AKMA’s Random Thoughts

Need A Hook

I’ve blogged some of the ideas I’ll work with for Wednesday’s sermon, but having ideas for a sermon still falls far short of the requisite stuff of a full-formed sermon. The difference makes itself felt especially at the beginning and the end.

At the beginning, sermons need to elicit voluntary attention from a congregation. Unfortunately, most congregations with which I’m acquainted have been trained to expect a sermon that amounts to vague harmlessness (at best) or grating tedium (at less than the best). That permits the congregation to shift into an attention-neutral zone as soon as a preacher signals that he or she will fulfill their expectation that nothing noteworthy is about to happen. A generous congregation will allow you thirty or forty seconds to win their attention, but one can’t assume they’ll offer more than ten seconds (even that may be generous). If, after ten seconds, the preacher hasn’t won the congregation’s interest, it will take a pretty dramatic reversal to make up the goodwill that’s been lost.

Some preachers tackle this problem by beginning every sermon with a Very Dramatic Short Statement (or “Question”); “What would they do with the elephant?” or “I hadn’t expected the ladder to fall backward.” Openings such as these supposedly pique the congregation’s curiosity. What does an elephant have to do with anything? Which ladder?

This tactic works best when used sparingly. I know of a preacher who begins every sermon that way, and after the firsts six or seven, the effect modulates from “piquant” to “tiresome,” and the goodwill evaporates just as quickly as ever.

I tend to attempt a gentler, less arresting approach to these precious seconds. If I were to characterize my compositional style schematically, I’d say that I look at where I want to wind up (when I modulate into the main hortatory section) and then try to figure out how to get there. The path at which I aim will look for a quirk, a turn, a hook, that serves both to frame the sermon’s point in an unexpected way, but without strong-arming a congregation. That’s partly personality style, partly rhetorical preference, but partly my theological commitment to premise that people will more readily and more deeply apprehend the Way if they themselves open their hearts to it (rather than having a preacher pound the door open).

But now Pippa and I have to wander downtown to meet Margaret. . . . .

Posted by AKMA at September 24, 2004 04:35 PM | TrackBack