DownloadJuly 19 issue
Preaching that isn’t preachy
By John A. EsauHow can preachers and teachers in the church speak so as to be heard? The late Edwin H. Friedman, an expert on congregational leadership, said the key is to get people moving toward you.
Esau
He explained what he meant by this in A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix: “Despite the power of your eloquence, syntax, articulation and rhetoric, the thinking of the other person will not be receptive to the message you get into their brain as long as you are in the pursuing or rescuing position.”
It is easy for the preacher to assume the act of communication is his or hers alone. If only we can form our sermons with a high level of reasoned and logical thinking spiced with stories and eloquence, then the communication task is complete.
Friedman begs to differ. Every attempt at communication includes an emotional component that determines whether communication actually occurs.
He describes this emotional component as an act of motion — “moving toward you.” I understand this to mean that the receiver of the message begins with a desire to connect with you personally in a way that is already disposed to hear and receive what you have to say. This suggests communication is highly connected with relationships. It is almost as though we can only truly hear and understand those with whom we share an emotional bond.
How does this happen? The first responsibility rests with the person initiating the message.
Friedman states that if the speaker is in the emotional position of pursuing or rescuing the receiver of the message, communication will not occur. Why? Because that emotional mode of relationship moves in the direction of pushing people away rather than drawing them toward you.
We sometimes characterize a sermon as “preachy.” We mean the sermon is aggressively pursuing the listeners, much to our dislike. The hearer is moving away rather than toward the speaker.
This reminds me of a study that found that if a congregation sensed that a pastor loved and cared about them, they took seriously what the pastor said, even if they disagreed with it. If, on the other hand, they did not sense the pastor’s love and care, they were inclined to doubt they were hearing the word of God.
I suspect St. Paul was thinking in a similar direction when he so eloquently wrote: “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”
John A. Esau, of North Newton, Kan., is a former pastor and denominational administrator.
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