It is the preacher’s responsibility to make it easy for his listeners to hear what he says. I cannot expect the listener to do the heavy lifting of understanding what I have say. One critical aspect of effective communication is clarity. Another is connecting. Connecting is when my words become real for my listeners. When the words are not merely sounds, nor merely words in their vocabulary, but ideas with relevance to their thoughts and experiences. I want to engage them with what God is saying in his word.
I want to engage their minds: ‘that is a real issue for me.’ I want to engage their imaginations: ‘I can see what you are saying.’ I want to engage their emotions: ‘I can feel what you are expressing.’ I want to engage their wills: ‘I am committed to changing.’
The Bible writers work hard to connect with their readers. For example, in 1 Corinthians 12:12–16, Paul riffs on the image of the church as a body. He invites us to imagine the foot saying, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body’ (how dumb!). Or the eye saying to the hand, ‘I don’t need you’ (how arrogant!). He asks rhetorical questions like, ‘If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?’, encouraging us to imagine a giant eye rolling around in isolated arrogance.
Connecting with my listeners is not something I am naturally good at, so I have tried to learn how to do it better. Here are some suggestions on connecting with our listeners’ minds, their imaginations, their emotions and their wills.
Engage the Mind
If the preacher poses a question I want to know the answer to, or outlines a problem I would love to find a solution for, or asks me to make a judgement about a situation I care about, I am engaged.
Sermon introductions can play a major role in engaging the mind. An introduction along the lines of, ‘Last week we looked at verses 1 to 14, so this week we will move onto verse 15 to 25’ can send the listener to sleep. But if an introduction begins with something like, ‘Do you believe in luck, or do we make our own luck?’, the preacher gets me thinking. Of course the rest of the sermon must then deliver on what they have implicitly promised—an answer, a way of understanding, or a new perspective.
Engage the Imagination
When the preacher paints verbal pictures, my imagination comes alive. There are many ways of painting pictures with words. Using metaphors and similes is an obvious way. But so is vivid language: adjectives and adverbs give the imagination more to play with. For example, when I describe how ‘the small red car raced down the narrow lane’, it is far more engaging than ‘the car moved down the road’. Describing concrete situations is better than abstract concepts. Illustrations are another way to engage the imagination.
My rule of thumb in sermon preparation is that every concept that matters needs to have a picture created in the imagination of the listener. If the imagination is not engaged, the person is not engaged.
Engage the Emotions
The truths of God’s word have the capacity to move us emotionally. The word of God can bring joy or revulsion or longing or excitement or disappointment.
I am nervous about trying to move people emotionally, because I am sensitive to the potential for manipulation. I don’t want my listeners to be pressured into making decisions based on emotions generated by the atmosphere of the meeting or by overwhelming oratory. But I do want the truth to move people emotionally, and so I want to create the space for that to happen. How can we dwell on the depth and surprise of God’s grace to us in Jesus without being moved to joyful gratitude? How can we contemplate returning to a life of wickedness without revulsion?
Engage the Will
God speaks so that we will hear and change. My job as a preacher is to help my hearers make good decisions in response to what God says. That means addressing their will.
Sometimes God’s truth presents us with a binary option, so my job is to put the options clearly before people, and persuade them to take the good option (for e.g. Matt 7:24–27). Sometimes God’s truth rebukes us, and so my job is to make the rebuke clear and lead people through a process of hearing, believing, repenting, and acting. This often happens at the end of a sermon, but doing some of this work on the way through can be effective in moving towards this goal.
God’s word is important and relevant, but we preachers often conceal its importance and relevance under a flood of words and ideas that leave the listener struggling to stay connected. It is good to pray for our hearers’ concentration. It is good to disciple people to be motivated listeners who are eager for and attentive to faithful preaching. But we preachers should also work hard on connecting and engaging, so our hearers don’t have to work quite so hard.
