Risk 

Christian preaching is an audacious task that can grow stale and safe through repetition. It intends to serve congregations living through change at breakneck speeds – but it takes place in an institution, the Church, that is notoriously resistant to change. As a result, much contemporary preaching feels “left behind,” as obvious and slow as a Saturday Night Live skit from thirty years ago.

Emotion 

Over the long history of Christian preaching, preachers have proclaimed the gospel through sermons that aspire to educate, enchant, and inspire. Augustine first identified these three modes, saying that in order to persuade a person of the truth, the preacher’s three aims must be to “instruct, delight, and move” their listeners. In various epochs and settings, one of these three modes tends to take priority over the others. 

In recent decades, the rise of secularism has relegated churchgoing to a countercultural activity. In a secular world, the preacher’s first (and often last or only) task is to convince people that the scriptural world is joyful, and appealing. This effort is understandable and has had many positive effects. It also appears to be faltering. 

If sermons that aim to delight (or educate and move, for that matter) truly spoke to our present moment, today’s preaching would be compelling, and churchgoing rates would not be in a state of continual decline. The traditional modes are faltering. The task before experienced preachers who are restless and committed to the gospel is not to become better storytellers, better teachers, or better motivators. We can grow in each of these areas. And perhaps we should. But our moment calls for a radical re-understanding of our task. 

The old modes assume that our job is to proclaim the gospel in order to make our congregations think, believe, and act differently. A new mode might begin with the assumption that our job is to proclaim the gospel in order to make our congregations feel differently. The emphasis here is not on the preacher’s emotionality, but the emotions a sermon can elicit, uncover, and even shape. 

The old modes assume that preaching takes place between a speaker and a group of listeners. A new mode might begin with the assumption that preaching is dyadic and dialogical; a continually dynamic and participatory experience for everyone involved. In this group we may not find the new mode that makes today’s preaching compelling. But, then again, we might! And, we don’t stand a chance of finding the answer if we don’t risk searching for it together. 

Recent leaps in neuroscience have established that transformation occurs in the experience of emotion. What might it look like for preachers to move beyond educating, delighting, and motivating and into a new mode that aims to elucidate healing emotions? 

Imagine a congregation in dialogue with the pulpit, experiencing the suddenness and power of strongly felt emotions, expressed in deep sighs, fleeting smiles, head nods, the kind of unbidden, unplanned murmuring that takes place when a person really feels an emotion. Imagine preaching that leaves a congregation consistently healed, less anxious, more peaceful, less fragile, more resilient, less hidden, more vivid. Imagine each one of our congregations equipping the saints to live in our city as signs of hope, peaceful citizens of a realm that contradicts the violence and lonely gloom of our present moment. 

This can, and should, be the future of preaching, if we are bold enough.