while minimizing our own effort to receive it?
I don’t want to give the impression that I am against listening to great sermons on your blackberry. I just want to point out that there can be a lot of purpose and beauty around the activity of a Sunday morning sermon that isn’t connected to efficient transfer of information.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
MT, seeking out good information (of any type) is admittedly a form of consumerism. I plead guilty. But I wonder if sitting passively in an audience, facing forward, listening to a religious lecture is any less “consumeristic” than seeking out far better inspiration on-line?
Pastors as the center of gravity during our physical gatherings doesn’t strike me as a particularly NT idea. It seems more of a 3c Constantinian model where the “clergy” took the stage and the “lay” sit in chairs facing the stage. Personally, I think there is a far deeper sense of “purpose and beauty” when people gather together to really be together (think interactivity, chairs in a circle), not simply consumers of stage-centric presentations (passive, chairs facing forward).
Is there a place for the stage? Sure, but I think, by and large, we’ve inherited a deeply flawed model.
July 13th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
David (NP), thanks for your comment. You are constantly wrestling with these lay / clergy, stage / flattened, individual / collective, leadership / servantship dynamics. Very healthy, and in some ways an inspiration for this post.
July 19th, 2009 at 10:58 am
[...] John La Grou contemplates The End of the Sunday Sermon [...]
July 27th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
[...] John La Grou asks, [...]
July 27th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
i wrote this post (http://www.nathancolquhoun.com/blog/index.php/2009/07/23/blogging-as-a-pulpit) a few days ago, entitled “blogging as a pulpit” then i found this post which was wonderful and you have put some thought into something that I am finding true for myself. thanks for this.
August 12th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Frank Viola has a whole chapter about the non-Biblical roots of the modern sermon in his book Pagan Christianity. Whether we love the Sunday Sermon tradition or hate it, it is a tradition that evolved within the context of particular cultures and religious institutions.
There is not much point to arguing between the extremes of listening to podcasts while jogging or sermons while sitting in a pew. The bigger questions center on the role of content in the life of our faith community.
There is a problem with disembodied content.A sermon by a preacher who is unconnected to the person in the pew is virtually as virtual as the podcast.
The medium is the message. Better to focus on a message from someone I know and trust, even if it’s a download, then a message that comes personally from someone I cannot trust. Even better is to be in a community where we can discuss and respond to a message.
It might make perfect sense for a small house/simple church to listen to podcasts (or any other form of electronic content) among themselves — if the members do their homework on the messenger, and perhaps also try to establish personal connections with the source. For example, a group could regularly listen to Rob Bell or Andy Stanley, but they should make some effort to connect in some fashion to the Mars Hill or North Point faith communities. We should try to put some flesh on what we’re listening to.
What we’re seeing more and more of are people who are alienated from traditional churches, but still hungry for inspirational, challenging messages. The answer is not just to find alternative sources of content, but to find ways of integrating content and community.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Randy, excellent.
September 4th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
[...] stumbled across this post today and I thought it was relevant to this [...]